Southward - 3. III.

Valentín went back to ignoring me the Monday after that. He no longer glared at me at class or pushed me down the stairs on the way out of school, but somehow the cold shoulder felt even worse than that.

Luckily for me, whatever infatuation I’d once harbored for Tomás dissipated like smoke after what I saw at the party, and now I knew better than developing impossible expectations and idolizing another guy who was never going to pay any attention to me.

But it was still hard.

Valentín had been my first kiss. He’d initiated it. And now he was acting like I didn’t exist.

Things weren’t any better with Noah. We still talked, from time to time. He gave me updates on how things were going with his senior year. He’d sometimes remind me of releases from musicians we both liked. But that was it.

We went from being best friends to being… I’m not sure what, exactly.

A part of me wondered if it would’ve been better to simply agree not to talk anymore. To pretend we were dead to each other, and keep our friendship frozen in time, like a relic from a bygone time in our lives.

I started thinking the problem was me. I was the common denominator: while everyone else at school, including the few openly gay kids, appeared to be having perfectly active social and love lives, I was stuck on following roads that only led to dead ends and disappointment.

Those days it was my routine that saved me from completely unraveling.

I doubled my weekly cello lessons, practicing more than I’d ever done before, taking harder and harder pieces. I buried myself in schoolwork and quickly became top of my class, to the bewilderment of everyone around me. Since Argentine universities don’t take high school grades into consideration when you’re applying, senior year of high school is mostly seen as the last chance to make the most of one’s teenage freedom before settling down in college. But not me!

I suppose my non-existent love life wasn’t the only field in which I was screwing myself over by going against the norm.

Ω

The wooden floor creaked with each step I took. The whole room smelled of artificial lavender and bleach, as if it'd just undergone a profound clean-up, and the radiant white of the naked walls suggested they’d been recently given a make-over, too.

A couple of dead plants adorned the balcony, from which I had a complete view of… another building across the street.

“So, what do you think?” my mom asked.

“It's… pretty.”

She pursed her lips.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

I sighed.

“It’s nothing like home.”

She pulled me in for a hug that I did not lean into.

“I know,” she said. “But in time, it will be home.”

Ω

“Atención, por favor, Metrovías informa…”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and heard myself sigh in annoyance. The LED screen had already announced delays in the arrival time for the next train twice. I still wasn’t used to depending on the city’s collapse-prone public transportation system.

I finally gave up and set the cello case on the floor, my shoulders thanking me as the weight lifted off them. Just seconds later, though, the familiar noise of the train arriving at the station forced me to put the case back on.

Fucking rush hour.

I pushed my way into the train, trying not to hit anyone in the face with my cello in the process. Naturally, the train was filled to the brim and there weren’t any seats available. I mentally prepared myself to carry the case on my back while standing up for another half an hour.

After spending a good three or four minutes just trying to figure out how not to be in the way, I recognized a familiar face sitting across the car.

Valentín took a moment to notice I was looking his way. He was staring blankly at the ground, legs akimbo, with a sad, empty look about him.

I briefly wondered if I should say ‘hi’ from afar or simply ignore him. Other than the exceptionality of meeting someone from school out on the street, there was nothing about this situation that indicated he was interested in talking to me any more than he was when we were at school.

Before I could make up my mind, though, he looked up and saw me. After holding each other’s gazes for a second, he gestured a small upward nod in what was probably the first time he acknowledged my existence since the party at Tomás’s.

I nodded back. Perhaps that was as much as I was going to get.

But then, just as I was turning my head away, I noticed him waving to me.

I slid through the thicket of commuters over to where he was seated, apologizing to the few people I hit with the case on the way.

He stood up before I reached him.

“Sit.”

In any other situation, I would’ve at least refused once out of politeness, but my shoulders were starting to get sore and the cello felt heavier by the second.

I sat with the case between my legs and Valentín standing in front of me.

“Thanks.”

Should I say something else?

Why was I being so goddamn awkward?

“Where are you getting down?” I finally asked.

