At 8 a.m., she handed the paper to Professor Méndez. He glanced at the cover, then at her. "Interesting choice," he said. "No university seal?"

"The seal is inside," Sofía replied. And for the first time, she believed it.

She thought of her father, a bricklayer who had never set foot in a university. Last week, he had asked, "So you just write your name on a fancy first page, and they give you a degree?" She had laughed, but now the question felt heavy. The portada was a threshold. On one side: the chaos of notes, coffee stains, and 3 a.m. breakthroughs. On the other: the polished lie that everything was under control.

The cursor blinked on the blank Word document like a metronome counting down to zero. Sofía stared at the white abyss. The research was done—footnotes, bibliography, statistical analysis—but the portada was still empty.

Below that, in small letters: Trabajo Final – Sociología . Her name. Her father's name, too, as a dedication she would later erase.

It was supposed to be simple. A formality. But the cover page was the first thing Professor Méndez would see. The first judgment .

She printed the cover page first, alone. The cheap ink smudged near her thumb. It wasn't perfect. But as she slid it into the clear plastic sleeve, she realized: the portada was not a mask. It was a door she had built herself, with borrowed tools and trembling hands.