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Five drunk men followed me out of the bar because I look "too pretty and too gay." I was on the pavement, tasting blood, thinking the same thing I always think: don't let them see you cry. Then they were being dragged off me — by a whole table of athletes. Most chased the ones who ran. One stayed. Crouched down, pressed a cold bottle to my cheek, asked who did this. I lied. I always lie. Because the truth is the thing that's gotten me hurt my entire life. But he just tilted my face to the light — and recognized me. The one boy from a childhood I try not to remember. And the way he looked at me then wasn't pity. It was a promise. Read Save Me Not now 🔥 Chapter 1 Armando’s POV Getting jumped by five drunk men was new for me. Just because I look too pretty and too gay. In high school, the bullies had at least been my size. Kids I could swing back at, even outnumbered, after my orientation got exposed and suddenly every insecure prick in that building needed me as a punching bag. But these weren't kids. These were grown-ass men from the bar where I worked: two hours of cheap beer and sideways looks at me, until one of them decided I was too feminine to let slide and the rest agreed. It started an hour ago with comments, like it usually did. "Oi, come here." The red-faced and the loudest one, with a thick neck and wedding ring, snapped his fingers at me like I was a dog. "You a boy or a girl, amigo? Seriously. The long ass lashes, these puffy lips and face of yours… you're prettier than my wife!" His friends howled while I set down their beers and said nothing. I got used to this kind of comments over the years since I looked too much like a woman that produced me. I was mistaken for a girl when I was a kid and getting taller or more muscular than guys at my age usually do didn’t get me far away from that. "I think he's blushing," another one said. "Look at him — definitely a maricón." "Nah, nah." The loud one leaned forward, grinning like we were sharing a joke. "You just look like one, right? With that face? Bet you get that a lot." Bet you’re right. I’ve been called worse than just a faggot, but this specific word seemed to be haunting me. I picked up the empty glasses from their table, keeping my expression blank and mouth shut. I needed the tips, and more than that I needed to not get fired. I need money to feed and keep four siblings alive at home more than I need my pride. "Hey. I'm talking to you, maricón!" He grabbed my wrist as I passed. "What, you too good to talk to us?" I pulled free without looking at him and walked behind the bar. I started my break early because if I stayed near that table another minute I was going to do something that would cost me this job. So they followed me outside of course, all five of them. I barely had the back door shut behind me before the loud one was in my face, beer breath and spit. "Where are you going, pretty boy? We weren't done." The first shove came before I could answer. "Hold him!" The second one put me into the wall and red-faced fucker hissing right in my face. "Not so pretty now, huh?" The only mercy was that I wasn't making it easy. Running every morning since thirteen and training behind closed doors had built enough muscle to matter. I wasn't bulky, too many skipped meals for that, but I was fast, I was wiry, and I'd been beaten up enough times in my life to know how to stay on my feet. I cracked the loud one in the jaw hard enough to feel it up my wrist, and he stumbled back. "Hijo de…" I spat blood onto the loud one's face and smiled at him. "Five of you and I'm still standing. I bet your wife rolls her eyes every time you hint at sex." "Get his arms!" His face went purple. "I’ll kill this fucking faggot!" Someone grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms behind my back while the loud one came back swinging with everything he had. A fist connected with my cheek. Another slammed my ribs. A knee drove into my stomach and I folded until the pavement hit my back and the streetlight blurred to a yellow smear. There are too many of them. I could take two, maybe three on a good day. Not fucking five. My arms were getting heavy, my vision kept doubling, and every breath felt like swallowing glass. A few more minutes of this and I wasn't getting back up. Then the chaos came unexpectedly when a group from the table near the window I saw but didn’t serve came pouring out the back door. "Oi! Get the fuck off him!" A tall guy with dark curly hair grabbed the loud one by the collar and ripped him backward from me like he weighed nothing. Two more came after him, both chasing the