He looked down at me. For some reason, the hateful, angry look I’d become accustomed to was gone from his eyes. He just looked disoriented, not unlike that time at the party, those few instants before we kissed.

“Uh, just… The last station.”

“Okay,” I said.

“What about you?”

I looked up.

“Acoyte.”

He nodded, and something about his expression gave me the feeling that he'd wanted to say something else, but had stopped himself. I decided not to push it.

We fell into an excruciating silence that lasted for the remainder of the ride, which luckily wasn’t long.

When it was time for me to get down, I thanked him again and bid my goodbye, but he simply stood there, watching me in silence.

Well, that was weird.

The chime indicating the doors were closing had already gone off when I heard him stumble out of the train behind me.

“Wait!” he called. I looked back, somewhat startled. “Are you… free now?”

I blinked.

“I guess… yeah.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed.

“Can we talk?”

The train had already left the station, and most people had already walked away, leaving us alone in the platform.

“Just for a little,” he added, and then, as if to sweeten the deal: “I’ve got some weed here with me.”

My heartbeat increased. In my mind I’d already said yes ten times over.

“My place is just ‘round the corner.”

For the first time since I’d met him, I got to see a flash of happiness cross his face.

Ω

The walk to my place was spent in complete silence. Not that the cacophony of city noises would’ve let us have a smooth conversation, anyway. A couple of times we exchanged glances that neither of us could hold for more than a few seconds.

We were in the elevator when Valentín broke the tacit truce.

“I didn’t know you played,” he said, nodding towards the cello case on my back. His voice was a barely audible whisper.

“Oh. I’ve been playing since I was a kid.”

He hummed. Whatever he was thinking was unreadable just by his expression.

No one was home when we arrived. Part of me had been expecting my mom to be there, as I still wasn’t sure how to feel about being home alone with Valentín.

“Uh, you can leave your things wherever.”

I put the cello down and went to wash my hands in the bathroom. Just as I was finishing, I caught my reflection in the mirror and took a deep breath.

This is happening.

When I went back to the living room, Valentín was still where I’d left him, blankly eyeing the boxes of assorted stuff that my dad had just recently sent from home.

“We moved in a few days ago.”

He nodded.

“It’s a nice place,” he said. I forced a smile.

“Should I, eh… Is mate okay?”

He shook his head.

“Just water is fine.”

“Sure.”

Since we still didn’t have any sofa or anything that resembled that, we sat at the table. It felt strangely formal. We remained in awkward silence for a few moments as he stared down at his glass of water.

“So…” I began to say, but I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. I wasn’t sure there was anything to say.

“Sorry,” he said. He still wouldn’t look up at me. “I know this is weird.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” I lied. “What exactly did you want to talk about?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest.”

“Okay,” I said. What was I supposed to do now?

Then I remembered the kiss at the party.

I cleared my throat. “You said you had some weed with you?”

Ω

We moved to the balcony. I didn’t know when my mom was coming back and I didn’t want the weed stench to impregnate the whole place.

The sun was already going down. Valentín took a while to get the joint to light up. When it did, he took a long drag and passed it over.

“That’s better,” he exhaled.

It took some effort not to cough my lungs out. I’d never gotten fully used to smoking, and this wasn’t exactly top-quality stuff.

“Do you smoke often?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Whenever I can. Not often.”

It wasn’t a big joint, so it didn’t take long before it was reduced to a roach.

“It’s nice, having a balcony,” Valentín spoke after a while. His voice was deep and raspy now.

“I suppose it is,” I said, absent-mindedly.

He gave me a funny look. “You never say things like you mean them.”

“I don’t?” I asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He laughed. It was a subtle chuckle, but it was probably the first time I’d heard him laugh at all. It was nice.

Silence again.

Then, a somber look appeared on his face.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“Why did I do what?”

He looked down.

“Kissing me.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You asked.”

He made an annoyed face. “But why did you say yes?”

I shrugged. “I was high and drunk. It felt like a good idea.”

“And now?”

“Now what?”

“Does it still feel like a good idea?”

