The Dawn When My Friend Confessed the Truth

The drizzle that had been falling over the savanna all night had strengthened by dawn, drumming thick and steady on the rooftops. The amber light of the terrace and the white floodlights in the living room wrestled against a leaden sky that offered no respite. Cold wind came down from the mountain range, cutting through the front gardens and soaking the red tiles. Esteban Gabriel and his guest left the terrace with hunched shoulders and took refuge in the warmth of the living room.

—I didn’t like it at all —Esteban commented as he closed the sliding door.

—Did it taste that unpleasant? —Mateo replied, checking that nothing had been left behind on the side table.

The silence of the garden did not match the music playing inside, but the lyrics of the song somehow echoed the slow conversation they were having beneath the blanket of icy dampness.

—Its bittersweet flavor surprised me, and I couldn’t hide it. Catalina and her parents laughed at my face, and while I listened to their restrained mockery, I decided to stick to her, even if it meant she would make a thousand attempts to push me away. I wanted to punish her in my own way: seduce her slowly, with smooth talk and little by little with caresses, so that afterward she’d think of me every night and feel exclusively mine. But the plan backfired on me.

—Ha, ha, ha! Yeah, man. That’s obvious. But how did you manage it?

Esteban gently took his wooden pipe between two fingers. He checked the tobacco jar and frowned, confirming there was hardly any left. He walked to the chimney wall, where the family portrait hung, and stopped for a moment, as if taking a breath.

—I offered to check the ignition failure on that flatbed pickup. It was enough to lift the hood: the smell of burnt oil told me why. My look of bad omens saddened my future father-in-law. Don Hernán confessed in my ear, more out of shame in front of his wife and daughter than for anything else, the naïve decision to lend most of his savings to an acquaintance, money he had gathered after years of serving as a road officer. The acquaintance couldn’t repay him and settled the debt by handing over that beat-up pick-up.

—What a pity. But that’s business. In some you win, and in others you lose even your shirt —Mateo murmured, without accompanying the comment with any sign of compassion.

Esteban bowed his head, wordlessly agreed, and headed to the back of the dining room. From a tall cabinet he took out a medium-sized photograph and returned to the armchair to hand it to his curious guest.

—Is this the disassembled truck? It doesn’t look like it! And is this your wife’s family?

—These are my in-laws —he indicated with a finger—, and the ones seated in the bed are the sisters of his dear friend.

—And Catalina?

—Behind the camera, of course. Eleven months after repairing the engine, adjusting the transmission, changing all four tires, and hiding the tears in the upholstery with some covers that Mrs. Mercedes and her eldest daughter sewed, Don Hernán, her friend, and I left the truck presentable.

—Did the restoration take that long?

—That lemon of a woman helped me quite a bit. At first reluctantly, because she was suspicious. And that’s not counting that my father-in-law didn’t always have the budget for the parts. It wasn’t all my fault, but I didn’t care: on weekends, when I made time away from the university and my job as an administrator at the bakery, I enjoyed her irritated company.

—And you? Why aren’t you in this photograph?

—By then I was arranging a transfer to another city. I had been offered a job with a multinational food company, in Pereira.

—Did you abandon her? Did you give up on conquering her so quickly?

—Ha, ha, ha! Of course not. I used that time to weaken her defenses. But don’t think it was easy. It all turned into a tug-of-war. As the days passed, we got used to the chance run-ins, to eyeing each other sidelong when she watched me make repairs, and to me, without meaning to, brushing against some part of her body.

—Were you abusive with her? —Mateo asked in a displeased tone.

—How could you think that! I simply couldn’t avoid brushing her ass with my greasy knuckles when I passed by carrying the engine block. Or scratching the nape of her neck with the valve gauge, from the line of her curly hair down to the place where the back changes its name, and seeing her entire body bristle and, of course, be furious with me.

—The two of you had fun showing each other those contradictory feelings. From hate to love is a short step, isn’t it?

—And exactly the same, but in the opposite direction. Just like now! —he replied cordially and with a hint of bitterness—. Back then I liked seeing her sweeping the entrance to her house, or cleaning, without needing to, the dirt floor of the garage where I worked with her father. We said nothing more than the formal greeting, but that connection between the two of us was there, intangible, felt by both.