rest of men who bolted down the alley. "Grab that one too! No, not him, the other one!" the stocky and fast one screamed at his friend. "I’m fucking trying, dude!" the lean one with a shaved head hissed back. "They scatter like rats!" "I'm calling the police!" A blonde girl tried to follow on her heels and hit someone with her clearly expensive purse. One of the men accidentally leaned on her, and her face instantly took on an expression of disgust, shoving him. "Ew! That’s Versace, you prick!" "¡Por Dios!" Another girl with curly hair ran past the blonde. "Helena, just talk to the police already!" "Right, right… Yes, hello! Behind the bar on Calle…" The whole group chased after the drunk men, and then it was just me, the brick wall, and the taste of copper. But one guy stayed. The biggest one of the group. "Are you okay there?" He asked, crouching beside me carefully like I was something that might bite. When I didn’t answer, he tilted my chin toward the light with two fingers and checked the split lip, the swelling cheek. Then disappeared only to come back ten seconds later with a cold beer bottle and pressed it against the bruise blooming under my eye. "What started that?" he asked. I could tell the truth, I know that. But I would rather die. Literally, physically die on this sidewalk, than let one more person find out I was gay and was attacked because of that. "They were drunk," I said instead. "Wanted trouble. Found an easy target." He didn't push, just held the cold bottle steady and watched my face. I looked at him properly for the first time. He was big, the kind of build that didn't happen without money behind it: good food, good coaches, good everything. Designer jacket, clean hands, jaw like something carved for a catalogue. Then something shifted behind his eyes, like he wasn't checking injuries anymore. Like he was trying to match what he was seeing before his whole expression cracked open. "Holy shit… Are you..?" Almost a whisper. "Armando? Armando Morales?" I blinked at him through my one working eye. There’s no way in hell someone like him knows someone like me. "It's me, Tadeo!" His voice climbed, a grin splitting his face wide open, bright and stupid. "Tadeo Garcia from rugby camp León. Remember?" Oh… I remembered. How could I not? How could you forget your best friend at eleven years old, your first love? The kid who talked too much and laughed too loud and picked me as his person on day one like it was already decided. Those two summers at camp were the closest thing to escape I'd ever had, and Tadeo was the reason. He didn't care about my duct-taped bag or my falling-apart shoes or the fact that I flinched when people raised their voices. We wrote letters after — actual handwritten letters, because I didn't have a phone. For a while it was real, the one good thing in my shitty life. Then my father got worse. Money disappeared and any camps became impossible, eventually even stamps cost too much when my siblings needed to eat. And just like that I was forced to simply vanish from his life, to erase him from mine. But that was a lifetime ago. And the gap between us became even more visible. Now I sat bleeding on concrete outside a bar that paid me under the table, doing math on whether there was enough rice at home for breakfast for four kids. Hoping my alcoholic father hadn't already found my savings, because if he had, that was grocery money gone — swallowed by whatever bottle or fix he could get his hands on. Tadeo on the other hand knelt beside me looking like he'd stepped out of a different world entirely, smelling like money and a bright future. He'd grown since camp, but the change wasn't subtle. He was taller, broader, built like the athlete he'd clearly become. Jaw sharper, shoulders wide enough to block the streetlight behind him, draped in designer clothes. The golden boy who never knew a bad day. I shifted sideways, putting distance between us. "Yeah," I said flatly. "I remember." Tadeo lit up like I'd given him something precious. "I can't believe it! I mean, not like this…" He gestured at the blood, the alley. "But you're here, in Valencia. When did you…" "This semester, Santa María. Construction Trades Scholarship." I should've stopped there. "Wait, seriously? That's my college!" So fucking brilliant. "I play rugby there, I'm captain actually, and…" "Good for you." Tadeo didn't even register the cold. Same energy as when we were kids, just bigger now — that particular kind of warmth that had always made him impossible to ignore. "God, I missed you," he said. "We could pick up right where we left off, you know? Still good old friends. Remember how we used