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Chapter Text

8 years later

F

“Dear passengers, this is your captain speaking. We’ve landed now in Copenhagen. The local time is 02:04 PM and the temperature is 20 degrees Celsius and sunny. Please remain seated with your seatbelts on until the plane stops. It was a pleasure flying with you. Enjoy your time in Copenhagen.”

When the voice from the speakers goes silent, I look to my left and notice that Sergio’s still sleeping. I nod my head in disbelief but then I smile. These little pills really do knock him out.

I could get on them, too.

But then again nah. I gave up pills long ago.

“Sergio,” I say quietly to his ear. “Wake up.”

Nada.

I nudge him on the shoulder. “Sergio, wake up.”

He grunts, then pushes my hand away. “We landed,” I tell him.

“Really?” his voice raspy, eyes are still closed.

“Yeah, come on. You slept through the whole thing.”

“It’s the pills,” he murmurs and I smile again.

People rush to get out of their seats once the plane stops. They open the overhead lockers and push against each other to leave as soon as possible. Me and Sergio sit comfortably with the intention to leave only once everybody leaves but that’s until the guy in our row by the window asks us to move, because he wants to move too.

Sergio rolls his eyes.

We both clumsily get out of our seats.

When the guy’s gone, Sergio asks, “Why do you always insist on flying these cheap ass airlines where they don’t offer business class?”

His grumpy side wakes up right with him.

“You need to work on that attitude,” I tell him, unimpressed with his moodiness. “My bag is right above your head. Please pass it to me.”

“Sure, princess,” he bares his teeth in an enormously fake smile and then reaches the locker to get my backpack.

I shake my head. What a fucking asshole.

“I can see it,” he says.

“See what?”

“You calling me a fucking asshole. You do that with your eyes.”

I want to laugh then, but I keep serious, explaining to him calmly, “Cause you are.”

“Am not.”

Without engaging anymore, I take my backpack from him and start walking down the aisle, hearing him walk after me.

We pass by two flight attendants and I make sure to drop them a sweet smile to which they smile back in perfect harmony.

As we step out, one of them calls after us. “Excuse me?”

I turn around.

“Yes?”

She quickly walks up. “I really don’t want to bother you and I don’t want to keep you waiting and I hope this isn’t inappropriate but I’m a huge fan.”

I smile politely, but when I hear Sergio sighing, my smile shrinks.

“My younger sister adores you. She wants to be a swimmer too. Your whole recovery story and your transparency about, you know, everything… is very inspiring.”

“Means a lot. Thank you. I really appreciate that,” I respond in a rehearsed way, but my heart does get a little warmer.

“Can you hold for a second?”

“Sure.”

“This always happens when we’re in a rush,” Sergio whispers to my ear, annoyed.

“I’m pretty sure—“

“Here,” the flight attendant is back and so I turn to face her, dropping my response to Sergio mid-sentence.

She hands me a piece of paper and a pen. “Could you sign it?”

“Of course. What’s your sister’s name?”

“Tilda.”

So, I write: “Tilda, hope to see you swim one day. Fernando Torres.”

I hand her back the signed sheet of paper and the pen. She quickly glances over the note and her smile widens as seconds pass by.

“That is so sweet of you. Thank you so much.”

“No problem. Have a great day,” I say when turning around.

As we step out of the plane, Sergio says with irony, “If only you were ever this sweet to me.”

I sigh first, but then ask, “And why do you only notice when I’m not?”

D

“Here,” Finns hands me the suit. “I know you’re not the biggest fan of this type of social outings, but at least you’ll look damn fine.”

This type of social outings? Did he mean any type of social outings?

I give him a smile though, because I don’t want to seem ungrateful. It is a designer suit after all and one I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford myself. That alone makes me uncomfortable, but we’ve unsuccessfully battled this countless number of times, so I keep my mouth shut and just hang the suit on the entrance frame to the bedroom. Which always reminds me: I need to get a door or something.

“I feel like I should have invited Xabi,” Finns says out of the blue.

And I turn around then, glaring at him.

“Not that you’re not gonna make a great date, Danny. Obviously.”

I passive-aggressively purse my lips, and it’s really not because I’m offended it turns out I wasn’t Stephen’s first choice.

But basically… he’s trying to tell me all this could have been avoided if only he bothered to ask his boyfriend to accompany him?

And Finns sees it on my face.

“Come on,” he argues, “We just decided to make things more serious. I can’t invite him to the professor’s birthday party and act all lovey-dovey.”

I speak up finally, “Then maybe you shouldn’t be making things more serious with him, if you don’t feel like getting all lovey-dovey in the first place?”

His mouth parts a little, eyes squint, head tilts to the side.

“And what exactly do you know about relationships, Daniel?”

“Right,” I smile. “But that’s why I’m not in one.”

I can hear him sigh in defeat as I make my way to the bathroom.

“Please hurry up. We don’t want to be late.”

A part of me hates him right now. A part of me, small part, knows there’s nothing to hate him for.

And while in the shower, I tell myself: you’ll be okay. 

And when I look at myself in the mirror after I get out of the shower, I smile. My therapist—I whole-heartedly loathe making that reference, even if only in my head—once told me that forcing a smile, especially if you don’t feel like it, is supposed to help evoking positive feelings, but from my experience it rarely does.

I open one of the drawers and look at the boxes of pills neatly stacked one next to another. It’s so easy to pop one of those and relax. So easy to reach for the package and be left assured that I’ll be fine—definitely easier than working on it myself.

I close the drawer and look in the mirror again.

It will be an hour or two and you can leave earlier given you have a believable excuse. And you do. You can always say that they need an extra at the restaurant or that one of the delivery guys had a bike accident and they need somebody to cover the shift. There are ways to get out of there if it becomes too overwhelming, too loud, too obnoxious, too intrusive, too foreign.

But it would be good if you stayed.

Clearly not for Steve, because events like this are his natural habitat. He shines in a crowd of people.

But for you.

F

“Remind me again why we couldn’t stay at your parents’ place?” Sergio asks when the door to our hotel suite shuts and we’re left alone with the suitcases.

“My mom’s redecorating the apartment again. Must be the fourth time since they moved to Copenhagen. There’s always something to fix in the guest room and then before you know it, the entire place becomes her project. Honestly, they should give her a segment on HGTV at this point.”

Sergio laughs.

“She hates me a little, doesn’t she?”

I’m surprised by the change of topic.

“My mom? My mom loves you. Sometimes I think she loves you more than she loves me.”

Sergio smiles, then sits next to me on the bed. “Well, I’m adorable, irresistible, charming. You name it.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes at how corny he can be. “You just know how to throw a good show. That’s it.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” he moves closer, his arm wrapping around my waist, lips starting to trace down my neck.

“Sergio, we don’t have time.”

I can feel his hot breath on my skin as he starts to suck on it.

“You’re always late. It’s fine.”

His hand trails down my chest, then my stomach.

“It’s Juergen’s birthday party. I can’t be late.”

His other hand grabs my chin and he kisses me just to shut me up.

“I’ll be quick,” he says into my mouth and I give into his touch, thinking what the hell, I could use a quick fuck.

D

“I’m suffocating,” I say when standing in front of a small mirror, fighting with the tie.

“You’re not, Dan. It’s anxiety.”

I wanna say no shit dr Freud but then Finns comes closer, grabbing the hand of mine that is now fidgeting with the collar. The proximity of our bodies makes me even more uncomfortable and after we exchange a glance, I look away, freeing my hand from his grip, taking a step back.

“I’m fine,” I tell him sternly. “I just hate ties.”

(I don’t hate ties.)

I walk up to the dining table, which really serves as the only table in this tiny, attic apartment of mine and I get rid of the tie, throwing it on the chair.

“Are you really not gonna wear a tie when it’s a black-tie event?”

I turn around to look at Finns, my face entirely serious.

“Yes. I am really not going to wear a tie,” I repeat, mocking his tone of concern. “And if you wanted the tie, then you should have invited Xabi. That simple.”

His mouth shuts and I smile, unbuttoning the two upper buttons of the shirt in hopes it will help me breath better.

“Please button up the double down,” he goes after a second.

I look up, staring at him.  

“At least leave just one button unbuttoned?”

He thinks I’m doing it for aesthetic reasons but he couldn’t be more wrong.  

“I can see the tattoos on your chest,” he sounds resigned.

“You can see the tattoos even if the shirt is buttoned,” I say finally.

“But that’s your neck.”

“Do you want me to cover my neck too?”

I know it pisses him off when I deliberately twist the meaning of his words, but I found it to be the fastest way to get him to drop a topic, and so I been proceeding with this tactic ever since.

Finns sighs. “Fine,” he hands me the blazer. “Let’s go.”

F

“I told you we can’t be late and we’re gonna be late,” I tell Sergio as we stand on the sidewalk outside of our hotel, trying to spot the Uber we ordered ten minutes ago.

Before leaving the room, Sergio suggested we ask the front desk to organize us a car, but I argued an Uber would be faster.

Considering we’re still waiting for it, it’s safe to assume that I was wrong and he was right. But now he is wallowing in victory—eyebrows arched, a tiny smile on his lips, oozing nonchalance—and it makes the wait even more dreadful.

“We’re gonna be so fucking late,” I look at the busy street, then on my watch, then on my phone where a map shows a tiny black car stuck somewhere close by, but still not close enough.

Then Sergio leans in, grabbing my waist, lips touching my ear. “But didn’t we have fun though?” he tries sounding sexy and maybe in different circumstances I’d give into this kinda talk, but now all I could picture was the crowd of people at the event welcoming us with a judgmental stare, all because we were non-fashionably late to Juergen’s 60^th birthday party.

Or maybe I’m exaggerating.

But the idea of this very probable outcome puts me in a mood where I don’t really want to reminisce our most recent sex act and so, I push Sergio away, but gently. “Just leave it,” I tell him.

“What’s wrong with you today?” he snaps, but his irritation comes as a surprise to me. I look up from my phone, taken aback.

We often have these ways of being with each other—slightly bothered, unwelcomed, cold—so I don’t think my response could have triggered him this much. In fact, most of the time we take these things as obscure signs of love and affection, or so I want to believe. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” I tell him. “We’re gonna be late and that’s rude and—“

“No, you’re just on a quest to be so fucking perfect all the time.”

He shifts his gaze, pretending to be looking for the Uber now when minutes ago he didn’t even give the slightest fuck if the car is here or on the other side of the country.

But I’m keeping my cool, not saying or moving until he turns back on and when he does, I ask him calmly. “What did you say?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Exactly what you heard.”

My lips purse and my head fills with words I want to cuss him out with, but despite my better judgment, I don’t do that.

I swallow what feels like a massive chunk of my pride and I turn around, relieved to see that the car is finally here.

We get in in silence.

D

Speechless cab rides or for that matter any other speechlessly shared experiences are something I will always be grateful for, but as we speed through the streets and inevitably get closer to our destination, anxiety starts to fill my lungs pretty fast and when Finns speaks up, I’m happy at the thought of engaging in small talk.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he says but more to the window on his side rather than to me.

I nod my head in response, watching him.

“I know it’s not easy for you,” he turns his head, giving me a straight-in-the eye kind of stare. “But I think it’s important that you put yourself out there.”

I give him a wry smile, leaning against the seat, sighing.

“You sound like my therapist.”

“I know. Except that you don’t pay me.”

“I don’t pay you? How would you call this?” I point to my chest indicating my presence is enough of a compensation, then to my face and as my fingers remain pointing to my lips, my smile grows—I give him my best fake one, so gleeful and wide it’s almost impossible to keep it on for longer than seconds.

He starts to laugh. “Almost believed it was real.”

“That’s cause you know me but out there, they don’t know me.”

There’s a little pause right there, a smile disappears off of Finns face.

“Honestly, Dan? Sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all,” he says matter-of-factly and immediately, I look away. “But—“

Finns does that a lot. Whenever he tries to trail off of an awkward-bounded conversation he just throws in a word very loudly—no matter what word—and then continues as if he didn’t say anything in the first place. I consider that a great quality of his. At least one I’m genuinely thankful for since over the years it has saved us hours of unbearable conversations.

“I’m going to tell everybody about your show and gracefully force them to come.”

“Please don’t,” I tell him straight away, dead serious.

“Danny, advertising is key,” his voice dons this unusually sweet and patronizing tone, which I know foreshadows an unnecessary debate. Neither of us is going to duck.

I take a deep breath, then say slowly:  

“I agreed to come to the party, I didn’t pop any pills, I didn’t get high, so least you can do is keep your mouth shut about the show.”

“Come oooooon, don’t be such a dramatic queen. I’ll throw in a few words. That’s it.”

“No words, Finns.”

“Maybe two. Three tops, trust me.”

“Not a word about the show.”

“As you wish.”

He goes silent, but I know he gave up only for a minute or so.

“How many people confirmed they’re going to come?”

“Drop it, Finns.”

“It’s me and what, three other people?”

“I’m not talking to you about this.”

“So four, really?”

I take out my phone, but since it’s an awfully outdated phone according to today’s standards, there’s not much to do except for maybe browsing through old text messages.

But that’s what I do anyway.

“It’s your official debut as a photographer and you have four people coming to your show?”

I look up when I hear him say photographer.

“I’d argue that—”

“Of course you’d argue, Dan. You always have something to say. But if you’re not a photographer, then by your logic I’m not a surgeon either.”

“That’s different.”

“You’re full of shit, Daniel.”

“Whatever you say.”

He sighs and it feels like the conversation is over, but then he goes again.

“Imagine the publicity around the show if I convinced the professor’s son to come.”