Mateo got up from the armchair and walked to the furniture at the back. He carefully set the portrait down and rested his eyes on the other frames while Esteban rewound the film of his memories.

—We learned to hide what we felt. On my part, to see her as the cornerstone on which the family structure of my future would rest. She was already inside my guts. I wanted her without rushing, without showing her too much attachment, letting her set the pace, pausing my urge to throw myself on her and steal a kiss.

With his back to his host, Mateo smiled at the confession, erased the expression before turning around, and looked him straight in the eyes again.

—One afternoon I cornered her against the garage wall. I spread my arms out on either side of her head and breathed in her scent, blowing my gum breath into her face. She didn’t try to slip away or close her eyelids. I brushed the tip of her nose with mine without stopping staring at her. I spit the gum to one side and took my time. I spoke right against her mouth, in a low voice, almost biting it, so that no other soul in the world could hear. I told her: “Last night I dreamed about you, Catalina. I dreamed I had you like this, cornered. That I pulled your pants down to your knees and spread your legs, and licked your cunt until your knees buckled. I dreamed that afterward you sucked my dick right there, on your knees between my greasy boots, with that smart-ass girl’s mouth God gave you, while I grabbed your goddamned mane. And I dreamed I shoved it all the way in, to the hilt, so you’d learn to be quiet another way.” I finished speaking and ate her mouth in a single kiss.

Reclining over the coffee table, Mateo reached for his vodka glass and took a short sip. When he finished hearing the next part, he took another, longer swallow, perhaps to lower the temperature he felt in his chest.

—I don’t know if she was trembling, but if she was, it would have been for two things: fear of getting caught, or the desire she also didn’t express in words. What I did see was that her unpainted lips parted, she let out a slight moan I took as surrender, and then I kissed her for real, with tongue and hunger. I sucked her lower lip, bit it, breathed into her mouth. I felt her youthful breasts rising and falling against my chest under the coveralls, I felt the nipples harden even though there were two layers of fabric over them. I squeezed one hip with my open hand and pulled her pelvis close so she could feel just how hard I was because of her. Our first kiss. Hidden, forbidden, but allowed by the woman who later learned how to vanish from my dreams.

—Until they finally gave in! That deserves a toast —and Mateo raised his aguardiente glass—. Cheers!

—And the broom handle she used to threaten me with slipped from her hands. She caressed one cheek with tenderness, eyes blazing. Her other hand slipped through the opening in my shirt until it touched my chest, and she dug a nail into my nipple as if to make it clear who was in charge. And keeping our mouths pressed together, she kneed me in the balls and ended up pushing me against the door of that beat-up pick-up. “Keep that dream for your pillow, Esteban Gabriel,” she told me, “because this female needs a different kind of work.” And she left with that little trot I’m about to describe to you, swaying her ass so it would stay burned into my retina until the day I died.

—Ha, ha, ha! Very romantic. I toast to those beautiful memories.

—Yeah, very. And very painful for my balls —Esteban replied with irony, taking both hands to the bulge in his crotch.

Mateo laughed heartily, settled his back against the armchair, and kept listening.

—That little girl was special —Esteban continued—. She hooked me from the start, because she has, like Colombia’s fine horses, three gaits. I discovered that over the years. The first, the “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” gait. Loud, normal for her. That careless walk, not paying attention to anything, but watching everything out of the corner of her eye. If nobody was paying attention to her, she kept swaying that ass and tossing her hair, even more confident and light.

—If she sensed danger, or that someone was watching from across the street, she switched to the second gait: the short one, slower, but without stopping her forward motion. She straightened her back, her youthful breasts gained volume, she tightened her stomach, and frowned. Being so slender and brown-skinned, Catalina couldn’t help drawing attention. Her hips and the roundness of that pair of maternal inheritances always betrayed her.

—Ha, ha, ha! I love how you talk about her. You knew her very well. And what’s the last one?