to stay up past lights-out talking about everything and nothing? I still have your letters. All of them. Oh, and remember how we…" "We were never friends, Tadeo." The silence covered us. He stared at me while I kept my voice flat and even, like I was stating a fact and not just guarding my heart before I’d be broken against the reality. Again. "You just wouldn’t leave me alone. None of it meant anything, so drop it already. You’re giving me a fucking headache." I watched a flicker of surprise behind his eyes. Like the idea that I wouldn't be happy to see him hadn't even occurred to him. Because why would it? In Tadeo Garcia's world, people were always happy to see him. But he didn't break, flinch or look away. He stayed right where he was, crouched on the dirty pavement beside me like he had nowhere better to be, and the smile that came back was smaller now, quieter. "It’s never too late to start," he said. "Keep dreaming, rich boy…" I said standing up and getting ready to leave. "Well, good thing then that I know how to dream big," Tadeo said with such confidence that I got goosebumps. "And I always get what I want." #chapter Chapter 2 Armando’s POV I have lived in this building my entire life. Nineteen years inside these walls, and I still can't say it ever felt like home. At night the peeling paint disappeared into shadow and the whole building looked like something that had already given up, and maybe it had, and maybe so had everyone inside it — everyone except the ones I was keeping alive on the fourth floor. The outskirts of Valencia is the kind of district people didn't move to — they ended up here, ran out of money or options or both, and then couldn't leave. I let myself in quietly, easing the door shut so the latch wouldn't click past midnight. The house was small enough that sound carried through every wall. The living room was just big enough for the pull-out couch they'd wedged against the far wall — the only place left to put a twelve-year-old boy. Leandro was on it — book open on his chest, reading light still burning, one arm hanging off the edge. He'd fallen asleep exactly the way I used to, back when I still had hours to myself and books. He did it on purpose, I think, or maybe he just absorbed it the way little brothers absorb everything, watching until it becomes them. The thought sat somewhere uncomfortable in my chest. I reached over and switched off the light, eased the book free without waking him, then got my arms under Leonardo and carried him to my room, setting him down on the far side of the bed. I looked at Tona's crib. She was on her side, fist pressed to her mouth, breathing slow and even. Two years old and she still woke twice some nights, sometimes four times, and it was always me who heard it. I stood there a beat longer than I needed to, watching her chest rise and fall. Dad had been out tonight, most likely drank away our savings in some musty pub. I went back into the hall and stopped at the next door — the twins' room, barely wide enough for the single bed they shared. I pushed it open. Micaela and Ava, fourteen, tangled together the way they always were. Micaela had her arm flung across her sister's face. Ava had kicked all the blankets off. I pulled the covers back over both of them without waking either. Four kids. My kids, basically, even though I was only their oldest brother. This was why I couldn't take risks. Couldn't make selfish choices, couldn't chase things that were just for me. Because I was the only one they could count on. The only thing between them and whatever would happen if I wasn't here. Their mother — my mother — made sure of that. She left shortly after Tona was born with no goodbyes. Two years ago, when I was still in high school. I came home and found a note on the kitchen table. A fucking note. Like she was canceling a dentist appointment and not escaping the violent house with the abusive husband she once chose, leaving five of her children there. ‘I’m sorry, Armando, but I can't do this anymore. You're so much stronger and better than me. I love you, please take care of them.’ That was it. Everything she had to say to the son she was leaving the household on. I wasn't angry that she left him, I understood that. My father is a monster. An alcoholic, a junkie when he can afford it, a man who used his fists on his wife and his kids with the same ease other fathers used to pat your back. He'd gotten worse after the factory injury killed his ability to work and left him with a disability check that went straight to booze. I understood wanting to escape that. What I couldn't forgive was how she prepared me. Cooking lessons starting at eleven. How to stretch rice for six, budget to the cent, which bills could wait and which got the electricity shut off. How to calm Tona, braid the twins' hair, help Leandro with homework. She trained me — patiently, thoroughly, over years. Groomed me into her replacement and I didn't see it until I was holding her note, realizing she'd been planning her exit longer than Tona had been alive. As if she was the only victim. As if I wasn't her child too. As if I didn't need protecting just as much. So I covered everything — rent, food, bills. The bar job plus whatever I could pick up — moving furniture, cleaning, tutoring when I found it. Dad contributed nothing except violence and the occasional demand for cash I couldn't refuse without getting hit. Every euro went through a mental calculator: groceries, diapers, school supplies, electricity. Whatever was left… usually nothing. Nineteen years old and no way out. I was pulling off my torn shirt in the kitchen, running the tap to wash blood off my face, when the door opened. "The fuck happened to you?" Father stood in the doorway, swaying and drunk, his eyes skipped right past my bruised face and the split lip, landing on the shirt in my hand. Ripped. Bloodstained. Ruined. "Do you know how much that cost?" He came closer and the smell of cheap vodka and stale sweat corrupted the air around us. "Who's buying you another one, huh? Me? You think money grows on fucking trees?" "I'll handle it." "You'll handle it. Of course you'll handle it." He grabbed the front of my undershirt and shoved me into the wall. The back of my skull bounced off the plaster. "How much tonight? Show me the tips." "Get off me." "Show me the fucking tips, Armando." "I said get…" I shoved back hard, breaking his grip that made him stumble. He was bigger, thicker, but drunk and sloppy. For a second I thought he'd back down. He didn't. Dad’s fist caught my jaw, the same side already swelling from the bar, and stars went off behind my eyes. I swung back, connected with his shoulder, but he was already grabbing me again, slamming me into the wall, until I could feel how much stronger he still was. "Useless. Fucking useless, just like your mother!" "Papá, stop!" I heard coming from the doorway. The twins. Both in the hallway — Micaela in front with her jaw set and her hands shaking, Ava behind her with wide wet eyes. The yelling woke them, of course it did. The walls in this place were cardboard. "Girls, go back to bed," I said. "Now." "Let him go!" Micaela grabbed Dad’s arm and pulled. Fourteen years old, weighed nothing, but still trying. Ava was there too, both of them tugging at him, crying, and something in my stomach turned to ice because I knew what was coming when Dad turned to them. "I’ll show you how to behave, little rats." His hand came up, the same flat violence redirecting from me to them like it didn't matter who was in the way. I threw myself between them before his arm came down. The blow caught me across the back of the head, the girls screamed into my chest. I went to one knee before another hit landed in my ribs. I curled around the girls, shielding them, and took it. All of it. Every hit until he ran out of steam. It took a while. "Clean this shit up," the bastard muttered, breathing hard as he dragged himself to his room. I stayed on the floor until his bedroom door slammed, lock clicked and my hands stopped shaking. Only then I got up. Micaela was crying silently, clinging to me, while Ava was pressed against the wall, arms wrapped around herself, staring at nothing. "Hey." I used my steady voice, normal. Like nothing happened. "It's over, he's done. Come on, let’s go back to sleep." I walked them back to their room and tucked them in again, when Micaela grabbed my hand as I turned to leave. "Ari, your face…" "Looks worse than it is," I responded with a wary smile. "Sleep. You have a math test tomorrow, remember?" She didn’t argue further and just nodded, settling in the bed near her sister. I leaned against the hallway wall for a minute after closing the door behind me, breathing through my mouth because my nose might've been broken and my ribs definitely weren't right. After I checked Tona, she was still out, I sat on my bed in the dark next to her crib, and finally looked at my phone. Seventeen notifications. Most junk. Three from an account I didn't recognize. Unknown: Hey, it's Tadeo. Glad I found you on here. Hope the face is healing ok Unknown: Also, remember that counselor from camp who cried when the kids put a frog in his coffee? Randomly thought of that and it destroyed me lmao Unknown: Btw, are you trying out for the rugby team this