I Desired That Boy When He Was Already Leaving

The idea wasn’t entirely mine. It started as discomfort, then urgency, and in the end as a certainty that wouldn’t let me sleep.

Daniel had spent weeks asking about Lucía. Not outright. He did it sideways, staring at the hospital room ceiling, like someone feeling out ground he didn’t dare step on.

—Do you think she’s okay? Is she still going out for runs in the mornings? —he’d let slip, pretending it was simple curiosity.

I knew my brother wanted to see her. I also knew he no longer felt he had the right to ask.

I looked for her on a Thursday, when classes were letting out. Lucía was on the same bench as always, with a coffee that had to be cold by now between her hands. When she saw me, her face lit up and then immediately went dim, as if she suddenly understood my visit wasn’t casual.

I didn’t talk to her about diagnoses or prognoses. I talked about him. About how insistently he asked about her. About how he kept making plans with a future that no longer really belonged to him.

—He wants to see you —I said at last—. But he doesn’t dare ask you himself.

She looked at the sky for a long while. Then she wrapped her arms around herself, as if searching for comfort she’d been waiting for a long time.

—I never moved away —she murmured—. I just didn’t know if he wanted me to keep being there. And I know him: when he says he’s fine, that’s when he needs someone to stay the most.

That was when I understood that taking her to the hospital wasn’t enough. Daniel didn’t need a visit. He deserved something that didn’t smell like goodbye, something that would give him back, if only for one night, the man he still remembered being.

***

We didn’t do anything over the top. A couple of small lights, placed with more care than necessary. A tablecloth over the metal table to cover what couldn’t be hidden. Flowers someone brought without my knowing where from. A speaker tucked between bags, as if it too had to go unnoticed.

My parents joined in without asking why, only how. An orderly who already knew my brother better than half the world did, and a stretcher attendant who for once wanted to be part of a story that didn’t end badly.

When we all walked in together, Daniel frowned.

—What’s all this? —he asked, suspicious.

—Your graduation —I said—. It’s been moved up a little. You were almost ready.

He laughed, with a nostalgia he couldn’t quite hide behind jokes. We put a jacket over his hospital gown. It looked huge on him.

—I look ridiculous —he said, looking himself over.

—You look gorgeous —my mother corrected without hesitation.

And then Lucía walked in.

For the first time in a long while, Daniel was left speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again.

—You’re really here? —he stammered.

They hugged. A long, deep hug, the kind that tries to recover months in one gesture. We left them alone. Adrián and I stayed by the door, half hidden, not wanting to interrupt anything.

From there we watched them. Lucía’s laughter slowly faded, until it turned into tears. Daniel wiped them away with that clumsy tenderness of his, not wanting to overwhelm her. She took a flower from the table and tucked it into his jacket, smoothing the fabric with her hands, looking him in the eyes as if that gesture could hold anything together.

The music started softly. My brother got to his feet with effort and took her hand. They danced slowly, awkwardly, as if the world had decided to move more slowly just for them.

It wasn’t just a dance. It was farewell and celebration at the same time. Everything that couldn’t be, finally being a little.

I felt a knot in my throat that wasn’t pure sadness. It was relief. As if that night Daniel had signed his truce too. Not with death, but with what he could still be.

Adrián looked at me then, with that expression of his that said too much without saying anything. He didn’t take my hand. But it was as if he thought about it.

***

A few days later I accompanied my father to his office. I had never been there; that place had always been Daniel’s, the son who knew how to smile at the right moment and shake hands without sweating.

I saw him there, surrounded by fine suits and expensive watches, fulfilling a world that had never been his dream. At lunch we slipped away to a cheap eatery, and I devoted myself to verbally tearing apart every business partner we’d seen. He laughed softly, that laugh that makes no noise but is real.

—Forgive me, son —he said suddenly, drawing circles in his cup with his finger—. If it were up to me…

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. My father never talked about what he felt; he held it up. In the glass of water that appeared on the little table. In the hallway light left on so we wouldn’t be afraid to get up at night. In being there, even when it seemed he wasn’t there.

I took his hand, big and rough, and squeezed it. He didn’t say anything. It wasn’t necessary.

***

I found Iván one afternoon in the faculty gardens, where I used to hide when everything caught up with me. He jumped on me to scare me, as always, but this time something in him had gone out.

