Chapter 18

• With abruptness he turned his torso, his huge pupils watched the woman writhe between her movements, abrupt movements that seemed to call for air with uneasiness, she spat water and tried to sit up, only to fail and fall, hitting her head. Maximiliano ran back to the woman, who with wide eyes, was still coughing, without understanding too much what had happened, everything had been too fast: her going for a walk, her going to the pool, her falling into it, suffocating in it... her body began to remember the drowning sensations, and the panic felt as real as in the moment, which caused her to cling with a childlike strength to Maximiliano's arm. In her feminine pupils an incredible fear was seen, she clung tighter to the man's arms, as she coughed, tears ran down her eyes, her body was whipped by the choking sensations, she had been, just a few steps away from death.
• "You are safe, you are safe".
• Maximiliano had never imagined himself saying that to someone he didn't know, but that's how he found himself at that moment, with that woman who was still in a state of shock, hugging him, scared, coughing, her eyes fixed on the pool that, despite its harmless appearance, had almost taken her life.