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“You know I don’t drive in the dark, even less if it’s raining.”
“But we booked our room in Salento, not here! Our stuff is in there!”
“If we stay one night out, nothing’s gonna happen.”
“Nothing? We’d be spending money unnecessarily, and we don’t know what could happen to our bags! We don’t even have clothes in the car!”
“So you’d rather have me drive in the dark through a curvy road with no proper signals and the sky falling down on us?”
“As if there is any other option!”
“There is.”
“Any other real option, because staying in a town full of tourists, in a town we hadn’t planned to stay more than a few hours is not a real option.”
“It is a real option- that’s why I booked it.”
“Exactly! Without even telling me.”
“I didn’t think you’d make a fuss over me solving a problem!”
“You’re not solving it, you’re causing even more problems!”
“So, what? What did you want me to do? What did you expect me to do? To ask if you wanted to drive tonight?”
Silence.
“I can’t believe you’d say that.”
“Then you understand why I can’t take us out of here.”
More silence, and Craig knew the fight was over when Kyle’s eyes got glassy and he tightened his lips. It took the redhead a few seconds before turning around and leaving, though not without shutting the door hard enough to startle him.
Craig sat down on the bed and put a hand firmly over his chest, sighing deeply. Those fights affected him too much.
The narrow walls and the loud sounds his shoes made against the wooden stairs as he went to the hotel’s public café were making Kyle anxious. He feared that one missed step would make him slip down in an endless slide that would end up with a pulled muscle or a broken ankle. During his thirty-five years alive it’d already happened twice: once when he was ten and once when he was twenty-one; both times he’d been upset after fighting with someone- first with his brother, the latter with his ex-girlfriend. It wasn’t a moment he wanted to reexperience ever again.
He also didn’t want to reexperience another car crash like the one he had driving from Denver to South Park back in 2011.
He couldn’t believe it’d been ten years already.
The heel of his boots made a thunderous sound against a stair as he recovered from missing a step. Thankfully, it was just the final stair and not higher up, and, thankfully, the music and the chattering from clients eating at the café were loud enough to not bring attention to him, though a waitress did give him an odd look, yet she was too busy to let it linger and quickly was back to organizing cups full of what he supposed was hot chocolate on a tray.
Kyle took a look around at the room, but the only seat that was empty was located in a corner, next to a slightly open window. To get there he’d have to ask people to move their chairs since everyone sat closely together; even the tables were almost touching each other. Whatever happened to social distancing?
Social distancing.
He gasped softly and hastily looked for his mask in his pockets, then hastily put it on. His nose began itching due to the fuzzy cloth rubbing against his skin but he ignored it in favor of slowly walking down another set of stairs.
It wasn’t the best idea to stay at the same establishment in which he’d fought with his boyfriend lest he followed him, because he didn’t want to be found.
Once he stepped down the last stair, he looked around at the wet streets, at the people pressed against the houses’ walls to cover themselves from the rain.
It wasn’t like Craig ever followed him after arguing, but at that moment Kyle wanted avoid any possibility from it happening.
After aimlessly walking for a couple of blocks, avoiding groups of people that weren’t kind enough to give him space and let him through, he made a right turn and found himself entering a noisy bar-café. He stayed on one of its three entrances as he took in the dim, warm lighting and rustic yet elegant wooden furniture. It was as full as the other café had been, with the difference that the tables were round and small therefore it was easier to walk between them, so as soon as he spotted an empty chair, he hurried to sit down.
“¿Disculpa?”
Kyle immediately turned to look across the table and realized he wasn’t alone: a man with tanned skin, golden blonde hair and brown eyes stared at him.
“I’m sorry, I just-“ he grunted and tried to come up with the specific words and phrases he’d memorized to have a basic conversation with locals since he didn’t want to depend all the time on Craig, but he was too nervous to remember anything. To not embarrass himself further, he stood up, ready to leave, but the other man talked again.
“No Spanish?” He sounded amused. “I speak English, too, and I don’t mind sharing this table.”
At first, Kyle was too ashamed to reply, but through the entrance doors he could see that it’d started raining harder, so he sat back down. It wasn’t like he’d had somewhere else to go.
“I’m Kenny.” The other man said with a smile and showed his hand. “You’re not from here, are you?”
As if it weren’t obvious.
“I’m Kyle.” He hesitated but shook the other’s hand, not wanting to seem rude. “Yeah, I’m not from here.”
“Where are you from?”
Kyle hesitated again. “From Colorado.”
Kenny gave him a expectant look. It took a few seconds for Kyle to realize what he was waiting for.
“From America.”
Kenny laughed and Kyle felt lost.
“Many of your kind come around these parts.” Kenny said, and by the way he rolled the ‘r’, Kyle noticed his accent.
