Here the Whole Time(43)

For heaven’s sake, the girl likes to talk!

“You got it. I’ll be a good friend,” I promise.

“Sweet. I gotta run now. Late for work. Super late, actually. Tell Caio I called. And if you need anything, anytime, give me a ring. Actually, no, don’t. Text me. I have no patience for phone calls.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I say with a laugh.

“Jerk,” she says.

We exchange phone numbers and hang up. I take a deep, relieved breath, enjoying the silence once again.

Two seconds later, I get a text from Becky (on my phone this time):

Becky:

If you like him, you have to make it VERY CLEAR





cause Caio can be slow to pick up on cues





also kinda dim sometimes





but a sweetheart





I stare at my phone for a bit. Without thinking, I text thanks for the tip and send it. I reread my answer and feel it sounds a little dry. So I add a haha. And a unicorn emoji, just to be sure.

And then I prepare to spend a full day torturing myself with the possibility of Caio liking me back. And the fact that I need to make my feelings VERY CLEAR, like that, in caps.

What a disaster.



By the end of the afternoon, I have a list of thirty-two possible names for the hypothetical cat that Caio and I will adopt someday. My favorite at the moment are:

Bagel, because we can call him Mini Bagel when he’s being cute, and because it’s one of the coolest words I know.

Bilbo, because my story with Caio was built on The Lord of the Rings.

Catsby, which would be the feline version of Gatsby (can’t stand the book; love the movie, though).

Cheese, because I think it would be funny to have a cat named Cheese.

Slinky, in case we adopt a fat cat. Everyone loves animals with ironic names.



Of course, creating this elaborate list didn’t take my mind away from my conversation with Becky. I suddenly have all these responsibilities that I didn’t have when I woke up this morning. I have a responsibility to be a good friend to Caio, to make a move if I want this story to go beyond pure friendship, and an even greater responsibility to the cats we will adopt in the future.

As anyone who has ever seen a Spider-Man movie knows, “With great power comes great responsibility” (it was actually Spider-Man’s uncle who said that), but right now all I have is great responsibility and no power.

The hours drag by, and when my mom and Caio finally get home, I’m almost done watching a YouTube video where a girl throws a bunch of stuff into a giant shredder. It’s mesmerizing, I swear. She throws a fridge into the shredder, and it turns to dust in five seconds.

“Hi, son. I missed you.” My mom walks into the living room and kisses my forehead.

“Me too,” Caio says, and my face goes red immediately.

I want to hurl myself into a giant shredder.

“How was it?” I ask.

My mom answers, but I’m not paying attention. I’m more focused on Caio as he rummages through his backpack, searching for something.

He produces a piece of paper and hands it to me.

“This is for you.”

I unfold the paper, and a smile blooms on my face. It’s another drawing by Eddie. This time, it’s a self-portrait. He’s wearing a Robin suit. On his costume, the R is inverted, and on the bottom of the page he wrote Me.

“Eddie missed you. He was sad when he saw you weren’t with us. But I told him a new drawing would make you really happy, and he spent the whole day on that work of art,” Caio says as I take in every detail of the drawing.

“It really did.”

I get up and go to my room to hang the new drawing on the wall, next to the one I got last week. My bedroom is starting to look like a prekindergarten classroom, but I don’t mind.

“Why did you want to stay home? If I knew, I’d have stayed, too.” Caio is right behind me, and his voice is lower than usual.

“I was sleepy. No big deal. I’m sorry I aborted the mission without saying anything,” I answer, also in a low voice, as if we are sharing a secret.

“But everything’s okay, right? With you, I mean. And me. We’re … cool. Yeah?”

I have no idea what to say, so I wriggle out of it. “You left your phone behind. Becky called. Then she called two more times, and I thought it could be serious, so I picked it up.”

“And was it?”

“What?”

“Serious?”

“No,” I say. “And yes,” I add.

“What do you mean?”

“She just wanted to say hello. But it was an important hello. She said she’ll call you later.”

Caio starts looking at his phone, somewhat suspicious.

“Felipe, you were on the phone for twelve minutes. No one takes twelve minutes to say hello, no matter how important it is.”

“She asked me for comic book recommendations,” I lie.

“Oh, yeah.” Caio seems to believe my lie, and then my mom calls us to dinner.

Monday is Takeout Night, and we vote to decide what we’ll eat just for the simple pleasure of turning anything about our routine into a TV game show.

I vote for Chinese because I urgently need some advice from Grandma Thereza. But Caio and my mom prefer Mexican, and I have to accept that tonight I won’t get any supernatural help from a fortune cookie.