At this point I’m sure Finns is talking to himself, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued.

“Why?”

Finns mouth slowly opens in disbelief.

“I honestly don’t know how you get by in this world.”

I want to say ‘trust me, me neither’ but then Finns sighs and resumes his explanations.

“He’s a swimmer.”

Brief explanations, clearly.

“And?” I ask unbothered, but also confused because… what does being a swimmer have to do with anything?

“A famous swimmer.”

“And?” There are at least a few famous swimmers.

“Like an Olympic kind of swimmer.”

“And?” Many that are Olympic swimmers, I’d assume.

“Jesus, Daniel…” he rolls his eyes. “Do you ever check anything online other than your inbox?”

“No,” I say without shame.

“And let me guess, you don’t even check that?”

“Well, rarely.”

Finns shakes his head; a petty smile on his lips.

“I’m getting you a TV for Christmas. Let’s start there.”

I ponder for a moment.

“And I thought what you gave me last year was bad enough.”

F

We’re silent when we get out the car and we’re silent when we enter the building. It’s beautiful, grand, neoclassical and overlooking the park and the pond, but I don’t appreciate any of that, my thoughts occupied with everything Sergio did and didn’t say.

The elevator takes us to the last floor and when we leave there is a crowd outside on the hallway, drinking champagne and chitchatting. People start to turn around immediately as we pass by, smiling and nodding their heads, which is a gesture I copy, but don’t go beyond that. I don’t recognize any of these faces.

Soon, I spot Juergen not too far off, holding a glass, my mom by his side. He’s talking to some other guests, but when he spots us, he waves to Sergio and I and then they excuse themselves.

“You made it!” Juergen says with enthusiasm and then pulls me into a hug.

“I’m sorry we’re late.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he pulls away, holding my arms. “You did not miss anything interesting, believe me.”

I smile. He then turns to Sergio and they make an exchange. I get to hug my mom now, but her embrace is much quicker and softer.

“I’m so happy you brought Sergio with you,” she whispers to my cheek right after placing a peck on it. “It’s good that you’re trying harder.”

“I’m happy to see you too, mom,” my lips purse and my smile turns into a thin line, but I’m not sure she grasps the undertone. In response, she wipes the lipstick off of my skin with her thumb.

When I move my head to the side, freeing myself from her touch, I notice Sergio and Juergen being busy small talking and I think about what I told him earlier: how he mastered the art of throwing a good show. Though it can be irritating at times, on occasions as this I’m thankful that he talks and laughs as if he’s delighted to the core about being here, when deep down I know he’s most likely not.

“Come,” my mom grabs my arm. “Let’s mingle.”

“I don’t wanna leave Sergio al—”

“He’ll be fine.”

D

When we step out the cab, I’m instantly overwhelmed by the size of the building in front of us. And by the time Finns makes it from the other side of the car, I contemplate getting back in and fleeing the scene.

But then Stephen pats me on the back and asks, “You good, Dan?”

It’s too late now. I can’t back out.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get inside then.”

And so, without any more talking, I follow him into the building.

I know the drill by now. I do.

In an unfamiliar setting, I ought to look for patterns of familiarity, hold on to what I know best, phrases that I can almost spit out of my mouth without thinking twice. As long as I say the first word, I’ll be fine. It’s the first word that comes out the hardest, that gets stuck so deep in my throat. After that first word, first hand shake, first smile, first pair of a stranger’s eyes being laid on me, I’ll go on.

I also know by now that in an unfamiliar situation I ought to not reminisce the moments when I failed to connect with another person. I shouldn’t dwell on when I behaved strange, in an unsocial way, unable to come forward and act in accordance to accepted norms. What scares me the most is not that I’ll blindly repeat those previous mistakes. I’m not scared that I’ll be unable to communicate with ease, the fact that a lot of times my voice disappears and not one signal from my brain can bring it back. It’s the people. Their uniqueness and quirks. I learn patterns fast, just as how fast I learn everything else, but people are a different kind of pattern—driven by something I never even barely understood and that lack of understanding as to what stands behind each person scares me the most.

When we’re in the elevator I block every thought trying to paralyze me and I repeat in my head what I already know: the places I became familiar with, the people that are my friends today, the things I’ve achieved. It calms me for a second or two, gives me a false sense of security, makes me feel like I’m somebody else, somebody else I wished I was. And when the elevator doors open and the vast unknown unfolds ahead of me, my heart sinks.

On the hallway, people give us a few glances, but remain mostly uninterested, busy entertaining each other. Some turn to greet Finns, pausing their conversations to shake his hand, but the interactions are so brief and meaningless he doesn’t introduce me. Thank god.

And when a waitress passes us by, Finns grabs two slender glasses of champagne off of her silver tray and then hands one to me. I don’t drink alcohol, but I know I’ll feel better holding something in my hand.

We stop by the entrance to the ballroom, observing the crowd.

F

My mom disappeared, leaving me with one of her friends. We end up talking and not once is it about swimming, which is a nice and unexpected change from what I’m used to talk about. Now, we’re discussing carpets and mid-way the conversation about vegan fur, I piece together that the lady must be the interior designer behind the redecorations going on at my parents’ place.

To be honest I don’t know much about carpets and fur, but over the years I learned to listen better and respond even with the little that I know. In that sense, me and Sergio were alike—we knew how to bullshit our way through almost every situation, only that I became a lot more genuine at it, heartfelt. Years back I was so angry about everything, so disappointed and tired and constantly on the edge, but today that person is gone and when I stand here talking to Janet or Jude (still not quite sure), I think about that person and I know he wouldn’t give the slightest fuck about imported fur. Or carpets.

“I was looking for you everywhere,” Sergio approaches me from behind and his charming and tender voice echoes in my head, making me think this fake ass motherfucker. But I turn my head to face him and I offer him a sweet smile.

“Janet,” I say with confidence and when there’s no expression of confusion on her face, I continue, “That’s Sergio. My boyfriend.”

“Such a pleasure to meet you,” Sergio says and they shake hands.

“Pleasure to meet you too,” she eyes him up and down, smiling.

“Janet, Sergio owns a furniture studio in Madrid. You will have loads to talk about.”

“Oh, really?” Janet lights up, moving closer to him.

“Please, excuse me for a moment.”

And when I back out, I see Sergio throwing me a stare while Janet pulls out her phone and begins to show him probably the same round of photos she has already bored me with.

I head towards the bar right away, avoiding making eye contact with anybody as to not provoke unnecessary conversations. When I wait by the bar stand, a few strangers approach me throwing in congratulations and words of praise. But thankfully, that’s about it.

“What can I get you, sir?” I turn to face the bartender and the second I lie my eyes on him, I’m struck by how attractive he is. Maybe younger by a year or two, also shorter than me.

It takes me a second to gather my thoughts.

“Vodka on the rocks,” I tell him, wetting my lips.

He turns around to prepare the drink and a short minute later, he’s back.

“Vodka on the rocks for you si—”

“Fernando,” I cut in before he ends the sentence with sir.

He smiles then, showing his teeth.

“I know,” he tells me, quickly running his tongue across the bottom lip.

I take the heavy glass from his hand, purposely touching his fingers with mine.

Then, I take a sip as he eyes me, trying not to reveal how disgusted my throat is with the bitterns of the liquid.

“You’re the only reason why I took this gig.”

I raise an eyebrow, one side of my lips curling up.

“Normally I don’t do boring,” while saying that, he motions with his hand towards the ensemble of people in the room and I chuckle, which seems to make him very pleased with himself.

“I’ll take the compliment,” I tell him, grabbing my drink and turning.

“Fernando,” it rolls off his tongue softly and so I pause and turn back on, seduced by his tone of voice. “I finish at ten.”

For a second I’m speechless, but then the meaning of his words hits me and I laugh, shaking my head in disbelief. Walking away I can’t help, but look back at him, suddenly overwhelmed with a strong sense of familiarity. He reminds me of me. I used to be like that not too long ago, so bold and so boastful. A show off. If anything, secretly, a part of me wishes I still was.

Then I spot Sergio talking to Janet and I make my way over there, wrapping my arm around his back.

“Would you mind?” I ask her and she smiles.

“No, not at all. Lovely to meet both of you,” she says and we respond with another pleasantry before turning around and leaving her.

“Thank you,” Sergio whispers to my ear. “Eternally grateful for that move.”

“Here,” I hand him the drink.

“How did you know?”

“Same as how you know when I call you a fucking asshole with my eyes.”

He laughs, taking a sip.

“I love you.”

D

“This isn’t so bad, is it?” Finns asks, but I don’t answer, my eyes scanning the crowd.

People form groups of four to five, standing not too far off each other, migrating often and mostly in pairs. They all look so slick and effortless, their laughs echoing through the room.

I’ve never been to an event like this, but I expected it to be a lot more formal, all black and white, suits and gowns. There’s still a sure level of fancy emanating in the room and that deepens my feeling of discomfort. I’m convinced everybody can tell this is the first time I’m wearing such a suit—even a suit at all—and although it fits me perfectly, it doesn’t mask the fact that my presence here is purely accidental, a result of many twisted occurrences. It doesn’t mask the fact that I don’t have the status to be here. That I just don’t belong.

Then I tell myself: nobody is looking at you, nobody cares and it helps.

“Daniel,” I hear Finns voice and turn my head, only then realizing there is a woman standing in front of us, smiling politely. I did not notice her approaching at all, too busy dealing with the thoughts in my head.

“Sorry,” I say, grunting. “I was, uhm—“

“Linda, that’s my friend, Daniel” Finns finishes for me.

Her and I shake hands.

“Dan, Linda is the anaesthesiologist I told you about.”

He’s never mentioned her. I don’t know what to say.

“Pleasure to meet you, Dan,” she tells me and I nod my head, forcing a smile.

“Nice to meet you too,” it leaves my throat with visible difficulty and I become all the more anxious, being sure she thought of my bitty response as rude.

Her stare lowers and she looks at my tattooed neck and I suddenly feel the urge to button up the shirt. I even move my hands slightly up, but then her eyes gaze away and she’s all on Finns.

I take a breath.

They start talking about work, snippets of their conversation clearly audible. I remain on the side, looking between them two, trying to focus, but zoning out.

Finns tells me a lot about his job, but rarely about the people he works with. When he talks, it’s about the patients and only those they failed to help. I guess he’s humble that way, because you’ll rarely hear from him about the groundbreaking work that his team does. And they do plenty of it. Finns is more practical than emotional, which is what you’d expect from a doctor, but sometimes it all breaks him a little. The only person from work he talks about is his boss, the professor. He always calls him the professor, almost never by his name––he’s head of the ward, an accomplished cardiac surgeon, Finns told me some call him God’s hands. Weirdly, but I spent a lot of time imagining how the professor looks and behaves, probably because he’s the only person Finns talks about with so much respect and admiration.

“Yeah, Dan and I just arrived. We haven’t even talked to the professor yet,” I fish out that sentence, as it picks up on what I was just thinking about.

“Last time I saw him he was by the bar with his wife,” she tells us.

“Thanks. We’ll catch you later,” Finns says and Linda shoots us a quick smile before walking away.

Stephen turns to me.

“We need to find him before the cheesy part starts, otherwise we’ll never get to him after.”

“Sure,” I say, not really in a meaningful way.

We’re silent until Finns says, “There he is” and then my eyes follow into the crowd, distracted by the number of people. I can’t spot anybody who’d fit the image I’ve created for the professor in my head, but then a face stands out and I freeze.

It feels exactly like being punched in the face except the pain. My insides churn in shock and all the saliva in my mouth runs down my throat, leaving my mouth all dried up.

The professor is not looking yet, passionately talking to someone whom I don’t recognize, but him, him I recognize. It’s the same Juergen I saw for the last time years ago, in the hospital hall. He’s older now, but these features remain exactly as I remembered them.

Finns face shows up in front of me, blocking my view.

“Daniel, are you okay?”

F

Sergio and I stand together, talking about what we’re going to do in Copenhagen in the next couple of days: places we want to revisit, the food we want to eat. A lot of times it ends with just that—a plan. Every vacation we take regardless of where we go, Sergio spends a substantial amount of time a day “looking out” which translates to searching for new local designers, negotiating better deals with vendors, seeking inspiration. But he’s not the only one to blame, because I’m no better—I can’t just rest. The few days that we have off I always obsess over not doing enough and if I’m not training, I’ll still find an excuse to have an impossible schedule.

“Promise me one thing, though,” Sergio says in utmost seriousness.

“Can’t promise anything until you tell me what you want me to promise.”

“Tomorrow we’re sleeping in and I mean, properly. I’m not getting out of bed before eleven.”

“Are you out of your mind?” a few faces give us a stare and so I bring my tone down. “Eleven?” I mouth it.

“Yeah, you’re always up by four in the morning cause of practice and look, now you don’t have to. How beautiful is that?”

“Is not. I can do eight though.”

“Na-huh,” Sergio is quick to fire back.

“Come on, it’s a good deal. A reasonable deal. A compromise.”

“How is eight a compromise?”

I smile mischievously, leaning towards him, my face next to his ear. “Can top that offer with a blow job.”

“Deal,” he grins. “Wake me up with a blow job at 11.30”

I move back, looking him dead in the eyes. “How is that a fucking deal, Sergio?” I whisper, remembering to stay classy.

His arm wraps around my waist, pulling me closer. “You can get nine but I still get a blow job.”

Our hips press against each other, his embrace tightening. “8.30 and if you continue to bargain, the blow job is off the table.”

Sergio’s arms drop and he sighs in defeat, moving a step back. “You know what, whatever.”

I start to laugh as he continues with the dramatic act. “If you want me miserable, you’ll have me miserable.”

