Chapter Text
I turned the tap, letting the bathtub begin to fill. The running water broke the stream of my thoughts as I took my shirt off, the fabric slipping from my hands, landing carelessly on the floor. I looked at myself in the mirror, and on the verge of tears I didn’t care to find the reason for their suddenness, I noticed how much my hair had grown: fluffier, messier, the brown a shade lighter, the tips burnt from the sun I’d been wrong to think I hadn’t enjoyed that much.
My eyes were blue, then green, sea tones shifting with tears.
I kept thinking about the gym lockers, about the jokes exchanged between Lamine and all the guys in our class that I would’ve put my hands on fire to bet they had watermelons instead of brains. He laughed with them, and I hated it. He talked about some models that had followed him, and I hated that too.
I even made a list of all the things he did that I couldn’t stand. A real one, written on a piece of paper I had to tear before throwing it in my room’s trash bin, just in case my mom decided to snoop, or in case he changed his mind and decided to visit me.
The list went like this:
1 – Totally ignored my existence
2 – Shared stories about his teammates he used to share only with me
3 – Acted like some show-off, pretending he cared about the things these other guys were talking about
4 – Met his ex (was smiling ear to ear with her, a couple of hypocrites).
5 – Walked behind me and didn’t talk to me
But then, the reflection of someone else appeared in the mirror, making me stop recalling the pathetic list. My mind was being funny. Miserably funny. Why was I suddenly seeing her?
Klara was looking straight ahead, beaming. Her long black hair fell like silk over her shoulders, reminding me of an agile winter fox. Her allure untouched, while I was the epitome of uncertainty. Instinctively, I brought my hand to my head, fingers threading through my hair. It felt coarse in comparison. Unlikeable. The opposite of hers. The opposite of what her ex-boyfriend — and my ex best friend, who had played boyfriend with me — liked.
I glanced down, unwilling to stare at our reflections side by side, or the way she looked happy when tears were still running down my face.
The drawer beneath the sink was cluttered with my father’s things: razors, aftershave, a chipped comb. I was supposed to take a shower and leave to meet Marc, not stand there envying people whose lives had been generous enough not to envy mine.
I took my father’s shaving machine and lifted it, staring at the blades. I waited for something to stop me. Nothing did. I slid it into the socket and switched it on. The click made me flinch. When I looked back at the mirror, Klara’s mirage was gone.
I raised the machine to my temple, hesitating for a second, my brain questioning the impulse. Then I pushed. It wasn’t as hard as they made it look at the barber. Hair fell away in soft clumps, collecting in the sink, on the floor, everywhere. I kept going. When I was done, my reflection stared back at me, judging.
I didn’t look like her.
I didn’t look like him.
I didn’t look like ‘Cubarsí’ either.
🕰♡🕰
If global warming weren’t global warming, the leaves would’ve already begun to fall, and the street would be dressed properly for autumn. The sun, even as it started to leave earlier each day, wouldn’t have lingered so generously with its warmth. But the concrete stairs of the narrow street leading to Marc’s studio apartment were still hot beneath them, and the air didn’t seem to get any chiller. The neighborhood, steep and tucked with rows of small apartments, was so quiet it felt forgotten, cursed by time. Somewhere above, an old lady shook a carpet on her small balcony, the dull thud of it drifting as the only sound.
They sat on opposite ends of the steps, Marc a few stairs higher, Pau lower down. Their long legs were folded awkwardly, knees drawn in, shoes resting on different levels. From below, Pau had to tilt his head to meet Marc’s gaze, who was trying hard to keep a straight face after bullying Pau’s new look for almost an hour. They even went to a barber to fix it because, as Marc had said, he looked like he was part of some indie teenage movie where the very philosophical main character goes through his biggest life crisis. Khem. That had actually been Pau’s plot since the accident.
“Stop looking at me like that.” He whined.
It wasn’t the best decision Pau had made recently, not the worst either, running was still up there, on top. And by some inexorable devotion he had let take root inside him, both were born from the same impulse, stirred by the same thought, the same person. As a lonely, sick child, he’d grown greedy with company, with the attention Lamine would give him, so much so that now, left without it, he didn’t know what to do, where to charge his heart, or where to place his hands. Marc wouldn’t understand that. No one would. Pau was having a hard time understanding it himself.
