Chapter 23 That Stupid Tension #4
“But you said it yourself yesterday: We’re not the kind of people who do stuff without thinking about it. We’re—”
“We’re Marín and Coco. Coco and Marín. And if Coco and Marín want to stand like a couple of clowns gaping at the sunset, they do it.”
“The advantage that Coco and Marín usually have is that there’s no audience because they don’t have to give explanations to anyone.”
“We don’t have to do that with an audience either. What’s going on, Marín?”
“Nothing.” He looks at me.
“I’m going to try again. What’s going on with us, Marín?”
“Nothing.” He smiles. “Nothing. Nothing bad. Maybe I’m the problem. Maybe… Maybe this is one of those moments of…”
“Marín.” I go over and circle my arm around his waist. He doesn’t move away, but he seems surprised by how close we are. “Are you okay? That’s the only part I care about.”
He takes the cigarette packs I’m holding and sticks them in the bag with the sodas before he puts it on the ground. Then he grabs my waist too and smiles. His dimples pop up around his mouth.
“I’m fine. I’m here. I’m with you. Even when I feel awful, that’s a guarantee of something. I’m sorry if I’m being…stupid. And weird. But it makes me feel better that you’ll never let me be distant.”
“It’s your choice. I can’t force you not to be.”
“That’s not even a possibility with you. We’re Anchovy and Sardine.” A smile spreads across his face.
“And we’re always salty,” I tease.
He grabs my face and kisses my forehead. I take the chance to put my arms around him and press my cheek against his chest, over his black T-shirt, and take a deep breath.
“I don’t want to piss Aroa off,” I mumble in a thread of a voice, “but don’t go away.”
“No. I know. I’m sorry.”
“She doesn’t matter to you more than me.” I’m suddenly emboldened.
“No. She never has.”
I swallow and close my eyes, praying that he keeps talking. Faced with my silence, he does, and he puts his arms around me too.
“Maybe the problem was always that she knew that and I couldn’t make her understand that loving you didn’t stop me from loving her. But she never wanted to understand, and that’s not my fault because you’re in my life and you always will be. I’ve known that since the very first day.”
“Because I can open bottles with my teeth?”
“It was because it was. You know that one poem of Gus’s, ‘Crushing Certainty?’”
“Yes.” I press harder against his chest.
“Well, that’s you and me, Coco. A crushing certainty.”
“But—”
“But we’re not sleeping together tonight, okay?”
He pulls away gingerly so he can look me in the eye and raises his eyebrows. I don’t know if he can see my lips trembling. I don’t know if he can feel my heart racing. But I nod. He does too.
“Certainties as crushing as ours have to accept that some people won’t get it. She doesn’t get it. Let’s not make her suffer more.”
I don’t want to tell him that I don’t understand what’s happening to us either, what that certainty is.
I vaguely remember the poem he’s talking about, but only the feeling of comfort I was filled with when I heard it.
It’s one of the poems Gus included in his book and one of the ones I heard him read the first night we met.
When I asked him whom he wrote it for, he told me that he never knew, that he thought he wrote it for the certainty that one day someone would be worthy of those words.
It’s a warm poem that feels like home…but is Marín saying it fits us because it’s a sterile version of love?
My confusion slowly dissipates, replaced by the warmth of the safety of feeling like he’s more mine than I did a few hours ago.
I know love is silly like that. You’re suffocated by doubts, and a single step is enough to feel like, well, maybe nothing has been solved but the wheel is still turning.
Our thing, being the friend who’s hiding how in love I am, but not completely losing faith because maybe… Maybe.
* * *
When we get back to the table, the whole vibe is different, warmer.
They’re all animated. Loren’s cackling. Blanca’s telling a story about the time when we had to convince Gus not to do a poetry reading naked.
And, I’ll be honest, I’m more pissed off than hurt at this point, and whatever’s bothering Aroa seems like it’s her problem.
I’m going to enjoy the night. I’m going to live this vacation to the fullest. And tomorrow, now that the night is closing over our heads with a darkness I’ve never known, will be another day. But…
“Gus…” I take the chance when we’re alone, while we’re getting out the empanadas and a few other things for dinner.
“What’s up, Coco Puff.”
“Do you happen to have your poem here…the one about ‘Crushing Certainty?’”
“The one from my book?”
“Yeah.”
“I always have a copy with me. It’s in the car. Wanna come, or should I grab it for you?”
“No, no. Tell me where it is and I’ll go get it.”
Gus raises an eyebrow, but he goes into the RV, opens a drawer where he saw Marín put the car keys, and hands them over.
“My bag is in the trunk. You know the one…it’s the brown leather one I brought on our trip to Paris. The book’s in there. If I’m not mistaken, it’s on page twenty-five.”
It’s not page twenty-five, but he’s not far off. Twenty-six. There it is.
Crushing certainty
yours and mine.
Your eyes on my mouth,
My mouth on your lyrics.
The creed on your lips,
the knowing of your doubts,
the Sunday of your week,
the hole I left in my life
not even knowing if you’d ever come.
Crushing certainty
of knowing you better than I know myself,
of accepting that you’ll know how much I feel, think and hurt;
the understanding that I’ll turn my chest into your house,
and my house into yours.
And loving you so much inside
never meant a problem,
because I didn’t even understand
that crushing certainty.
When I put the book back where it was and before I go back to everyone else, I take a deep breath, control my breathing, and close my eyes. Gus can call it whatever he wants…but for me that poem is called “Hope.”