I can’t keep my face straight. “You’d make a terrific B-class actor, Sergio.”

“Cruel. You’re just cruel,” he says before turning around.

And as he starts making his way over to the bar, I say after him, “Rated 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.”

He half-turns and flips me a middle finger.

I’m giggling with satisfaction until he disappears from my view.

D

“That’s Juergen,” I say to Finns and he turns his head for a moment, then looks back at me.

“Yes, that’s Juergen. What’s wrong?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

“For all those years you didn’t tell me that that’s Juergen,” I can feel my voice crumbling.

“Daniel, you’re making no sense.”

I hand him my glass of champagne and he takes it, looking all the more confused.

“I need to leave,” I tell him.

“Where are you going?”

And as I turn, almost completing the 180 degrees move, I hear a voice coming from the back:

“If it isn’t the younger me!”

“Daniel, here,” Finns grabs my arm and then hands me back the glass I gave him seconds ago.  

I move my head slightly to the side and see that they’re shaking hands.

Juergen and Finns.

I don’t register much aside from their mouths moving. And I know there’s still a minute or two to disappear, to walk out. But for an odd, unexplainable reason, I don’t do it.

I’m standing with my side towards them until I hear Stephen calling my name and I turn fully, looking Juergen in the eyes. In that very moment, it seems like the room becomes still and silent, my heart racing so obnoxiously loud I’m sure everybody can hear the panic building up in my chest.

Juergen extends a hand and I shake it, keeping up my gaze. He doesn’t recognize me, his eyes and his smile working in unison to create a likeable impression, one that I’m sure he automatically generates whenever he meets a stranger. A polite, but impersonal ‘how are you’ leaves his mouth and he doesn’t even wait for me to answer, which is ideal, because I wouldn’t have answered anyway. But then, just as his stare travels to Stephen, his head bobs back.

There it is—a look of recognition. His lips part, eyebrows furrow. He thinks he must know me from somewhere, and then some seconds later, he knows where he knows me from. His face says it all.

“Daniel.”

He doesn’t ask, it’s a statement.

I can feel Finns eyes on me, barring an impatient and expectant stare.

“Yeah, that’s Daniel,” Stephen confirms, but can’t hide his confusion. “Do you know each other?”

Juergen doesn’t answer immediately, in fact it looks like he isn’t going to answer at all, but I can’t be sure, because a woman interrupts us and the moment is gone.

“I’m so sorry professor, but I really need to talk to you about—oh hi Finns,” she then looks at me, but doesn’t recognize me and so, I’m blatantly omitted in her greetings. “Can I have five minutes of your time, professor? Really important.”

The moment Juergen turns to her, I take it as my chance to escape and I act on it without hesitation. I hear Finns calling after me as I walk away, but I keep walking.

I make my way through the room, trying not to bump into anyone, but when I accidentally do, uttering an ‘excuse me’ becomes impossible. It feels like the crowd tightens around me and the air is scarce. Though I must have walked a great length of the room, the entrance to the balcony doesn’t seem that much closer.

When I finally make it outside, only a few people stand on the opposite side and that amount of unoccupied space easies my breathing. I move to the corner and lean against the wall, putting down the glass of champagne on the ledge of the balcony, exhaling.

F

When Sergio is back, he’s holding two drinks and smiling like a goofball.

I ask him, “Changed your mind?”

He hands me the glass and says, “Nah, just remembered how good of a decision maker you are when you’re drunk.”

I laugh and take a sip. The drink is still disgusting, but this time I allow for it to show on my face.

“What are you laughing at?” I ask him.

“If only I told you years ago you’d turn into a saint, would you believe me?”

At first, I want to brush him off with a whatever response, but then I’m tempted to give it a thought. I have this habit of letting my stare wander whenever I concentrate and I tend to look around then, but don’t really register what I’m looking at. It’s often distractive to others, because it seems like what I’m doing is the opposite of concentrating. But as various memories from my teenage years resurface—non-saint like memories—my stare catches something that unsettles me.

And when I realize what I’m seeing—who I’m seeing—a glass slips from my hand and shatters on the floor.

“Shit,” I say, squatting to grab larger pieces and sort of scoop them together, while everybody around is staring. One of the waiters comes and starts cleaning the mess up. “Sorry,” I apologize to the guy.

“What happened?” Sergio asks, when I get up.

“Nothing,” I look back at the crowd, but don’t see him, so I turn my head and look at Sergio. “It’s just—the glass slipped from my hand.”

“Is everything alright?”

I look back again into the crowd, tempted, but he disappeared—Juergen stands with a woman and another man, but that man is not him.

“What are you looking at?” Sergio asks again and I turn to face him.

“I thought I saw somebody I knew.”

“Oh, okay,” he answers confused and then immediately changes the topic, considering the current one unimportant. “I thought tomorrow we could have dinner with your parents?”

I look at Sergio, then back at where Juergen stood, but now he disappeared too. So, I look back at Sergio and though his mouth is moving, I have no idea what he’s talking about. There’s one thing blasting out in my head: Daniel. Just that name. And it rings in such a strange, unfamiliar tone that it feels like it’s the first time I’m hearing it, like I haven’t thought about that name in forever, haven’t heard it in years.

I can’t be right though, it can’t be him. It happened way too many times before, especially right after Juergen and my mom moved to Copenhagen six years ago. Everywhere else in the world a tall, pale, dark-haired man was just that to me, but in Copenhagen, whenever I came to visit them, it felt like I saw him everywhere. I can’t even tell how many times I’ve stopped on a street, in a supermarket aisle, in a parking lot, thinking it’s him, it must be him, only to realize that it never really was him. And each time I was wrong, it only made me realize how much I wanted to be right, how much I wanted these men to be him.

But I haven’t felt that way in years, forgot how it feels to feel that way, forgot about him. What I haven’t forgotten about is what it took to get here, what it took to forget.

And so, when Sergio talks about something I lost track of long minutes ago, but to which I keep mindlessly nodding my head and throwing in a bunch of mhm’s and yeah’s, I make a decision not to run after a man that so accurately resembles Daniel.

Not because I fear feeling disappointed once I find out it’s not him but because I can’t imagine answering: what if this time it really is?

“You know what,” I suddenly say to Sergio, interrupting his monologue. “I need to get some fresh air. I’ll be back.”

D

I haven’t moved from this spot for the past ten minutes and only repositioned how I lean against the wall. Smoked three cigarettes in the meantime while staring into the air and thinking how?

How over the course of those seven years that I know Stephen and five of being quite close friends, I have never not once suspected that the professor he works with might be Fernando’s stepfather.

In my head, I go over all the possible situations where Finns mentioned him and try to memorize whether he’s ever given me more than the bare minimum of dry, strictly work-related information. But the thing is, he never did.

He would say the professor this and the professor that and the patient turned out to have this, so we’ve done that, but Stephen’s professionalism always kept him away from plunging to the non-professional side. He’s never talked about professor’s background in detail, never gave away any key facts. He’s rarely called him by his name and the very few times that Stephen did call the professor by his name it was years after that summer ended, when the connotation in my head has gotten weaker, when I’ve heard the name Juergen multiple times before and by then haven’t reacted to it by thinking about Fernando.

I don’t even think Fernando ever told me that his stepfather is a surgeon. During the times we hung out, I picked up more about the general nature of their relationship rather than any particular pieces of information about Juergen’s profession or lifestyle. I had a feeling that they didn’t quite get along. I noticed that whenever they talked Fernando never spoke to him with softness and deep-rooted respect. His tone of voice was balanced, but leaning towards underlying ridicule and irony. Then I found out Fernando spoke in such manner almost to everyone and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly their relationship was like. I knew so little at the time, know even less now.

But I am convinced that the Juergen I saw minutes ago is the same Juergen I met years ago. And I can’t believe that during then and now, for the entirety of that in-between period, I was possibly living my life so close to his. That there surely must have been moments when I wasn’t too far away from him, that I missed a number of opportunities where just showing up would have solved it. I try to think if Finns ever invited me to any other work-related events and I rejected the offer, but it’s probable that I have.

Truth is, I’ve been living my life hiding in plain sight. I’m not part of any social media platform, never have been. I actually find it terrifying that people would want to put their lives on display like that. I keep my circle of friends small and only in the past two years I began to practice what comes so naturally to others—the act of just hanging out. I’d come over occasionally, have dinner with them or go out for a walk. If I go to parties, it’s darkrooms in gay clubs so I could fuck and even to do that, I need to pop pills beforehand. Closed, dark and crowded places rack up my anxiety to the point where I want to puke thinking of pushing through hordes of bodies.

I grocery shop early in the morning or right before the store closes and apply that rule to all publicly shared spaces, like clothing stores or post offices. I avoid using public transportation at all cost and go by bike everywhere. Finns tried convincing me to use the internet more often, for online shopping or filing my taxes, but I’d have to get a computer for that or at least a newer phone, so I resist. Not because I consider technology the root of evil, quite the opposite, but the thought of being constantly available to connect and stay in tune with the world holds no appeal to me.

Though I know I’m socially inapt in a lot of ways, I put constant effort into recognizing what sets me back. I put constant effort into unlearning what has damaged me in the past. But doing the small stuff is not so small for me. There are days when I’m fully in control of what happens around me and so, it’s easier then to act in my newfound ways, better ways. The times when something doesn’t happen according to a plan, I’m most likely to fall back into the behavior I’m comfortable with, the one I grew up on.

Most of the time rarely anything happens according to a plan, like today, and so I’m tossed into the unknown, hoping that the progress I’ve made will help me stay away from urging to my old ways.

When I was a child and later a teenager, I’ve learned how to shut down, hide and shy away from facing any issues. I wasn’t taught anything different and so, as an adult, I still often choose these behaviors, because for years it was all I knew. Yet returning to full verbal communication meant I needed to detach from how I solved my problems in the past. I’m still detaching from it today knowing I’m probably never going to be able to function socially with ease and normalcy that adults my age do. But I can try to be better.

And so, as I stub another cigarette on the ledge and then throw it out, I decide to go back in and find Finns. I don’t want to be hiding here anymore.

Just as I move away from the wall, I notice that the guests who were standing on the opposite side are leaving too. Before they disappear behind the large entrance and into the room, some of them move slightly to the side, allowing somebody else to come in.

There’s an outburst of whispers and giggles that softly echoes into the air and I see some of the people from the group looking back and staring at a man that just walked outside.

He makes his way across the balcony then leans against the center-ledge, sticking his head out, looking down.

As the group leaves and I follow into their footsteps, I wonder what were they so heated about, but then I remember I got Finns to find and I got a whole world of explaining to do that I know I’m incapable of doing.

And I wouldn’t have stopped, I really wouldn’t, but he briefly turns his head and his face suddenly becomes so recognizable to me.

F

That hit of fresh air is so blissful and for the first time today it feels like I can breathe easily, like my lungs aren’t restrained.  

As I step onto the balcony, I pass by only a few people and the thought of having all that space to myself makes me so relieved.

Recently I noticed that I don’t mind the crowds until I’m left alone and only then I realize how much better I feel when nobody is around me. Being the center of attention used to fuel me and it still does at times, but mostly I feel tired. I have so much respect for other, more prominent, public figures that deal with popularity on a larger scale than I do, yet manage to stay so low-key and grounded.

Thankfully now I’m alone and I turn my head back just to double check whether the people I passed by left.

And they did.

And.

And my head stops for a moment then immediately turns back on, facing the view stretching behind the balcony railing.

Suddenly I feel so warm, a pang of heat spreading through my body. I look at the crowns of trees gently swaying with the wind, but a sense of urgency drives me away from giving it another look. I move my head back, staring at him, seeing how he stares at me too, feeling as if my insides shrink.

And each time before it happened there was always a notion of uncertainty, a degree of disbelief. I knew I wanted to see him so bad that in my head I imagined him through resembling looks of others, convincing myself that it was him when it never was.

But this time when I wasn’t looking for him, when I wasn’t hoping to see him, when I forgot how it feels to want to see him, that’s when I wasn’t wrong. When I saw him back in the ballroom, meters across from me, standing with Juergen and other people—it was really him and now I can only be this much more assured.

He’s taller than I remembered, way taller. Bigger too. I carried such a vivid memory of him being this ghostly, lanky figure. In my imagination, he remained an eighteen-year-old boy that never grew up, never grew older. He wasn’t ghostly or lanky anymore. He sure wasn’t a boy either.

I want to say something, but my throat is parched and tight. I can barely swallow. And I know it’s been a minute or two only, but this uninterrupted staring makes me feel like we’ve been trapped here for an infinity and counting.

I try to think of something to say, because I used to have scripts written in my head. I knew them word for word, everything I wanted to tell him. I was prepared for all the scenarios, acted them out with pleasure and thrill. A younger, teenage me was waiting for this moment for years and now that it’s here, I have nothing to say. I look at him and although I recognize his features there’s so little left of the boy I once met many summers ago.

But finally, through shock and in slight desperation, I utter the only thing that sits on my tongue.

“Hi Daniel,” I tell him.

D

“Hi Daniel,” he tells me.

And his voice is much deeper than I remembered, somehow softer too. It doesn’t come with a sneer, a dose of know-it-all.

I want to say something back, even if just another short-lived hi, but it doesn’t want to leave my mouth. I concentrate on the words and try to force some movement into my tongue, but it lays still in my mouth, my lips pressed. I exhale, look away for a second, then look back at him and his gaze is so expectant, so intense.

All of a sudden, I hear a small chuckle. He shakes his head.

“Out of all the places, you’re here.”