—The little trot of the “killer stare.” She does it when she wants to attract. With maddening delicacy, she stretches one leg and places one foot in front of the other; she steps firmly, makes the heel thud, and advances the other leg. She exaggerates the sway of her hips, synchronizes it with her shoulders, and adds a slight tilt of the head to the side, opening her eyes wide. She lets her rebellious mane finish the performance a second before checking her surroundings with that white smile, confirming she has conquered that small world.

Mateo listened attentively. After a friendly smile, he remarked:

—I agree with the first two. I’ve seen them in airport corridors. As for the third gait, as you’ll understand, I can’t comment.

—Maybe you haven’t had that luck because you’re his special friend. But I’d bet double or nothing that’s how you got that other guy.

—Special? —Mateo asked, and brought his half-closed fist to his mouth to bite the knuckle of his middle finger—. Well, maybe you don’t need to show it to me. When I’m out there chasing, I usually use that same walk, though in my own way. More daring, of course, with more glamour.

—Forgive me, I didn’t mean to offend you or discriminate against you because of your sexual preference —Esteban replied, embarrassed.

—Ha, ha, ha! Don’t worry, man. It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable either. With my years of flirting and the complications on my back, I’m very seasoned now. But I do need to ask you something. Did you get it sucked before abandoning her?

Esteban’s fingers furrowed the skin of his right cheek. He directed his gaze at the family portrait hanging over the fireplace, thinking whether he should answer such a personal question. If he lied, he preserved his image as a seducer. If he told the truth, he would come off before this stranger as a loser. In the end he chose the latter.

—Opportunity makes the thief, and I had many. But she earned, with her loving insults and proud distance, all my respect. I wanted to make her mine, of course, but so she would love me madly. I needed it to be her who would docilely surrender to me. I didn’t want to do with Catalina what I had done with my other conquests. I was in love. Do you understand? Besides…

Anxious at the pause, Mateo set the empty glass down on the table glass with more force than necessary. Esteban jumped, brought from deep inside himself back into the sixteen square meters of that living room.

—Sorry for the interruption. I was going to say something else about your wife.

—I remembered Catalina’s joyful face when her father told her she was already enrolled in Flight School. It was noon on a Wednesday, right in the middle of her seventeenth-birthday lunch. She doubted Don Hernán’s words. Then, with the enrollment receipt in her hand, she jumped for joy, crying and laughing at the same time. I’ll never forget it. Her dream of touching the clouds came true.

—But didn’t you tell me your father-in-law was short on money?

—Yes. What I haven’t told anyone, because until yesterday I cared, was to keep secret an agreement between Don Hernán and me. I was the one who covered those expenses so her friend could study.

—Very commendable. I’ll keep your secret.

A small detail in that answer did not go unnoticed by Esteban. He did not reply. Rushing was never his style. Eventually his wife would have mentioned it to him.

—When I looked for her to say goodbye and tell her what I had decided, she didn’t want to hear me. She called me an opportunist, a thief, a fucking opportunist, and told me to go to hell, far away, way down in Patagonia. That was our romantic farewell.

—Shit, man, what a mess. So you lost your chance?

—Ha, ha, ha. Don’t make that face, it wasn’t that bad either. It bothered me at first, but I already knew her. Beneath that shell of apparent hardness, Catalina is a very noble woman.

—I don’t know if I would’ve reacted like that. Most likely, if I’d been rejected, I’d leave without wanting to see her again, for being ungrateful.

***

Esteban turned the cassette over and pressed the “B” side button. A slow song filled the room. Between verse and verse, it confirmed to the two men that there would always be more than two versions of how people are perceived, depending on how they choose to show themselves to the world.

—And you, what can you tell me? Did you find the happiness you were looking for after leaving your wife and son? Was causing so much pain worth it?

The question caught Mateo off guard. The tables had turned, and now the host was the one who wanted to pry into another’s life. The atmosphere grew oppressive. Mateo lowered his gaze, his fingers drumming on the edge of the glass in an erratic rhythm. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look up.

