Acostumado Mal

The rain started three hours ago, a hard slanting curtain that turned the streets of Copacabana into rivers of black mirror. I watched it from the window of the apartment, my forehead pressed to the cold glass, waiting for the ghost to walk through the door.

He was late. Bruno was always late. But tonight the lateness felt different, heavier, like the air before a storm breaks.

I had spent the afternoon cleaning. Not because he was coming, but because the clutter made my skin crawl. I scrubbed the bathroom tiles until my knuckles bled, organized the bookshelf by color and then by height, threw out three bags of things I didn't need. Things I had kept for no reason. Receipts from restaurants I couldn't remember. A scarf from an ex who smelled like cigarettes and regret. A cracked ceramic bowl my mother gave me before she stopped speaking to me.

The apartment looked like a showroom. Sterile. Empty. Perfect.

I poured myself a glass of wine, the last of the bottle I'd opened two days ago. It was cheap and bitter, but the alcohol did its job. I drank it standing at the window, watching the rain eat the city.

When the key turned in the lock, my heart did something stupid. It jumped. Then it settled back into its cage, pretending it hadn't moved.

He came in shaking water from his coat, a dark shape against the dim light of the hallway. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his shirt collar soaked. He looked like a drowned dog. He looked like the only thing I'd ever wanted.

"Sorry," he said, dropping his bag by the door. "The traffic is a nightmare. The whole city is flooding."

I didn't move from the window. "You could have called."

"I did. You didn't pick up."

I had seen his name flash on my phone. I had let it ring.

He crossed the room, and I felt him behind me before he touched me. The heat of his body, the smell of rain and something else. Something metallic. Something I couldn't name.

"Hey," he said, his hands on my shoulders. "Look at me."

I turned. His face was tired. The lines around his eyes were deeper than they'd been a month ago, when I last saw him. He looked like a man who hadn't slept in days.

"I missed you," he said.

I wanted to say something sharp. Something that would cut. But the words got stuck in my throat, and instead I just nodded.

He kissed my forehead. Then my cheek. Then my mouth, soft and slow, like he was testing whether I'd pull away.

I didn't.

We stood there for a long moment, his hands in my hair, my fingers gripping the wet fabric of his shirt. The rain hammered the window behind me. The wine glass sat abandoned on the counter.

When he pulled back, his eyes were dark and serious.

"I need to tell you something," he said.

My stomach dropped. I knew that tone. I had heard it before, from other men, in other apartments, on other rainy nights. It was the prelude to an ending.

"Don't," I said.

"I have to."

"No, you don't. You really don't."

He stepped back, ran a hand through his wet hair. Water dripped onto the floor. A puddle was forming at his feet, spreading like a stain.

"I got a job," he said. "In São Paulo."

I blinked. That wasn't what I expected. "Okay."

"It starts in two weeks."

"Okay."

"I want you to come with me."

The words hung in the air between us, strange and unexpected. I had been bracing for a breakup, for an apology, for some confession that would shatter the fragile thing we'd built. Instead, he was asking me to follow him.

"Bruno, I have a life here. I have work. I have..."

"What? What do you have here?"

I looked around the apartment. The clean floors. The organized shelves. The empty wine bottle. The silence that had been my companion for three years.

"I have roots," I said, but the words felt hollow.

"You have a cage," he said. "You built it yourself, and you lock yourself in it every night."

That stung because it was true. I had been alone for so long that solitude had become a habit. A comfortable one. One that didn't ask anything of me.

"I can't just leave," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not that simple."

"It is that simple. You pack a bag, you get on a plane, you start over. People do it every day."

"Not me."

"Yes, you. You're just scared."

I wanted to argue, but he was right. I was terrified. Terrified of the unknown, of the possibility of happiness, of the chance that I might actually want something and lose it.

He stepped closer again, took my face in his hands. His palms were cold from the rain.

"I'm not asking you to give up anything," he said. "I'm asking you to try something new. With me."

I looked at him. Really looked. At the gray in his stubble, the tiredness in his eyes, the way his hands trembled slightly against my skin. He was scared too. He was just better at hiding it.

"And if it doesn't work?" I asked.

"Then it doesn't work. But at least we tried."

I thought about all the things I had let slip through my fingers. The job I didn't apply for. The trip I didn't take. The man I didn't love because I was too afraid to be loved back.

I thought about the rain outside and the silence inside and the way his hands felt like the only warm thing in the world.

"Ask me again," I said.

He smiled. It was a small smile, tired and real.

"Come with me to São Paulo."

I didn't answer. Instead, I kissed him. Hard and hungry, like I was trying to swallow the fear.

When we broke apart, I was breathing heavy.

"I need more than that," he said. "I need to know you're in."

"Acho que ainda preciso de um pouco mais de você."

I laughed. The sound surprised me. It had been a while since I laughed like that, without thinking about it first.

"Que exigente," I said.

"Você me acostumou mal."

I pulled him into another kiss. This time, neither of us was in a hurry to pull away.

The rain kept falling. The city kept flooding. Somewhere out there, the world was ending and starting and doing all the things worlds do.

But in that apartment, in that moment, there was only his mouth on mine and the question I still hadn't answered.

I knew what I wanted. I just didn't know if I was brave enough to take it.