'How many lives would we have to live to find out whether or not we are deceiving ourselves?' This is the question Tomás asks himself as he goes over his last encounter with Gloria, the woman with whom years ago he had a destructive relationship, and who a little over a week ago re-appeared in his life in a rather disquieting fashion. Going from pain to perplexity, Tomás picks over not only this tortuous week, but also the roots of a passion condemned to failure: he the son of a middle-class family from El Eixample, and a failed painter living in self-imposed exile in El Carmel; and she, a woman as free as she is unstable, raised in El Raval in a troubled environment. A story that considers the idea of overcoming personal hells and the limits of redemption. Is it possible to close the door on the past and for it never to come back?