—I came to say goodbye —he said, dropping onto the grass. He lit a badly rolled cigarette and looked at the sky—. My old man was never anyone important. Everything I told you was a lie. He had lung cancer, in both lungs. He liked smoking too much.

He exhaled the smoke slowly. His family was sick of him, of his messes; they were talking about sending him away, starting over in another city.

—I’m not here to apologize to you —he went on—. I’m here for Tobías.

That hurt more than everything before it. Not like a blow, but like something that gets stuck.

—He does want you. Really —he said—. Remember I told you I’d fucked him? Well, I lied. One night we were drunk, I got hard just looking at him and jumped him, shoved my hand into his pants, grabbed him over his clothes, and he stopped me. Respectfully. He told me he was already hot for somebody else, that somebody had his head all messed up, that it was still confusing, but that something about the way he felt with that person was starting to give him clarity.

He didn’t name him. He didn’t need to. I knew he was talking about me.

Everything snapped into place inside me all at once, and it hurt. I thought about my refusals, about the times I wanted to believe Tobías was just a problem. And for one second —just one— I thought that, if Adrián hadn’t shown up, maybe Tobías would have been enough. That scared me.

—Do you know what resilience is? —he asked, calmer now—. I learned it when my old man died. People think the worst thing is death. It isn’t. It’s everything that breaks before it, and how it breaks you too. And even so you keep wanting, you keep feeling. You’re already that, even if you don’t know it. I didn’t know. I don’t know when I got lost.

He stood and brushed the grass off his clothes.

—You’re lucky, even if it doesn’t look that way right now. There’s someone willing to stand in front of you whenever it’s needed.

He left. For the first time I saw him with different eyes.

***

With Adrián everything had become measured. With everyone else he laughed loudly, let go, was genuine. With me he held back, as if he were guarding every movement, as if he were measuring the weight of being there.

One night we were alone at home. The TV was on, though neither of us was watching it. He came close and kissed me, and I responded, because my body wanted it, because the heat was still there, because he was still him.

The kiss started slowly, his tongue testing mine, and in a matter of seconds it turned hungry. He grabbed the back of my neck and pressed me to his mouth as if he needed to devour everything I had inside. I felt his cock already hard jabbing against my hip through his pants, and mine sprang up just as hard, throbbing, as if my body had spent weeks waiting for this without permission to say it out loud.

His hands slid down my back and he pulled my shirt up slowly, his warm mouth tracing my neck. He took it off me completely and tossed his own to the floor without looking where it landed. He licked my nipples, one first, then the other, sucking them hard, nibbling just enough with his teeth to make my back arch against the cushions. I dug my fingers into his hair and pushed him lower without saying a word, because words were unnecessary.

He yanked my pants down, underwear and all, and I was naked from the waist down, my hard cock dripping pre-cum against my stomach. Adrián knelt between my legs and looked at me for a second as if he’d just found something he’d been searching for for years. He grabbed my dick in his hand, squeezed the base to make it jump, and without warning took it all the way into his mouth.

—Fuck… —I gasped.

I felt the wet heat of his tongue wrapping me, the pressure of his lips sliding up and down the shaft, the tip brushing the back of his throat as he swallowed me down. He sucked me with hunger, rawer than other times, spit running down his chin, his free hand weighing my balls, squeezing them softly while his mouth did the rest.

—Like that, you son of a bitch, like that, don’t stop —I moaned quietly at him.

He laughed against my cock, sending a vibration through my whole dick that made me close my eyes. I let him suck me off for a long while, my head hanging back over the armchair, until I felt my balls draw up and the tingle of my orgasm building far too fast. I pulled his hair for him to stop. Adrián pulled my cock out of his mouth with a wet sound, a string of spit and precum hanging from his lips, and smiled at me with that bastard grin of his, the one that knew exactly what it was doing.

—Now you —he said, and stood up to unbutton his pants.

I slid off the armchair onto the rug and yanked down his pants and boxers in one motion to his knees. His cock sprang out hard, thick, the tip shining with pre-cum that ran down to his hand. I grabbed it by the base, squeezed to watch the veins stand out, and took it into my mouth as far as I could. Adrián let out a rough groan and put a hand on the back of my neck, not pushing, just feeling. I sucked the head, circling the glans with my tongue, then slid down the shaft licking the whole thing like a melting ice cream, then took his balls into my mouth one by one while I jerked his dick with my hand. He tasted like sweat, like soap, like him. I took him all the way in again until I gagged, until my throat was full, and he began to move slowly, fucking my mouth carefully, measuring every thrust.