year? Tryouts are in two weeks. With your skills you definitely should come! I stared at the screen unable to process it for a moment. My ribs throbbed, my left eye was swollen and almost shut. My father's spit was still drying on my shirt and two of my sisters had just watched me get beaten on the kitchen floor. How did he..? No, doesn't matter. I have way more things to worry about rather than to check on tryouts or this bored rich boy trying to befriend me. Me: Stop messaging me or I’ll block you Reply came in under a few seconds. Unknown: Good night to you too :) Unknown: So that's a ‘no’ on rugby? Rugby. My childhood dream. The one thing I'd wanted for myself since I was old enough to hold a ball. I used to fall asleep imagining it — the field, the team, the crowd, my name on a jersey. I still kept an old ball under my bed and ran drills alone in the park at six in the morning before anyone could see. Or before my father woke up. But such dreams cost money I didn't have. And time that belonged to four kids who needed me alive, employed, and functional. My family took both a long time ago. #chapter Chapter 3 Armando’s POV Instead of sitting in a classroom, half of college got dragged to the stadium to watch a rugby match the very next day. And I turned out to belong to this half. I hated this. Not the sport, obviously. I'd loved rugby since I was old enough to understand what a try was. It was the one thing that ever made me feel like I was built for something other than surviving. But that dream died the same way everything else did. No club takes a kid who can't pay fees. No sports grant lands on someone enrolled in the most boring, practical discipline the college offers. The one I picked specifically because it had the most scholarship options and a schedule flexible enough for me to work. So here I was. Watching a game I once dreamed of playing, instead of learning something that might actually get me a good job someday. The plan was simple: study, graduate, get a job that pays enough to move four kids out of that house and away from Dad. That was it, that was the whole plan for my future. Watching rugby now felt like pressing a thumb into a bruise just to check if it still hurt. It did. Badly. The stadium was packed with students filling the stands like this was the event of the semester, which apparently it was. I found a spot in the top corner, far from everyone and my hood up. My face was still banged up from the bar and from Dad. The last thing I needed was questions or pity or someone asking ‘who did that to you?’ with big concerned eyes. The game started and I told myself I wouldn't watch, but I watched anyway, just couldn’t resist. Couldn’t take my eyes off the star boy. The only son of Luciano Garcia, a famous former rugby player. The team captain who now seems to be as favored by the crowd as his father once was. Tadeo was everywhere — fast, precise, and reading the field like he had a map the rest of them didn't. He called plays mid-run, adjusted formations with a gesture, hit gaps that shouldn't have existed. The team moved around him like he was the axis. Girls in the stands screamed his name every time he touched the ball. Half of them on their feet, losing their minds. One of them had a sign. A fucking sign with his name on it and huge-ass red hearts. It pissed me off, all of it. How effortlessly good he was. How easy he made it look. How the whole stadium worshipped him while I sat in the corner with a swollen eye and rice budget math running through my head. "Oh my god, your face!" I flinched when a girl appeared beside me — curly hair, brown eyes, and bright energy that hit like a wall. She dropped onto the bench next to me without asking, already leaning in to study the damage on my face under the hood. "You're the guy from the other night, right? Behind the bar? I knew it!" She turned and waved someone over. "Raf! It's him, come here!" A tall guy with glasses and a quiet expression sat down on my other side. Built like a rugby player himself, wide shoulders and thick arms, but something about the way he carried himself was more thoughtful. He glanced at my face, gave a small nod, but didn't comment on it. "I'm Rosalía," the girl said with a big smile, like we were at a party. "And that's Rafael. We're Tadeo's friends. He told us about you — Armando, right?" "He talks too much." She laughed. "Yeah, he does. But he was really worried after the other night. Kept asking if we thought you were okay." "I'm fine." "You don't look fine." "Rosalía," Rafael said quietly and finally she got the message. "Okay, okay. But you should know — Tadeo's been for wa-a-ay too long. We’re known each other since middle school and he talked about you for years. 