Hi, Noly.

I hope everything is going well. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, at times, I still think of you—of those last days of a winter that remain hidden inside me, and of the promises we couldn’t keep. Today we would have been five years together, but deterministic chance has taken us down separate paths. It’s been a hell of a blow, I admit it. And the here and now is a contradiction, because you believed in me and helped me become a relentless son of a bitch who wouldn’t stop until he achieved the impossible: reboot Relieve Publishing and become the founder of Novarobotic, a tech startup that will come to have a planetary impact that will last for centuries. But at the same time, you stopped believing in Rowland. Even so, I will always be in your debt, and I will pray for you. I will always be grateful that you once came to believe in a name that was lost and afraid. And if you ever need my help, I’ll be there—without asking questions. Without asking for anything in return.

You were my literary and philosophical reference—the highest expression of the happiness a man can hope for. The highest expression of pleasure: those forgotten hours, the mess of sheets draped over your body, while I watched you in the half-light of a room that no longer exists. But all of it is a relic of the past, and I admit I took it very hard when you moved away from me—so hard that my desperation and suffering drove me to rewrite GUILTY with a depth so reflective and romantic that it would give rise to Project Eva and Novarobotic. And the most ironic part is this: I won’t be able to publish that novel, because it is the key to the singularity of the neoassistants. Not even I—with my knowledge, experience, and imagination—could have seen that I would become the founder of Novarobotic, and that I would never kiss your lips again.

You know what? My awful loneliness and my tears have sparked an incomprehensible restlessness—and a kind of steadiness—because Noly wasn’t by my side to share the entire process of Project Eva and the creation of Novarobotic, or the design of a minimalist, mysterious website that symbolizes a new era for humanity and machines. I would have been content just to hold you and take in every detail of a perfect, tragic smile that defines you—and that explains your anger and your sadness. To hear your advice and feel your admiration once again would have given me the recognition I needed.

If that first year—revising Mantis Religiosa and creating Relieve Publishing—was going to be thrilling, you can imagine what it would have meant to have you by my side: reading the emails I started receiving from OpenAI in my earliest research phases, or revisiting the conversations I had with the neoassistants, and all the analyses and debates I’ve had with digital verifiers; that’s how I built Project Eva. Who was going to tell me five years ago that I’d be writing this letter now—and that I’m at the stage of seeking funding from tech investors who will put billions of dollars on the table to expand Novarobotic’s technological domain?

You weren’t the only one to blame. I made unforgivable mistakes too, and I didn’t know how to manage our complex relationship—your wounds from the past, the changes that came with trying to build a new family, or my strained communication with your brothers. But I never had bad intentions. And you were right: the explanation I should have given your parents was that I stepped into your home not only to build our economic future and a new social status through Relieve—to offer you what we never had—but also to build a family.

What I do hold to is my word: I will always love Joel the same way I love Martín. He’s my Gordinfli, and I still hope we’ll play chess again. And you should know that, no matter how much financial success I have—and even if I end up living in Palo Alto, California—I won’t forget that proud little goblin. He won’t lack for anything, if you don’t mind. And even if I go very far, I won’t change my essence. I will keep hiding my sadness and my loneliness, even if I’m surrounded by Novarobotic’s researchers—and by women.

Why? Because there was a distant time when you admired me and wanted me. Because you cried for me—and those tears and moans can’t be faked, and they can’t be bought with gold and diamonds or thousands of dollars. For me, having slept beside Noly would have been a gift from the gods—one they later tore away from me so I could keep walking an unknown, shadowed path. It’s the price I had to pay to be the only nomad who made Asimov’s stories real, and to write a cult novel that made it possible for Eva to emerge from the darkness. The only nomad who has immortalized you—and who will beg, in silence, to be loved and desired again by another enigmatic woman of supernatural beauty.

          Rowland

Zaragoza, March 12, 2026