—Fuck, you suck it so well —he panted—. You’re going to make me come if you keep this up.

I pulled his cock out of my mouth all at once and stood up, my lips burning and my chin wet. We lay back on the armchair, him on top, and kissed again with our mouths tasting of both of us. I felt his weight on me, the brush of his skin against mine, his hard cock pressed to mine, skin against skin, nothing between us, his ragged breathing colliding with mine in the dim light. He grabbed both our cocks together with one hand and started jerking us both off, his fist sliding up and down with the mix of spit and pre-cum acting as lube. I felt the veins of his dick throbbing against mine, the doubled heat, and for a moment we were just that: two bodies looking for each other, with nothing else complicated in the way.

Then he turned me facedown against the cushions and settled on top of me. I felt the tip of his cock sliding between my ass cheeks, searching, calibrating. He spread my legs with his knee, spat into his hand, coated his dick until it was wet through, pressed the head against my entrance and pushed just a little, sinking only the tip in.

But something in me wouldn’t let me keep going. I tensed just enough for him to notice. Adrián stopped. He didn’t pull away suddenly; he eased the tip out carefully, turned me back over to face the ceiling, and waited with his forehead against mine, his hard cock still throbbing between us, breathing heavy.

—What’s wrong? —he said softly.

—I can’t do it like this —I murmured—. Like everything is fine when I feel it’s being held together with pins.

He sat on the edge of the armchair, still naked, his cock half-softening, elbows on his knees. He ran his hands over his face, as if sorting something out inside before saying it out loud.

—When I’m with you, things feel simpler —he said, almost surprised to be saying it—. And I like that. That’s why I stay.

There it was. Not in what he said, but in what he didn’t. He got up slowly, pulled his pants on without looking at me, took his jacket, and went out for a walk. Before, that would have hurt, would have made me feel chosen halfway. That time I felt relief, and beneath it, a new sadness.

I understood the truth a few days later, in the hospital. Daniel was in a good mood, one of those days when he talked more and complained less.

—You and Adrián have gotten pretty close, huh? —he said, offhand. —I’m glad. That’s why it worries me that he’s leaving.

I felt something strange in my chest.

—Leaving? —I asked.

He frowned, more surprised that I didn’t know. Adrián had already decided everything before my brother got sick: his father had offered to take him to another city, a life already built and waiting for him. Studies, family, future.

—I thought he told you —Daniel murmured.

Inside me the same thing happened as on the day of the diagnosis. That noise, like someone dropping something very heavy in my head. Everything clicked into place by itself: Adrián’s pauses, the times he avoided talking about the future, the times he said “later we’ll see,” the times he was with me but had one foot out the door.

It wasn’t fear of deciding. It was that something had already been decided. I had been the parenthesis.

***

That week, Tobías and I met in the library to finish an assignment I barely cared about anymore. He arrived with everything more advanced than I expected. That hurt too, not because it was bad, but because it was good, orderly, clear, while I couldn’t manage to put one thought after another.

—You look tired —he said, and dug in his backpack for a crushed piece of gum, the kind one keeps without thinking to use later—. I had some left over.

That tiny gesture nearly made me cry. He went for water, came back unhurried, and our fingers just barely brushed as he passed me the glass.

—If your head’s not in it today, we can leave it for tomorrow —he offered.

—Just… stay with me —I asked—. Don’t ask me anything. Don’t try to fix anything. Just stay a while.

He didn’t smile or say “sure” right away. He just moved his chair a little closer, without touching me.

—I’m here. Go on when you can.

I wrote badly, slowly, as if every word weighed too much. And then, without thinking, I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. Not like before, not looking for anything. Just letting myself fall.

His body tensed for a second. Then it didn’t. He didn’t wrap me up or push me away. He stayed. I felt his breathing even, calm, and a different heat rising through my chest, a mix of guilt and desire I didn’t dare name.

I thought, without meaning to, that maybe these weren’t the right arms, that it wasn’t fair to anyone. But something in me had spent days surviving without really being alive, and it needed not to be alone.

—I’m here —he repeated, almost under his breath.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t cry. I stayed there, feeling his steady shoulder under my cheek, knowing he was holding me up with something that didn’t belong to me, but was for now the only thing keeping me from falling all the way.

I gathered my things and left the library without looking back. Not because we were done. But because it still didn’t feel like an ending.