'My friend Armando this, my friend Aro that'... We were starting to think he made you up!" I didn't respond to that. Don’t have words for. On the field, Tadeo broke through a tackle and sprinted thirty meters before offloading perfectly. The crowd erupted, even Rafael leaned forward, but the coach Domínguez looked unsatisfied, screaming and swaying his arms viciously at the field. "Ugh, my dad hates him…" Rosalía sighed heavily, nodding toward the sideline where the coach was pacing. Rodolfo Domínguez — stocky, red-faced, arms crossed tight — a former rugby player too, who started coaching after career-ending injury. He was staring at Tadeo with a hard expression and barked something every time Tadeo touched the ball. Corrections that didn't make sense, criticisms that didn't match what was happening on the field. Tadeo's technique was sharp, yes. He took some risks, sure, but nothing outside the range of competitive rugby. The hostility coming from the sideline was clearly personal. "He's your father?" I asked. "We look nothing alike, right? I get that a lot." Rosalía said it lightly, but there was an edge underneath. "It's complicated. Tadeo and him have... history." Rafael caught my eye briefly, shook his head once, barely perceptible. Don't ask. So I didn't. When the match ended with a win, the stands emptied in a slow flood of noise and bodies. I slipped away from Rosalía and Rafael while they were distracted, heading for the exit through the back corridors. The main route was clogged with people and I was done being around humans for the day. I took the wrong turn. The corridor was empty and dim, somewhere behind the locker rooms, and I heard them before I saw them. Coach Domínguez's voice, low and vicious, bouncing off concrete walls. "...think you're special? You think any of this is yours? Your father bought your spot. Your father bought this whole program. Take away daddy's money and what are you? Nothing. A mediocre player with a famous last name and not a single thing you earned yourself." I stopped, pressed against the wall. I couldn't see them from here but could hear every word. "Coach, I…" "Shut up, García. You know what I think? That you're a fraud. That in real sport, on a professional level, you wouldn't last a season. You're nothing without that name. So at least put some god damn effort into the games, boy!" My stomach clenched. I knew this sound of cruelty of someone who knew exactly where to cut. This was what the hallways in my old school sounded like. What Dad sounded like on his worst nights. I should walk away. This isn’t my fight, isn’t my problem. Isn’t any of my business. "Don’t you think it’s a little bit unprofessional to talk that way to your students?" I said instead, stepping out from the corner. "Let’s say… a low IQ indicator" Both of them turned to me. Tadeo, still in his kit, sweaty, and jaw tight, looked stunned. Domínguez looked at me like I was an insect that had crawled into his line of sight. "Who the hell are you?" "Wouldn’t you like to know, huh?" "Hey you, annoying little brat. Walk away before…" The coach's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then back at me, then at Tadeo. Whatever was on that screen mattered more than us, because he pointed a finger at Tadeo, said "We're not done," and walked away without another word. Tadeo and I stayed in a dim corridor that smelled like sweat and bleach for a few moments, before I turned to leave. "Aro, wait." I didn't, kept going forward, but he caught up just in a few steps anyway. His legs were longer than mine and he was annoyingly fast even off the field. "Thank you," he said. "Seriously. You didn't have to." "No prob." "You came out of nowhere and stood up for me like a real friend. That's…" "This had nothing to do with you." I stopped walking and got in his face, close enough to make it clear I meant it. "He was being an asshole. That's it. I would've done the same for anyone. But you may consider we’re even. For the bar night." It should've looked threatening. I was angry and banged up and ten centimeters from his nose, even though he was taller than me by the same amount. Everything about my body language said ‘back off’. But Tadeo just smiled down at me. With that quiet, warm smile that made something behind my ribs do something I immediately wanted to abort. "There it is," he said softly. "Your eyes. They're doing that thing." "What thing?" I sounded sharp. "The same thing they did before. When you actually gave a shit about something. They shine, Aro." He tilted his head, still smiling, still too close, still