It happened on a forgotten stretch of highway—where the sun was merciless, and the world felt abandoned. A place where two lives, never meant to meet, were about to collide.
Catarina gripped the steering wheel as a sharp pain tore through her chest. Her vision blurred, then dimmed, as if the sky itself had flicked a switch. Her heartbeat thudded, heavy and erratic, like it had grown tired of obeying.
She tried to breathe. The air refused to come.
Summoning every ounce of strength, she swerved onto the shoulder, flicked on the hazard lights, and shut off the engine. Her hands shook as she opened the door, expecting the desert heat to jolt her awake—but the moment her foot touched the dirt, the ground spun violently.
She stumbled, clutching her chest, and collapsed into the dust.
The sun remained cruel.
The highway remained silent.
Long, empty, indifferent.
A few meters away, a boy walked slowly along the road, an almost-empty plastic bottle dangling from his hand. His name was Gael—twelve years old, face smudged with dirt, eyes too sharp for a child. He knew this highway like a predator: where danger hides, where hope vanishes, where survival demands invisibility.
When he noticed the stopped car, fear tightened his chest. Adults rarely meant safety.
Then he saw her.
Catarina lay on the ground, still as a broken doll. The wind lifted her light hair. A leather handbag lay open nearby, and stacks of money peeked out like careless bait.
Gael swallowed. Money wasn’t new to him. He had seen it. Even touched it. But it had never belonged to him.
Still, it wasn’t the money that drew him closer.
It was the stillness.
The wrongness of her fragility against that brutal road, as if the earth itself had claimed her.
He crouched a careful distance away.
“Ma’am… ma’am? Are you okay?”
No answer.
He tapped her shoulder gently. Her skin burned beneath his fingers. Fear wrapped tight around his ribs—the kind you feel when someone is slipping away.
“Please… wake up.”
Nothing.
Gael uncapped his bottle and let a few drops fall onto her lips—almost all he had left.
A faint groan. Her eyelids fluttered. Confused.
“Where… where am I?” she whispered.
“On the highway, ma’am. You fainted,” Gael replied, voice low, measured—like someone who had learned early that words cost nothing if spoken too freely.
Catarina tried to move. Weakness pinned her down. Breathing came in ragged, shallow bursts.
“My son… my son… Mactin…”
Gael didn’t know who Mactin was—but he understood the name mattered, a lifeline she clung to in the desert heat.
Without hesitation, he took her hand. Soft. Strange. Cold. Unlike any hands he had ever touched.
“Stay calm, ma’am. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”
Courage bloomed from some shared loneliness—two strangers stranded on the same road, two lives hanging by threads.
Time crawled.
Gael fanned her with a scrap of cardboard he had found. He spoke even when she drifted, afraid silence might steal her completely.
“My name is Gael… I stay around here. I don’t have a house, but I know this road. Someone will pass.”
Finally, the distant hum of an engine. Gael jumped to wave frantically. One car flew by. Another. Too fast. Too indifferent.
Catarina forced her eyes open.
“Boy… my phone… in the bag…”
Gael ran to the open handbag. The cash tempted him, whispered survival—but he looked away and searched for the phone instead.
The screen was locked.
“It won’t open…”
“Call Mactin… my son… the contact is saved…”
Trembling, Gael found the name. Pressed.
Ring. One. Two. Three.
“Hello?” A sharp, impatient voice.
“Sir… your mom is on the highway. She’s sick. She can’t move well,” Gael said.
Silence fell. Then:
“Where are you? Tell me now.”
Gael described everything—the rusted sign, the abandoned rest stop, the kilometer marker. The call ended without goodbye.
“He’s coming… your son is coming,” Gael said.
Catarina’s fingers gripped his. “Thank you… you’re an angel…”
No one had ever called him that. Something strange stirred in Gael’s chest.
Minutes passed. Catarina trembled. Gael pulled his dirty shirt above her face for shade, arms shaking.
“Don’t fall asleep. Stay with me. Talk… about your boy.”
“My Mactin… he’s… everything I have. He thinks the world is work, money… but he has a good heart… he just… forgot.”
Gael listened, as if she were describing another planet.
Then tires screeched. A luxury SUV stopped, dust flying. A young man in a suit jumped out—panic on his face.
Mactin Aranda.
“Mom! Mom!”
He dropped to his knees, cradling her face.
“Mom…”
Relief flashed. Then his eyes snapped to Gael—skeptical, calculating, distrustful.
Catarina forced her voice firm. “He saved me… don’t let him go.”
Mactin looked. Really looked. Gael was skinny, dirty, feet burned by the heat—but his eyes carried something Mactin hadn’t seen in years: dignity.
The ambulance arrived. Gael edged back instinctively. But Catarina’s hand held his.
“He saved me.”
Mactin finally understood.
Money was offered. Gael refused. Took only a small bill. Enough.
“Where will you sleep tonight?”
Gael’s voice was flat. “There’s always somewhere.”
Mactin didn’t give up. “Come back tomorrow. Same spot.”
Gael didn’t promise. He disappeared into the brush.
At the hospital, Mactin couldn’t sleep. The boy’s refusal of reward, his selfless care—it replayed in his mind.
Next morning, he returned to the highway.
“Gael!”
A shadow shifted. The boy emerged, bread in hand, eyes alert, ready to run.
“I want to thank you properly,” Mactin said.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Gael replied.
“I know,” Mactin said. “But my mom is alive because of you.”
Finally, trust edged in. They went to a diner. Words were few. Hunger devoured the silence.
“My mom died. My dad… I don’t know him. I left the shelter. Nobody listens.”
Mactin listened without judgment. Then, with sudden courage:
“Come with me. My mom wants to see you.”
Gael froze. “I can’t. People like you… don’t do that.”
“Maybe it’s time someone did.”
The mansion looked unreal. Gated. Perfect. Doors that didn’t creak.
Catarina’s arms opened. “My angel…”
Hesitant, Gael stepped forward. She hugged him as if he were fragile and priceless.
“Thank you… for giving me more time with my son.”
Days passed. Clean clothes. Baths. Food. Still, nightmares came.
Whispers from the staff and neighbors reminded him the world was cruel.
When he tried to leave, Mactin found him on the highway.
“You listened,” he said. “But I’m not cruel. Come with me. Stay.”
Finally, Gael let himself.
“I talked to a lawyer… and my mom. We want to adopt you,” Mactin said.
Gael’s world paused.
“And if I ruin it?”
Mactin smiled, tears glistening. “Then we ruin it together. As a family.”
For the first time, Gael cried without fear. He didn’t have to run anymore.
The highway faded behind him. A new life had begun.