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Almost a week after his resignation, Eduardo is already making plans.
Time moves quickly and he tries to keep pace, tries to get ahead.
He calls old friends and colleagues in the States, writes and rewrites letters and lists and jots down details for potential apartments and hotels on the back of old receipts and envelopes. He paces around his apartment with the phone clamped between his jaw and his shoulder. He drinks but doesn't feel drunk, only tired. He rarely sleeps.
This is grief. He knows this. And this, what he's doing now, feels like planning a funeral.
His friends at the American embassy are helpful, more so than usual. Guilt is the most likely reason for this, but Eduardo can’t find room inside himself to feel sorry for them. He gets short with the woman on the other end of the line, then apologises, then hangs up abruptly.
When he's not busy making plans, Eduardo spends the days carefully dismantling his life.
He keeps the curtains drawn and walks around the apartment like he's at a wake, quiet and sombre. He finds old cardboard boxes and starts to fill them. The answering machine runs full and he lets it.
After about four days, he calls his mother. She's seen the news, seen the outrage and the vitriol (Eduardo hasn't), and she cries on the phone, sobbing static down the line. Eduardo speaks in platitudes, calm because this is what he's decided to do, what he would do again and again if he was given the choice. She doesn't understand and he doesn't expect her to. By the time his father comes to the phone, he's run out of platitudes and all he can say is, "I'm sorry."
But his father replies, "Thank you for calling. We were worried about you."
He doesn't ask Eduardo for the truth and he doesn't ask him to lie. He doesn't make him say much of anything, really. There are things that his father understood about Eduardo, long before he himself ever did.
"Call again," his father says after twenty minutes of aimless conversation. Eduardo can hear the TV on in the background. "Before you leave."
"I will." Eduardo blinks at his dishevelled reflection in the black screen of his own television. And then, "I'm sorry."
Eduardo works tirelessly to make sure that there is no time, no room, for him to think about César. In the rare moments where there's nothing to keep him occupied – when he's brushing his teeth or doing the dishes – the thoughts come flooding in like water through a crack in a dam. He meets the full extent of his grief, all the terrible facets of it, hunched over the kitchen sink. It's painful, unbelievably so.
Grief is love unended, unfinished, unrealised, and Eduardo has carried this love – the full unbearable weight of it – around with him for years. It was his burden to carry. It probably will be until the end.
But he made his peace with this a long, long time ago. He's become good friends with this quiet ache, nurtured it even.
Objectively, rationally, he knows what this is. Self-flagellation.
The love he can't help, but he has tortured himself with it. Every day, every hour, every minute spent in César's presence, close together or across the room or in a different part of the building. Sharing the backseat of a car, a small table at a café or a couch. The casual touches, reassuring and comforting, never less but never more if he could help it. It is a self-inflicted wound, one that he refuses to let heal. One lingering touch, one tired smile, tears it open again.
He washes his face when these moods come. He paints over the cracks with a sealant that he knows will hold just long enough.
All of this will be easier, more bearable when he's half a continent away. It's not much of a balm, but it will do.
A knock on the door makes Eduardo jump.
The plate he'd been scrubbing slips from his grip and crashes into the sink, breaking and splashing water and soap suds onto his shirt.
He's not expecting guests, he's not expecting anyone, and anxiety – well-worn and familiar now – seeps into him. He has no gun, no weapon; if there is someone on the other side of that door that wants to kill him, he will die. A bullet to the chest, one to the head, a few more just to be sure. As he stands there, staring at the door, he briefly sees his own body sprawled out on the floor, blood pooling, limbs askew.
Another knock. Eduardo swallows.
He wonders if he's ready to die. It's an odd thought to have while elbow-deep in lukewarm, sudsy water.
Numbly, he picks up one of the porcelain shards now resting at the bottom of the sink and heads toward the door. He leaves a trail of water and bubbles in his wake and the shard digs into his palm, hard enough to hurt, as he turns the key in the lock and then, after a second of hesitation, opens the door.
He expects a gun. What he gets is César.
César, who looks tired and preoccupied. Under the slightly rumpled lines of his suit, he seems tense. He's missing his waistcoat and his hair looks like he's been running his hand through it, undoing the tidy lines he so prefers.