His lips curl and he smiles, but his voice remains so sound and serious. I can sense the disbelief, I feel it too.

And just when I thought it’s going to be another moment of silence, my throat loosens and my lungs unclench. I say to him, at a pace much slower than his, but word for word, “Out of all the places, you are here.”

My tone alters when I refer to him, trying to tell him that his presence is as much a surprise to me as mine is to him. But when I say it, his smile disappears. His expression changes. I’d say he looks confused, but I haven’t seen him for such a long time, I lost my confidence in reading his faces.

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t look like he will. I think he’s still taking the time to process the fact that an understandable sound has left my mouth. That I’m talking, when I’ve never said a word to him. Not like that at least.

“There you are!” I hear from the back and I flinch, immediately turning.

It’s Finns. He’s standing in the entry, now walking towards me. He doesn’t look too happy, pursing his lips, eyebrows narrowing.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asks when being only a step away from me.

I don’t answer.

“Honestly, you could have told me—“

I move a few inches, revealing to Finns that there’s somebody else standing with us. And Finns is quick, he notices Fernando right away.

At first, he just gives him an uninterested glance, like yeah, you’re there, who cares. Just another random guest at a random spot having a moment, being a bystander. Finns doesn’t give two shits.

Then he gives him another glance, a little longer than the first one and he recognizes him. Of course he does, he’s known about Fernando for longer than I have. Theoretically.  

That sweet story he sold me in the cab about a famous, Olympic swimmer? Ha. Who would have thought.

“God, hi,” Finns tone clearly changes and he no longer sounds so bitter and rushed, but rather sweet and chirpy.

I roll my eyes, because the Stephen that stormed in, having an attitude—that’s as real as it gets. The sweetness that came after? Manufactured for socializing purposes only.

“What a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Stephen.”

He walks past me, then stops in front of Fernando and extends a hand. Fernando grabs it, shakes it, smiles. Then says, “Juergen told me a lot about you. About time we meet.”

Stephen starts to laugh, soaking in the compliment. He claims to be this laid back and cool, but I know he’s a sucker for flattery.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time now, Fernando. Congratulations on your last win. So big.”

Since when is Finns about swimming? In one bit? The world begins and ends with football for him and now he’s talking about swimming wins?

My eyebrows arch, an expression of ridicule showing up on my face. If anyone have ever told me to bet on a situation like this happening, I wouldn’t even bother laughing.

Suddenly Finns moves to the side. “Have you met Daniel?”

And to my surprise, Fernando says lightly, “I actually have.”

“Oh really?” Finns question drips in sarcasm. Then his voice switches to regular, all proper. “I’d love to talk to you for a little more, but I need to take Dan with me for a moment.”

“Sure,” Fernando says without looking at me. “I’ll be by the bar.”

Stephen laughs. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

Then he leaves his side and when walking past me, he grabs me by my shoulder and we walk out together. His head lowers and he says, “You have some shit to tell me, hope you know that.”

But again, I don’t answer. Before we leave the balcony, my head quickly turns and I look at Fernando for the last time, catching him looking at me too.

F

“Fuck,” I say under my nose when Daniel and the other guy leave. “Fuck,” I repeat, turning around, leaning with my hands against the railing. Only now I realize how my heart is racing, the inside of my body burns. I can only hope it doesn’t show on my face, that I didn’t blush like I’m fourteen years old.

I touch my cheek but it’s cold.

I’m thinking: how is this even possible? This sure must be a scam. Some sort of a set up.

And his voice. Low and rich and hoarse and so low. I used to fantasize a lot about how his voice would sound, what it would be like to hear him, how it would make me feel if I could hear my name rolling off of his tongue.

Now I know. Not about my name, but I know how he sounds like and it’s not how I ever imagined him to sound like.

It’s better than that.

“Fuck,” I say it again, this time only weaker, almost inaudibly.

I can’t grasp it all at the moment. I’m going to need time, going to need explanations too. Like we said: out of all the places and he’s here? Standing in a suit, tall and so well-composed, talking when you talk to him. He definitely looks like the Daniel I knew, his features haven’t changed that much, but he’s so grown. So different.

How did he become friends with a guy Juergen knows so well? Did Juergen know and never told me? But he would’ve told me. He would have.

Juergen and my mom moved to Copenhagen, because the hospital that he currently works at offered him a leadership position, a team to manage and the freedom to pursue his researching interests. That was about two years after that summer ended and I have already stopped talking to Juergen about Daniel. I never really talked to him about Daniel anyway, it was more about what I didn’t tell him and how it all hurt me. I did ask about him though. With time, I was asking less and less until I stopped asking altogether, but I pressed Juergen with questions. I wanted him to ask grandma things and I asked grandma things myself: what happened to Daniel? Did he ever come back to the village? Did they do something to him?

Nobody knew anything. Grandma told me that he disappeared, that people were looking for him, but that they stopped eventually. That Dan’s dad said Daniel made the decision to leave the village and that nobody really questioned it. But how could nobody question an 18-year-old boy leaving just like that? Unless of course, they forced him to leave. Apparently, there were rumors they sent him away to a mental institution. But I knew people loved to talk, especially there, so I stayed unfazed, unsatisfied with these ridiculous bits. Daniel would never go to a mental institution. Regardless of how many times I called him crazy and actually believed he was, deep down I knew he wasn’t mental.

I searched for him. Obviously in ways appropriate for my age and resources then, which basically meant that I stalked every webpage, every possible social media channel, every profile of every person that I felt like he could be connected to. And nothing. I wasn’t surprised at the time that an outcast like him stayed away from engaging with people even in a virtual way, but I couldn’t believe the few people that knew him well didn’t use the reach of internet to find him. I remember stumbling upon his sister’s Facebook profile and checking up on it for updates every day, multiple times a day. And still nothing.

A part of me used to be so mad at him. Furious. I couldn’t believe he walked away from me just like that. I couldn’t believe he didn’t leave a note, a letter, a phone number. Only some photographs.

Back when we were in Madrid, maybe two months after that summer ended, Juergen handed me a roll of film that Daniel apparently left for me. I can’t exactly recall now what Juergen said when he was handing it to me, but it was something along the lines of him not being sure if I’ll be happy to have it, but wanting me to decide myself whether I want to keep it. At first, I was angry at him for not telling me about it earlier. For withholding what I thought might be a crucial piece of puzzle. And I was utterly disappointed when I developed the film and it turned out to be country views and a portrait of a guy I’ve never seen before. So disappointed I considered tearing these photos apart, throwing them away. I hoped these would have helped me understand what happened to Daniel, what happened to me, reveal something he didn’t have the guts to tell me. But it only deepened my hurt, made me that much hungrier for answers, made me miss him more.

Yet, I kept these photographs, never threw them away. Sometimes I fell asleep holding them in my hands and only some time later, quite out of the blue, on an ordinary day, I just put them in an envelope, hid it between the pages of a random book I found in Juergen’s study and never looked at these photos again.

With that, my desperate search for Daniel ended. My anger vanished. My nightmares were less frequent. My memories more blank than vivid. Time really did heal me. And only sometimes, randomly, I thought about that summer, those country views, the smell of fresh air, and him, obviously. I was hopeful he was still alive and well, wondered whether he was happy, curious how his life evolved.

“Nando, are you coming inside?”

I turn my head, seeing Sergio standing in the passage, hands in his pants pockets.

“Yeah, just a minute,” I tell him, turning my head back on.

I hear him coming, footsteps getting louder. He embraces me from the back, kissing the side of my neck.

“What were you doing here for so long?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug my shoulders. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

I turn around then, facing him. His grip loosens, as I stay leaning with my back against the railing.

“How long would you wait for somebody?” I ask him.

His eyebrows furrow, he looks confused.

“As in?”

“You know, somebody you love.”

“I don’t know,” he says, his head tilts. “Are you planning on going somewhere?”

I start to laugh. “Nah. Not really.”

“Good,” he grabs my hand. “Let’s get inside.”

“You didn’t answer me,” I say in all seriousness and he sighs.

“Yeah, I’d wait,” he answers casually, following it up with a shrug.

“Years?”

He chuckles then. “Nobody waits for years.”

I nod my head, agreeing with him.

“Can we go inside now? Juergen’s been asking about you.”

“Sure,” I say and when I move forward, he grabs my face with both of his hands and places a long, endearing kiss on my lips.

“Don’t think anything stupid, Fernando,” he tells me when we pull away, his face just centimeters away from mine. “You know I love you.”

“I know,” I tell him, smiling. I grab his hand and then we walk out the balcony and inside the room.

D

In the next twenty minutes Stephen introduces me to a bunch of people. And when he does and we circulate from pair to pair and the group to group, my mind buzzes, thoughts spiraling. He does all the talking and I just nod my head to the continuous string of his words.

Words I’d never nod my head to.

“That’s my friend Daniel. He’s a photographer.”

“Yes, the show is in two days.”

“Mhm. Two days. Yeah. I’ll email you the invite.”

“He’s very talented.”

“Come! You’ll see for yourself.”

I hate this type of talk. Hate it when somebody talks about me in my presence. Hate the compliments. Hate the anticipation in the other person’s eyes, like “Oh really? You’re that good?” because it means I’d eventually have to prove that I am.

But now, it’s like I’m oblivious to everything Finns says. Oblivious to expectant stares, hums with a hint of irony, head nods questioning my credibility. I know it’s anxiety, but right now I don’t even care for that.

My eyes wander, though subtly. My head moves to the sides, maybe not so subtly. And all I can hear, somewhere among Finns words of appreciation, is Hi, Daniel.

It rings in my head on repeat. Drills through the mold. Makes me so aware, so present, so alive.  And of course, my compulsive side says: you need more of that.

But then, it’s my non-compulsive side, the rationale, that part of myself I rely a lot on to help me get through each day: you can’t have more of that, it says.

Run.

Run away.

But I stand still, my feet well grounded. And somehow, for the first time in what feels like a very long time, I really don’t want to run away.

F

“These drinks be growing on you, huh?” Sergio says when bringing me another one from the bar.

I’m standing with Juergen and my mom, just talking. Talking about nothing, really, when all I wanna do is talk about him. But my mom continues to cling to Juergen’s side and Sergio continues to cling to mine, though I try to busy him with minor tasks, like bringing me more drinks. Which is a terrible idea, honestly, because I’m pretty sure that by the time I get to talk to Juergen one on one, I’ll be wasted.

But I see it in his eyes. Juergen saw him too. And I can tell what he’s thinking, what he’s trying to tell me, “I didn’t know.”

It doesn’t matter, though. It doesn’t matter whether he knew before, whether he ever knew about anything. It’s that slim chance, how the dices rolled, our paths crossing. Here, today, at this time. Not the many times before when I came to Copenhagen, not the many times I searched for him and begged, begged whatever force that rules the universe to let me see him, to let me find him.

But today. Not before and not in the years ahead of us, but today.

Juergen couldn’t have known. Nobody couldn’t have known.

“I didn’t know,” hearing it brings me back, makes my vision focus.

Sergio is talking to my mom, passionately, and my mom is all ears.

“It’s fine,” I tell Juergen quietly. “I just––“

“How right?”

“I know. Or yeah, I don’t.”

“It makes absolutely no sense.”

“No sense,” I repeat after him.

“Does he live in Copenhagen?”

“Juergen, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him. I just said hi.”

“He came with Stephen.”

“Don’t know who Stephen–oh right.”

“How would Stephen know him though,” he asks, but more to himself. Not to me.

“Know who?” then my mom barges in, a cheeky smile on her face.

Now Sergio is all ears.

“Fernando and I are just talking about my residents. He keeps forgetting their names. And I keep telling him how rude that is, because they all know his.”

But Juergen is smooth as ever.

My mom shakes her head, then moves in closer, her arm embracing my waist. “Of course they all know his name.”

I roll my eyes.

“That’s enough drinks for you,” I tell her with a smile, taking a glass of champagne out of her hands.

“Boy, mind your own business,” she takes it back. “It’s non-alcoholic.”

And then we all kinda laugh.

D

“What is going on with you?” Finns asks, when we’re finally left alone.

And I can’t stress the importance of the word finally here.

“Nothing,” I say with easiness, but I feel a growing gulp in my throat.

“Look, I know you’d rather be self-deprecating than self-appreciating, but this nonchalant attitude needs to go. At this point you need to hold on to every ounce of publicity you can get. You’re not Peter Turnley.”

“Yet,” I add, just to annoy him a little more. Because if I ever make it at least somewhere between where I am now and where Peter Turnley is, that’ll be more than enough.

“Please ask your therapist if she doesn’t think you’re bipolar.” 

I smile.

“Thank you for being a good friend,” I blurt out, in a borderline affectionate way. Somehow serious. Serious to the point where Finns turns his head and eyes me with wariness, pursing his lips.

“You’re welcome,” I can hear the suspicion in his voice.  

And when we both go silent for a moment, bounded by the awkward act of honest affection, although small and maybe meaningless, he adds in a tone very particular for Finns, one that means there’s no fucking around.

“You better show them what you’re made of.”

F

Juergen and I don’t get to talk more aside from that little exchange we’ve had. As minutes pass by and more guests approach us—well, him—I’m starting to realize that chances are slim we will get to talk more. At least not tonight, not now. But my curiosity is growing: my need to know more, know how is unappeased. And the craziest part is that for the very first time in years, the person that could answer all of my questions is right here.

I turn my head subtly. To the left, then to the right. I can’t see him, but I’m also not trying to. Mostly in fear that he’ll be trying to see me too and then our eyes will meet and it all will be so obvious. I don’t want to be obvious. I want to be slick.

