But Albeiro bought her. He moved her out of the village into a beige apartment with a jacuzzi that never worked. He gave her a white purse with gold buckles. He gave her a cell phone that rang only with his voice, always asking where she was, who she was with, why she had taken five minutes longer than expected to buy milk.

Catalina signed the paper without reading the interest rate. After the surgery, the world tilted. Men on the street turned their heads. The nuns at school crossed themselves. Her mother, when she found the medical receipt, wept so hard she couldn’t speak for two days. “You sold yourself before anyone even bought you,” Hilda finally said.

Her mother, Hilda, worked double shifts at the textile factory. Her fingers were raw from thread, her back curved like a question mark. “Study, mija,” she would say, pushing a worn textbook across the table. “That is your escape.”

Catalina straightened her spine. “Looking for a man who can appreciate a woman… once she becomes one.”

Her best friend, Paola, who already wore a bra with padding, laughed at her. “You’re crazy, Cata. You want a drug trafficker?”

“Without breasts, there is no paradise,” she whispered, memorizing the phrase from a telenovela.