Excerpt: .

Clinging

I gesture for her to stand. I ask if she wants to shower with me. She laughs. Jokes that she thought I never bathed. I look at her with a mock-offended face. She laughs again. Says fine. She stands. Walks toward the bathroom. Stops. Turns around. Asks if I’m coming. I get up. Tell her I just wanted to watch her walk for a moment. I like watching her walk. I follow her. She enters. I enter. I lock the door. She asks how we’ll know if someone comes. I shrug. Open the door. Tell her I don’t think we’ll take that long. We each undress ourselves. I see her naked for the second time today.

Lately I see her more without clothes than with them.

I hug her. Just body heat. It’s pleasant. It’s beautiful. I step into the shower. She steps in. Closes the curtain. I pretend to wonder aloud which knob is the cold one. She makes a frightened face. Says cold in a scared voice. Covers her breasts as if defending herself. Why does she do that? Though I can’t deny I like those gestures of hers. I point at the knobs. She points to the left one. Presses her hands harder over her chest. I love it. I open it. Slightly. Hot water comes out. I close it. Open the other. Cold. Open it more. Colder. I step fully under it. Pull her toward me. She lets out a tiny shriek. I laugh. She looks offended. I laugh. She splashes water into my eyes. I put her directly under the stream. She closes the tap. Grabs the soap. Tells me to turn around. I turn. She soaps my back. Finishes. Gives me the soap. She turns around by herself. I soap her back. She lifts her hair. I soap her neck. She turns. Extends her hand. I give her the soap. She soaps my arms. My legs. My chest. My groin. Down to my feet. She extends her hand. I take the soap from between her fingers. I soap her shoulders. Her breasts. Her arms. Her groin. Her legs. Down to her feet.

What we’re doing has nothing sexual about it. It’s strange. Almost everything we do lately has something sexual in it. I don’t love the path we’re on and I don’t know where it leads.

She turns. Opens the tap fully. The force of the water almost makes me fall. She laughs. Splashes water in my face while rinsing the soap off. I try to nudge her slightly so she’ll move closer. She does. I rinse myself. She splashes water in my face again. I spit water out of my mouth. Turn off the tap. We look at each other. She snaps her fingers. Steps out of the shower. Gets the floor wet. Grabs a towel. I ask why not two. She shakes her head. Replies, with obviousness, that two towels are for two people and that I was never here today. I laugh at my own stupidity. She finishes drying herself. Hands me the towel. Tells me to hurry, it’s almost six. I nod. She reminds me I have to be gone before then. I grab my clothes. Put on my uniform. She goes to her room. Puts on her pajamas. Comes out. I say goodbye at the door. Hug her. Leave. Cross the park. Walk.

I love her.

I enter the kitchen. Say hello. We talk about our days. I serve myself dinner. She goes to her room. I sit. Stand. Open the fridge. Look for juice. Or whatever’s there. Lemonade. I sit. Eat. When I follow her impulses. When I follow my impulses. I eat. We should go out someday to write and draw on the walls. We haven’t done that yet. She writes. I draw. Side by side. I drink. Months have passed since we last mentioned it. Why haven’t we done it? I eat. I have to remind her. I have to travel the world with her. Until we find our place. I eat. Sitting still watching the sun disappear. We’d sit there. Maybe holding each other. Maybe talking about something irrelevant. I drink. But deep down almost everything is irrelevant. Knowing how to bathe is relevant. Everything around us growing darker. I eat. Take my plate. Wash it. Streetlights would frame our silhouettes. Motionless. I open the fridge. Look for dessert. Without moving. Side by side. Not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to say. There’s ice cream. Summer approaches. The year ends. Held in silence. Why speak? Sometimes I just look at her and she understands. I take a small plate. A small spoon. Serve myself. Silence. I sit. The ice cream is good. Almost frozen. Silence doesn’t feel so frightening. I used to fear it. I used to fear falling silent with someone I liked. I spill ice cream on my pants. Tomorrow at school I’ll have a stain on my knee. Perfect. We can talk. We can be quiet. We can do whatever we want. I look for something to add to the ice cream. Pecans. I use them. I’d prefer peanuts, but no one likes them in this house. I rub my cheek. It hurt to bite a pecan. But it’s fine. I stand. Wash the plate. Let the plate and spoon dry. Sit again. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. Drink. Stand. Wash the glass. We could wash dishes together.

I put the pitcher away. It’s sweet to imagine it. I want to fall asleep on her stomach. Why? I go upstairs. Enter my room. Drop my backpack. Open it. Look for my pencil. Sketch a window. Open. Curtains moving. Waving. A couch. Two people sitting on it. Holding hands. Faceless. I just want to emphasize the hands clinging. As if tearing each other apart. I erase. Try again. Erase again. I never manage to capture the images in my head. Theory. Practice. They never match. The hands cling as if they’ll never let go. I keep darkening them over the rest of the drawing. I sit on the floor. Lean against the wall. Maybe that’s what we feel now. We don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let her go. I bite my pencil. I should sleep with her tonight. We’ve never slept together. Maybe it’ll be like the shower. Nothing sexual…

… "

–Continue reading in its original Castilian language at fictograma.com , an open source Spanish community of writers–