I leave the bedroom door open one more time, feeding the little bit of hope I still have in me. I don’t know if it’s luck, destiny, or Venus in the house of Mars, but for the first time in my life, things start to go the way I was hoping.
I’m lying in bed, checking what’s new on Twitter, when I hear a slight knock on the door. I lift my head and see Caio standing there, holding a pillow and looking like an abandoned puppy.
I don’t know what to say, so I keep staring at my phone and tweet my reaction: Houhfjkxhfdoduighl. Send tweet.
“So, um … Hi. Can I sleep here tonight? It’s … the couch, you know? It—” Caio starts to explain himself.
“It’s terrible. I know. You can say it,” I interrupt, trying to sound funny. But I think my answer ends up sounding a bit rude, so I try to fix it by being cute: “Of course you can sleep here! It should have been that way from the beginning, but I … well, you know. I’m sorry. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry, again.”
Caio just stands there looking at me, and I almost break out into a rendition of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast, when I suddenly realize that I put away the guest mattress. I get up to pull out the retractable bed where Caio is going to sleep and apologize three more times. Two because I bump into him in the process and a third one for no apparent reason. I do all that in darkness because at no point did I realize that it might be a good idea to turn the lights back on. But Caio doesn’t seem to mind.
When the guest bed is all set, I go back to my own bed and try to assume a position in which my belly won’t flop to the side, so the hole in my shirt won’t show. The room is still dark, so I honestly don’t know why I even care. Caio throws the pillow onto the mattress, lies down, and lets out a sigh of relief. I can imagine him saying, “With god as my witness, I’ll never sleep on that couch again!” like in that scene in Gone with the Wind.
But he doesn’t say a thing.
Neither do I.
I keep staring at my phone screen. Surprisingly, I got two likes on my last tweet. I start typing “How to start a conversation” in Google, but even before I hit search, Caio breaks the silence.
“Thanks, Felipe.”
“For the bed? I told you. It’s fine.”
“Also for the bed. But I meant the book. That you left for me. Thank you.”
“Ah. Yes. The Two Towers. A good one. I hope you like it.”
And there I am, thinking this would be another standard-issue dialogue in my collection of standard-issue dialogues with Caio, but he keeps going:
“I’ll take good care of it, don’t worry! It looks like it means a lot to you. It even has a personal dedication. Who’s Thereza?”
“My grandmother. It was the last present she gave me before she died,” I say, swallowing hard.
My grandmother, Thereza, would always give me books as Christmas and birthday presents. Most of them were classics that I never felt like reading, but after she was gone, I ended up reading all of them to feel closer to her. In all the books, she always wrote the same dedication:
Lipé,
The whole world is yours.
With love, Thereza
I always hated it when people called me Lipé, but when it was her, I didn’t mind. My grandma gets permission.
The bedroom goes quiet again because, true to form, on the first opportunity I have for an actual conversation with Caio, I decide to bring up my dead grandmother.
“I’m sorry,” Caio says in the softest voice.
I smile because I can tell that he’s really sorry.
“It’s okay. She’d love to know that someone borrowed the book. My grandma used to work at the library downtown. She spent her whole life helping people borrow books.” Caio laughs a low laugh, and I don’t know if it’s the darkness in the bedroom or the fond memories of my grandmother, but I keep talking. “What did you think of the first book?”
“In general, I was surprised! I’ve always wanted to watch the movies, but I can’t watch a movie unless I read the book first. It feels like cheating otherwise, y’know? So I grabbed the first book out of curiosity and I’m really liking it. Some parts are a little boring, but the story is awesome. I couldn’t put it down! I just wonder what the second book is going to be like, now that Gandalf is dead.”
I hold back a laugh, because if he hasn’t watched the movies, he has no idea what’s about to happen.
“When I read the books, I’d already seen all three movies, so there were no surprises for me. And yet, I cried when Gandalf died because he’s the best part of The Lord of the Rings,” I say, and Caio laughs again.
I’m suddenly invaded by a good feeling—the kind you feel when you get the right answer twice on a BuzzFeed quiz.
“So you’re the kind of person who likes the movie better than the book?” Caio asks with mock judgment in his voice.
“No, no!” I say right away. But then I stop to think and start to develop my arguments. “Though, to be honest, I think we’re conditioned to say that the book is always better. But in reality … I don’t know.”
That’s me, Mr. Articulate.
I reorganize my thoughts and continue, “I really like books. And I really like movies. Some good books are made into horrible movies, and great movies came from boring books. And the opposite is also true. I don’t know. I like both. That’s the worst answer, but it’s what I have for you today.”
Faced with the crappy case I’ve made, Caio lets out a final laugh, followed by a long yawn. It seems we’re done talking for the night.
“Felipe, I think I’m going to sleep.”
“Me too,” I lie, because there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to turn around and fall sleep, knowing he’s right here, lying next to me.
“Good night,” we both say at almost the same time.
I look up at the ceiling and stare into the darkness while I wait for sleep to come. And that’s when I notice something that I’ve never paid attention to before: Right in the corner of the bedroom, there’s still one remaining glow-in-the-dark star sticker. I must not have noticed it when I removed all the others. But I have no doubt. It’s almost not glowing anymore, but it’s still there. One star on my bedroom ceiling. I know this is going to sound stupid, but I simply close my eyes and make a wish.
And three seconds later, I hear Caio calling my name.
“Felipe, can I ask you for something?”
I want to say, “A kiss? To hold hands? To profess my eternal love?!” But all that comes out of my mouth is “Yes?”
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?”
I take a deep breath (a little frustrated, I have to admit) and answer, “merylstreep123, all lowercase.”
I can see Caio smiling because the phone screen lights up his face when he enters the password. His smile is as intense as a thousand star stickers glowing in the dark and carries the satisfaction of someone who’s just spent three whole days without knowing how to get onto the Wi-Fi.
“Okay, now good night,” he says.
“See you tomorrow,” I respond.
And the day after that. And the next, and the next.
I WAKE UP WITH SUNLIGHT coming in through my window, and the first thing I hear is Caio snoring. It’s not a real snore; it’s more like a purr. He doesn’t sleep with his mouth open. His mouth is closed in a half smile, and it even seems like he knows he’s being watched. I, on the other hand, have awful bedhead, my cheek is sticky with drool, and my shirt is rolled up to my midriff. I cover myself quickly, because I don’t want him to see me like this.