Minutes before signing the marriage certificate, a woman on the street grabbed her hand and whispered, “If you get married, you’ll die”; hours later, back in her new home, she saw a message on her husband’s cell phone that left her frozen…

“If you marry that man, you won’t live long.”

That was the first thing I heard on my wedding day, right outside the Civil Registry of Coyoacán, while I was holding my bouquet of white peonies and trying to convince myself that the pit in my stomach was pure nerves.

My name is Sofia, I was thirty-three years old, and according to my , I was about to take “the plunge” with the perfect man. Rodrigo was successful, self-assured, polite, the kind of guy who knows exactly what to say to make a good impression. He worked in real estate, drove a spotless SUV, and ever since we met at a dinner party with friends, everyone kept telling me the same thing: “Don’t let him go, men like that are hard to find anymore.”

My mom, Marta, cried when I told her we were getting married. My friend Claudia teased me, saying I’d finally stop being “the elegant spinster” of the group. Even my coworker Mariana hugged me at the office like I’d won the lottery. And me… I was smiling. Because I was happy, but not at peace. There was something inside me that just wouldn’t settle, like when a door isn’t properly closed and the wind moves it even though you swear you’ve locked it.