“Sorry, Cuba, but it’s hilarious,” Marc said, beaming, his foot nudging Pau’s knee. “I mean, it doesn’t look bad.”
It really didn’t. The barber had said it made his eyes stand out more, and that he looked older too.
‘Now you look like a man,’ he’d added, ‘until you smile. Then you’re a huge baby.’
Marc had argued that Pau without his smile wasn’t Pau. The barber - Carlos, famous in the whole neighborhood for his skills, had cracked a few millennial jokes and then agreed in the end. Pau had winced, thinking that that had been the whole point. Hadn’t it? To change.
“Just…” Marc hesitated, his smile cunning. “Are you trying to impress someone?”
“No.”
Pau nudged Marc’s foot back with his knee. Marc did the same, making him push again and start a small, wordless fight between them, until it died out on its own. That conversation stopped there. The lady finished with her chores and closed her balcony door, granting them their privacy. They could’ve gone inside Marc’s house and played Fortnite, but the weather was too good to waste it indoors, and Marc had a fear of Pau manipulating him into doing homework.
Staying sat like that, Pau took a good look at his friend, who was scrolling on his phone, humming a song he’d heard chanted during Lamine’s games for La Masia before. He found himself curious about something. Marc was tall. Marc was handsome. Marc was patient, so patient with Pau it only made the latter try harder to get on his nerves. It barely worked. And Marc was nice, so nice he still acted like Pau was normal, like everything between them could be normal inside their friendship. All of this, especially point number one and two, would’ve made Marc popular if he’d gone to school, and were enough to make him popular with girls who were fans of the academy. Fast forward, because reasoning with Pau took two business days on good ones: it meant he probably knew a thing or two about them. Girls.
“Are you seeing anyone?” Pau asked.
Everyone he knew was in a relationship. Everyone, in this case, referred to the people in the student committees he was part of, president or not…and Lamine. The first group was a general observation, the second was a guess, but it didn’t require much speculation.
Marc closed his phone, the hum coming to an end. He leaned back on his hands, gaze drifting to one of the apartments above, surprisingly considering the question instead of laughing it off. Pau pushed his knee again, a short, annoyed huff leaving him.
“Hey!”
“You?” Marc brought his gaze back to him, his eyebrows lifting, satisfied with the bits of annoyance. Then, he leaned closer and pinched Pau’s cheek, thumb and forefinger warm against his skin.
“Stop messing,” Pau snapped but a smile escaped, swatting his hand away. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Do you think I’d hang out this much with you if I had a girlfriend?”
“Ouch.” Pau pressed a hand to his chest, making a dramatic face. “That hurts.”
Marc shrugged, and reached out again, this time pinching Pau’s other cheek. He would’ve played with his hair if Pau hadn’t turned into a hair dresser earlier that day.
“You wouldn’t hang out with me either if Yamal wasn’t ghosting you.”
Pau’s looked down at their legs, tangled in a mess of knees and sneakers on different steps. It sounded familiar, the turn Marc was taking this conversation.
“He’s busy with football,” he muttered. It wasn’t a very convincing thing to say to another football player who probably had international breaks memorized.
Lamine was free these days. An international break lasted from ten days up to two weeks, Google said, and Pau had to deal with Lamine’s grudges now that he was no longer an exception.
Marc’s hand lingered on his cheek for a second, as if reconsidering the contact before retreating. “Does he know what really happened that day?”
Pau breathed out, shoulders slumping. “No,” he said, frowning at the scuffed white of Marc’s sneaker resting on the step above his own, remembering the white coat of his doctor.
“He can’t know.”
♡
The walk back to Pau’s home got Marc talking about his nonexistent love life. He wasn’t really looking for anything romantic right now. Teenagers were obsessed with complicating their lives and then turning into boring, burnt-out adults. He didn’t want to go with that flow. It was probably cliché, but he only thought about getting back into shape and focusing on football.
He said his first kiss had happened last summer with a girl back in his hometown. They’d gotten close during his vacations there. Marc’s mom worked as a caregiver for the girl’s grandmother, and Marc sometimes tagged along to help with cooking (that’s the excuse he used since the girl kept asking him to visit). It had been awkward the first time, barely counting as a kiss with how inexperienced they both were, but that hadn’t stopped them from kissing again. Marc laughed while telling the story, his voice fluttering a little when he reached the part where he had to say goodbye to her because training was starting, and they eventually stopped texting each other.