The sight goes through Eduardo with a similar kind of velocity as a bullet.
Once the shock wears off, anger comes, unbidden, unwanted. He wanted a clean break, a clean cut that would leave no wispy threads of hope for him to cling to. He had organised it, planned it that it would be so. Rarely has he shown himself mercy, but this was supposed to be it.
Clearly, César had not seen it that way and how could he have? This was the one thing he had not been privy to.
They stare at each other until Eduardo suddenly feels a warm-wet burst of pain in his right hand and he looks down to see blood oozing through the fingers still clutching the shard. He looks back up at César, who is still looking at him, his expression unreadable. Eduardo's sure that everything he's feeling is clearly visible on his face. This is why César was always the better politician out of the two of them.
"I'm sorry for not calling ahead. I couldn't get through," César finally says.
Eduardo glances over his shoulder at the telephone on the coffee table. The receiver is dangling off the edge onto the floor.
"It's okay," he says though he makes no effort to invite César inside. "My answering machine is full."
César nods distractedly. His gaze is fixed somewhere to the left of Eduardo's face and if he were the kind of man who fidgets, Eduardo's sure he would be now. But César is not that kind of man, instead, he clasps his hands behind his back, looks up at Eduardo and says, "I wanted to see you."
Acutely aware of his own heartbeat and the blood now dripping onto the floor, Eduardo looks at him for a second, then nods and steps aside.
César ducks past him and Eduardo closes the door, then leans against it.
He watches César's gaze rove over the half-filled cardboard boxes, the half-empty bookcases and the general chaos that has slowly consumed the apartment and as César slowly turns on the spot, Eduardo realises for the first time, that he looks nervous. A little unsure.
"So, you're leaving?" César asks, turning to face Eduardo.
Eduardo steps away from the door. "Yes," he says. "It's for the best. There's no place for me in Colombia. Not at the moment."
César's expression tightens and he looks away. He stoops to put the receiver back in its cradle and the dial tone stops. Then, still not looking at Eduardo, he asks, "Where are you planning to go?"
"The States. For now, at least. I've been calling around and an old college friend has offered me a job at his firm."
"Ah," César says, nodding. "That was quick."
Eduardo inclines his head but doesn't say anything. His right hand is throbbing now, pain radiating up his forearm.
"And have you got a visa?"
This makes Eduardo smile a little, despite everything. César's concern, the little furrow on his brow. "Yes, the Americans at the embassy have been surprisingly helpful," he says, slowly forcing his hand to loosen its grip on the porcelain shard while César is distracted by one of the many cardboard boxes. More blood oozes sluggishly from the cut, but he manages to catch the worst of it in his other hand.
He walks back into the kitchen and César follows, stopping just inside the doorway until he notices Eduardo's bloody hand and he starts forward again. "What did you do?" he asks, reaching out and turning Eduardo's hand toward the light to have a better look.
Eduardo holds up the bloody porcelain shard. "I thought you were an assassin."
César glances up at him. His hand is still clutching Eduardo's wrist and he looks, for a second, like he wants to say something. But then he purses his lips and turns his attention back to Eduardo's hand and says, "You need to clean this. Under cold water."
Eduardo does as he's told and washes out the wound under César's watchful gaze. He even offers to find the first aid kit that Eduardo bought years ago, but the apartment is such a mess by now that Eduardo waves him off and goes off to find it himself. When he returns it's to find César carefully wrapping the bloodied shard in a piece of newspaper.
"Do you think this will need stitches?" Eduardo asks lightly when they're sitting on the couch together. "I once cut myself trying to open a can of tomatoes. Here." He points to the middle finger of his injured hand, which César is dabbing at with antiseptic cream, where a fine scar slants down toward the palm. "And that needed stitches. The nurses were very disappointed in me."
This, at least, manages to conjure up a small, exasperated smile on César's face.
"I think you should be fine," he says, putting away the cream. "Although, I'm not a nurse, so I'm making no promises."
"Ah, well. You're doing okay so far, I think."
Again, a small smile and Eduardo drinks it in, greedy and too starved to be truly ashamed of it.
This is the closest he's been to another human being in over a week and the closest he's been to César since that awful, rain-soaked day.