—People who spend too much time on the ground tend to idealize the lives of those of us who live in the air. But it’s not easy. Responsibility weighs more than adventure, and the grind leaves us no time to truly know or explore. Over the years, loneliness wins out over the thrill of travel. Fatigue doesn’t ask: it arrives and settles in. What is exotic for others becomes routine, predictable, for us. Boring.

—Are you suggesting that what happened between Catalina and me is a common situation among you pilots, with your relationships?

—Man, Esteban, I don’t know. I don’t know your private life. Only you, hearing mine, will draw your own conclusions. Would you like me to give you the summary of my separation now?

—Of course. I’m listening.

—It was the beginning of June. Thirty days were left until our anniversary. I was coming home after almost two weeks away. I arrived early, just as Verónica was preparing lunch for herself and my son Andrés. I didn’t tell her I was coming. I could have, but I lacked the courage. The atmosphere in the kitchen was suffocating, because of the steam from the three pots on the stove, or because the dry season had begun. It was me and the weight of my guilt.

For Esteban, the scene took on unexpected intensity. Recreating it in his mind, he could almost see each tense gesture, and he thought he could hear the ragged breathing that created the suspense. It was possibly the same shiver his wife had captured in the first paragraphs torn from her own diary.

—An invisible but palpable tension settled between us. It tightened my chest. She was so surprised to see me that I almost stole her breath. Verónica left the tomatoes and onion on the cutting board, dropped the knife, wiped her hands on her apron, and crossed her arms. She didn’t open them the way she would have months earlier to receive me. My silence warned her that something strange was happening. From my mouth barely came a “hello.” Her round eyes sharpened and, gathering courage, she searched my face for answers. She ran into a cowardly silence.

—“I need you to tell me what’s going on,” she exclaimed, taking a step toward me. “You’re not the same anymore.”

—I avoided looking her in the eyes. I turned mine to the floor. My lips parted in an attempt to say something, but nothing came out. I let my shoulders fall. I heard her sigh, just as I did, as if we were synchronized, resigned, and losing the strength to sustain a marital lie that had worn us down to the marrow.

Esteban felt pity and poured him a bit more vodka into the tall glass, and a little more aguardiente into his cup.

—“Verónica, I… I don’t know how to explain it,” I murmured, my voice breaking. I told her that I had tried to force myself to feel something deeper all those years, something that simply had not been able to flow the way I wanted. That comment pierced her like a dagger.

—“Force yourself?” —she repeated in disbelief—. “What do you mean?”

—“Dad!” my son shouted when he saw me there beside his mother, unaware of the tension hanging in the air. The smell of the food mixed with uncertainty. Andrés was no longer the nine- or ten-year-old kid, but I was tormented by thinking how he would react when he found out. He’s a smart boy, curious, enthusiastic. He studies mechatronics engineering in another city. I smiled back at him, but he turned his eyes to Verónica, who at that moment was gripping a wooden spoon harder than necessary. She inhaled deeply, as if she needed the hot air to calm the whirlwind of thoughts. My son, without understanding the silence, ran to hug me.

All over Esteban’s skin, a shiver made his pores rise. He thought about how his “little cinnamon bundle” must have felt when he came face to face with his daughter walking out of that motel, wrapped in her lover’s arms; and in the days that followed, lying to her after every affectionate smile, after the morning kisses, the afternoon hugs, and the night sex, carrying the weight of guilt into this new present.

—“I missed you, Dad,” Andrés said with the innocent voice of someone who never imagines breakups. My wife echoed it, but now in a measured plural. Verónica was the first to break the chill: “You didn’t say you’d be coming early.” She said it in a measured voice, as if she had rehearsed it a thousand times before my return.

—Andrés stayed happy, clinging to my forearm. At one point, I thought he was going to ask my opinion about a project for his university, something about prosthetics for people who fall in minefields. But it was for something else. “Dad, will you help me with the plane we’re building? Let’s see if we can finally finish it before you leave again!” It took me a while to react. That wooden airplane had been a gift I gave him for his eleventh birthday.

—Yes, Esteban, that’s life. It hits you when you least expect it. How many times had I taken off without looking back? How many times had I thought my absences were only minor harm?