not intimidated even slightly. "And they're shining right now." I stepped back. Jaw tight. Ears burning like hellfire. "Stay away from me," I said, and walked away fast enough that he couldn't see my face. "The prettiest eyes, I’m telling you!" Tadeo shouted cheerfully at me from behind. "Do this more often!" I quickened my pace, no longer feeling my ears from the heat. #chapter Chapter 4 Armando’s POV PE was supposed to be the one class where I could shut my brain off. Instead, the universe paired me with Alonso Ortega and Giovani Díaz. Two of Tadeo's closest friends. For every drill, every exercise, every partnered activity the instructor could think of. Alonso was the quiet one. When we rotated through stations, he didn't fill the space with small talk. Just did his reps, glanced at my bruised face once, and said nothing about it. Halfway through the set he passed me his water bottle without being asked. "Thanks," I said, mostly out of reflex. "Mm." That was it. That was Alonso's whole contribution to the conversation. He took the bottle back and kept going. And Giovani unfortunately was a complete opposite of that. "And the crowd goes wild as Díaz, the legendary Díaz, attempts his twentieth burpee!" He threw himself at the floor, landed wrong, and rolled onto his back wheezing. "Okay, the crowd is concerned. The crowd is calling an ambulance." "Get up, Gio," Alonso said without looking at him. "I can't. I'm dead. Tell my mother I loved her. Tell my cousin he still owes me forty euros." He popped back up two seconds later like nothing happened, caught me almost smiling, and pointed at me. "Ha! I saw that. You have a face under that face. Alonso, did you see that? He almost smiled. Write it down, document it." "I'm not writing anything down." "You're useless. Fine. I'll remember it myself." He clapped me on the shoulder — too hard, but somehow not annoying. "That counts as bonding, by the way. We're basically friends now." They were decent. I could admit that to myself. Grudgingly, while we rotated through burpees and I tried not to breathe too hard. My ribs were still screaming from Dad’s last round. Alonso noticed me favoring my left side and quietly shifted positions so I wouldn't have to twist as much. Didn't say a word about it. But I knew how this worked. Friendship wasn't just about being decent during a PE class. It was time, availability. Showing up at parties, answering texts, being there at two in the morning when someone needed to talk. Things I couldn't offer. My schedule was kids, work, classes, sleep. In that order, with sleep being optional. The moment these two will realize I can’t be part of their world the way they needed to, they'd move on. Everyone did. Better to simplify it for them now than watch it happen later. During a water break, Giovani dropped onto the bench beside me, still breathing hard, grinning like a dog who'd just fetched a ball. "You're so precise with everything, man. It's wild." Giovani nodded at the bottle. "Tadeo said the same thing — that you used to organize everyone's stuff at camp like a little drill sergeant." I turned to face him. "He said what?" "Oh, dude." Giovani looked at me like I'd opened a floodgate. "He hasn’t shut up about you, not for one second. It's been two days since the bar thing and we've gotten every single story from your summer camps era. The meteor shower, the frog in the coffee, the time you two apparently got lost in the woods for three hours…" "We weren't lost," I said before I could stop myself. "He was lost. I knew exactly where we were." "See? You do remember!" Giovani lit up. "That's what I'm saying — Tadeo's right, you guys were tight." He leaned back, arms spread on the bench. "Honestly, I've never seen him like this. Our gentle giant captain is on a mission to get his childhood bestie back. It's like watching a puppy chase a cat. Painful and hilarious." "He's not wrong," Alonso said, sitting down on my other side. Quieter, but the point landed the same. "Tadeo talks about a lot of people, but not like… this. You clearly mattered to him." Something behind my ribs tightened. They thought it was a game. They saw Tadeo pushing and me pulling away and it looked like stubbornness. Like playing hard to get. Like something funny to joke about between drills. They didn't understand that keeping people out wasn't a personality trait. It was a survival mechanism built by a life they'd never had to live. But explaining that would mean explaining everything. Which wasn't happening, ever. "He'll get over it," I said flatly. The warmth on Giovani's face flickered, and Alonso quietly turned away. They read the room and backed