Their knees are touching and their hands, elbows and shoulders brush as César moves on to the gauze dressing. His brow is furrowed with concentration and Eduardo indulges himself; anchoring himself in the knowledge that this may very well be the last time he gets to do this. He is privileged to see César in moments like these, away from politics, the prying eyes and the press. Away from the world. He's softer here – but maybe that's just the sparse lighting – rumpled and comfortable in a way he rarely is in public. Here, he makes no attempt to mask the exhaustion, the little twitches of frustration around his mouth, the way his hands tremble a little when he's trying to be careful.
Eduardo wants so much. More of this, specifically – fantasies of domesticity – even though he's already had more than he deserves.
César looks up, then, and Eduardo knows he's been caught.
Guilt comes first, as always, quickly followed by shock when César suddenly leans up and kisses him.
His lips are warm and dry against Eduardo's slightly parted ones, a little clumsy too, in a way that isn't typical. Their roles have been reversed, César acting on impulse, Eduardo groping blindly past the fireworks and the flood of desire for reason and pragmatism.
He pulls away and gets up so abruptly that he almost trips over the coffee table in his haste to get away. His lips feel warm, but the rest of him feels cold with shock. There are goosebumps breaking out on his forearms and the back of his neck, forcing a shiver out of him.
César is still sitting on the couch. He looks stricken.
Eduardo stands there, stranded in the middle of the room, searching helplessly for something to say and when words do finally come to him, they are inadequate. "What—" he stutters. He rubs a hand over his jaw, feeling and hearing the rasp of stubble against his palm. His injured hand is braced on his hip. "I don't... I don't understand. César—"
"I'm sorry," César interrupts, head bowed. "I'm sorry."
Eduardo stares at him. A realisation – grand and life-changing – goes through him like the shockwave of some big, terrible bomb.
"I don't understand," he repeats. "Why did you—"
César looks up at him then and his tone is pleading when he says, "Eduardo..." as if he's willing him to understand, willing him to stop.
But Eduardo can't. He's too stunned to be gentle. There's too much inside him that wants to get out. "No, no," he says, running a hand through his hair. "No, I don't understand." His tone is harsh, not loud enough to be considered a shout, but César still recoils a little.
"Did you know?" Eduardo asks, pacing now, restless. He has to force the next words out. "Did you know how I—what I feel. For you."
César opens his mouth, then closes it again. He shakes his head. "I didn't," he says, but Eduardo looks at him. Really looks at him, willing the truth out of him, until finally, César quietly adds, "I... I hoped. I didn't know."
This confession hangs in the air between them. Impossible, but real, now that it's been said out loud.
Now that it's out there, a mutual confession, Eduardo wants the truth. The full truth, all of it. He deserves this, at least, he thinks. He deserves to know and understand and to have this – a confession, one quick chaste kiss – to hold it and treasure it. He's not asking for much, he never has. He refused to ask for the things – the person – he wanted so badly it made him ache. But now this. This.
"How long have you known?" he asks with a steadiness he does not feel.
It's not exactly clear what or who he means, but César understands. Of course, he does.
"I," he starts, but then pauses. He clasps his hands in front of him, then unclasps them again, keeping his thumbs linked together. Eduardo watches this quiet ritual and waits. "I think I have known for a while now," César finally says. He's speaking to the coffee table, staring as if he's reading from a teleprompter, but there is enough hesitation there for Eduardo to know that this is not rehearsed.
"Maybe after you were kidnapped. After that phone call," César continues. "But before that, too. Long before." He swallows, hands flexing. "But when you were in La Catedral, when I thought you might die, it became real. I could name it, then, because before that I don't think I really understood what I felt, but I know that I've felt it for a long time."
Eduardo puts his face in his hands, unable to process this while having to look at César's face.
"And you," César says after a while, hesitating. Nervous. "You feel... the same?"
At this Eduardo laughs a small, desolate laugh. Muffled by his hands still pressed to his face, he says, "I thought it was obvious."
