</sinners>
Most of my stories don’t begin to be written at their beginning. They wait. They linger in me — half-formed, half-swallowed — until its ache has cooled just enough to be held without burning. Only then, when memory begins to soften at the edges, does it curl into narrative, like steam from a cup I’m finally brave enough to sip.
That’s when I know: this chapter is over — not because I said so, but because the silence it left behind no longer bites.
And so, to my dear reader, I offer this one. A tale that glittered so brightly in its middle that it nearly blinded me — and left me stumbling, bruised, marked with the most precious and delicate kind of ruin. But still, I must confess: it was worth it. Even in its ash. Worth enough that I would walk into its flame — maybe not wisely, but willingly — thousand times again with no regrets.
Nevertheless, If I could whisper anything into the ear of my former self before this whole tangled thing began, it would be this: secret loves are the most honeyed and most venomous fruits in the orchard of human connection. There is something almost holy in the hush — in the clandestine glances, the stolen sentences — an exquisite thrill in belonging to someone solely in the margins of the day.
But that sweetness curdles too, it breeds the slow into a creeping doubt. It makes one questioning the reason why one must remain hidden.
Despite all the beauty, all the heart racing feelings, one may ponder if they are not enough to be seen in the daylight. Not enough to be walked beside, hand in hand. Not enough to deserve care when lust ain’t envolved.
This haunting ran so deep that, even though I knew that the shame in hiding our togetherness wasn’t about my worth as a partner. I still had my moments of collapse — with the full weight of uncertainty that settles in the chest
Quiet moments, fragile as breath, where doubt crept in and I found myself questioning even the loyalty of my most trusted friends.
Funny enough, the likeliest reason why we could not turn our love into spectacle was not malice — but mercy. A need to shield someone too fragile to survive the kind of rejection that shatters inward. And so, once again, it was I who walked willingly toward the altar of sacrifice — I, the one built for bruises, the one fluent in the art of bleeding inward without a sound, bearing violet bruises so ancient that I can no longer tell which ones I carved myself and which were pressed into me by other hands (oh gosh, I’m such a pick me, ain’t I?).
Which brings us to a question the fairness of this state of affair…I mean, is it fair that I should collect yet another emotional scar simply because I possess the strength to stomach disappointments — to hold my anguish like breath — instead of flinging it, dagger-sharp, into someone else?
Well, perhaps there is a compelling conversation to be had somewhere in this. One harboring love laced with shame, one about fairness, one about emotional responsibility.
But frankly my dear, I could not car less about it.
I was busy bleeding over a far more brutal dilemma: should I risk losing a friend — a rare and irreplaceable one — for the sin of desiring someone? Should I gamble years of history in search of something electric? Something new, something that makes me smile like a I’ve been possessed — cheeks pulled taut by small demons stretching on the strings of my face into a grin.
Well… apparently, I would.
Too good to be true
During those hollow, corridor-years called “twenties”, I used to travel to my hometown twice a year — to see some relatives, retrace old connections, sit with friends who no longer felt like friends, and bond with half-strangers as if we’d known each other in another life.
Most of those interactions were tainted with the feeling of seeing ghosts of myself, for they spoke to me as if addressing a person who no longer existed — a voice, a shadow, long since shed. But please, don’t get this the wrong way — I don’t blame them for it. Truth is, I suspect I mirrored the same illusion back at them.
This spectral effect didn’t surprise me. What did though was the quiet grace of other type of rare encounters — people who, despite the distance and the slow erosion of time, made me feel seen, made it safe to exhale into the self I was still becoming. Nothing like the past outdated version of myself, they didn’t hold me hostage to the person I was once told to be; instead, they opened the door to who I wish I was.
My relationships tied to that town bore a cruel arithmetic: I knew that if I left, part of me would remain there, kept into other’ memories, as feelings remaining from a fever dream. But if I stayed — if I planted roots in that soil — a more vital part of me would wither and vanish forever. Therefore, I chose to grieve what I left behind. Because the part of me that would have died if I had stayed, somehow, felt more precious to be saved.
Regardless, all this was just to give you — my dear imaginable readers — the context of when and where the borders between friendship and lust were crossed for the first time.