Mateo stood up, walked to the kitchen counter, dropped a few more ice cubes into his glass to cool the vodka, and returned, stopping right at the edge of the rug.

—“Of course, champ, tell me what you need.” My son ran to his room to fetch the abandoned project, unaware of the look his mother kept fixed on me. The silence between us stretched on. Then Verónica told me, with a calm that did not reflect the hurricane she felt inside: “Why today?”

—I hesitated and stupidly asked, “How?” And she shot it back at me: “Why did you decide to show up without warning? Why this day, at this hour?” I lowered my gaze to the table, to the half-served plate, to the cutlery set for two, and in the middle, a delicate glass vase with a solitary butterfly orchid. I had forgotten it.

—“It’s June fourth.” Verónica’s voice was muffled but firm. Thirty days before our anniversary. It was her way of reminding me of the years we would have completed together, and the time that was about to be extinguished for her.

Mateo swallowed hard. In his mind, fleeting scenes came back to life: hurried calls from airports, promises of an imminent return that never arrived on time. But among all those fragments, one imposed itself on him with the brutal clarity of a slide lit from within. Panama, a random Thursday in August, almost ten years ago. The return flight to Bogotá had been canceled because of a storm over Darién, and the airline put them up in a hotel in the banking district, with a view of the canal and air conditioning blasting at full power. He told Esteban in a low voice, like someone asking permission to strip the soul bare.

—I went down to the lobby bar because I was suffocating in the room. I still had my uniform on, tie loose, shirt with two buttons undone. I sat at the back of the bar and ordered a double vodka with ice. A few minutes later, a guy settled two stools away: tall, bald, with gray in his beard, wearing an ivory linen shirt open just enough to show a broad, hairy chest. He ordered the same thing I was drinking from the bartender, never taking his eyes off me.

—“Pilot, right?” he said to me with a Paulista accent, pointing at the wings embroidered on my lapel. “That much shows,” I answered with the barest smile. “Rafael. Port engineer. I came to supervise a project at the new lock.” We exchanged two more sentences and there was no need to say much else. In his eyes, Esteban, I read what I had been denying myself for years. In mine, he read exactly the same. We finished the second drink without rushing. Rafael left a bill on the bar, got up, and walked toward the elevators without looking back, knowing I was going to follow him. And I did.

Esteban didn’t interrupt him. He realized the man needed to empty the memory the way one empties an abscess.

—As soon as the suite door closed, Rafael shoved me against the entryway wall, buried one hand in my hair, and devoured my mouth without preamble. I answered with more hunger than he had. I felt his beard scraping my face, his thick tongue searching my palate, the taste of vodka mixed with the Brazilian’s warm breath. His other hand slid down my chest, unbuttoned the last buttons of my shirt, and trapped one nipple between his index finger and thumb. He twisted it until he pulled a rough groan from me that I didn’t know where it came from, because in twenty years Verónica had never made me groan like that, and I had never allowed her to.

—“How long has it been since someone did you right, pilot,” Rafael whispered in my ear, though it wasn’t a question. “No one’s ever done me right,” I replied, and that was the cleanest truth I had spoken in two decades. He smiled with very white teeth, slid his hand down my belly, and squeezed my bulge over the blue uniform pants. My cock was hard, Esteban, hard like it hadn’t been in years, pushing against the fabric with an urgency that surprised even me. Rafael undid my belt with one hand, lowered the zipper, and shoved his fingers into my boxer briefs, wrapping around my dick at once, without hesitation. I dropped my head against the wall and closed my eyes.

—“Look at me,” he ordered, gripping my chin. I opened my eyes. He had me by the cock, moving my foreskin slowly, with a calculated firmness that sent little spasms through my hips. “I want you to see who’s touching you. I want you to remember this face tomorrow in the cockpit, when you’re taking off and thinking about the come I’m going to leave inside you.” I swallowed and nodded. Rafael crouched without letting go of my cock, yanked down my pants and boxer briefs in one motion to my ankles, and without warning took it all the way into his mouth. He swallowed me to the root, burying his nose in the hair of my pubic mound, his throat open as if made for it. I clenched my fists against the wall so I wouldn’t howl.

