Page 20 of Nights Without Night
It’s quiet and peaceful here.
I don’t know how much time has passed when I’m nudged from my doze by Isadoro untangling himself from me and getting up.
“Where are you going?” I mumble, blinking sleepily.
“Gonna watch some TV.” I can hear him shuffle around for his clothes.
“It’s late,” I protest half-heartedly, knowing my argument is going to be of no use.
“I’m not tired. Sleep,” he says, kissing me on the temple before moving away. I frown. I watch him leave until he disappears with a click of the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
One day we go to the biggest city park, heading for the lake.
“I used to come here as often as I could when I was like…twenty? All my jobs were so shitty then, I came here to people watch and draw, just to feel like I was doingsomethingI loved, you know?” I say, looking around.
I haven’t been here for a while, but the landscape looks familiar. The expanse of grass, the ring of trees around us, cradling the large lake we’re heading towards. The lake is surrounded by a stone pathway, lifted so you have to look down at the dark water.
“Yeah, I remember how tired you always looked when we Skyped. It worried me,” Isadoro admits. I almost laugh at the concept of Isadoro being worried about me for having one too many jobs while he was at war.
“Remember how simple life seemed for adults when we were children? Like, even when we knew they had troubles it was like, ‘they make the rules, so they must have everything under control’. If someone looked like an adult, theywerean adult. I still feel like I’m sort of playing pretend. It’s not that I knew exactly what I was gonna be but, I don’t know…I wouldn’t have imagined this path to getting here. I guess it’s different for you, you always said you’d be a soldier,” I muse. Isadoro tilts his head to the side, considering, as we finally reach the stone pathway and start walking around the lake.
“In a way…but I don’t think you can truly know what the military will really be like, you know? All the details, like…having to wash yourself with wipes or the smell when you burn the trash or the feeling of your helmet against your head when it’s boiling out. It’s one of those things theory can’t really prepare you for, and that’s life. I mean, you say I always wanted to be a soldier, but you’ve always been an artist. It’s just all the complicated parts of life that you can’t imagine as a kid.”
“Yeah, I get you. But I don’t know if I would call me anartist.”
“I would. Iván, you dumbass, you’re amazing. Sometimes I look at one of your drawings or paintings or sculptures and it’s like…I don’t know. Something happens. I’m standing there but a part of me goes somewhere else. Somewhereyou,” he says.
I can feel the exact rhythm of my heart pumping in my chest. I’m speechless for a moment, Isadoro’s words digging under my skin. It’s not like he’s stingy with praise, but the compliment was so precise it knocks the breath out of me for a moment.
“Well…thanks,” I say, changing the subject quickly to avoid the awkwardness inherent in accepting praise that means so much to you. “Well, as much fun as that illusion could be, I definitely wouldn’t go back to being a kid. There’s no way I’m going through the bullshit that is puberty again, even if it was nice when our biggest fear was quicksand.”
Isadoro laughs. “Shit, everything was quicksand back then. And volcanoes. Instead of adult worries, the world was filled withdanger.”
“Why the hell was quicksand such a big thing back then? I swear, I haven’t even thought about quicksand since I was thirteen. I blame cartoons. Or maybe it was school.”
“Maybe they were preparing us for growing up. Maybe quicksand was a metaphor for adulthood all along,” Isadoro says in a philosophizing voice.
“Wow. That was deep,” I deadpan. Isadoro laughs. “Point is, I’m not going back to my painfully-awkward self.”
“You weren’tthatawkward,” Isadoro protests. I look at him.
“Uh, yes I was. Remember thirteen-year-old-me? Not a good look,” I say. Isadoro laughs.
“Okay, maybe I’m not gonna argue too hard on that point.”
“How dare you?” I gasp. He snorts.
“But you definitely grew into yourself by the time you were seventeen.”
“Tell that to all the boys who weren’t in my yard.”
“Man, you were so clueless. Remember Xander?” I nod. I’ve only ever known one guy with that name. “Total crush on you,” Isadoro says with complete confidence.
“He did not!”
“Oh my God. That you’re protesting the fact blows my mind. He had it so bad for you,” he says. I gape in silence as I try to process this fact.