At one party that isn’t worth to be named, located in one of homecoming experiences. Me and Eve — a homage of the author of the original sin and how we going be calling the creature who pinched my heart from now on — knew each other for about 7 years at that particular night. A period where we stayed friends, yet I would be lying if I said that over those years I had never pondered how her kiss should taste. A pondering that should have struck her too, judging by the way the night went.
Eve is not the kind that goes unnoticed. Not merely for her magnetic sense of humor, a look and a smile that gives one hope that heaven it real, and strong arms that tempts one to calculate how many times her own slight weight she might lift — defying her diminutive frame: gravity would be damned.
Despite all that, it is the fire she cups in her small palms that arrests my breath. The way she moves — hesitant, almost childlike — radiating grace and so much confidence. Nevertheless, beneath it all, I could feel a subterranean glimmer: buried wounds Eve has mined, polished, and worn like diamonds — precious jewels revealed only when they catch the right light.
Throughout that night, we danced, we laughed, we drank; we cast glances swollen with hunger, and threaded our way through the crowd like a single body cleaving the air. Our hands clung to one another like lifelines.
But I must confess this plainly: I would never — ever — have dared getting closer than that if she hadn’t spoken first — I’m a coward regarding emotional risks (put my physical being in danger and I jump with eyes wide shut).
Somewhere between the party songs and the crowd walking, Eve turned to me, her voice like a flame in the dark — one day, we’ll kiss, won’t we? — which I nodded affirmatively, smiling and trying to hold my surprise, smiling as if I hadn’t just been handed a secret too sacred to be true.
Nevertheless, this was the heaven gates opening that gave me the courage to take her by the waist, pressing my body against hers, tasting that forbidden fruit for the first time.
This simple gesture unleashed three distinct thoughts that wrestled each other in the night — one: the fear of losing the essence of our friendship, that rare space where nothing was off-limits and no word weighed more than it should; two: the thrill of being chosen, the strange validation of being seen as someone who could brighten her night; and three: the euphoria…for god, was so fucking good.
The countdown
In the meantime, a couple of years passed since out first “lust-laced encounter”, I had drifted through two different girlfriends; as so as Eve, had wandered into two long relationships — the last of which had ended only a few months prior the day I’m about to unfold.
As always, I would only be visiting the town for not much longer than a week. Eve and I were trying to find a date to meet, but lining up our schedules felt like coaxing stars into alignment.
I was at a birthday party. One of our mutual friends gathered all kind of people at a place where artifice reigns and souls wear rouge like masks. Looking for a way out when Eve’s message blinked on my screen: hey, what r u doing? — felt a small thrill while reading it.
You see, it’s not that I dislike birthday parties — though, God knows, I loathe mine — but some birthdays, like the one I was currently enduring, felt like grotesque pageants of self-congratulation. A vanity parade masquerading as joy. Then I had been silently praying for salvation, which Eve’s message settled like an answered invocation — I’m at a birthday party of u know who, in fact, I thought you’d be here too — I replied, she laughed — hahaha not this time, baby. how’s the party? — I didn’t sugarcoat — aaah, not great hahaha. and you? what are u up to?
By then, I was staring more at my phone than the people around me — I’m at a bar with some friends. wanna come? — felt a bigger thrill.
My mind leapt toward the possibility like a moth to a flame — sure, but I’m driving, would need a place to crash since I can’t drink and drive — then she came with the bolt of lightning, simple and seismic — no worries. come, we drink, then you crash at mine. pajama party tonight, what do you think? — the little demons started pulling my cheeks into a simper.
I had just arrived at the party, I didn’t want to ditch a close friend, although in my mind I was already halfway out the door once I stepped in that place. Especially now. Especially with such invitation — fucking yes, but can u give me 1 hour then I find you? that’s okay? — she made it very clear — no, that’s too long — I felt the chance slipping through my fingers — how about half an hour then? — I gambled — okay, that’s acceptable. meet you in 30.
After that, she began texting countdowns.
29 — Each message was a match held to my pulse — 28 — I could feel my heart bitting faster — 25 — the music was starting to getting in nerves, and I spent ten minutes explaining something simple to someone who looked like they’d been lobotomized with a melon baller — 15 — I scanned the crowd for the birthday boy or someone tolerable. No luck — 10 — fuck it! Im going — I texted her.