Pau was hooked, nodding at Marc’s resolution about teenagers, smiling at the failed love story. His friend went on, saying how boys always talked about these things in dressing rooms. Who’d done what. With whom. How many girls were messaging them, how fast things escalated. He said he never really got the point of bragging about attention like it was some kind of score. If someone liked you, fine. If they didn’t, also fine. Why turn it into a competition?
Pau knew someone who would’ve fit perfectly into those conversations. Lamine had a lot to brag about in that regard. He said as much to Marc, but Marc stopped, blinked at him, then scoffed and turned back around, choosing not to share any further opinion. Pau let it go.
When they reached the entrance of his building, it was already night. He didn’t really want to say goodbye. His mother would be shocked to see his new hairstyle, his room would feel empty, his bed even emptier, and his mind would replay every kiss he’d shared with Lamine, like a punishment.
Marc pulled him into a hug, and like he’d decided not to let it go unsaid, whispered, “You already know what I think about you two, Cuba.” It was an unfinished thought from earlier, but Pau was glad he’d brought that up again. “You and Yamal.”
“That we look like a couple?” he joked, remembering that phone call.
Marc smiled. “Among other things.”
“I’m too mean to my heart sometimes,” Pau said, his breath finally easing out of him. His head rested in the crook of Marc’s neck, and his hands fell loose around Marc’s waist. “My heart isn’t half as mean to me as my mind is.” He continued, lower. “And my heart is really mean.”
Marc listened, letting Pau be vulnerable as he rarely allowed himself to be. Then, he nuzzled his cheek against the side of Pau’s head, pulling him closer and swaying their bodies together, “How did Yamal put up with someone as dramatic as you all those years?” He asked, softly.
“I took it after him.” Pau laughed bitterly.
“I can see.”
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Pau considered letting the devil win the very next morning, by using his condition to take a leave just like his doctor had advised him to do whenever things became inconvenient or overwhelming. But he would’ve needed at least six days, and his mother wouldn’t allow that. Yes, six full days. That was how long Lamine would still be attending school before his league break was over, and, perhaps, how long it would take for Pau’s hair to grow a bit more to be less noticeable, though with a bald father, genetics weren’t exactly on his side.
But at 6:45, he got out of bed anyway.
He went through his morning routine like a robot, brushing his teeth, washing his face, pulling on clothes without lingering too long over any particular choice. His anxiety was unnecessary, he wasn’t close with anyone there, no one would care whether he cut his hair or not. He’d go like any other day, write down what the teachers explained and engage in small conversations with his classmates (not Lamine), again, like any other day.
That, it turned out, had been an underestimation.
People noticed immediately, and without the tact he’d hoped for. Someone from his literature class stopped him in the hallway to say it suited him, then threw in an army joke. A girl he’d once helped during a math exam (and never spoken to again) smiled his way; a minute later, there was a new follow request on his Instagram. One of the teachers even paused in the doorway, blinking at Pau before coming over to ask if everything was alright. Klara noticed him as well, her face lighting up as she waved and gave a thumbs-up.
Pau only smiled. He was good at that, as Marc had said. Don’t know how to take a compliment? Smile. Don’t know if the comment is backhanded? Smile. Want the attention to move elsewhere? Smile. Feel like you don’t belong there because the seat next to you is empty? Smile. Though this one faded almost as soon as it appeared.
♡
The first class was biology, the board was filled with diagrams of leaves and arrows pointing from sunlight to glucose, that Pau copied in his notebook, aware he wouldn’t remember anything later. He told himself the worst was over. Lamine wasn’t there to ignore him, nor see the sudden change. He probably hadn’t bothered to wake up. Before, he would’ve set at least twenty alarms to make sure he arrived at the entrance at the same time as Pau, always a little groggy, hair a mess and eyes tender. He’d show up with two cartons, a strawberry milk for Pau, a chocolate one for himself, his bag filled with snacks he’d leave on his best friend’s table in the breaks between their lessons.
Pau couldn’t remember when was the last time he drank strawberry milk, the vending machine was calling for him.
