Here the Whole Time(57)

“Easy, easy. It was just my therapist.” I laugh and take his hand.

And he doesn’t let go.

And we stay there for some time, holding hands under the table while we pick the best photo to send to Becky.

Caio’s head is on my shoulder, the air smells like fresh coffee and cake, and I could sit here for hours and hours. But in the following moment, when the front door of Dalva’s Café flies open and three guys walk in boisterously, Caio moves away from me immediately.

He gets up quickly, puts his chair back in place, and stares at the ceiling, avoiding my eyes.

Caio asks for the check and doesn’t let me pay for anything. (“You paid for the movies yesterday” is his argument). On the way out, we walk past the three guys, and one of them recognizes Caio. The three of them say a nice hello, and Caio answers hurriedly, then runs out of the café, his head hung low, not even checking to see if I’m following or not. He doesn’t introduce me to the three guys.

When we get to the street, I ask if everything is okay, and Caio tries to change the subject.

“Yeah, nothing’s wrong. I really just wanted to leave. I need to start packing, you know? Tomorrow, life goes back to normal.”

The way he says all that gives my paranoid mind a lot of material to start working on.



Here’s my conclusion: Caio knows those three guys from school. Classmates, probably. People he wouldn’t mind meeting on the street at all if he hadn’t been with me. If he hadn’t been holding hands and leaning his head against my shoulder. If he wasn’t dating a fat guy.

It’s nothing new. Even I’ve thought something like that. When we come across a couple where one person is thin and the other one is fat, we tend to come up with a thousand explanations for that couple’s existence, and none of them is “They must love each other.”

“That guy must have a fetish.”

“The fat dude must be rich.”

“He was probably thin when they started dating, and now the thin guy would feel bad breaking up with him.”

Whether they’re a fetishist, gold digger, or coward, the thin one is always seen in a negative light. And that was probably what Caio was trying to get away from.

When we get home, Caio treats me like normal, as if nothing happened. Here, inside my apartment, there’s a safety zone where he can kiss me, hug me, and sleep by my side without fear. But tomorrow, Caio will leave, and—he said so himself—life will go back to normal.

In the normal state of things, he’s there, and I’m here. He’s not my friend, much less my boyfriend. He’ll go back to being the neighbor kid from apartment 57.

We eat dinner in silence, and my mom must notice something went wrong, because her winking has stopped for the time being.

And now, sitting on my bed while I watch him organize his oversized leopard-print suitcase, folding his clothes one by one and removing all his belongings from my bedroom, I feel like I have nothing left to lose.

“What is it going to be like after you leave?” I ask.

“What do you mean? The two of us?”

“Yes. Us.”

“How do you want it to be after I leave?”

“For a start, I think it would be nice if you stopped answering my questions with more questions,” I say, and my tone is much ruder than I intended it to be.

“Felipe, what’s happening?”

“It’s nothing.” I give up on starting this discussion.

Caio stops folding his clothes, steps away from his suitcase, and sits in bed with me.

“Five minutes,” he says, placing a hand on my knee.

“What are you talking about?”

“Let’s play a game. We have five minutes to say anything that comes to our mind. No consequences. And if you don’t want to discuss it after the five minutes are up, we pretend like nothing happened,” Caio explains.

“You know that’s the worst idea in the world, right? And that there are thousands of chances this won’t end well?”

“It’s better than standing here all quiet without saying what you really feel,” Caio answers.

Oh, he wants feelings? I can give him that.

“Five minutes, then. I’ll start.” I position my phone between the two of us so I can check the time. “Oh, and one more rule. You can’t answer questions with more questions. Deal?”

“Is this rule for the five minutes, or for life?” he asks.

This game is going to be a disaster.

When my phone’s clock goes from 9:34 p.m. to 9:35 p.m., I start talking.

“I didn’t like the way you walked out of the coffee shop today, running in front of me. I felt like you were ashamed of me. And then I felt ridiculous that I felt that way, since we don’t have anything yet.”

“I’m sorry, Lipé. I … I didn’t want you to feel that way. It’s just that—”

“I’m scared of what it’s going to be like when you leave. I have a long list of insecurities, and I wish I could stop feeling this way, always insecure. Sooner or later, you’ll realize you can get someone way better.” I keep talking. I’m like a machine gun full of feelings.

“I’m afraid, too,” Caio says, raising his voice, and making it clear that he doesn’t want to be interrupted.