Esteban cleared his throat, uncomfortable but fascinated. He poured himself another finger of aguardiente and said nothing.

—Rafael knew what he was doing, Esteban. He sucked my cock with slow, deep pulls, drew back to the tip to lick the crown with a flat tongue, then went back to devouring it to the base. With his free hand he stroked my balls, squeezing them with a practiced gesture, measuring how much he could give me without making me come too soon. “If you keep going, I’m going to cum,” I panted, my voice broken. He pulled away, leaving my cock shining with saliva and throbbing in the air. He stood up, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me to the bedroom.

—The bed was huge, with taut white linen sheets. He tore my shirt off in one yank, without caring about the buttons, and ripped off my pants and shoes too. I was left naked in the middle of the room, the yellow light of the lamp marking the sheen of sweat on my chest. “Now you, to me,” he said. And he started undressing too, without haste. He took off the linen shirt, revealing a muscular, bronzed torso. He pulled down his pants and underwear in a single motion. His cock was thick, shorter than mine but solid, with a broad glans and marked veins running up the shaft.

—I knelt in front of him without being asked. I stroked his thighs with open palms, smelled his pubic mound, licked the line that runs down from the navel. When I grabbed his cock and took it into my mouth, Esteban, a shiver ran all the way through my spine. It was the first time I’d sucked a man’s cock with the certainty that I was doing what I wanted, without guilt, without pretense, without Verónica’s shadow weighing on me. I sucked his glans, swallowed him little by little, testing my capacity. Rafael grabbed my head with both hands and set a gentle rhythm at first, deeper after. “That’s it, pilot. Swallow my cock. Like that, with your whole mouth. Look at you eating it.”

—I tasted the salty precome on my palate and I liked it. I liked everything: the texture, the weight, the smell of clean man, the way Rafael tugged my hair when he wanted me to loosen my throat. I sucked his cock with hollowed cheeks until he pulled away, panting, and lifted me off the floor by my armpits. “Face down. On the bed.”

—I obeyed. I settled myself at the edge, chest against the mattress and knees on the floor, offering him my ass. Rafael licked his lips, spread my cheeks apart with his thumbs, and spat on my asshole. He ran his whole tongue from my perineum to my tailbone, calmly, enjoying it. Then he buried the tip of his tongue in the hole, moving it in circles, softening me up. I clung to the sheet with both fists, Esteban. Never in my life had anyone done that to me. The pleasure pulled a long, almost obscene moan out of me that filled the room. “Don’t keep quiet,” he told me between licks. “Scream. These walls are thick. Scream however the hell you want.”

—He kept eating my ass for a long while, until it was soaked and throbbing. Then he sat up, found a bottle of lube and a condom on the nightstand. He sheathed his cock with the skill of someone who had done it a thousand times, put a generous amount of gel on his fingers, and slipped them into me, first one, then two, moving them inside with patience. “Relax. Open up for me, I’m going in slow.” When he placed the glans against my hole and pushed, I clenched my teeth and lowered my head. It burned. It burned a lot at first, but the burn turned into something else, into a hot pull that shot up my spine to the nape of my neck. Rafael entered me millimeter by millimeter, giving me time, until he had his cock all the way inside and his balls pressed against my ass. “You’re full of me now, pilot. Can you feel it?” “Yes,” I gasped, face buried in the sheet.

—He started fucking me with steady thrusts, each one deeper than the last, gripping my hips. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room. I spread my legs as far as I could, arched my back, offered myself up. I loved the weight of the Brazilian on top of me, the broad hand pressing my nape into the mattress, his hot breath in my ear while he fucked me harder. At one point he asked, in pure dirty talk play: “Is this how you used to fuck Verónica, pilot? Is this how you used to fuck her?” “No,” I answered, truthful even about that. “I never made love to her like this. Never.” “Then enjoy it properly. This one’s yours.”