off, which was exactly what I wanted. And somehow felt worse than if they'd pushed. After class, walking back alone across campus with my bag over one shoulder and my ribs aching with every step, the conversation kept circling in my mind. Why was Tadeo so fixated on me? We were kids at camp. Two summers. That was it. It shouldn't mean this much years later — people grew up, moved on, forgot. That's what time did. It erased things. But thinking about camp meant thinking about what Tadeo actually was to me back then. And I knew the answer even though I'd never said it out loud to anyone, not once. Tadeo was my first love. The real thing — stomach flipping, palms sweating, heart doing something stupid every time he laughed or looked at me or stood too close. The first time my own orientation stopped being a theory and became something I couldn't deny. I was eleven and I didn't have the word for it yet, but I had the feeling. And the feeling was Tadeo. I remembered how easy it was being around him. How he made me feel normal, even interesting, even worth paying attention to. And how terrifying it became once I understood what it meant. Not just that I liked boys, but that I liked this boy specifically. The problem was that it hadn't stopped. Somewhere between camp and now, between eleven and nineteen, the memory of what I'd felt had quietly become present tense. Tadeo was right there — too tall, too warm, too much — and my body hadn't forgotten a single thing. The way he moved. The line of his jaw. The way he laughed with his whole chest. I'd catalogued all of it without meaning to and I hated that I had. But Tadeo was straight. He had to be. Girls screamed his name in stadiums, and whatever warmth he showed me was just how golden boys operated. Kind to everyone, generous with attention, making you feel special without realizing what it did to someone who was already drowning. I knew the difference between being seen and being chosen. I'd learned it the hard way. Nothing between us was ever mutual. I projected. He was nice. End of story. I was almost certain of this. And then I heard the girl moan already after I opened the wrong door, which literally tore me out of my thoughts. The study room was supposed to be empty. Empty except for two people who clearly thought it would stay that way. Rosalía was pressed against the desk, her skirt hiked up and hands on Tadeo’s head between her thighs. #Email I froze, but not from the surprise. I'd told myself Tadeo was straight, I'd been certain, so this shouldn't have been anything. But my chest did something ugly and involuntary. It hurt. A specific, dull pain in the chest, and it was the last thing I’d expected to feel. My eyes stayed on Tadeo longer than they should have. On his flushed face, his messed-up hair, his hands still on Rosalía’s thighs. I catalogued all of it in a second and a half and hated myself for every millisecond. So, he’s fucking the daughter of a coach who hates him? Well, shit. Rosalía's eyes flew open when she finally noticed me and made Tadeo to look up. When he did, his face changed immediately. "Armando…" He started as I turned and walked. "Armando! Armando, wa—" His footsteps behind me — fast, catching up in the hallway. But I kept walking with my heart hummering in my ears. He then grabbed my arm and I shrugged him off without looking at. "Let me explain." "For what?" I still didn't look at him. "You don't owe me an explanation, dude. I don't care." "It's not… We're not together. It's casual, it just happens sometimes, it doesn't mean…" "Tadeo." I stopped, and finally turned to face him. He was flushed, shirt untucked, hair wrecked, breathing hard. And I was honest enough to admit to myself that I'd stared at him in that room longer than I should have. Longer than someone who didn't care would have. "I don't care who you fuck." And as I was saying this, a lump came to my throat. This always happens when I wasn't telling the whole truth. "Okay, um… Just…" The flush on his face shifted to something closer to fear. "If Domínguez finds out he'll destroy me. He already hates me, and if he thinks I'm sleeping with his daughter he'll use it to end my career. And the guys on the team might think I used her to get ahead, that's why we kept it…" "Secret." I finished flatly before he did. "Yeah. I figured." "Armando, please. I'll do whatever you want. Anything." He looked pleading into my eyes. "Just tell me and I’ll do it." I stared at Tadeo. His green eyes, wide and desperate, his chest still heaving. The way he looked at me like my answer was the only thing in the world that mattered. I said nothing. I turned around and walked away.