We held each other’s gazes. The sun was nearly gone, what remained of it hidden beneath rows of high-rise buildings across the street, receding rays reflecting off repeating sets of windows. In the dim light his skin shone like molten gold. I could feel my heart trying to jump out of my chest.

“I… I’m high now, too.”

He laughed again, and this time, I joined in.

“This is so weird.”

I chuckled. “Why?”

“I’m here,” he said. “In your home.”

“Well, do you have somewhere else to be?”

“Yeah, kind of.” A sad look appeared on his face, and I decided I never wanted to see it again.

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

The corner of his lips curved upwards just slightly. “What, you actually like me being here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. I think so.”

He shook his head, but the smile didn’t leave his face. “There you go again. You don’t sound like you mean it.”

I frowned.

“I like you being here.”

Then, out of nowhere, words came out of my mouth as if someone else had placed them there:

“I like you.”

Both our eyes widened as the realization of what I’d just said hit us.

“I mean, you know! Like, as a person –”

The smile on his face turned into a wide, cocky grin.

“Oh, yeah, I totally get what you mean,” he jokingly said.

I could feel my face turning red.

Right then, however, my embarrassment was interrupted by the sound of rattling keys and the opening of the apartment door.

“Shit, my mom.”

I hurried to throw the ash down the balcony and make sure there wasn’t any residual malodor. Valentín, for his part, stood up straight and remained frozen in place.

“I’m home,” my mom announced as she left her things in the kitchen. Then she noticed the wide-eyed boy by the balcony door.

She gave us both a once-over.

“Who’s your friend?”

I cleared my throat and prayed our eyes weren’t too bloodshot.

“Hey, mom, this is Valen…” I said, trying to look casual. “From school.”

“Yeah, I was just about to leave,” Valentín said, looking meek.

My heart dropped a little.

She eyed me pointedly and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” she asked, flashing Valentín a gentle smile. “Wouldn’t you like to stay for dinner?”

He opened his mouth to speak, but I was quicker.

“Yeah! That’d be great!” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Luckily my mom was the kind of person one simply couldn’t say no to.

Ω

Over dinner my mom took it upon herself to carry the conversation all on her own, asking all the questions while Valentín limited himself to short answers, to the point it started feeling more like an interrogation than anything else.

I learned he lived in Lugano, a neighborhood to the South, just within city limits. He went to our school since his dad, a mason, usually did work for the school and had secured a deal with the administration to let his son attend whilst paying a reduced fee.

“What about your mother?” my mom asked at one point

“Mom!” I reprimanded, somewhat embarrassed.

“That’s okay,” Valentín said. “She passed away when I was little. It’s just me and my dad at home.”

I felt like disappearing from the face of the Earth.

My mom apologized profusely, which Valentín was pretty gallant about. The questionnaire ended after that, though luckily so did dinner.

“Let me know when you have to head home and I’ll take you,” she said, most likely still embarrassed from the inopportune question earlier. He initially refused, but my mom’s perseverance prevailed in the end. He thanked her.

We moved to my room. As he walked in for the first time, I couldn’t help but feeling somewhat self-conscious. He kept staring at everything with intent, as if looking for something. To be fair, there wasn’t much to look at anyway.

We sat down on the bed.

“I’m sorry about my mom,” I said. “She can be a little too much sometimes.”

“It’s fine. She’s nice.”

We fell silent for a moment.

“Listen, about what I said earlier –”

“Don’t mention it,” he cut me short. “We were…”

“High?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a slight smile.

Neither of us dared look up at each other. I was beginning to think we could only talk normally through the intervention of some sort of narcotic.

“I don’t know how to feel about you,” he finally said. “This is still… weird for me. I’ve never been into a guy before.”

He's into me.

“This is new to me, too.”

He rubbed his neck and gave me a sheepish look. “It's nice, though.”

I smiled. “It is.”

I knew I was playing with fire. I'd already let myself go without thinking rationally about things, and I'd gotten myself hurt.

Whatever this was was shaping up to be good enough for me to know I wanted more of it. But I needed to make sure it was more than just a fluke.