So I talk to other guests and sip on my drink and look around only when the moment allows, but my looking around is just a mere second of my eyes drifting away without a purpose, hoping that he somehow crosses my sight. But he doesn’t.

All I see is unfamiliar faces, glasses of champagne clinking, the room full of chatter, bright and beaming with the summer light pouring in. I can feel somebody’s stare piercing through my back and then I suspect it’s him: it boils my blood. The intensity of his presence, the air getting heavy, my breath a little shorter. And I tell myself, don’t turn around, don’t turn around, don’t turn around.  

But the reasoning of that voice is sufficient only for a while, a short while. And when that voice of reason urges, I turn my head. Not my whole body, just my head, which maybe is even less slick and more obvious. A full body turn would be inconvenient, but bold. I have no business turning around, the person I’m talking to stands in front of me not behind me, but a slick me wouldn’t care.  A slick me used to think it is so slick to put your business out there. Be inconvenient, be bold about it.

Now I just peek, a sneak peek that is. I turn my head, see him listening to someone else talking, his face turned, his profile facing me. I give myself a few seconds, and when I know I should turn my head back, I give myself a few more seconds. Just to see. Just to see him from this other angle, see his jawline, the color of his skin. I feel like only now I notice how short his hair is, only millimeters long. The shape of his head. How sharp his cheekbones are.

And then before Daniel has a chance to bust me, I turn my head back. The person I’m talking to is looking at me confused.

“Sorry,” I say lightly. “I thought I heard someone calling my name.”

One thing true? I was a better liar once.

D

I see him standing with his back turned, not too far off, talking to someone. I try not to stare, but the more I force myself to look away the more drawn I am to look. A part of me finds it impossible to just stand here and continue talking to Stephen, when I have a once in a lifetime—or at least that’s how it feels right now—opportunity to talk to him. Granted I could utter anything audible. But then again, when I really think about it, what would we talk about? Would a how have you been cut it? Should we start off talking about weather? Do I tell him that I’m happy he took his teenage dreams and made them come true? Or maybe we should proceed like nothing ever happened, like it all is a very distant memory now, like it was just a dream—something like an afternoon nap you take on a hot, steamy summer day and you wake up from it feeling nostalgic and melancholic and you can’t shake that feeling off for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s what it all really was.

F

When my conversational partner leaves—kind of abruptly, after another unsuccessful attempt on making me more engaged in our exchange—I immediately think: go talk to Daniel.

What do you have to lose? My inner voice prompts.

A crazy cosmic mishap brought you two in the same room eight years after that summer ended and not acting on this coincidence would be a waste of all those small and big decisions you’ve made throughout the years that brought you here. Next to him.

He’s standing just a little behind you. Turn around, tell the person he’s talking to that you desperately need to talk to Daniel and that’s it. That’s all you need to do. (Maybe don’t say desperately.)

For a moment, I linger over how his name sounds in my head. I haven’t said that name in a long time. No, not true. Maybe I have. But I haven’t said it thinking about him, referring to him. It’s a bizarre sensation that takes me back to a place I’ve long forgotten about. A place that’s a state of mind, a feeling. An abundance of them. It’s a mix of excitement, fear, desperation and restlessness, and I haven’t felt all that at the same time in a long while.  

But just when I make that decision to turn around and go for it, go for whatever is going to happen next, somebody grabs my shoulder and I snap out of that moment.

It’s Sergio.

“I’m so tired,” he tells me and I’m suddenly very annoyed.

I had it. The perfect moment. I was ready to act on it, ready to maximize it and now it’s gone. For as stupid of a reason as his I’m so tired.

“Yeah,” I respond, in a slightly bitter way.

“You don’t seem too ecstatic either.”

Control your damn face, Fernando.

“Yeah,” I agree with him, unable to bring more creativity and joy into my responses. Then I fake a cough and stretch my neck, moving it to the sides. “I’m tired too.”

That’s one of my staples whenever I feel irritated but don’t want to act on my irritation. I take a moment to repress my natural reactions and buy myself a moment or two by adding some type of neutral move, like coughing, stretching my back, squeezing my knuckles or briefly closing my eyes.

But Sergio never picks up on these.

“Let’s sneak out,” he proposes in a tone that sounds like that is the best idea he’s ever had.

“What? No. Come on. We can’t.”

“A quickie in a bathroom?” his tone lowers.

“Didn’t you just say you’re tired?”

He gives me a cheeky smile and moves closer. “You know—“

Unexpectedly then, the entire room goes silent and so does Sergio. I raise my head to see what’s happening. Juergen is holding a glass of champagne in a toasting manner and guests gather in front of him, some maneuvering between others to see him better. We stand where we are.

“Dearest friends,” he starts then quickly pauses. “Well, friends and family of course,” some people laugh after he makes that addition. “My beautiful wife wouldn’t forgive me,” and my mom shakes her head with a soft grin, rolling her eyes. I shoot Juergen a smile, but doubt he can see me. “Thank you all for coming here today to celebrate what is supposed to be my 60^th birthday,” another pause, this one a little more deliberate than the previous one. “God, I am old,” the crowd laughs. “And I’m not saying this because sixty is a big number. I’m not ageist, you know that. But rather, looking at you all, I’m wondering when did we stop throwing trashy parties and moved on to ballrooms, dressed in suits and gowns?” This time around I laugh together with the crowd. “I want to make this sweet and short: I am grateful that we are here today. Grateful that I have found support in so many of you. Grateful that you’ve believed in me and allowed me to do the work that I love to do. That one is for my wife. And for my son as well, who as a teenager loved not seeing me for days.” I really laugh then. “I wouldn’t have done it without my team. They have been so dedicated to their craft and I couldn’t be prouder of the work that they do every day,” some guests begin to clap then, but Juergen continues. “You’re an incredible bunch. So please enjoy tonight! And thank you again for coming.”

Once he’s done, a rich round of applause fills the room and I clap too. Juergen and I came a long way, but in this moment, I’m filled with nothing but love, gratitude and pride. He has taught me so much and became an inspirational figure to so many, yet always remained humble and unpretentious. It took me years to see and appreciate the number of his qualities. Sometimes I look back and think of how big of an asshole I was to him, to everybody else, and honestly, I’m thankful that he never gave up on me though up until this day sometimes I still can’t think of a good reason why he didn’t.

“Fernando,” Sergio’s voice brings me back to reality and away from my thoughts.

“Hm?”

“You’re still clapping,” he tells me and I look at my hands realizing that I am, in fact, still clapping.  

“Uh-huh,” I stop immediately, slightly embarrassed.

“You were having a moment,” Sergio tries to sound serious, but his silly smile gives in.

I shake my head, laughing. “Oh shut up.”

He pulls me in and places a kiss on my temple. “So about that quickie—“

“Hell no,” I stop him right there.

But I got that maybe smile on my face.

D

That must be his boyfriend.

They stand together to my right—our right, because Stephen is next to me—and there’s that closeness between them. Their arms touch subtly, heads point in the same direction while they’re listening to the speech, even the way they burst out laughing together soon after Juergen finishes speaking, the way he pulls him in and kisses him. It doesn’t take much to notice that there’s something shared there, the ease with which they move together. That there’s a certain level of intimacy that only comes with time. Years, I’m guessing, in this case.

And it stings me. At first in short, quick, little stabs, and then overwhelmingly all at once. My mind can rationalize this: it has been years, why wouldn’t he be in a relationship? But the parts of me that lack the ability to go with my reason, ask: why exactly is he in a relationship?

Why with him?

I struggle to form deeper bonds with other people, so of course, naturally, I tend to obsessively analyze the relationships others are in. Sometimes with envy, but mostly because I’m just curious.

“Stop staring,” Stephen reprimands me.  

“I’m not staring.”

“Yes you are, Danny,” his tone is sarcastic now.

And before I have a chance to say anything back to him, he turns his head to me and asks, “And also, what have you two been talking about on that balcony, huh? You never told me.”

I look at him like I’m dumb.

“With Fernando? The professor’s son?” he insists.

Still acting dumb.

“Interesting how you won’t say a word to people that could drop dimes on your show. But somehow, with him, you talk.”

“We weren’t talking.”

And when Stephen is about to say something, I cut him off by asking, “And how do you know he won’t drop dimes on my show?”

“You should bring out that personality more often. I really like him.”

I shake my head. “Your stupid questions bring it out in me.”

“Baby Danny, sometimes you do forget who’s wiser here.”

“And much older.”

“Honestly fuck you.”

I laugh then, for the first time today, and just as my stare moves away from Stephen, I notice Fernando looking over his shoulder.

Staring at us.

But the minute my eyes meet his, his head turns back.

Funny, I think. He used to like to stare.

F

Is that his boyfriend?

The guy on the balcony who interrupted us? Stephen. His name is Stephen.

It would make sense.

It doesn’t make any sense though.

He’s older and—

I stop myself right there. I was eighteen years old and fucking guys in their thirties. Age doesn’t mean anything.

But they’re just so different. And not in a complimentary way. Not like I’m looking at them and thinking, opposites really do attract.

The first time I catch a glimpse, they don’t see me staring and that tempts me even more. But I know it’s a risky endeavor, because we stand so close to each other.

Yet, just like before, I can’t stop myself. There’s pleasure in knowing I might get caught.

And when I hear him laughing—a sound I never imagined I’d hear, but a sound I often did try to imagine—I look over my shoulder again.

He looks genuinely happy in that moment: his mouth open, eyes half shut. His laugh is vibrant, but a bit funny too. It hits a high pitch for a second, which considering the deepness of his voice is an unexpected twist. It kinda makes me want to laugh too.

But then, then he sees me and so, I turn my head back faster than necessary.

Fuuuuuck.

Why did I do that? Why did I shy away from looking?

I used to love to make others uncomfortable with my staring, with how expectant my glares were, how long they went on for. I used to love doing plenty of things I just don’t do anymore

“Let’s go talk to Juergen and my mom and after that we can leave?

Now I’m shying away from him. And for some reason it’s not just him, it’s everything else his presence brings. Brings back in me—the things I no longer represent, the things I’ve buried, gotten rid of and didn’t replenish. I’m not the same person I was when I met him and I know it would be strange if I still was. We’re bound to grow, to shed the old skin, to grow a new one. But amidst of what I lost and decided to build upon, I left no room for who I used to be. It wasn’t just some little tweaks that I did, like airbrushing minor flaws. I put on a whole new me. And only sometimes, when triggered, I thought about what I left behind—who I left behind.

“You sure you don’t want to stay longer?” Sergio asks.

“Nah,” I say, trying to sound all casual. “I’m tired from the trip and just want to get into bed.”

“I feel you,” he pauses for a second, looks around and then grabs my hand, “Let’s find your parents.”

But finding them wasn’t a problem as much as getting through to them was.

A loose line of people is queuing to talk to Juergen and my mom and we stand rather in the sad ends of it. I could easily pass through, excusing ourselves, throwing in an apologetic smile. But that would be rude.

“Now is a good time to be an asshole,” Sergio whispers to my ear, laughing.

But I only shake my head, giving him a side eye and when I’m about to lean against his shoulder and ease into his touch, I hear from behind:

“You know you’re the one person who doesn’t have to wait in line?”

I turn around, taken aback by this stranger’s audacity.

The stranger is not a stranger though. Not entirely.

It’s that guy—Stephen.

Quick second after I recognize him and before I manage to gather my thoughts into a coherent response, preferably as equally witty, Sergio says, “That’s exactly what I just told him.”

And they both chuckle.

“Don’t think we’ve met today. I’m Stephen,” he introduces himself and they shake hands, Sergio giving him his name in exchange.

But I’m standing kind of perplexed, thinking that if Stephen is here, talking to us, then Daniel must be close. Must be joining him, us, any second from now on.

Yet I don’t see him around.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was just joking earlier,” Stephen sounds a bit concerned and it suddenly hits me that I’ve been awkwardly quiet.

“No, no,” I try to reassure him, finally offering a smile. “I was just in my thoughts.”

Sergio’s eyebrows shoot up and he adds, almost as if he’d be letting Stephen in on a secret, “He’s a little off today.”

But before I have a chance to explain myself, Stephen asks me, “Tired?”

His tone is compassionate, softer than what it was when he first approached us minutes ago. For a second I debate whether to put on a show and act all jolly, but then I admit:

“Yeah, very.”

He shakes his head, understanding.

“I can definitely offer a moment of self-pity in an attempt to lift your spirits,” he says and I let out a small laugh then, as he continues. “I finished a 15-hour shift at 3 pm and then had to pick up my friend Daniel, because otherwise he wouldn’t have come but,” Stephen looks around then, “he must be by the bar and… oh, by the way, if you don’t mind me asking, how do you two know each other?”

I didn’t see it coming. At least not that early on, not with Sergio next to me. I give him a quick look, but he seems unimpressed, even a little disinterested. Sergio heard me being asked about other people by other people a million times before.

But he’s never heard about Daniel and I always imagined it would stay that way.

“Sure,” I start with ease, “Just old friends.”

“Really?”

Oh god, does he know?

But I decide to remain confident in faking my cool. “Yeah. I met him when I was still in high-school. Juergen took me to the Danish countryside for the summer.”

Stephen looks amused.

“And that was the last time you saw him?”

I smile. “Yes.”

He goes silent for a moment, looking baffled. “So today…” he says under his nose, a little stunned. “What a coincidence.”

“Agreed,” I intend to sound very matter-of-factly, stripped of any emotions. But then I quickly realize this is a perfect opportunity for me to throw an unassuming investigation, to ask questions without seeming overly eager and suspiciously interested. It would be as if I’m just trying to be polite and carry on the conversation. “So, how do you know Daniel?”

