Chapter: Meeting and Trails
The rain stopped falling violently, but still oozed the city in a wet land aroma that seemed to clean the doubts of all who were around the street. Miguel and Alex walked aimlessly, letting the rhythm of their steps mark a comfortable and familiar compass, as if they had already known each other for a long time even if the truth was opposite: they had just been found and, nevertheless, they felt that they had already shared small gestures, looks and silencesThey weighed less when they were together.
They reached a side street, where the facades pushed their colors to the sidewalk and, in the shadows, small craft stores, independent libraries and a couple of bars that barely lit their neons when the night seemed to settle to stay to stay to stay for a while. They stopped in front of one of those used record stores, whose showcase showed a handful of vinyl abolled by time and a stacked poetry books stacked awkwardly. Alex let a laugh that sounded more to the relief of having encountered something simple and pleasant than any joke.
"Do you remember when you said that the city was like a book that nobody finishes reading?" Alex asked, pointing out the showcase.
"Yes," Miguel replied, smiling. "But now it gives me the impression that each page will have a margin for a margin note ... or for a hug."
Alex looked at Miguel's hand, intertwining his fingers so gently that the friction looked like a tacit agreement. You weren't, but two people who, without pretending, had found a way of walking together without pressures.
They entered the store, and the smell of old paper and book dust received their senses with warmth that seemed to counteract the humidity of the street. A young woman with curly hair, with a band shirt and glasses that could hide a curious look, greeted them with a head movement.
"Were something particular?" He asked, accommodating his glasses as if he were about to check a score.
"Some vinyl of love to the letter, or of those songs that do not forget," Miguel said, playful, without hiding the slight shyness that asked him not to show himself so safe.
"We have everything, but if you want something that sounds like a promise, I can recommend this," said the boy and took an album from the highest part of the shelf, turned it between the fingers and let the cover show a black and white photograph of a couple on a train platform. The title was simple, almost poetic: "The weight of a look."
Alex nodded with interest. "Put it." Sometimes music says what words do not reach.
The dependent placed the vinyl in an old team that seemed to have survived several generations of technology and presented a small portable speaker to listen to a sample. The first note was a soft guitar whisper, as if the day had decided to stay a little more. Miguel closed his eyes, letting the melody leakes inside and brought to the surface memories that had remained asleep. Alex, by his side, seemed to listen to the same song from another place in his history, and that gave them a type of complicity that he did not need explanations.
"What tells you this song?" Asked Miguel, at the end of the first face of the vinyl.
"That sometimes the questions have a way to answer themselves when you have the value of staying to listen to what the world wants to tell you," Alex replied, with the same mixture of seriousness and lightness that had been marking his interaction from the terrace.
They returned to the street with the music still resonating in their ears. They decided to sit in a bank that looked towards a small fountain, where the water fell in an almost therapeutic rhythm and the street lights drew gold lines on the wet floor. The conversation flowed naturally, as if the weather was a tightrope that held two desires to walk without a hurry.
"What took you to the city, exactly?" Miguel asked, without hiding that curiosity that made each question feel like an invitation to discover something new.
Alex scratched his neck slightly, as if the question deserved an answer he had not prepared. "I was answering answers that I already knew were not clear enough." A place where I could breathe without feeling that the past was pushing me from behind. And you, what brought you here, beyond rain?
"I suppose I needed to see what was happening if I stopped trying to be who I am not before others." At home, sometimes they told me that the way I laughed was "too much" or that I had to fit into a narrow idea of what it means to be a man. Here, at least, I met someone who offers a conversation without judgments, and that is already a gift.
The conversation took a tone that seemed light, but the words were weaving a network of confessions without drama, without the need to turn every detail into a great emotional moment. They talked about favorite food, of streets that reminded them of other places, of books that had marked different stages of their lives. Miguel discovered that Alex liked, for example, the photograph of landscapes that looked like patience recipes; that he liked the silence that arises between two people when the world seems to demand less.
"Sometimes I am surprised how much I like silence when he is with you," Alex said, and his gaze found Miguel's with clarity that seemed to demand a permission to stay.
-Me too. I think silence has its own language, and if we know how to listen, it says things that words cannot.
The afternoon was transforming into a succession of small rites: a notebook where Miguel scored ideas for future projects that he had in mind, each more warm and less realistic than the previous one, but all with a spark of possibility; A cup of hot chocolate in a cafeteriacorner, because the cold seemed to have decided to stay a little more; and the walk without destination that took them to a small cinema that had a billboard of independent films.