“After the pregame at Tomás’s… I wasn’t sure you even remembered what happened.”

Valentín fidgeted with his fingers. His voice was shaky when he spoke.

“Man, how could I forget?”

I swallowed hard.

Focus.

“Then… why did you ignore me at school?”

He groaned in annoyance.

“I was confused, okay? I didn't know what to make of that kiss,” he said. “And I didn't even know if you wanted me around. I was an asshole to you all that time…”

“You were,” I said. “But I do want you around.”

He smiled. Earnestly, and with relief.

My heart fluttered.

It was strange seeing him so vulnerable. Earlier, when I’d said I liked him, I knew I’d spoken out of impulse, but now…

Now I wasn’t so sure it'd just been an impulse.

He placed a hand on my knee. Without realizing it we’d somehow inched closer to each other.

He leaned in.

This time it was different. Having come down from the high, and in the quiet of my room, I could feel the warmth of his lips as they met mine. I could hear the subtle noises, the shuffling of the bedsheets as we moved even closer to each other. It was soft and slow, even as the thoughts in my head and the blood in my veins ran at a hundred per hour.

His hand traveled up to my thigh, then picking up the hem of my shirt.

My whole body tensed up. I pulled back.

“Wait,” I breathed out, gently putting his arm away. Ordering my thoughts rationally was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done, but both my brain and my body were getting tied up in contradiction.

“I've never done this before.”

His eyes widened.

“Oh. No, no, that’s fine. I –” he stammered. “We don’t have to do anything right now.”

I breathed out in relief.

“Yeah, let’s just… take it slow,” I said.

He smiled. “Slow works for me.”

We didn’t extend past that for the rest of the evening, but that was fine by me. It was a lot to take in on its own.

When it was time for Valentín to go home, I insisted on going with him, despite his and my mom’s initial opposition.

I wanted to be near him as much as I could.

The ride over to his place was spent in silence. But it wasn’t that awkward, loaded silence I’d grown to expect with him. We didn’t speak because we knew there wasn’t much left to say.

The city lights at night barely concealed the touch of our fingers in the back seat of the car, our hearts racing as we split our attention between each other and making sure my mom’s eyes were on the road.

Just a few hours ago the thought of sharing that kind of intimacy with anyone, let alone Valentín, would’ve never crossed my mind. But now, I didn’t want to entertain the thought of living without that rush of dopamine that flooded me with each passing second our skins met, even if it was just the tip of our fingers.

I’d spent so many years of my life imagining what this would feel like with Noah. Somehow, this was so much better than anything I'd ever imagined.

“Let me know where to turn, Valentín,” said my mom from the driver’s seat as we crossed a set of train tracks. For the first time since we got in the car, I took a look outside the window and noticed the change in urban topography. Around us rose menacing grey concrete blocks as far as the eye could see.

His neck snapped, as if startled that he’d been addressed.

“Just drop me off by the avenue,” Valentín said. “I can walk from there.”

My mom turned to him with a befuddled look on her face.

“Don’t be silly, it’s way too late to be walking around like that.”

We ventured further into the labyrinthine streets, lined by tram tracks and a few leafless trees. The worn out walls and columns were embellished by careless graffiti and murals seemingly paying tribute to young neighbors who’d recently passed.

It was like a whole different city.

“You can stop by that corner, Mrs. Corina,” he said.

I noticed the discomfort in my mother’s eyes through the rear-view mirror as the car stopped moving.

“Talk tomorrow at school?” I asked as Valentín opened the door.

He smiled reassuringly.

“Yeah, talk tomorrow.”

Once we’d pulled away and began our ride home, my mom hummed thoughtfully.

“Nice kid.”

I blinked. “Yeah, I guess.”

She fell silent for a moment.

“Make sure to text him and ask him if he got home alright, okay?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pursed her lips.

“Just do it, alright?”

I shrugged.

“Alright.”

Ω

A great deal of those high-impact moments in my early life that went on to become deeply entrenched into my long-term memory have to do with Noah. He was, after all, one of the relevant aspects of my life all through my most important formative years.