I’m self-conscious about how his name sounds leaving my mouth. I make sure that it doesn’t sound like anything, that it doesn’t reveal: “I was madly in love with this guy years ago and it has nearly killed me.”

“Daniel and I go way back,” Stephen tells us with a gentle grin. “We actually met in quite odd circumstances. I was a resident at a hospital where he was recovering after an accident. We kind of just stumbled upon each other. It was hardly love at first sight, though.”

We laugh then, entertained by the way he talks and although he seems like a serious guy, the type that doesn’t like to waste nobody’s time, especially his own, there’s something lighthearted about him.

It suddenly strikes me how handsome he is.

A certain breed of handsome: the suit and tie wearing, I-got-my-shit-together kind. Smart, probably extremely smart, but not arrogant about it. Sexy too.

“We’ve been friends for nearly six years now.”

And then I feel an unexpected wave of relief.

D

Stephen picked the best time to send me to the bar.

As everybody is queuing to talk to the professor and his wife, bartenders are left unoccupied and I don’t have to go through the horror of standing in close proximity to others while waiting to be served.

“What can I get you, sir?” one of the bartenders asks in a nonchalant tone, slightly bothered, as if his job description didn’t require him to serve drinks in the first place.  

But I work in the service industry too. I understand.

“Jameson on the rocks,” I tell the guy without thinking twice and then proceed to lean with my side against the counter, looking over the crowd and trying to spot Finns.

Before we parted, he said it’s only going to take a minute but then added that in case it doesn’t, he could use a drink. Me, taking on every chance I can get to remain at a safe distance, immediately agreed to volunteer on this case in hopes it will allow me to stay in slight disguise.

“Jameson on the rocks for you, sir,” I hear coming from behind, the bartender’s tone no different than before.

“Thanks,” I respond, side-eyeing him as he puts the drink on the counter, placing it perfectly on a white, small napkin.

I look back onto the crowd, tracing to where I left Finns, unable to spot him. Majority of guests look alike—something about the way they move, gesticulate, laugh. It all happens in unison, there’s little room for personalized behavior. Which I believe makes sense: certain crowds come with a code and you’re required to leave your quirks out of it, should you want to fit in.

Finally, I catch sight of Finns and he’s giving me that “get your ass over here” type of wave.

Did I think the drink was going to send itself over there?

I pick the glass off the counter and make my way across the room towards Stephen.

“Thanks, Dan,” he says once I get close enough for him to take the drink out of my hands. “I thought you’d never come.”

“Ha,” I say, making sure he detects the sarcasm in my voice.

“Well, you already met Fernando,” he tells me as his hand reaches towards the back of somebody standing to his left.

Fernando then turns around, slowly, and when his eyes meet mine, his face dons a blank expression. I’d think he would be surprised, but perhaps he suppresses that emotion with expertise.

“We’ve met,” Fernando and I both say at the same time, in the very same moment, only his pace is faster.

It makes me smile, but he doesn’t smile back.

His boyfriend turns around then too, giving me a quick up-and-down stare before he extends his hand.

“Sergio,” he introduces himself.

“Daniel,” I tell him, shaking his hand.

“Fernando told me you guys are old friends,” Stephen says, then proceeds to take a sip of the drink, arching his eyebrows a little, looking at me like it’s okay not to mind his business today. “What a small world.”

It’s funny, because for somebody who opts for a drama-free environment, Finns has been stirring a lot of shit today, butting in and playing innocent to the game.

Or maybe that’s what small-talk is all about and I’m just embarrassingly new to this.

“It is a small world,” I agree with him, making sure my voice sounds all toned down and clear. That my words are deliberate, that I don’t speed through them. Sometimes I talk unnecessarily fast, because that’s how badly I want to be done talking.

For a moment, we all share an awkward silence: Stephen continues to sip on his drink, Fernando is staring at me, either so unabashedly or he is zoning out, and Sergio turns his head to check how many people are still in front of us. 

I can’t bring myself up to casually throw in a conversation starter, but then it turns out I don’t have to.

Sergio does it for me. For all of us.

“Stephen told us you have an exhibition this weekend. Impressive.”

Somehow uncontrollably, I let out a sigh, giving Finns a side-eye. “Of course he did,” I say, miserably faking a smile.

And that’s when, to my surprise, I notice Fernando smiling.

“Not a fan of free press?” he asks in a genuinely curious manner, but that small smile playing on his lips seems mocking.

“It’s just not an exhibition,” I explain, lightly shrugging my arms.

“There we go,” Finns mutters as he’s about to take another sip of his drink, making that comment for my ears only.

I hold back a massive eye roll and continue to explain, “I get to show some of my work with other photographers. It’s a small—“

“Dan likes to be very precise about everything,” Stephen butts in again, this time making sure they can hear him and both Fernando and Sergio laugh at his remark.

“Not the Dan that I remember,” Fernando adds and I’m left startled at his comment.

It looks as if Stephen is too, because he gives me a questioning look, keeping quiet.

That awkward silence reappears.  

“It was good seeing you,” Fernando suddenly says, to the both of us. “We should get going.”

The latter I believe was meant for Sergio, but he didn’t look at him when he said it, so after Fernando turns, it takes Sergio a moment to realize the ongoings of the situation.

“Yeah, good seeing you,” Sergio says, also puzzled by Fernando’s unexpected departure. “Good luck with your exhibition,” he throws in when turning away.

It’s not an exhibition, I correct him, but this time weakly and in my head, looking as they walk away, slowly disappearing between the number of bodies.

After a moment, Stephen says, “Well… that was weird,” summing it up perfectly.

F

What is wrong with me?

NoT thE DaN THaT I RemEmBEr.

I keep replying this sentence in my head, mocking myself.

Or no. It keeps replying itself in my head, mocking me.

“I thought you’re not gonna be an asshole and cut people off," Sergio tells me as we walk past the guests forming a line.

“Right,” I say, failing to adorn my response with a smile, knowing I sound nothing but exactly like an asshole. “Changed my mind.”

As I approach Juergen and my mom, I briefly look at the person that’s just about to have their turn in talking to them and say, “Just one second.”

“What’s up?” Juergen asks me, smiling apologetically at the woman I so blatantly cut-off.

“We just wanted to say goodbye. I’m tired. The trip has been a whirlwind.”

I feel like I put together a collection of phrases in hopes they will sound convincing enough to persuade my parents, and myself included, that my wanting to leave is not at all about Daniel.

“Oh honey, don’t worry about it,” my mom waves her hand, reassuring me that my tactic has worked.

“We will see you for dinner this weekend, right?” I ask them, offering a smile, finally taking a moment to look at Sergio who stands by my side and is now nodding his head.

“Yes, yes, of course. Just give us a call tomorrow and we will arrange something,” Juergen says.  

“Great. We’ll call in the morning,” I tell him and then he pulls me in for a hug, patting my back. “Happy birthday, Juergen,” I say as we’re still embraced. “Love you.”

“Love you too, kid.”

He pats me on the back one more time and then we pull away. Once we do, I turn to my mom and give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“See you tomorrow, madre,” I say to her, my tone a lot more teasing when I combine English with Spanish.

“No sé cómo tratas con él, Sergio,” she says to him and I nod my head in disbelief. Juergen is left out of this exchange not only because after all these years his Spanish is still in shambles, but because he already started talking to the woman that was waiting to talk to him.  

“You should be asking me how I deal with him,” I tell my mom, emphasizing who’s the real victim here, but she has an innocent smile on her lips, keeping Sergio in a tight, bear hug.

When they draw apart, Sergio is grinning, looking so pleased with himself.

I shake my head.

“What a sucker,” I say to him, faking disdain.

As we turn around and start heading out, he puts an arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer.

“She really does love me more than she loves you,” he tells me, laughing, and I finally give in.

“Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you,” I’m laughing with him.

When we make it out of the main room and into the hallway passage, an uneasy feeling sets in my stomach, just as if it was patiently waiting to creep in. I look back over my shoulder, squinting my eyes to make out a single body, but all I see is a crowd of people.

“Wanna stop by the bathroom for that quickie?” Sergio whispers to my ear, more in a joking than sultry way. 

I look at him, but don’t respond right away. Instead, I press my forehead against his collarbone, breathing in the familiar smell of his body.

“Just take me home,” I say to his chest, my voice weary, sounding somewhat defeated.

On a surface level, it seems as though nothing extraordinary has happened tonight. It was an event like many others I have been to with an exception that this one has actually ran smoother and faster than I assumed it would. Yet below the surface of normalcy, it feels as if something has shifted and I have yet to experience the full weight of it.  

After we hear a quiet ding, the elevator doors slide open. What are you doing? The same voice that was prompting me to talk to Daniel, now speaks up again. You’re leaving? Just like that? What a coward you are.

We step inside and I watch Sergio press the ground floor button. You waited years. Years, you fool.

I didn’t wait for years, I tell the voice, tell myself. I have stopped waiting. I forgot.

Did you?

D

And just like that, he’s gone.

I watch Stephen engage in another round of small talk almost as soon as Fernando and his boyfriend leave, but I can’t bring myself up to participate. Not that I would have done so easily under any other circumstances, but his departure has me standing in a company of people and staring into the air.

Did it all really happen?

Was he here?

Did I imagine it?

Was my anxiety hitting an all-time high and in effect I envisioned something that just didn’t take place?

But Stephen saw him too. He talked to him too.

I wasn’t hallucinating, I wasn’t projecting. It happened.

And the fact that it did, is the most surprising factor of it all.

The fact that out of everything that could have happened tonight, out of everything that could have gone horribly wrong or surprisingly well, this happened.

I’m not sure yet whether I can classify this incident—or a phenomenon considering the unlikeliness of it—as good or bad, because my brain is preoccupied with dissecting each piece of information collected.

I look back as far as that day at the hospital, when I left Juergen promising that I’ll come back and never did.

I look back as far as my first days and months in Copenhagen.

And then I briefly go through the years in desperate search of a piece of puzzle I clearly missed.

A moment that could have been so crucial, so revealing, but I omitted it, not paying it much attention.

I have an unmistakable memory, true, but I also worked beyond hard to put some memories to rest.

To let them go.

To turn them into a blank slate.

And I thought I did so successfully.

I thought I forgot how he looks like, that if I were to see him again, I’d have not recognize him.

I thought I forgot the way his voice sounds like, how his lips move when he talks.

I thought I forgot how it feels to be in his presence, to be the person he looks at, to be the one he smiles at, even if it’s in mockery, suspicion, or as a tease.

I thought I forgot about him all along, forgot everything, but as minutes pass by all that I thought I forgot about comes back to me.

And it tugs at my chest in a hopeless manner, my lungs tightening as if something was trying to squeeze them like you squeeze a lemon.

I’m thinking: could it be that he forgot or is he just like me, only starting to remember?

“Finns,” I say to Stephen, seeing him pause his conversation and turn around. “I think I’m going to head out.”

“Now? Look, maybe fifteen minutes in and we’ll be done waiting.”

I look over to where Juergen and his wife stand, noticing that there’s only a few people ahead of us.

“Yeah, now. I have an early shift at the restaurant tomorrow.”

“I see,” he responds and I wonder if that’s a trace of doubt and suspicion that I hear in his voice.

I nod my head, failing to add anything more convincing.

I do have an early shift at the restaurant tomorrow, but that isn’t the reason for why I’m leaving. Not entirely at least.

“I’ll see you on Sunday?” Finns asks me and I laugh.

“You think I’m not going to come?”

“To your own show? Yes, that feels very on brand for you.”

I shake my head in disbelief, smiling.

“I’ll see you on Sunday,” I tell him, my voice confident and assured.

He only smiles at me in response.

F

When we’re back in our hotel room, I take off my shoes the second the door shuts close. Sergio silently walks past me and I can hear him sigh in relief as he throws his tie on the bed.

“Want a glass?”

He stands by the coffee table where the staff has left us a bucket with champagne and a platter filled with fruits.

“Yes, fill it up,” I say with no hesitation and he chuckles.

“I love travelling with you,” he tells me, as he uncorks the bottle and I watch him pour the bubbly liquid into our tall glasses.

“Thought you hated it,” I take off my blazer and my tie, starting to unbutton the shirt. 

“I should rephrase it,” he hands me the glass, his lips twisted in a cocky smile. “I love the perks that come with it.”

I shut my eyes for a moment and take a sip, enjoying the light and prickly taste of the alcohol. “You’re lucky I put up with your shits,” I tell him after I swallow.

Sergio takes a hold of my hand and pulls me in, his arm tightening around my waist. “You’re lucky I put up with yours,” he whispers to my ear.

I nod my head in vast disagreement, but deep down I know I’m an asshole in equal parts.

“I love you,” he says quietly and because we don’t share these moments often, I cherish how vulnerable and sweet they are.

“I love you too,” I tell him, pressing against his chest. But just as the words leave my mouth, there comes a sudden feeling of discomfort. Very slight, almost undetectable. If I wasn’t fully present in this moment, I wouldn’t have felt it. I close my eyes, resting my head against Sergio’s shoulder.

The tattoos on his neck, on both of his hands. Each knuckle covered in ink. No bare skin until the line of his jaw.  

I snap out of it, my eyes wide open.

I pull away gently, afraid that any sign of abruptness will make me susceptible.

“You wanna shower first?” I ask Sergio, sitting on the bed.

He gives me a silent nod and then proceeds to down his drink, popping a few grapes into his mouth shortly after.

I watch him undress, throwing each piece of his clothing on the armchair. Normally I’d give him shit for that—it takes a second to put your stuff back on a hanger and in the closet, but now I just couldn’t care less.