Kyle just nodded and glanced at the entrance. So far, the rain hadn’t receded. He felt a hand on his arm so he looked back at Kenny. He hoped his annoyance wasn’t so evident on his face.
“Hey, hey, don’t be sad. Let’s drink a beer, talk a bit, then we’ll go our own way. The weather will get better soon, so let’s wait.”
“Alright.”
“Good!” He raised up a hand as he waited for a waitress to look at him, and a few seconds later one approached them. “Dos Club. Si tienes doble malta, de esa. Sino, dorada está bien.” The waitress nodded, not even bothering to write down the order. “Gracias.”
As she went away, Kyle looked down at the table, wondering if he wasn’t making a mistake.
“So, Kyle!” Kenny hit the table with an open hand to call his attention, but it startled him. “Are you liking Colombia so far? What have you seen?”
“It’s not the first time we- um, I come here, but I hadn’t traveled around Quindío before.”
“We?” Kenny raised up his eyebrows. “Wife? A girlfriend? Family?”
Right. Craig warned him he had to keep it on the downlow, mainly in towns. “A friend.”
“A girl friend?”
Kyle rolled his eyes and Kenny laughed at that before patting his back. Kyle winced at the contact: he still couldn’t get used to strangers treating him so warmly.
“Don’t worry, Kyle, I have many girl friends too.”
Two beers were placed between them before he could think of saying anything. Each one had a thin, folded napkin covering the top. Kenny took his off without a second thought and drank what seemed like half the beer before gasping in delight. Kyle, instead, observed the label as he turned the bottle around, admiring how the golden color shone as the lights from above reflected against it.
“Club Colombia.” He read in a murmur, and ran his thumb over the relief of what he identified as an indigenous figure engraved in the bottle.
Kenny snorted. “What, you’ve never drank it before? You sure you’ve come here before?”
“My… friend is a bit stuck up about beers.” A pause. “I’ve only drank artisanal or less commercial stuff.”
“Hah! Then you don’t know what you’re missing. Go, drink it!”
Kyle smiled a bit and took the napkin off. “If it sucks, I’m holding it against you.”
Kenny held up his hand next to his head with a determined expression. “I’ll pay for a finer beer, I swear.”
When Kyle chuckled, Kenny dropped his hand and seriousness before laughing too.
“Don’t second-guess it, just give it a long gulp.”
Kyle nodded and that was exactly what he did. A mix of a familiar and unfamiliar bitterness went down his throat, but he kept drinking until half the bottle was finished. Or so he remembered.
Commonly, he dreamt of flowers and nature, of his mother’s plants, of his boyfriend’s warm smiles.
Sometimes, he dreamt of endless flurries of snow, of a sun that never came, of rubbing his hands together and obtaining no warmth.
Rarely those dreams of snow were accompanied by Americana music, by Stan snoring quietly, by his own mind buzzing comfortably with the satisfaction of a day well spent, until a wrong turn made him lose control of the wheel.
Almost never his dreams were full of nothing.
That morning, Kyle woke up after a dense darkness stopped swallowing him whole. He opened his eyes and didn’t recognize the geometric patterned roof, the wide bed with elegant and seemingly clean sheets and soft pillows over it or the enormous suite-styled room he found himself in. Everything was either pastel green, golden or white. He wondered if he was hallucinating.
Impulsively, he looked for his cellphone to see what time it was, but he didn’t find it; he did find, however, that his hands were dirty with some brown stains. It was strange, but at that moment he was too dazed to feel fear; however, he did get the urge of washing them. With clumsy and slow movements he supported himself on any piece of furniture that crossed his way as he headed to a closed door, supposing that it could lead to the bathroom- and, thankfully, it did.
A small light-green bathroom.
The toilet and sink were white with golden details.
Even though he felt a bit more awake after cleaning his hands and splashing water on his face, his lightheadedness didn’t fade. He stared at himself through the mirror and disliked how pale his face looked.
Was he in a VIP hostel? A hotel? An apartment? Was he even still in Filandia?
Where was Craig?
Was last night’s fight a dream? Yet, even if the exact words they’d exchanged scaped him, he was sure he’d not imagined his own anger or missing a step as he made his way downstairs to the café. He was also completely sure he’d not imagined constantly increasing rain or the stranger that’d invited him to chat and drink.
“Stupid brain.” He said with a raspy voice, and that was how he realized he needed a glass of water.
Clearing his throat, he went back to look at himself through the mirror, but the reflection of something unknown made him turn around to look at the slightly opened shower doors. The glass was too opaque to properly see what was inside, yet it seemed like someone was hiding there.
With his heart up to his throat and unable to breathe, Kyle approached the doors and hesitated for a few eternal seconds before sliding them open.
The sight of last night’s stranger lying down on blood-stained tiles was not something he’d expected to see.