I gave a hurried goodbye to everyone, offering the best excuse I could muster — you know, there are a lot of people to see and only a few days… I’m sorry, but I have to split — I ran to my car as if the starting gun had fired. I didn’t drive like a maniac (perhaps I did), but I got there fast as my nerves could allow. She’d messaged me saying they were thinking about leaving soon, asking if I was about to arrive — I’m almost there — and Indeed I was.
It took a few minutes to find the place — a hidden, half-forgotten bar tucked into the town’s ribs. I sat beside her at the table, a perch just private enough for our voices to tangle. We didn’t linger long — no more than half an hour, I nursed a beer (perhaps two), and soon we were ready to go. I left my car parked near the bar. One of her friends who wasn’t drinking offered us a ride, where we took the back seat, side by side.
Up to this point, I wasn’t sure — no, let me be honest — I hadn’t the faintest clue whether we were on the same page about what the night might become. And yet, a small touch of hands — a gentle intertwining of fingers at the back seat of the car — made the air between us hum with something more certain (yes, I’m this insecure, yes, I’m this foolish). Our ride dropped us at her house. Her parents were at home, but they’d be traveling come morning — sparing us the usual morning awkward parade of hushed footsteps and guilty glances.
Back then, though I scarcely dared admit it, we were experimenting with weed — she’d scored just a bit, and we fumbled together with a poorly rolled joint.
Our laughter folding into the smoke. She put on some music. We spoke in slow loops, trying to take the edge off the unsaid. From there — Lord — I must confess: my memory dissolves. We got so impossibly high that the night stitched into my mind by sensations alone. The cold sheets. The slow whispering song. The yellow, low-lit glow from a lamp near the wall.
In that delicate hour, before I could name what I felt, Eve left for the bathroom while I was already sprawled across the bed. Floating, holding my desire beneath my clothes — frostbitten by caution, needing the clarity of consent like a match needs striking to get into flames.
She returned — quietly — and slipped beside me. I turned toward her, our noses nearly grazing, feeling the mint of freshly brushed teeth coming from her breath. Our bodies met like twin ghosts stepping into the same skin.
My hand moved toward her waist. And in one slow, revelatory touch, I discovered she’d — as also did I — had already the sinners’ spirits running in our veins, for she wasn’t wearing panties.
And still, the clock ticks
After that first night, we kept slipping back into that dangerous game — friends who touched like lovers in the dark. One evening, over the ruins of dinner, she asked — what are the chances that if we keep playing like this, we’ll fall in love by accident — Eve is quite good at anticipating my thoughts.
That question stayed with me for hitting me sharp in the heart, for my life had never known stillness — cities shed like skins, country borders crossed as I had wings to get there, even the body I wore was a kind of unfinished sentence, for I was twenty-six and still could not be at peace with my own reflection.
I won’t measure my words — I never do — I got terrified of disappointing her with all the mess that I am.
Then I lied — I don’t think that this is possible, we are too different — cold as porcelain, glad for being worthy of her intimate desires, yet split by the cowardice reserved for those who flee from the flames they secretly crave.
We were different, yes — she moved through the world radiating confidence that could be felt from miles away. I, on the other hand, wore dread like a second skin, convinced that I would — inevitably — ruin every good thing handed to me (in the most foolish, avoidable way of course).
So I turned from what might have been (no, what surely was) a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Yet somewhere deep in that cathedral of shame I call a conscience, I carried the guilt — by then, I had already broken women far more luminous than I ever deserved. And for God’s sake, I knew she did not deserve to be the next to feel that particular ruin.
But more unbearable still was the quiet terror that I might not be enough to meet the desires of someone whom I held so unbearably close. It would hurt too bad being to one who broke her heart — for once, my true colors surfaced, all her desire might vanish. Already afraid of being seen as a little monster, the kind that builds distance like their fortress — not out of cruelty, but because it’s all it has ever known.
Even then, with everything laid bare, some quiet, trembling part of me already sensed: if we were ever allowed to share the same air for longer than life usually dares, I would fall for her — helplessly, irreversibly.
Without a single cell of my being prepared to resist the serpent’s whisper.
But perhaps…
Years slipped like sand through the glass, and fate — by which I mean the simple act of Eve being at vacation and I had invited her to stay the weekend — conspired to place us together once more.
I greeted her by the morning, and the rest of the day I longed, in fever, curious wether we still knew how to play our nocturne selves. Craving for the dawn, I pondered if beneath her flawless style — Eve still wore her sinner’s skin.
