3:12 AM — Washington D.C.
The message arrived while the city slept.
Zayra stared at the screen.
She didn't remember ever agreeing to have a fiancé.
In the dark room, she sat on the bed in her small Georgetown apartment,
feeling her heart beat harder than a simple dream could justify.
The voice still echoed in her head.
—When are you coming back?
She didn't know if it was a memory,
a dream… or a call she could no longer ignore.
Her eyes scanned the white ceiling as if searching for answers.
To one side, piles of international law and indigenous legislation books watched her like silent witnesses.
She had studied her entire life to defend her people through the law.
She had graduated with honors.
Her thesis on the self-determination of indigenous peoples had been praised.
And yet… nothing had prepared her to hear the god Ñande-Yara in her dreams.
Known in her community as the "Creator of all."
Nor to receive a message like that at three in the morning.
She sighed, turned on her phone, and opened the message from her father.
She read it again.
As if, rereading the message would change the situation.
—Fiancé? Really?
She whispered, incredulous.
***
In another universe, she would have met someone amid talks about indigenous rights, among laughter and passionate debates.
Something real.
Something hers.
But this was not that universe.
This was the universe where promises arrived in a late-night email, scheduled in advance, with no photo attached.
Things in Bolivia were delicate.
And when things got delicate… sometimes they became absurd.
***
Her father never acted out of romance.
It was pure strategy.
In the world she had grown up in,
fathers were not distant figures.
They were the axis of the family,
the ones who carried responsibility and made the decisions that protected everyone else.
For him, everything was strategy.
A contingency plan.
A safety net.
Camila, the second of the four siblings,
was already married to a wealthy German who adored her.
Zayra remembered the wedding: a garden full of white flowers and him, nervous, secretly practicing Spanish phrases for the toast.
Bruno, the third, had met his partner at a human rights conference.
A Spanish woman with an iron will.
She could still see him arriving home with a pile of brochures and that unmistakable smile.
"I've met someone important."
Mariano, the youngest, sent photos from airports with the same woman in dark glasses always behind him.
The famous FBI agent who was now his wife.
And now… it was her turn.
—Marital diplomacy, 21st-century style.
She exhaled.
The funny thing, if there was anything funny,
was that she had always thought that if she married,
it would be to an idealistic American or a European activist.
Not to a Korean CEO who landed in her life as part of a business deal.
— "To keep the bloodline alive."
Her father had once said, half-joking, half-nostalgic, while serving tea.
Zayra had rolled her eyes then, but deep down she understood.
Her father wanted to preserve a thread, however thin, connecting his Korean culture with her mother's indigenous spirituality.
It wasn't control.
It was fear.
Fear that she would be left alone.
Added to the fact that she had already chosen wrong once before,
a choice she preferred not to remember.
—One year.
She told herself.
—I'll get married, smile, put on the show… and then we'll divorce civilly.
No drama.
That would give her time to calm her father, find her path… and not lose her freedom.
Because if she loved anything more than justice, it was that: her freedom.
And she wasn't going to give it up.
Not for an arranged marriage.
Much less for a man she didn't know.
She read the word "tomorrow" again.
She felt dizzy.
It wasn't fear… it was a mix of destiny, resignation, and the premonition that this journey would not only take her home.
It would take her to another version of herself.
At least, she consoled herself, she could see her siblings.
Laugh with Mariano over any silly thing.
Share a quiet coffee with Bruno.
Let herself be cared for by Camila's natural remedies, which tasted of love and ancestral medicine.
Her siblings were her refuge.
And as long as she had them nearby… maybe everything would be alright.
Deep down, Zayra knew.
That home where she grew up no longer existed.
Not as she remembered it.
With a long sigh, she turned on the dim bedside lamp, opened the closet, took out the black suitcase and backpack.
She began carefully folding the clothes she had set aside days before.