The bell rang, and the teacher rattled off a list of assignments that required illustrations and digital layouts, helping those secret future graphic designers find themselves. Pau was scribbling mindlessly — little bears, strawberries, bits of nonsenses. He kept doing it even when the door opened and the one person missing decided to show up. Even when said person greeted his other classmates and walked toward his seat, his steps slowing as he approached Pau.
The latter found himself pressing his pen harder against the paper, the tip biting through the page and leaving a sharp imprint on the one underneath. When Lamine’s shadow fell over him, he looked up and the plan from the other day to avoid staring at each other was abruptly abandoned. For a few seconds, the people around them faded into an indistinct mess of smudged shapes, forgotten in their periphery. It was just the two of them again, like it had always been meant to be - alone in their own world, everyone else moving outside.
Pau was completely tangled in the sight of an unsettled Lamine whose eyes were moving cautiously tracing Pau’s face, his hair, trying to grasp the change. Pau’d grown used to the surprised looks over the course of that morning, more because he hadn’t cared about them, but when it came to Lamine, indifference was as useless as sleeping with the other’s jersey on, pretending it wasn’t making him miss his friend more.
Was Lamine hating it?
His lips parted, his brows drew in, and the question rising in his eyes didn’t make it past his teeth. Last time they were together, his hands had threaded through Pau’s hair, chest to chest, flesh to flesh. Now the gaze sewed a string around Pau’s lungs. He dropped his attention back to his notebook, clearing his throat, creating room to breathe.
“Sit.” He said. “You’re blocking the board.”
Lamine shoved his hands into his pockets with a huff and stepped back, the leg of Pau’s table scraping as his knee bumped it. Dragging the chair out with a rough tug, he sat down, teeth worrying at his lower lip. He stayed only for that class and left as the bell signaled its end.
When Pau came back from lunch break, he found a strawberry milk on his desk. He took it in his hands and held it against his chest, resting his head on the table, staring at Lamine’s seat. It couldn’t get more hollow than this.
Klara appeared a minute later, running and smiling, but the enthusiasm drained from her face when she realized it was only Pau there, and his drink. She left without greeting. He realized he’d never greeted her first either.
ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ
..typing
Hey
[Delete]
Hey, how are you?
[Delete]
Can we talk?
[Delete]
Can we
Typing…
Can we talk?
It was 2 a.m. when Pau slipped out of bed and began wandering his room, typing and deleting what he wanted to say to Lamine after so many days of ignoring each other. He knew the message would never be sent, still he wrote everything that came to mind, letting the words pile up where they couldn’t hurt anyone but him.
When there was nothing left to add, he lay back down and waited for the sky to pale, and for the birds to start their morning song.
I’m sorry I couldn’t make it that day, I really did try. I know how much it means to you, I would never choose something else over you. I just couldn’t stop it.
Can you forgive me? Lamine, I miss you. I miss my best friend. Don’t you miss me too? I think you do. I think that’s why you left that drink for me. I think you’re just better than me at hiding it.
You know, I feel so much and I don’t even know what I’m feeling.
I used to hate not knowing, now I don’t know anything at all.
I used to hate crying, now it feels like I’m always crying.
I used to hate being far from you, and now I don’t even see you.
[Delete]
I love you, but I'm also dying, and yet, I don't want to die without spending a lifetime with you.
[Delete]
ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ
The problem with having a swimming pool inside your school was that it became less accessible, and more useless, if you had another class after P.E. You had to change into a swimsuit, something everyone was too lazy to do, especially on winter days, and then take a shower afterward, which took even more time. All that effort for barely twenty minutes in the water wasn’t really worth it.
But if it was your last class of the day, like it was for Pau (who was excused to go home and would most likely leave) and his classmates, things could get a little more entertaining. They didn’t have to rush, and they were allowed to stay past the last bell, dive in properly, play until their muscles ached pleasantly. Even when the teachers left, the security guard ‘kept’ an eye on the kids, letting them stay until late afternoon. The only condition was to clean the place afterward. They held races in pairs or trios, and the losers took on that responsibility. All that mattered was that no complaints reached the principal.
As another P.E. class was about to start, Pau watched everyone split off, boys drifting toward the pool, girls toward the gym. He turned the other way, toward the library, where it was quiet and overstocked with words that were supposed to hush the thoughts his brain had been multiplying all morning. When will he get to see Lamine again?