Another small pause as César digests this. Eduardo can't see his face but he can imagine the expression on it. The lines around his eyes – deeper, more visible when he's frowning – which he would be now. When César speaks again, Eduardo can hear where the analyst meets uncertainty. "For how long?" he asks as if he's parsing through all the years they've spent together, searching his memory for signs, slip-ups, covert confessions. If he looked in the right places he'd probably find all three.
Eduardo pulls his hands away from his face, but can only manage a quick glance at César, who is sitting on his couch like he's in a confessional. "For how long?" Eduardo repeats, then sighs. "For a long, long time. Since the day I met you, maybe."
"Oh." César's voice is soft. And then, "I didn't know."
Eduardo smiles, unable to help himself. "Yes, that was kind of the point."
They lapse into silence and Eduardo takes the opportunity to go into the kitchen to get César a glass of water. The shard of the plate, wrapped in bloody newspaper is still lying on the draining board where César had left it.
"I wish," César says when Eduardo returns and sets the glass down on the coffee table. "I wish I had known sooner."
Eduardo stands there, aching like an exposed nerve. One big, all-consuming ache. "About me or you?" he asks, voice rasping out of him.
"About both of us," César replies simply.
He picks up the glass of water and takes a sip and Eduardo watches helplessly for a second or two as his throat moves as he swallows before he looks away quickly, up at the ceiling then down at the parquet floor. A confession is not permission.
"Do you think that would have changed anything?"
César looks at the glass cradled in his hands, condensation pearling against his fingertips. Again, that uncertainty, a silent battle Eduardo can only catch glimpses of. Finally, he says, "I don't know. Maybe." He looks up at Eduardo with an open, searching gaze, taking him in. All of him, his untidy hair, the unironed shirt, the day's worth of stubble. It feels like standing under a spotlight that's not exactly unforgiving in its glare but unrelenting.
Caving under the weight of his gaze, Eduardo walks over, moves a stack of books off the armchair and sits down.
"I'm sorry," César says quietly.
Eduardo huffs a small, tired laugh. "I'm sorry too," he says.
They sit in silence together.
Somewhere parked down the street there's a bodyguard dozing in the driver's seat of a sleek armoured car. Far, far above them, clouds are gathering, obscuring the moon and the stars, although they'll only find out about that when it starts to rain. When it starts it will be like the end of the world and it will not stop until late the next morning.
But right now everything is quiet.
"Why now?" The question bursts out of Eduardo's mouth before he can stop it.
César sits back on the couch, tipping his head back to contemplate the ceiling. "I don't know," he murmurs, but Eduardo knows that's not the truth and after a second César seems to realise that too.
"I heard rumours that you were planning to leave Colombia. You know how people talk." He punctuates this with a heavy sigh and Eduardo is briefly overcome with fondness. Then César continues, "And then the press started asking me about it, asking questions I couldn't answer..." he trails off. "And I... I never thought, before that, that I would ever tell you about how I feel. I mean, I barely understood it myself, but when more and more people were saying that you were leaving I just—I couldn't bear the thought of letting you go without ever telling you."
Resisting the urge to put his face in his hands again, Eduardo asks, "What... what did you think would happen?"
César shrugs, helplessly. "I don't know. I don't know."
Eduardo sits there, elbows braced on his knees, considering the floor. Finally, with the frank earnestness of a man facing execution, he says, "I love you." It needed to be said to be made real, to be made whole. Now or never. "But I'm still leaving."
He drags his gaze away from the floor to find César staring at him, his mouth slightly open. He looks stunned and lovely in the orange light.
"I know," he says. I know that you love me and I know that you're leaving.
"And you're staying here," Eduardo continues, forcing himself not to break eye contact.
César's eyes are very brown.
"I have to," César replies, which strikes Eduardo as strange. It doesn't fit the script, it doesn't match what he had prepared in his head. I have to sounds like If I didn't I would come with you, which wrongfoots him so completely that he blinks.
"Whatever," Eduardo starts, then pauses to clear his throat. "Whatever happens now, I'm still leaving and you're still staying here."
César nods mutely and Eduardo swallows. Now or never.
"So, what do you want to happen?" he asks.
At this César sort of crumples a little. He bows his head, shoulders low, and then he glances up briefly and Eduardo realises with a little pang of surprise and want, that he's blushing. In all the years he's known César he's never seen him blush before and he's bowled over by the thought that after all this time there are still things he doesn't know about César, that there are sides to him that he's never seen.
