Chapter 3: Paths that cross without hurry
The rain had stopped falling completely, but the smell of wet ground was still suspended in the air when Miguel and Alex returned home after the plan of the previous day. They had walked without looking for a specific destination, letting the streets, each with their own rhythm, dictated a soft cadence. Deep down, the city's lights continued to blink as if they were thinking of themselves, and they were enough to be there, without writing great scripts for the future.
The next morning, however, it had a different clarity. The city seemed more laid, the most patient buildings, as if they accepted the presence of two people who were discovering that the proximity is not an exam, but a conversation sustained in small acts. In the kitchen, Miguel prepared coffee and toast, and Alex was in charge of cutting a fruit to accompany breakfast. The sound of cups colliding slightly from each other was a rhythmic reminder that routines can be loss without losing their simplicity.
"Do you have plans for today?" Asked Miguel, supporting a cup on the table and looking for a sign of interest in Alex's gaze that was not demanding.
"Today I would like to explore more than the city with you, if you think it's fine." Maybe a walk through the old neighborhood and then a stop in that flea market that you told me. But if you prefer to stay at home, it is fine, "Alex replied, with that mixture of soft determination that he had gained from the terrace.
"All that seems good." We can start with the old neighborhood, and if the city invites us to something else, we let us guide us. Without haste, you know. "Miguel smiled, and in his voice a tone of complicity that seemed to say was leaked: we continued building this without fear.
They decided to go out with a small fabric bag to collect objects that, as they were finding, could become memories. The walk through the old neighborhood offered them a kind of living map: facades with faded colored doors, balconies that supported small plants and ropes dyed by the sun sun. In every corner, a conversation: about the history of the city, about the people who passed, on how each object that was sold in the market brought with it a story that was intertwined with its own.
They reached the flea market, a place that looked like a time capsule: past decades radiographs, cameras that had seen better days, canned cans that kept secrets of grandparents that were no longer. Among the positions, an older woman sold old notebooks, each with worn caps and slightly yellowish pages for the time. Alex approached a pile of sketchbooks, and Miguel, like who reads a book he already knows, let curiosity guide him to a vinyl shelf.
"What caught your attention here?" Asked Miguel, holding an album with the torn cover that seemed to have survived several removals.
—The promise of a story behind each object. Sometimes, what seems simple contains an entire world. —Alex replied, taking another notebook that had a drawing of a lighthouse and the signature of an unknown artist.
Between soft laughs and comments that did not look for great revelation, they found a small oxidized music box. Inside, a small folded note said: "For those who seek calm in the midst of noise."Miguel opened it carefully and let the soft melody escape, a tune that seemed to have traveled for years to perch on his ears. The box stopped ringing, but the feeling was: the idea that even the old could bring a feeling of serenity, as if they could understand that calm is not always a place, sometimes it is a shared mood.
"Who should save this music box as a reminder of this day," Miguel said, with a look that said that the simplicity of an object can sustain an emotion without asking for explanations.
-That seems perfect to me. Sometimes the most valuable thing is what we don't need to explain to feel it, don't you think? Alex replied, placing a hand in Miguel's forearm as if he wanted to anchor that moment to his own memory.
Throughout the day, the conversation was alternating between light issues and small flashes of vulnerability that they did not press, but offered a window to intimacy they were already building. They talked about the family, of the expectations that each of those words had left in their own history, and, shy, what it meant for each one to live their sexuality in an environment that sometimes seemed more comfortable for the city than in front of the family.
"I sometimes wonder how it would be if one day my family knows it naturally," Alex confessed, with his voice staying a little in my throat, as if the words cling to an area that feared to break.
"I've thought about it too." But I also think that, although the answer is late, the important thing is that we can be honest with ourselves. And if someone cannot accept that, maybe it is because they have not yet discovered its own inner map, "Miguel replied, without dramatizing, with a serenity that seemed to grow with each sentence.
The market ended up becoming a small discovery route: try a piece of apple cake from a position, talk with a book seller who recommended a travel and photography novel, and finish in a coffee with a terrace that gave to the main street. Coffee had a kind of peace that seemed to hug anyone to enter. They asked for two cups of cold coffee with vanilla syrup and a portion of coconut cake, because they liked that mixture of flavors that seemed to say that, even in a city of lights, what mattered was the conversation.
Sitting on the edge of the table, they looked through the gestures of the other clients. A group of young people who talked about a concert, a woman who read poems in a low voice, an old man who told stories to someone who looked like her grandson. At that time, the city seemed smaller and, at the same time, richer in meanings.
"Today I want to propose something different, without hurry, but I would like we were open to consider if we think it's good," said Miguel, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Tell me," Alex replied, supporting the elbows on the table and bringing the body closer to listen more attention.
—We can try a common project, something that is not a great goal, but an activity that allows us to see how our communication works day by day. For example, once a week, each one chooses a different activity to do together: an exhibition, a ceramic workshop, a walk through a neighborhood that we do not know, or even cook a childhood recipe of some of us. The important thing is that it is something that allows us to continue knowing ourselves without "what we are" or "what they will say." What do you think?
Alex smiled, a gesture that seemed like a permission for the idea to stay and consolidate. -I like it. I like the idea of a ritual that allows us to see if our affinity is sustained in different circumstances. And if any of these activities makes us see that perhaps we are more compatible than we expected, perfect; And if not, it is well, because what we have already shared already has value.
