Chapter Text
My name is Andy, and I'm twenty-six years old.
I used to live in the neighborhood of Poble-sec, in Barcelona, with seven other roommates: five expats, Señora Mercè —a seventy-eight-year-old woman who got evicted after a vulture fund bought her building— and Víctor, my best friend from Argentina, who after ten years in the city still refused to utter a single word in Catalan.
My life was pretty boring. Besides studying and working, Mondays were for watching Love Island, Tuesdays were for crying over the scholarship that never arrived, and Wednesdays were for typing out a message to my toxic ex only to delete it and thank myself for having basic survival instincts.
The rest of the week —especially weekends— I liked putting on music, choosing an outfit, doing my makeup a little, and going out for drinks with my friends.
I wasn't special. Or mysterious. Or different. I was just like every other girl in Barcelona. And thank God for that. Girls are incredible.
Everything started to change on the morning of October 29th, 2025.
I woke up, went to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and didn't put my hair up in a messy high bun because the day before, in the middle of an existential crisis, I'd chopped my brown hair to shoulder length. So I left it down. I also didn't wear one of those oversized off-the-shoulder shirts. I was in an old Primark pajama set, Snoopy print included, with a tomato-sauce stain that wasn't going anywhere.
I didn't have avocado toast for breakfast. I ate a store-bought muffin from Mercadona and downed a capsule coffee while smoking a long Lucky.
And yes, I noticed I had a message from that number.
But before that, I basically shit my whole soul out —literally— and had to sprint to the bathroom after that "protein bomb" detonated somewhere between my stomach and my lungs.
That's how this story starts. No filters, no glamour... and with no idea that, forty-eight hours later, I'd be locked inside the backstage of the Palau Sant Jordi Arena, an all-access pass hanging around my neck, while one of the most famous women on the planet looked me dead in the eyes and said:
"Don’t run from me, little trouble… You know you have nowhere to run."