TWO PLUS ONE

Fernando Salas

Maybe if we had never seen each other again we could have been friends. To pass from the fire that burns to the one that accompanies us in winter. Telling each other stories, reading books to each other, always with a secret nostalgia and a sigh in between. To assume our distances. Maybe you had always thought when there is a will, there is a way, and me, that it is not as easy as it sounds. And with so much land in between, with that satisfaction we would have stayed.

But love is very much like life, however delusional it may be and sometimes I don't want to see it. Yes, both are enormous promises. But living is what we can see, and so is love. When we spoke for the first time after months I was so relieved that forever wouldn't be so long. Then a couple of days later you told me you were coming to Mexico. Oh yeah? Cool, I said hiding my excitement, which lasted the thirty seconds it took you to tell me you were going to Argentina for a few months. Just like the story of the Chinese farmer, good luck and bad luck last an instant.

We agreed that seeing each other would be a bad idea, that maybe a lot of what we felt would flare up again, and that it would be silly. Which led to us wanting to look at each other and looking for a date to do it.

You told me where you were staying, then asked me to come Thursday night instead of Friday morning. And when you met me at the door we just pretended it was an ordinary day. I leaned on you as we sat on the couch, and you asked me if I was still that bad for first kisses. Woman. I remember you on top of me, and then in your room, lit by the two lamps. It was cold, I took off your clothes and silently made love to you.

Remind me why we broke up, I told you as we hugged. The next day we went out for breakfast, and then we looked for a park. And in the park, a hillside. And on the hillside, of course, a meadow in the sun. We lay down for a while. There were other couples around, and we looked at them, and we looked at each other. Whispering to each other. Taking videos that you kept and that you're not going to show me. Getting hot. We fell asleep in the sun.

Making love to you. Why can't I make love to you anymore. Why can't I take your clothes off and lick you and take you and make love to you. I don't know how to love you, it's true. I know how to make love to you, I know how to make you cum, I know how to make it fast because you don't like it slow. But I don't know how to love you. And even less so far away.

Another day we went to La Roma. Walking holding hands. Calling you mi amor again. How much we walked Frida, all the streets of Merida, of Oaxaca, not in Puerto because it was too hot and you rented a scooter, of Mexico City. And yet something has screwed me up. Won't let me love you, tells me not to. A stupid intuition, the same one that made me say yes to another woman, yes, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, anytime, anywhere. The same stupid intuition that took me to the precipice, but I don't know how to ignore.

And from there we went to Chapultepec Lake, and we sat on a quiet shore, and we bought what people came by to sell. And you told me about your parents, and I talked to you about love. My God, it's always cold in this house. It wasn't that day, but it was going to be. And you had a shirt to cover you and I brought my sweatshirt. And when the sun went down I gave it to you, because your shirt wasn't gonna be enough. If it's too big for me it's too big for you, but I always liked to see you in my clothes. And seeing you naked, too.

On the way back we ate by the house, already on Mazatlan Avenue. Some very expensive hamburgers. I finished yours, as usual. And we went back to the house with Nicky. But you wanted to go out as soon as I arrived, so we went to Caiman. We were in a bar, what was I going to do. 19

We started talking and talking, looking at people and looking at each other. We drank mezcal with cucumber. And talked about love. I asked you if you would be in a relationship in which your partner fucks someone else, and you told me some stuff. I told you I don't think I would be in a relationship like that anymore, that I wanted something more normal. And you were surprised. But you thought we were talking about us and I was talking to the wind.

We walked back to the house in silence. I hadn't thought about going back together, honestly I hadn't. You were leaving to Argentina, and someday you would go back to the U.S. I've never been out of the country. I am working for four hundred dollars a month and my house has no natural light coming in. I told you I wanted to be with you but I didn't say it with conviction. I'm sorry. Then we turned off the light and fucked in the saddest way I've ever fucked. We finished and I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I came back and I couldn't believe it. This wasn't us. At some point we fell asleep.

The next morning, the night had taken some of that sadness away. We were naked again in a minute, me inside you, very slowly for about half an hour because Nicky and the mouse hadn't left. And when they left we started playing. We fucked in the dark for an hour or two.

I wish time had stopped. Then we went out for a cinnamon roll and we ate it half in Mexico Park, because there's where we broke up again. You never wanted to see me again. We went back to the house in silence, in the middle of the day. Before I left, you made me say that I couldn't love you the way you wanted me to. To this day I don't know exactly what you meant, but it's true. I said it. I stood up. I hugged you, even though you didn't want me. And I left.

Something of me remains with you. It's true, I don't know how to love you. You're absolutely right, and I know because someone did the same with my love. It's a very big thing and someone despised it. I did the same with yours. And neither you nor I deserve that, but nothing in life is about deserving. I am so sorry for that. I wrote you an email saying that if you ever wanted to be friends I'd leave the door open for you. I may not hear from you again for a long time. It's just been a year since we met, and a few weeks since we last saw each other.

I'm going to miss you, bichito.