Sergio is toned and tanned. Skin golden and tight. He’s got tattoos too and they’re splattered across his upper body. Some are a little faded, some are a tad tacky, some I know he regrets getting. I know the meaning behind each of them, know the ones that came with no meaning at all: on a drunken night or just on a whim. That was years ago though. He hasn’t gotten anything new in a long time.

I always wanted tattoos. Especially after that summer, after seeing Daniel’s arms so precisely inked. Before meeting him, I thought tattoos were meant to signal you were being tough, maybe reckless too. I thought of it as something you apply to your skin to forever uphold and speak to your status of intimidation, even if all you were was bulky and dull-witted. Then I met him and yeah, Daniel was reckless and tough, probably less reckless than I was if we’re giving credit where credit is due, but I remember seeing his tattoos, getting to know him, and thinking this is more than just showing you’re some type of badass. More than telling a story, tattoos hide a story: in symbols, lines, colors. They compress bits of you: your history, your culture, your memories. Protect what’s precious, lock in what marked you.

But I never got any. I had ideas about what I wanted and where I wanted it, but I always found a way to delay the final decision, fill it with excuses.

“Oh, the healing process. The water. I spend hours a day in chlorine. Can’t afford to take a break. My skin is already affected.”

And so on and on.

Ultimately, I think I just couldn’t pick a story good enough to tell and as years have gone by, I saw myself no longer being as reckless.

I get up from the bed, pour myself another glass, down it in one gulp. Then pour another one.

I change into t-shirt and sweatpants, sit back on the bed, turn the TV on. It’s just white noise.

Not too long later, Sergio comes out of the bathroom, hair pushed back and dripping water, a white towel loosely hanging on his hips.

He leans against the door frame to the bathroom, brushing his teeth.

“So, an old friend, huh?”

It takes me a moment to realize who he’s referring to and when I finally do, I delay my response by pretending to still watch the TV.

When I look over, Sergio is no longer standing by the door.

I hear him open the bathroom tap, water running, as he continues to brush his teeth.

That’s another thing I’d always give him shit for: letting the water run when he’s not using it.  

But now instead I tell him loudly, “Yeah, an old friend.”

Clearly not loud enough because when he comes back a moment later, he says, “I couldn’t hear you. The water was running.”

“I said yeah, an old friend.”

He’s quick to retort.

“I know all of your old friends and don’t recall ever hearing about him.”

“Well duh… because he’s an old friend,” I keep my tone casual. “I probably told you and you just forgot.”

I never thought I’d lie about Daniel to Sergio.

Then again, I did frame it as something probable, so technically it’s less than a lie.

“Probably,” he confirms, sounding a bit too serious for my liking.

“Why the sudden interest?” I ask him in a calm manner, knowing that I should not sound bothered.

But he doesn’t answer my question.

I watch Sergio sit on the verge of the bed, scroll through his phone, then get up and open the suitcase. He puts on a pair of boxers and then throws the towel on the other armchair.

“Can you take it to the bathroom? That towel is still wet.”

I’m surprised to see him escort it back without snarky commentary.

When he’s out, he checks his phone again then puts it on the nightstand and gets under the covers.

“What are you watching?” he asks me, leaning with his back against the headboard, ignoring my question from minutes ago.

“I don’t even know. My Danish still sucks. Can you believe it?”

He laughs and then we proceed to watch the TV in silence.

“You asked why the sudden interest,” Sergio says after a while, his eyes locked on the screen.

I give him a moment to gather his thoughts, but when the follow up doesn’t happen, I say, “I did.”

“Remember us in high-school? The stupid shit we used to do?”

He pauses, taking a look at me, then looks back at the TV.

“I didn’t care about anything. Knew you cared even less. And the kids were talking shit about you all the time.”

I nod my head. That’s exactly how it was.

“When they expelled you and you told me you were leaving for the summer I knew you were going to come back.”

I can’t recall the last time we spoke about that period of time.

“And then when the summer came and you left, I had my own thing and you had yours and we barely spoke and we were both fine with it.”

I’m curious to see where he’s going with this.

“I remember waiting for you to come back. Missing you. Thinking shit, this isn’t just about fucking for me. I might have to tell him that.”

He takes a deep breath.

“And you know well yourself that when you came back nothing was as before.”

I nod my head again.

“Most of the time I felt so ill-equipped to handle what you were going through and I was frustrated with myself for failing to understand your pain.”

I don’t think he ever told me any of this, at least not all at once. But the reason why we can have this conversation today in such an ordinary way—with no emotional highs, no anger, no resentment—is because we moved on from this. We ended that chapter forever, or so I hoped.

“I could feel you didn’t want me around, didn’t want my help. I also knew I couldn’t help you. That the assault and the trauma was something you had to deal with on your own.”

He alternates between looking at the TV and looking at me and it makes me relieved not having to continuously remain in eye contact with him.

“I have never seen anyone show this much strength and preservation. To this day I remember dropping you at the Fuenlabrada training center, because you didn’t want Juergen to know you were planning to go back to swimming. I still remember us sitting in the car and me asking if you need help getting inside, but you just silently got out, on your crutches, and I was thinking how the hell is he going to make it up these stairs? These stairs were massive.”

I have a wide smile on my face.

I remember it all too.

I didn’t want his help, didn’t want nobody’s help.

It was not too long after I got back to Madrid from Denmark, still recovering from the accident, that I decided I wanted to go back to swimming. But I didn’t want Juergen to know. I was so terrified that the head coach of the Fuenlabrada team, which was my last resort at the time and honestly also the worst swimming club in Madrid, is going to send me back saying I have nothing to hope for.

I was too ashamed to admit that I desperately wanted a second chance, but more importantly too afraid having to admit to yet another failure if I didn’t get one.

“The rest is history of course,” Sergio resumes. “But I always wondered if there was more.”

I look at him now, confused.

“I understood why you didn’t want to talk about the assault, but I always wondered why you never spoke about that summer at all. You never brought up names, friends or memories. At first I thought it was part of the trauma and then I thought it also wasn’t my right to know. So, I never asked.”

I look away, staring at the TV.

“But today I want to ask.”

I look back at him.

“Was there more?”

I want to tell him that I don’t understand the question, that I can’t see where he’s coming from, what exactly he wants to know. I part my mouth to vocalize all of these doubts, but then I close it.

I feel this sudden ripple of fear that if I begin to tell him things, smallest things, I’ll eventually erupt.

At first, after I came back to Spain, I didn’t want to tell him anything, because the wounds were fresh, because I was still coming to terms with what happened, because I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t even know where to start. That summer was so monumental for me that the idea of downplaying the entire experience for the sake of making it a digestible bit simply felt wrong, but at the same time, the idea of having to explain its complexities seemed too difficult.

It was easier to erase it than try to find the right words. It was easier to pretend like it didn’t happen. Easier to hope I’d never have to revisit that chapter of my life again.

“No,” I finally tell him, sure in my answer. “There was nothing more.”

Sergio nods his head. Then he leans in, putting his hand on my cheek, looking into my eyes. I think he wants to stay like that for a minute, relish that moment of intimacy, but I leap in to kiss him in a sloppy, almost desperate way. I kiss him, because if I have to sit in this silence a second longer, I might just tell him the truth.

D

When I make it home, the first thing I do is head straight to the bathroom.

Bottom drawer. Filled to the brim with meds. I take out Lexapro, hesitating for a moment, but then continuing my search among the boxes.

Under the stack, I find my small ziplocks. All six of them. Each has about a gram of weed.

Whenever I buy an ounce or more, I divide them up into grams for no particular reason, other than maybe my compulsive pleasures.

I know the irony of it. Smoking weed makes me more anxious, so I end up taking Lexapro to feel less anxiety.

But there’s that in between period which is so blissful and tender. My mind dozes off and a heavy cloud resides over my thoughts. Only temporarily of course, but it’s a massive delight.  

Another one is when my muscles relax and I can feel the tension leaving my body. My legs feel lighter, arms are less guarded up. I breathe with easiness.

I smile now just thinking about that feeling.

But I leave Lexapro on the counter, taking with me one ziplock bag. First things first.

In the kitchen, I look for my weed grinder and start undressing, carefully putting the blazer on the back of the chair.

I unbutton the shirt and hang it on the hanger that I left on the upper part of the door frame before we headed out.

The reason why I keep things in order at home is because the outer world is so horribly disorganized and so, I find solace in knowing that my place isn’t. But that doesn’t mean my apartment is pristine and catalogue-like.

I live in a tiny attic apartment with large, slanted roof windows. The amount of light that gets in is what makes this space seem bigger than what it actually is. Warmer and less obscure. More welcoming. Less me. Considering that what’s me feels like it should be a cave deep below the surface of the earth.

I do have an affinity for collecting random items and art pieces of questionable (to some) quality, but there’s meaning to everything that I brought in here and most importantly, a system in which it all is organized. Years ago when I moved in, I didn’t have money to buy anything and in result things like books, prints and paintings have been resting against the walls, waiting to be properly taken care of. I slept on a bare mattress for months. Used a plastic chair both as my closet and table. And even when I started making money and could afford spending beyond bare necessities, I realized I like what many would describe as arranged chaos. In a modest version though, because I don’t own much.

The furniture I have is mismatched and I really like objects that bring a pop of color, because I can’t stand sterile-looking interiors. There’s one wall in the hallway with thick batches of different paint shades that I was testing out thinking I’ll repaint the bedroom, but that never happened. I also still keep some of the art unhung, put against the walls, even though my finances allow me to take better care of it now.

I sit down at the table, which is where I spend the most time in the apartment. The table can easily fit six people, but I consider that feature wasted since I rarely invite anyone here. Instead it’s where I eat, work, read, get high, and keep my stacks of library books. They’re on fast rotation and that’s why I keep them handy.

This time I don’t reach for a book though. I don’t even look at my camera or the stack of prints next to it. Which I promised I would go through in case I want to make any last changes to my work selection before the show.

I don’t even think about the show now, which is a revelation, because it has been on my mind non-stop for weeks.

As I carefully roll the blunt, the only thing that is on my mind is him.

And it’s not even a clear collection of thoughts, but rather a series of images and impressions that are scattered in my head. The teenage Fernando I’ve met years ago was something of a stunt. If you put him in an environment like the one we’ve found ourselves in today, best believe he’d make a show out of it. A good one? I doubt it, but a show nevertheless. He was a magnet for attention: everything he said, everything he did was meant for the public and he often performed his acts in a way that would result in most outrageous reactions. The reason why I knew he was performing is because I had a chance to spend time with him alone and little by little, he peeled off his layers to reveal someone raw and vulnerable: someone he didn’t want the public to see. Fernando was definitely a handful as a teenage boy but today I think he just struggled to choose the right vessels of expression. Yet regardless of this shortcoming, you had to admire how eagerly he tried to stay true to his driving forces. I always did.

Today however, he has presented himself in a careful way. There was no show, no testing out the audience, no pushing buttons. He seemed so different than how I remembered him and only when that small, teasing smile appeared on his face for a short moment, I felt a sense of familiarity. I knew that smile.

The very rest, though? I had a hard time recognizing.

Fernando’s blonde strands were gone. His hair was now a dark shade of brown and cut very short. Not as short as mine—there was softness to his hair that you wouldn’t feel if you’ve brushed through mine. He seemed serious and I wondered if it was the new hair style, the fact we were now 26 and not 18, or maybe the stern look in his eyes. That cheeky playfulness which has previously surrounded his person wasn’t as easily detectable now. He didn’t carry it with him, didn’t wear it like an armour. Did he grow out of it or unlike back then, just kept it tucked away from the public?

I’m half way done with the blunt: smoked it in three, frantic puffs that have made my throat dry and burning. But I take one more hit, before I leave the rest of the blunt propped on the ashtray.

I lean back in the chair, closing my eyes, letting my head fall back and my arms drop to the sides of my body. I’m so used to getting high that the slow regression in my perception of reality doesn’t faze me. It’s something I anticipate and treasure. But as I start to feel more mellow than minutes ago, at the same time I detect an unusual type of alertness. For a second I think maybe it’s some new type of high, but before I can remember which strand I chose to smoke today, that thought is gone.

With my eyes still shut, I see images that were buried in the depths of my memory a long time ago. They’re crisp and clear: precise enough to make me believe they have never departed my head in the first place.

I see him across the bonfire, reddish flames distorting my view. It was the very first time I saw him: his stare nagging and curious, lips curled up in a half-smile. And every time I looked away and then back at him, he was already staring at me. Like I was the prize he couldn’t risk looking away from in fear that I’ll vanish. This concept seemed wild to me back then—the idea that anyone could possibly feel that way about me in such a shameless, open way—but it’s what pulled me in.

That he was strikingly handsome and didn’t pretend to be innocent was another. The sweet combination of his angelic looks with very much non-angelic demeanor was an addictive blend and I don’t think I have ever again experienced such contradictory notion.

But what flashes in front of my eyes isn’t just his face, the moments we’ve spent together, but that summer in its entirety. If I try a little harder now, I’m sure I could still smell the scent of freshly cut grass, feel the morning breeze coming from the lake, and cold, evening winds that often made me think it wasn’t summer at all. It’s not him that I see now, but a boundless span of greenery that ends only where the sky begins. My first instinct is to run, run to the end of it, run like I have been running there when I was a kid. But a part of me knows that if I do start running, if I do take that first step onto the stretch, it all would just swallow me up.

My eyes snap open and I gasp for air, sitting up and nervously looking around. When I realize I’m at home, hidden between the walls, far away from the green, I feel safe.

Suddenly, I start to laugh.  