They decided to enter to see what could offer them a story on the screen that, at first glance, seemed to have nothing to do with them. The room was filled with discreet whispers, with the murmur of the lips that moved to comment what they saw, but without interrupting the experience of the film. It was a human drama, without great plot turns, focused on the daily life of two characters who faced simple decisions with an emotional weight that, however, was resolved with a mutual understanding.
Between scenes, Miguel and Alex exchanged looks that said more than the words: the certainty that, despite the doubts and uncertain of life, they could be there, together, standing in front of the screen as if the world was reduced to a couple of shared seats. When the film ended, they went out and the night air gave them a feeling of cleanliness: the city seemed to breathe with them, and the effort of the day dissolved in the tranquility of the night that was no longer so cold.
Back to Miguel's house - a small department with walls of a soft color that seemed to absorb the clarity of the afternoon - the conversation continued in a more intimate tone, but even without forcing any emotional climax. They prepared tea: a mixture of herbs that Miguel had discovered in a local market, with a vanilla note that reminded him of an childhood that had the fragrance of the most tender memories. While the water warmed, each one dealt with small tasks that, together, formed a kind of care ritual: Alex was in charge of cleaning the countertop, as if cleaning it was also a way of ordering the thoughts; Miguel took two cups and left the tea saquito prepared foreach.
"Do you think if I show you something more personal but not too intense?" Miguel asked, with a smile that made it clear that he was sharing something that he did not evaluate as a great turn, but as a detail that could bring them closer.
-Of course. I am here to know what you want to tell, not to demand anything else, "Alex replied, with a tone that invited confidence without pressure.
He opened a small blanket that had stacked in the back of the sofa and, carefully, took out an old notebook that seemed to have survived several removals. He placed it on the table and, with a slightly shy but determined gesture, opened the cover.
—It's my sketchbook, but they are not exactly drawings; They are ideas for projects that I have not finished. On each page there is a note, a thought, a fragment of something I wanted to save for me. Sometimes, when I feel lost, I reread these things and I realize that, in reality, I do not need to look for great solutions; I just need to remember why I started looking for.
Alex leaned the pages with respect, with the light of the lamp falling on the edges of the notebook and giving him an air of precious object. On a page there was a brief scene that looked like a childhood memory:
"A small house, the rain hitting the roof, my father cooking something simple that smelled of bread and mystery. I did not know what it meant to be brave, but I did know that the people you love gives you strength to try, again and again, without losing the smile."
"It's literature for the soul, right?" Said Miguel, with a slight laugh that noticed that he was sharing something fragile.
-Yeah. And sometimes it is more true than reality could say. There is something liberating in saying: here is what I am, and it is fine that exists, "Alex replied, turning the notebook so that Miguel could see it clearly.
They shared stories in the form of very short stories, fragments in which each one recognized an emotion or an experience that had been particularly significant. It was not an overflow of vulnerability without control, but a careful opening choreography: there was a minimum, another minimum was received, and a common land was built that did not demand guarantees, but offered the possibility of trust without hurry.
The conversation continued with lighter questions, so that the tone did not become heavy or self -promotional. They talked about their musical tastes, of trips they would like to do, of the cities that had left them a brand. Alex mentioned, with his eyes on the roof, that he had always loved the spaces that combined the urban with the natural, where people could breathe without the need to fulfill a strict social script. Miguel agreed, explaining that he liked the idea of a city that was not noisy by his own ego, but because of the diversity it houses: people everywhere, stories intertwined in a network that seemed to sustain themselves with a single thread of patience.
"I want to continue learning to listen," Miguel said, almost in a whisper, "not only you, but to the people who cross my way." And if you want to be there for that, I would like us to be together on that path, without pressure that everything ends in something definitive.
"I would like that too," Alex replied. "I don't want to hurry what could be, but I want there to be the possibility that, if that moment comes, it is because we have both decided that it is the natural step when two stories have already learned to read in a low voice.
The conversation was taking discrete steps, such as the advance of a boat that is carried away by the river without trying to control the current. To each pause, a new complicity note arose: a soft joke about a book that both had read, a shared anecdote, a small gesture that said a lot of words.
The night had already descended to a deeper tone in the room. The city's lights leaked through the window and drew warm strokes on the walls. Sometimes, the city looked like a living creature that slept with an among ajar, attentive to the movements of two people who were learning to meet.