He’d volunteered to take to the library the projects his classmates had submitted for literature, a retelling of Iliad, reimagined in cardboard, printed verses, and questionable metaphors. Five thick folders were stacked against his chest. The teacher, Mr. Garcia, had asked twice if it was okay, if he’d rather ask someone else. Pau had built enough rapport with him to joke that carrying folders would be less tiring than watching the classroom be a mess. Teacher’s pet allegations weren’t affecting him.
Laughter from the pool and cheers from the girls in the gym filled the otherwise empty hallway, the rest of the school quiet behind closed doors as teachers went on with their lessons. Another fifty minutes, and they’d be free to go.
Pau held the folders tightly as he walked, steps light, his eyes lingering on the vending machine in the corner, and the row of flavored milk behind the glass.
His source of information about Lamine these days continued to be Marc who’d told Pau (without Pau asking) that Barcelona would be back as a whole team tomorrow. He’d seen Lamine train individually with other players who were either recovering or not called up with their national teams. Sometimes the youngest player in Laliga would stop by to play with the academy boys, making it clear why he belonged to another league. Maybe it was a biased observation but Marc had also said Lamine would pass the ball to everyone except him. Pau had believed it.
“Need help?” A raspy voice suddenly made him flinch out of his mind’s labyrinth.
Pau’d been so deep into it he hadn’t heard the footsteps coming from behind. Sensing the folders about to slip, he adjusted his hands to prevent a catastrophe, and turned, finding Lamine not just inside his head but next to him too, real and close. It was a beautiful surprise, but beautiful things in Pau’s dictionary, always came with small bruises.
A small distance remained, dense with familiarity he’s longed to find its way to him. For days now, he’d been guarding the classroom door, eyes glued to the wood, hiding a cartoon of chocolate milk under his desk as a returned favor, or a little excuse for a little closure. But Lamine skipped classes and Pau brought them back home, his mother storing the drinks in the fridge, waiting for someone who liked that particular flavor to show up and paint their days with bright colors again.
“Teacher sent me,” Lamine added, justifying his presence, as if it was a need for that.
His eyes drifted upward, taking in Pau’s new look once again, and once again, failing to hide the way it caught him off guard. He winced, looking somewhere past his shoulders, escaping from the intensity of Pau’s gaze.
Pau shifted the folders in his arms, nodding. It felt easier than speaking. He didn’t know what to say or if Lamin wanted him to say anything. With his hands stripped of permission to reach, and his lips of their borrowed sweetness, Pau realized he missed talking to Lamine more than anything. Losing a lover felt survivable, losing his best friend did not.
Lamine was wearing one of his many oversized hoodies - the sleeves bunched at his wrists - and shorts, his lanky legs dotted with scrapes Pau wanted to count and cover with cute plasters like cats, deer, foxes. It would’ve annoyed him, Pau knew, but he wouldn’t have said no. At least, he hadn’t used to.
“Give me some,” Lamine muttered, already reaching for the folders. His fingers brushed Pau’s wrist as he took three, stacking them more neatly against his own chest, his little black curls mussed like he’d tugged at them on his way there.
Pau felt the weight leave immediately, but relief didn’t come. Lamine started walking ahead. Pau followed. Their arms grazed once, and both of them corrected the distance. The girls were still being too loud in the gym, the boys were probably under water in the pool. The hallway felt wider and longer than it was. It stretched and stretched in front of Pau, the same way unease and fervency stretched and stretched inside him. He had so much to say, and so little words to articulate what he wanted to say. Yet, they kept walking side by side, like two normal classmates, and the normality sat wrong between them.
“I met with Garcia,” Lamine broke the silence, and Pau drew his attention back to him as they reached the library door. The ‘don’t be loud’ sign greeted them before it was blocked by Lamine’s shoulder, his body leaning into it. Pau dropped his gaze to the plastered tiles, thinking what would’ve changed if he’d sent that message that night.
“…to talk about the upcoming exams.” Lamine went on. “He remembered he hadn’t given you the key, so… yeah. Told me to bring it to you.”
