Nemo - III - The First Time

Several months passed before we could meet.

He was the one who suggested it. He had to travel for some family thing and would be near my city. If I felt like it, we could have a coffee.

I accepted without thinking.

In the days beforehand, I was barely able to concentrate on anything else. I kept imagining what it would be like to hear him without headphones in the way, whether he would smile the same as in the photos, or whether our silences would still be as comfortable as they were during calls.

I arrived at the café long before the agreed time.

When he came through the door, I recognized him instantly.

He smiled. It was a small smile, even shy, but it was enough to dispel all my nerves.

The conversation flowed with surprising naturalness. It was as if we had simply continued a call interrupted a few hours earlier. We talked all afternoon, wandered aimlessly around the city, and neither of us seemed in any hurry to say goodbye.

When it started to get dark, he confessed that he didn’t feel like staying alone at the hotel.

“Do you want to come up for a while? We can order something for dinner.”

I accepted.

The room was as impersonal as any other, but that night it ended up becoming the place where I stopped falling in love with a voice and started falling in love with a person.

We ordered a pizza, turned on the television, and kept talking for hours.

That was when the little details began.

At one point he asked me for a glass of water. Then, the phone charger. Later, to change the television channel because the remote was far away, even though he barely had to stretch his arm to reach it.

They were insignificant favors.

Not only did they not bother me, I enjoyed doing them. I liked feeling useful. I liked thinking I could take care of him.

At one point in the night, he watched me for a few seconds and smiled.

“You’re very tense. Make yourself comfortable.”

I took off my sweatshirt and settled back onto the sofa.

He nodded naturally, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and we kept talking. Little by little I realized that I was the one who got up every time something was needed. I brought the drinks closer, turned off the lights, opened the window when he was hot, or closed the curtains when the light bothered him.

He never forced me. He never used an authoritarian tone.

He simply asked for things with a calmness that made it hard to find a reason to refuse. And I never found one.

At one point in the night, our conversations gave way to a comfortable silence. He asked me if I was still nervous. I shook my head, although we both knew it was a lie. He came closer slowly and brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead with a delicacy that made every thought disappear.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he whispered. ...