Saval climbed the stairs to his house, each step feeling like an effort. When he walked in, he didn't turn on the light. He moved on autopilot. Dropped his keys on the table, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed onto the bed fully clothed.
The silence was heavy. On other nights, it might have felt comforting. But not this one. Tonight, silence was a witness.
He pulled out his phone and unlocked it, opening his chat with Semiel. At the top, there was an old photo — a blurry selfie from the day they'd gone to the park for ice cream. Semiel had a smear of it on his face. "You look like a baby," he'd said back then. And Semiel had laughed and told him at least he was a sexy baby. They had laughed until they cried.
He sighed. Started typing something.
—Did you get home okay?
He deleted it. Took a deep breath. Wrote again:
—That song was really pretty.
Deleted that too. Closed the chat.
He stared at the ceiling. Sometimes it felt like his heart was full of words, but none of them came out right. Like everything had to pass through some broken filter before it reached the world.
He thought about Semiel. About his voice. The way he'd said his name that night. How he'd avoided touching him — but stayed close. Too close. Like they both knew that one wrong move could break something.
He remembered an afternoon in the library. Semiel had been doodling in the corner of his notebook while Saval explained a reading. Out of nowhere, Semiel had said:
—You see the world in a weird way. Weird, but beautiful.
And then nothing else. Like the words had slipped out by accident.
Saval had laughed, not knowing what to say. Now, he wished he had. Wished he'd said something that let Semiel know he saw him too. That he'd always seen him.
But now, all of that felt so far away. Like it belonged to another life. A simpler time.
Semiel… you really are just my friend, right?
He unlocked his phone again. This time he typed:
—I don't know what we are. But sometimes I feel like if I ever got lost, you'd be the place I'd come back to.
He read it twice. It felt true. But he knew he couldn't send it. Not tonight. Not with that silence between them. Not with all that fear.
He saved it as a draft. Turned off the phone. Curled up on the bed, hugging the pillow like it could somehow bring order to the chaos in his chest.
—I messed it up, he whispered. But he wasn't even sure what he meant by that.
No—he knew why. He'd rejected him. And that had started all of this. Even if he didn't see it that way at the time. Should he have stopped it?
No. That would've been unfair to Semiel's feelings.
And there, staring at the ceiling, he thought about everything. About Antonella, and how he'd loved her. About the streams he hadn't done in forever. About David, Mía, and the rest of his friends.
But mostly, he thought about Semiel. He knew he'd hurt him. He just wasn't ready. Not now.
Maybe someday.
—There are things you don't say.
Not because you don't feel them… but because you don't know how to live with what comes after.
He closed his eyes. Hoping the night would swallow him whole.
And it did.