Farewell

I promised myself I’d never miss him again. So why is my hand between my legs tonight, with his name stuck in my throat?

I pressed her shirt open against the wall in the vestibule, kissed her neck, and knew I wasn’t going to ask her to stay, even though I was dying to.

It had been six weeks since I’d slept well, and her scent still weighed on the sheets. That morning, in the café on the avenue, I understood how much it costs to lose someone who still smells like they’re yours.

When I got out of the car dressed as a sailor girl, my brothers’ six friends whistled, not yet knowing my secret or what I was about to do for the guest of honor.

When his number appeared on my wife’s phone screen, I knew the night would end with all three of us tangled up on the sofa. And my wife knew it too.

Two beeps, a lit screen, and his wife’s voice filling the garden: “Everything that’s happening to me… everyone needs to know this.”

I asked for just one thing for the last night: to dance. What happened after that, in the cabin at the end of the corridor, I told no one.

You blocked me everywhere, so I’m writing by hand. I need you to know why I did it before I leave this city forever.

What we had lived in the shadows, hidden from everyone. It took me eleven months to understand that, for him, I had never been anything more than a game between friends.

Adrián measured every gesture with me, as if he knew something I didn’t. It took me a while to discover that the boy I was kissing already had his suitcase packed and a life waiting for him in another city.