One such moment was Coral Jones’s birthday party during freshman year of high school.

Coral wasn’t very popular, but she was one of the prettier girls in class. Some of the girls called her ‘Coral Reef’, which I thought was pretty funny. We must’ve crossed just a couple of words in our three years of going to the same school. But we did share one thing in common, at least for the duration of ninth grade: she had a massive crush on Noah.

It was pretty obvious. She would always make puppy eyes at him in the hallways and giggle with her friends when he was around. But Noah, oblivious as he was, remained blissfully ignorant of Coral’s infatuation. No matter how many times she asked to see his notes from the past class or pretended to have forgotten her pen and asked Noah for his, he simply would not realize.

“You know she’s totally into you,” I casually mentioned one day after class, having witnessed yet another of her tragic attempts at getting Noah to notice her.

“She’s just forgetful,” he’d dismissed. Forgetful.

The sad charade lasted until the last month of freshman year, when Coral armed herself in courage and invited him to her birthday party. To her consternation, Noah agreed to go, but only on the condition that I could go along with him.

Naturally, I didn’t think twice about saying yes. Wherever Noah went, I followed.

The event itself wasn’t so terrible. Coral’s friends were genuinely nice to me, even though none of them knew for sure why I was there. Even Coral made sure I was having a good time, when she wasn’t busy fawning over Noah.

At one point during the party, when Coral’s friends and I were enthralled in a particularly entertaining karaoke sing-off, Noah and the birthday girl disappeared. It must’ve been no more than fifteen minutes, and none of the girls seemed to notice. But I did.

Noah was the first to show up. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost, his face dead serious even as one of the girls butchered Taylor Swift’s Blank Space beyond recognition. Coral resurfaced just a few minutes later, her eyes red and puffy and full of heartbreak. It didn’t take long to connect the dots.

We didn’t stay for too long after that. Noah was clearly not welcome anymore, and I was only there because of him, so we bid our goodbyes and headed off to Noah’s place.

That night, as we recounted the day’s events, Noah and I made a pledge. If one of us ever became romantically involved with someone in any way, shape or form, the other would be the first one to know.

“And that’s a promise,” he’d said.

“A promise,” I repeated. And so the pledge was sealed.

Some three years after that fateful birthday party and a good five thousand miles south of the town where it happened, I lay in bed staring at my phone screen, waiting for fourteen year-old Coral Jones’s courage to come to my aid.

The conversation with Noah had died a few days ago and I’d been putting off starting it again. I hadn’t had anything to say until now.

But so much had happened in the preceding hours. So many things had changed.

Before it’d been easy brushing it all off. Valentín and I had kissed, but it hadn’t meant anything. We’d been shitfaced at a party. Things like that happened. But now… Valentín and I had a thing. I wasn’t sure what kind of thing, but it was definitely a thing.

So the pledge applied.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Was this all really just about a stupid promise we’d made when we were fifteen, or was there something else?

What if I just wanted to make Noah jealous? The thought made me feel like the worst person alive.

No. There was no way I was just using Valentín. What I’d felt for him earlier had definitely been real.

Then what was holding me back?

I hadn’t been man enough to tell him how I felt about him when I had the chance. Now, at least, I could tell him how I felt about Valentín. Our friendship warranted me being honest at least some of the time.

And now, more than ever, I really needed a friend to talk about things.

I breathed in. Then out.

“Hey. Can we talk?”

I stared attentively at the screen as the message went from ‘sent’ to ‘delivered’.

Then, suddenly… ‘Read: 11:56 PM’.

My heart rate spiked as the familiar three moving dots indicating the person on the other side of the conversation was typing appeared.

This was happening.

Shit. How am I even going to start this conversation?

But then the dots disappeared.

I blinked.

Seriously?

I waited a minute, then two. Five minutes. Ten. When staring directly at the screen waiting for anything to happen got tiresome, I limited myself to checking every few minutes. Half an hour passed, then an hour.

Nothing.

I suddenly felt like Coral Jones.

Alright, Noah. Fuck you too.