—He took me on all fours, then on my back with my legs raised over his shoulders, and finally he lay on his back and asked me to sit on top of him. I mounted him slowly, impaling myself on his thick cock, and started rocking up and down, my hands braced on the Brazilian’s hairy chest. Rafael looked up at me from below, mouth slightly open, grabbing my cock with one hand and jerking it in rhythm with my ass. “Come on top of me,” he asked. “I want you to finish on my chest.” My stomach tightened. I sped up the rocking, moaning without shame, and in a few seconds I came in hot streams that stained his torso from navel to neck. He let out a rough laugh of satisfaction, grabbed my hips, and finished fucking me with quick, short thrusts until he shuddered with a guttural groan and spilled into the condom too, his cock buried deep inside my ass.

Mateo paused, ran a hand over the nape of his neck. Esteban didn’t rush him. Outside, the rain had grown heavier and beat against the glass as if it wanted to come in.

—We stayed like that for a while, still, breathing hard, Esteban. I let myself fall beside Rafael, my legs trembling and my heart pounding in my temples. He put an arm around me from the side, ran a hand over my chest, kissed my shoulder. We didn’t talk. There was nothing to say. I woke at dawn with the air conditioner humming and him asleep beside me, mouth half open, beard stuck to the pillow. I got up without making a sound, dressed in what was left of the torn shirt, and left the room without leaving a note. I crossed the carpeted hallway to my own room, got into the shower, and stood under the hot stream until the water turned cold. I got out, dried myself, sat on the edge of the empty bed. And only then, with my hair dripping and my body still tired from what had happened, did I allow myself to cry. Not for Rafael. Not for the pleasure. I cried because I knew, with brutal clarity, that I would never again be able to lie to myself.

Esteban lowered his gaze to the bottom of his glass. That confession weighed on him more than the earlier ones. He understood why the burden Mateo carried in his chest had not eased with time or distance. He served him more vodka without asking. The echo of that Panama hotel reminded Mateo that even back then he was losing something he had never bothered to hold onto hard enough.

—Verónica was no longer looking at me with reproach, but with exhaustion. That weariness that goes beyond lack of sleep. The exhaustion of waiting, of understanding, of forgiving and getting nothing back. And my son came back running, holding the half-built balsa airplane. “Here it is, I need you to help me glue the wings.” I forced a smile and took the plane carefully. I held it between my fingers as if it were a metaphor for my own life. Fragile, unfinished, about to break if I didn’t handle it precisely.

—When we finished gluing the pieces together, Verónica patted Andrés on the head and asked him with a faint smile to put the plane out in the sun so the glue would dry faster. “Go do your things, sweetheart, your dad and I need to talk.” My son obeyed without complaint and left us alone.

—At first she didn’t ask anything. She only watched me, waiting. I felt my chest tighten. I had rehearsed phrases in my head over and over, but in front of that so calm woman, every word got tangled in my throat. “I…,” I began, and stopped. I exhaled slowly before trying again. “I’ve been running away, Verónica. All my life.” She didn’t react right away, but with her gaze she demanded I continue. “I’ve run from what I really am and from what I’ve always known.”

—The tension on her face turned into something else. She gave me a look of understanding, but I also perceived her pain. Finally I found the courage to tell her. “Verónica, I’m homosexual.”

The words hung in the air, released both in the memories of that moment and in the warm atmosphere of the living room, burdened with a similar weight. Esteban raised his aguardiente glass.

—I toast to you and your painful courage. That must have been damn hard. Cheers!

—Thank you, but the applause is only for her. Verónica closed her eyes for an instant. She didn’t react with surprise. Deep down she had been feeling it, because of my long absences, because of the little effort I put into the cold nights, because of the passionate sounds that were never fully natural. But hearing it out loud... that was different.

—“I always knew,” she whispered in a tiny, almost angelic voice. And she looked straight at me to clarify something that had been left hanging. “I just needed you to say it.”

—As you can see, Esteban, I never meant to hurt them. Neither her nor my son. That’s why I kept going with the lies. I thought that if I could keep that at bay for a while, long enough, and if I tried harder, I could be someone else and love her like a real man.

Mateo sighed before taking another drink. He felt that mixture of relief and fear from the confession again. Relief because he no longer had to carry the secret before his friend’s husband. Fear because, without intending to, he was aware that it would continue to sting.

Continued…