“Oh, I’m tripping hard,” I say to myself, reaching for the lighter and the blunt with the intention to finish smoking it this time around.

F

What started as a sloppy kiss ten minutes ago has now turned into giving sloppy head.

I’m kneeling on the mattress between Sergio’s thighs, my left hand slowly running up and down his torso, while the right one strokes his dick and the inside of my mouth tightens around the tip of his flesh. Spit runs down my chin, as I take him deeper into my throat, noticing how his body tenses up. There’s a low hum that leaves his mouth every once in a while, and typically at this point I allow for his hands to push my head lower, so I can choke on his dick and get him off.

When you’ve been giving head to the same person for years, the process rarely leaves you surprised or that excited. Sometimes I do introduce some type of novelty into our routine, but when it’s the kind of head I’m giving right now—the I-feel-bad and-want-to-make-it-up-to-you kind—you rely on the classic and well-proven methods. This isn’t the time for tricks: they give your motives away.

He cums quickly after I perform some prolonged deep-throating and when he does, I hear a loud moan, his body going into a short spasm. I straighten my back, swallowing up the load, wiping my mouth with the clean hand.

“That was good,” Sergio says after a moment with a satisfied grin on his face. “You know I’d return the favor, but—”

“It’s fine,” I tell him in a middle of his sentence. “I want to shower anyway.”

I get up from the bed and as I walk into the bathroom, I hear him say: “I got you tomorrow” to which I only nod my head in response. The thing about Sergio and giving favors back is that it doesn’t happen often, especially when we’re talking about blow jobs. He already told me a long time ago he doesn’t like giving head and I accepted it for what it is—that my sex life peaked ridiculously before I hit my twenties and instead of evolving over the years, it has turned to be just a habitual stress-reliever. But to be honest, my current lifestyle requires so much emotional and physical devotion that to act as wildly and promiscuously as I used to would come at the expense of my swimming career, and I have made it too far to willingly put it at risk.

I brush my teeth, take my clothes off and get into the shower. I set the water to be boiling hot and press my forehead against the cold tiles, standing under the sizzling stream.

I think about what happened earlier today. I think that if I were offered a mathematical equation to explain the odds at play, I would have studied it like I have never studied math before. Yet it wasn’t the encounter alone that puzzled me, but him—he puzzled me. That he was speaking, when I have never heard him say a word before. That his voice was deep and hoarse, somehow luscious, as if it was coming from the far down of his chest, not just his throat. That his previously slicked back, perfect hair was now shaved to be only millimeters long. That his neck was tattooed, when it used to be pale. That he was still taller than me, annoyingly so.

Suddenly I smile, remembering how it felt when he hovered over me, often pressing his hand against my mouth to shut me up or calm me down. I used to think he had some nerve, but truthfully, I loved every second of it. I loved how somebody so unassuming, ended up being that much and more of what I expected him to be, of what I narrowed him down to be.

For a while my brain keeps feeding me more memories, some I didn’t think I’d be ever going over again. But then, thought after thought, the narrative in my head changes and I find myself wondering what it would be like if we had never fallen out of touch, if we’ve tried to keep in contact, if we’ve tried to make it work. It’s a dangerous state of mind to be in, because for a moment I long for what I never had, feeling bittersweet about everything I do have now. 

Without thinking much, I turn the knob the opposite way and the water that was of burning temperature seconds ago is now ice-cold. A shudder racks my body, my mouth opening in shock: it’s like someone punched me in the chest, but soon that unpleasant feeling goes away and all I’m left with is a sense of emptiness in my head. I do a lot of ice baths and contrast water therapy to know that the piercing discomfort urges eventually and with that disappear any nagging thoughts.

I wash my body and hair thoroughly, in a water of moderate temperature, scrubbing my skin rigorously as if trying to get rid of some visibly ugly residue. When I’m finally done and step out of the shower, my body trembles in cold. I wrap myself in a warm towel, walking out of the bathroom.  

In the room, the lights are on, the TV is still playing, but Sergio is fast asleep, arms spread out and his body nestled between the pillows. I open my suitcase as quietly as possible and then change into a clean set of boxers and sweats. Before I head out to the balcony, I bring my towel to the bathroom and place it over the heater, next to where Sergio left his. A small smirk shows on my face.

Back in the room, I take my laptop and the bottle of champagne and then step out onto what is a spacious terrace overlooking the buildings of the city’s center. The night is warm, the street down below bustling and the sounds of people talking, biking and drinking carries over to the top.

I take a seat in one of the chairs, placing the laptop and the champagne on the table. For a longer moment, I do nothing but stare at the endless sight of the city. There’s a slight buzz in my head, which I’m surprised hasn’t yet gone away, but considering that I rarely drink alcohol and today I have mixed all sorts of drinks, it kinda makes sense.

I grab the bottle, down the rest of what’s left and then comfortably lean back in the chair. I smile to myself and shake my head, probably for at least the twentieth time today.

I don’t think I ever expected to be here in Copenhagen again with the idea of Daniel so present in my life. He’s not a distant memory anymore. I saw him a few hours ago and he’s very much alive, very much present. Only that my shock was so deep, that I feel like maybe some details of his looks, of his behavior slipped my observation. And if I close my eyes and try to remember him, I see him in snippets: his short hair, tattooed knuckles, towering height, the left (or right?) side of his lips arching up, his cheekbones. It’s all bits, I can’t remember him in his entirety.

I just know how I felt. How I felt six hours ago when I saw him and recognized him for the very first time in so long.

I know how I felt all those years ago. I know exactly how.

The first couple of months after that summer, after I got back to Madrid, I was varying degrees of numbness—on my good days.

Whenever I made it out of bed and started walking around the apartment, things just did not add up. I looked at the walls and thought: have they always been this white? I glanced at things piled up on my desk and asked myself: I used to care about this shit? I went through the drawers in my room and wondered: how much money would I make if I sold all the drugs I still had stashed in here? Enough to get me out of this place? That I asked myself the most.

But I never cashed out the drugs, never escaped. Instead, I joined the Fuenlabrada swimming team and finished my senior year of high-school being homeschooled.

Swimming was hard, but when I look back at that time I realize that not going to school was harder. I had a difficult relationship with all of the educational institutions I was ever enrolled in, but I got my emotional kick out of being part of something larger: a group, a community. My scandalizing behavior wasn’t that big of a deal when I didn’t have anybody to scandalize it with, yet today I know that not having an audience back then was something that saved me. That if I were to restore to how I behaved before that summer I’d have ruined myself entirely, because I wouldn’t go back for what I already knew, the experiences that then gave me the high. I’d have gone harder.

When I started practicing with the Fuenlabrada team, I wasn’t doing it thinking about Olympic gold or breaking world records. But my coach believes it was exactly why I made such a spectacular come back—I didn’t pressure myself with returning to old standards, making sure I could tell others that I still got it, that I was the best.

I returned to swimming, because I desperately wanted to rescue the only thing I knew about myself that was true, wanted to rescue the one thing I knew I was—a swimmer. I lost so many things then, but couldn’t risk losing that.

In the process, I let go of what I thought were inseparable parts of who I was—my recklessness, my love for adrenaline, my disdain for any grey areas, simple things like talking shit. I was told that these were coping mechanisms—not parts of my personality, not me—and that I could acquire new ones. I turned to swimming for help and later, when becoming successful and gaining a level of public interest, I have been very open on how aside from making me a gold medalist, swimming has saved my mental health. Some kids who ended up being pros got into the sport because they had ADHD. For me it was about keeping my sanity.

Much of your success as a swimmer is attributed to hours spent in solitary, every day. You and the pool, the wall you always try to get faster to, your thoughts telling you that you won’t be able to. And when you do become successful—in generally recognized ways meaning record times, titles, sponsorships—you know you did it all on your own, that you had the mental capacity to push through your limits.

But today, years later, being where I am now, I know I was also unbelievably lucky to be surrounded by people that supported me through my tribulations, continued to lend a hand when I kept rejecting their help. I wouldn’t have achieved what I’ve achieved if it wasn’t for the relentlessness of others: Juergen, my coach, Sergio.

The latter being one of the most dysfunctional relationships I’ve ever had, even more dysfunctional than the one I continue to have with myself. But Sergio’s been by my side for all those years and though we broke up a few times and swore to never get back together, we still somehow gravitate towards each other. I try not to linger over the reasons why it happens so and whether it’s because I’m afraid of being lonely, and he’s just too lazy to find somebody else and it’s easier to be together than not to be together, but we’re counting years now and the longer we go on, the more difficult it is to throw it all away.

I look over my shoulder and watch him sleep for a moment. But then I turn my head back, moving closer to the table and opening my laptop.

I go to my inbox, which is always the first thing I do whenever I’m on any device with access to mail. There are some emails from my management team that I haven’t opened yet but I don’t think I will this weekend. I scroll through the list of unread emails, pretending to find all of it to be exceptionally interesting until a moment later when I decide to abandon this pointless endeavor and proceed to what truly interests me.

As I open a new tab, the default Google page pops up but I hesitate for a minute, staring at the search bar that sits right in the middle.

I cross my arms over my chest, lips pursing.

“This is stupid, isn’t it,” I ask myself, as I place my hands on the keyboard. “Pretty fucking stupid,” I answer, as if someone else has asked the question, not me to myself.

I type Daniel Agger into the search bar, but before I hit enter, I realize there must be plenty of those in the world. My best bet would be to narrow down my chances and add Copenhagen there.

So I do. And then I hit enter.

My naïve and impatient thinking leads me to follow up on the first result that shows up, which takes me to a Facebook profile of a Daniel Agger who’s not the Agger I’m looking for.

I shake my head again, but this time with a definitive notion of ridicule.

Towards myself obviously.  

“You’re better than this,” I say out loud as I go back to the previous page and continue to look at other results.

A part of me isn’t exactly surprised Daniel didn’t end up being a social-media influencer with perfectly curated content and an impressive following, but imagine how much easier my investigative attempts would have been if he did.

I omit the first few positions at the top of the Google page thinking they’re probably too good to be true and instead, I head to the bottom, exploring my options there. They turn out to be dead-ends.

I mean, am I going to look through every single page that follows after this one? How many Daniel Aggers are there in the world?

I check the time. It’s only a little after midnight. Nobody will know if you spend the rest of your night looking for him.

“I’ll know,” I bicker with my inner voice, glad that no one is around to witness this mess.

I go back to the top of the page and carefully read through the positions there hoping I’ll find something I missed out on the first time around.

And when I do find that something, my mouth parts in slight shock, because how intellectually blinded must have I been to not connect the dots here.

It’s a Facebook page for an event, not a person. But the event is the exhibition that Daniel’s friend told us about and one where Daniel is featured.

Duh.

I skim over the events description and short paragraph after short paragraph later, I come across his name. There it is, written in pixels, so very real and not an abstract creation of my memory. I feel a rush of excitement similar to the ones I’ve experienced earlier tonight, but this time more than anything, I’m curious. And I have been curious earlier tonight too, but now that I can finally appease my curiosity, the feeling of thrill grows.

There’s only one problem. Everything is written in Danish.

I don’t even dwell on the fact that my understanding of the language hasn’t gotten anywhere meaningful over the years, but instead just copy the entire text, impatiently pasting it into the Google translator a moment later.

When the text pops up on the side, in English, I skip over the initial paragraphs and start carefully reading only when I fish out his name.

Our final addition to the roster is a Copenhagen-based street photographer—Daniel Agger. For a 26-year-old, he has a compelling body of work that exhibits a visual language of nuances and maturity you’d expect from a much more experienced eye. “When I started taking photos, I knew nothing about street photography. I knew nothing about photography, period.” Daniel admits in a brief interview with the curator of our show, who sat down with every artist in the line-up to talk about their selection and creative practices. “I first took it to the streets to document the city that has sheltered me,” he reveals. “But soon I realized I had the responsibility to the people and the places I photographed. I still don’t know what exactly that responsibility is, but I decided to remove myself and my experience from the lens in order to capture the most honest social landscape.” Daniel Agger is the youngest talent in our pool of artists, but his rare type of humility ensures that whatever he chooses to chronicle, aims to find the—

“What are you doing?”

I jump in my chair.

Sergio stands in the entryway, rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing,” I respond too fast, too embarrassed. But I don’t think he notices, at least I hope he doesn’t. I hope he’s still asleep enough to not pick up on my awkward, crude response.

“Come on,” he leans against the frame, extending his hand, “Come to bed.”

I look at the screen, sentences piling up on one another, an entire world that I was waiting to indulge in unfolding in front of me.

I look at Sergio: eyes half-shut, shoulders slouched, left side of his boxes rolled down.

I look at the screen again. I look at his name: Daniel Agger. In pixels, so very real. And him: no longer an abstract creation of my memory. But somewhere here, not too far away, in the same city, when it’s summer again.

“Come,” Sergio says one more time. “You can finish working tomorrow.”

Obviously, I do not correct him.

I close my laptop, leaving it on the table. I stand up and as I take a step further, I grab Sergio’s hand.

We walk inside the room, but a few seconds after he frees his hand from mine, getting inside the bed, pulling the covers up until only his head pokes out.

I undress and get under the sheets, naked.

He puts his arm around my waist, bringing me to a tight embrace.  

The lights are off, but the TV is still on.

Flashing colors of the screen play out on the wall and I stare at the shadows, listening to Sergio’s heavy, sound breathing.

All I can think about is the words Daniel has said. The ones he has spoken to me yesterday, in person. The ones he has said in the interview.

And as I think about the words, I also think about his voice.

I can’t leave until I hear it again.

TO BE CONTINUED