"I need to know," César says, an edge to his voice that makes Eduardo's hands twitch involuntarily. "I want to know what it would be like—what it would feel like if this was real. What it would be like to have this. To have you, like this."
"Like this?" Eduardo echoes softly in his disbelief.
César looks at him pleadingly, an inner struggle laid bare, willing him to understand. He's fidgeting with the now empty glass he's still holding and Eduardo's gaze is drawn to the movement. It's then that he realises that César is not wearing his wedding ring. Understanding crashes over him, dreadful and complete.
"No," he murmurs, getting back up again, desperate to put some space between himself and what he thinks César is suggesting. "No, no."
"Eduardo, please," César says, also standing up. "Please, just listen—"
But Eduardo's backing away now, dragging a hand through his hair. "No, no. I don't understand," he pleads. "I don't understand."
César puts his face in his hands and Eduardo watches his shoulders move with every slow, deliberate breath he takes. His gaze keeps being drawn to César's left hand, which looks strange without the plain gold band that usually adorns it. On one level it horrifies him, shocks him right down to his core, but on another something uglier, something in him that wants, rejoyces at the sight.
"I don't know how to explain," César says, exhausted, dropping his hands to his sides. "I'm sorry, I just—" want.
The thought that César – steadfast and determined – is susceptible to something like this almost shocks Eduardo into a heart attack, but it comes second to the realisation that this want is big enough for him, César – incorruptible and honourable – to take off his wedding ring. Eduardo's not worthy of this, the turmoil César is putting himself through, the damage this will do.
"Your family. Your wife," he says as if those four words will be enough to get César to come to his senses. "You love her."
But César just looks at him, helpless but somehow resolute, and says, "I love you."
Eduardo drags a hand over his eyes, stunned into speechlessness. He can feel a hysterical sort of laugh bubbling in his chest, threatening to get out, and he drags his hand further down to clamp over his mouth. Across the room, surrounded by furniture and cardboard boxes, César stands, watching him. He is a familiar shape in Eduardo's life, in Eduardo's too small, too cheap apartment that he rents even though he could afford something nicer. The fear of not having him mixed with the desire to keep him eats away at Eduardo's common sense, at the better side of him that wants to stop this before it can cause too much destruction.
They are not helpless bystanders in this situation. They are crammed in the driver's seat together, grabbing at the wheel, wrenching it to left, driving this car off the road. Off the bridge, off the cliff, into the water. Together.
He is a good man. Mostly.
But he has harboured this love for so long that it's become corrosive. He knows what he should do and he knows he can't do it.
He knows what he wants – what he's wanted for so long – and he knows that he will give in to it.
There is always the chance, however vague, that this will mean nothing beyond what it means tonight; that it – the repercussions, change and the damage – will be contained within this night. A body throwing itself over a grenade, absorbing the worst of the blast.
But Eduardo also has the distinct feeling that this is bigger than tonight, bigger than anything.
He moves around the armchair, his steps are slow and measured and his arms hang loosely at his sides. Too loose, maybe. Self-consciousness overcomes him all of a sudden. He feels like he's all limbs, all height, inelegant and awkward as he steps around the boxes, the basket of clean laundry, and stacks of books and newspapers to where César is still rooted to the spot by the couch.
They are standing close enough that César has to tilt his face up to look at Eduardo, who watches, entranced, as his gaze darts down to Eduardo's mouth just for a second before he glances away again, embarrassed and flushing a little. It all feels completely surreal and real at the same time; their closeness, the air between them, the rustle of their clothes, the sound of their quiet breathing heightened somehow.
Helplessly, Eduardo reaches up and brushes the pad of his thumb over César's cheek; the delicate, slightly creased skin under his eye. César's breath stutters a little at the touch. It wouldn't have been noticeable if Eduardo wasn't standing so close, but he is and it makes his own breath falter, an even rhythm disrupted by a flashflood of want.
He cups the back of César's head more firmly, fingers smoothing through his hair, and leans down to kiss him.
César makes a soft, stunned noise against his mouth and Eduardo immediately crowds in closer, submitting to the inevitable.