The library was locked most of the time, and the only way to get access was through the literature teachers. A rule born after a series of strange incidents behind the shelves, courtesy of shameless students. Pau internally scolded himself for forgetting to ask about the key first. He wasn’t being as clever these days.
Humming, he ran a quick recap of everything that had happened since Lamine’s debut to figure out what he’d done — other than the apparent betrayal of skipping it — to make the latter so compelled to explain himself.
‘I wouldn’t be here, with you, if the teacher hadn’t asked me to.”
Good for you, seriously.
“Where is it?” Pau asked, with a scowl on his face and annoyance in his voice. “The key.”
He would’ve gone to the end of the world for Lamine even if no one had asked him to. Lamine would’ve done the same. Well, the one he used to share a hospital bed with. This new Lamine was fake.
“In my pocket,” Lamine answered, one brow lifting, registering the shift in Pau’s mood.
Pau rolled his eyes and stacked the remaining folders on top of the ones Lamine was already holding, less carefully than Lamine had handled them.
“Hold these.”
Lamine made a small sound of surprise but complied, hugging the folders closer, balancing their weight. Wanting to be done with it, to just go home, Pau reached forward. The hoodie was too big, it draped loosely over Lamine’s frame, and Pau lifted the front of it slightly, fingers dipping into the pocket, brushing only empty cloth. There was nothing. Lamine edged closer to the door to give him space, but realizing it didn’t help at all, he straightened again, back pressing flat, eyes flicking up toward the ceiling. His elbows lifted awkwardly, folders pinned between his forearms and chest, the stack wobbling.
“Wrong pocket,” he said, his tone too neutral, and Pau felt the loss of his former immunity to that indifference all over again.
“Shorts” he added, a beat late.Why hadn’t he just given Pau the key, as told, and left?
Pau exhaled through his nose and moved closer, slipping his hand beneath the hem of the hoodie, caressing the soft cotton, then skin, accidentally. Lamine sucked in a breath — more like he’d forgotten to breathe. Or that could’ve just been Pau projecting.
“Seriously?” Pau muttered. The key wasn’t there either.
Lamine laughed, nervous. Pau’s chest felt too crowded.
“The other pocket.”
He turned to the other one, on Lamine’s left, and to steady himself, or maybe Lamine, his free hand came to rest at his waist. The contact lingered even as, with a loud thud, the last folder slipped free and hit the floor.
Lamine didn’t try to catch it.
“Found it,” Pau exhaled, retreating his hands.
The key was cool between his sweaty fingers. He stepped back, stooping to retrieve the fallen document before unlocking the door and pushing it open. The hinge sighed softly. Lamine stayed where he was for a second longer.
Inside, the library welcomed them with nothing but quietness and the smell of old wood. Pau walked in first, his eyes catching the cover of ‘The Elegance of the Hedgehog’ by Muriel Barbery forgotten opened in one of the shelves. Whoever had left it unfinished had missed the best part. And he couldn’t just leave that masterpiece like that so he went and closed it gently, sliding it back between the others, aligning the spine with the love every book deserved to receive, especially his favorites. Lamine quietly watched him do his thing.
Once done, Pau set the folder down on the return desk besides the stacks of other classes. Behind him, Lamine did the same.
They straightened at the same time. It was supposed to be the moment Lamine excused himself and left. This was Pau’s space. Last year, the football player hadn’t been around school enough to follow him into the library like this. But before high school they used to go to a small bookshop not far from Pau’s house, where Pau would read while Lamine fell asleep against him, first on his shoulder, then fully on his lap, heavy and trusting. That was how Pau learned how to turn pages with one hand, careful not to wake his best friend.
Now instead of leaving, Lamine stepped closer. And instead of flinching away, Pau stayed where he was, waiting for him to dare a little more. And Lamine did. He lifted his hand, his fingers brushing the air above Pau’s head, stopping just short, as if measuring what had changed, remembering where his hand used to rest. Then gently, he touched Pau’s hair, whispering, ‘Looks good on you.’ with the smallest, kindest smile on his face. Unintentionally, or perhaps very intentionally, taking them both back to how beautiful things had been before summer came to an end.
His hand fell a moment later, and Pau without thinking reached for it, but Lamine was already stepping away.
“I…There’s chocolate milk in my bag,” Pau said, his hand suspended midair.
Lamine was already gone, so the room kept the words for itself.