The rest of the afternoon spent softly: they walked through a nearby park, they sat down to listen to a musician who played a version of a song they both knew, and discovered talking about simple things that, strangely, could become chapters of a story of a storyShared. In the afternoon of the afternoon, the conversation was weaving a thread that seemed to unite the scattered pieces of each one: yearnings, fears, habits and curiosity of continuing to explore what happens when two stories cross without pretending to be an end, but a continuum.
Back to Miguel's apartment, the afternoon was reserved for the routine that had already begun to build as a small private ceremony: prepare dinner together. One cooked while the other read the shopping list in a low voice, and, from time to time, laughs were exchanged about a culinary error that became a shared memory. His conversation, although relaxed, had a constant thread of attention: they were paying attention, they were learning to listen to the signs of the other, and each gesture looked like a small vote of trust.
"What do you feel more at home when you are with me, Alex?" Asked Miguel for a pause moment, while trying a pinch of salt in tomato sauce.
Alex crossed his hands on the table, thinking for a moment before responding. "The feeling that I don't need to pretend anything to accept me." I can say what happens for my head and I don't have to measure each word. And, above all, that silence can also be comfortable, because we know that we are not obliged to fill every second with conversation to demonstrate something.
"That gives me peace." I also want this place, this time, to be a shelter in which we can be without demands, "said Miguel, and his voice softened in a kind of mute promise.
Dinner ended in a kind of daily rite: eat slowly, clean the table together, and then, in the room, accommodate to watch a movie that was not too light or too dramatic. They chose something that could accompany the conversation, a reminder that everyday life can also be an adventure if you share with someone you feel good.
With the film on screen, the background theme remained the possibility of a shared future, but without that becoming an imposition. In scenes of the film, two characters were also on their own discovery trip: not necessarily breaking barriers, but learning to understand each other with patience. At the end of the film, the silence of the room became warmer, more full of comfort that seemed to sustain them in their own form of love: discreet, attentive, and full in their stillness.
Before sleeping, Miguel dropped a soft question, measuring his words like who proves a note to see if he fits a melody:
"If I tell you tomorrow I want to stay there, what would make you think it's too soon?"
Alex, who had been looking at the wall, turned his head and gave him an answer that sounded to a reasonable decision and without drama:
"If you feel that you are pressing to be something you are not, or if you think this meeting has to solve everything immediately, then it might seem soon. But if you feel it is natural to advance because there is curiosity, trust and desire to continue knowing us, then it is not early. For me, the important thing is that each step is aware and accepted by both.
"Then we move on, without hurry but without pause," Miguel concluded, approaching to perch with Alex on the corner of the couch.
They settled so that they could rest with some proximity, without invading the space of the other. The sound of the street, filtered by the curtains, gave them a kind of background music that seemed to whisper that the city agreed with its way of moving forward: slow, safe, and full of possibilities. The previous night had been a start; This second day became an statement that the meeting was not a coincidence, but the opening of a shared path that could be traveled calmly.
With the passing of the days, things between Miguel and Alex took a more authentic texture: it was not only deep conversations in picturesque places, but about the sum of small daily gestures that were building a trusted base. There were habits, anecdotes of childhood, and, occasionally, the fears or insecurities that, surprisingly, did not scare the other but became a common terrain to better understand each other.
A weekend, they decided to turn off the city's lights for a few hours and looked for a more natural place to be, a nearby hiking route where the air was clearer and the silence had a different flavor. They left early, with a backpack containing water, a cereal bar, a camera that Alex carried to rehearse a couple of landscape photographs that he liked. The way was simple, and the conversation, more contained, focused on describing what they were seeing, letting the images speak when the words fell short.
Sometimes those silences said a lot. In a pause to rest, Miguel took a small notebook and drew a figure that represented two people walking together, with a soft line that united them. It was not a commitment, but a reminder that they were in it, that the step they took was a step that both chose carefully.
"I like this rhythm," Alex said, watching the drawing with a mixture of tenderness and curiosity. "This seems to be our tempo." Not fast, not slow when it should not, but the one that allows you to breathe and look without fear.
During the walk, they shared small family stories, anecdotes that had made them laugh at the time and that, by telling them, allowed them to better understand why each one was as he was. None of the stories was loaded with tragedy or great dramas; They were simple stories of childhood, errors and successes that, when telling them, showed that life, sometimes, is composed of tiny moments that, together, weigh more than a great revelation.
When they reached the middle of the path, they stopped to observe a clearing with a modest view of the city in the distance. The sun that appeared between the branches left a golden halo on the face of both, as if nature wanted to underline the beauty of what did not intend to be a film scene, but a real experience: two people who allow themselvesIt does not demand an end of romantic novel.
"What gives you security at this time?" Miguel asked, without pressing, letting the question float in the air just a few seconds.
"The feeling of freedom to be myself, and the certainty that you can also be yourself." And, above all, the idea that we can make mistakes without a brutal fall, because we are learning to sustain each other, "Alex replied, with the low voice, but firm.
The return was lighter, with soft laughs and the promise to channel their time so that they continue to discover new things without losing what has already been built. Upon arriving home, the day ended with a shared dinner in the kitchen, an almost domestic scene that seemed to seal the idea that the everyday can be an experience of growth if it is shared with someone that is worth it.
On the following nights, Miguel and Alex began to understand that what they were designing was not a hurry story or immediate rupture, but a process: a way of existing together that could be seen in small daily decisions. Every morning, when they woke up, they looked at each other with a smile that said more than any word: "We are here." Every afternoon, when they said goodbye with a soft hug, they knew it was not an end, but a pause to meet and continue.