That day, I found myself watching her the way one studies a flame — entranced, half-afraid to get too close. There was something surgical in her elegance — each gesture, each smudge of eyeliner, a blade meant to carve her orchestral gaze.
Where she went I could feel she commanding a room without speaking, wherever she moved, she stirred the want in others — and I would be lying to pretend I was any different. After lunch, we drifted through drinks with friends, catching up. She knew other people in town, so we a did big city tour.
Time and time again, I caught myself distracted by her, pondering: this is how it must feel to worship something that could destroy you — beautifully.
Later, we caught a cab home — sometime after midnight. Just before we could reach the main entrance of the building, the one that led to the elevator and the room we were meant to share, I leaned close to her ear — how about a walk? — I said softly — there’s a spot just around the corner where the wind is cold, we can seat and talk.
She smiled:
— A park? — she asked
— Not exactly. Just a corner with a view of a gaudy statue, where the air tastes of old stone and exile — we climbed the street, passing sleeping storefronts.
It was a couple concrete benches, at the top had wax at their corners, traces from skater ghosts. We choose one of them and sat side by side.
— It is nice isn’t? — I asked once we’d arrived.
— Yeah, I like these accessible places, where everyone can just exist — and so, we existed.
We talked until our faces found themselves close. I leaned toward her lips, veered at the last second, and grazed her ear with my teeth, giving her a soft bite. Eve curved her lips into something half-angel, half-temptress — laying her hand on my cheek, softly, while she asked me through her smile.
— You too want to join my battle of crushes, huh? — to be honest she didn’t seem that surprised. Eve was referring to the small constellation of lovers orbiting her gravity, I was one of at least four (that I knew about it) craving for having her as theirs.
I laughed, quietly, confessing my pondering.
— How does it feel — I said, barely louder than breath — to be so desperately wanted? I envy you so much, you know? — this wasn’t the only sin I was invoking at the time.
— That might not be a good thing — Eve replied, voice dimming.
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— Well if it is a problem — starting to kiss her neck — It is a very nice problem to have — finally reaching her lips, a first sip after a long thirst from that familiar sweet taste.
We kissed like conspirators — softly, slowly — slipping back into that unholy, familiar hush. It’s hard to say how much time passed before I whispered the invitation:
— How about… — I murmured, my lips still grazing hers as if the words had to taste her before leaving me — we go upstairs — another kiss, half punctuation, half promise — put on some music and drift through the night and see where the talk takes us?
— I don’t know much about drifting, but it’s a good idea though — she answered — don’t worry, we only do what you want — I said, and took her hand, as if that gesture alone could carry us over the threshold of uncertainty, and we slipped back through the city’s cooling breath.
We entered the house speaking only with our eyes. Inside the room, Eve said she’d brush her teeth.
— Okay, meet you there in a sec.
Already, I was setting the sound — BadBadNotGood, III (oh, the irony). Before stepping out to find her at the mirror, I also arranged the lighting: a single lamp at the far corner, casting shadows wide enough to shade our rare moments of wordless shame. From that night on, that amber glow will always bring a little of that moment to me — a quiet relic, an altar of memory.
We bumped into each other in the bathroom, both of us leaning into the mirror, catching glimpses of ourselves and one another in the texture of toothpaste and breath.
Back in the room, I silently took my place, where I could watch her without speaking. Wondering if she would come to me — she didn’t — she stood near the bed, half-turned. Her spine drawing heartache with every subtle movement. I could only see the outline of her posture, her strong back architecture, a constellation of tension as she looked at her phone — shoulders burdened by some kind of pendulating indecision.
I prayed quietly — not for an answer, but for permission.
— Hey — I said gently — can we talk?
One step and she turned to me, smiling like forgiveness in human form — I didn’t say a fuckin word.
Our kisses softened and deepened, curling into a loaded question — but do you like me as your friend? — Eve asked me, investigating the borders of the edges of the precipice where we were about to jump — I love being your friend — I said from the bottom of my heart — you are one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.
We talked a little, with our lips touching between the words, undressing ourselves from fears and hesitations — until I quietly suggested we move the conversation to her bed.
As if by some quiet joke of the universe, even though I often call these encounters reminders — each time we map each other’s flesh like fragile instruments, we compose a new dissonance. Yet, one thing hold fast: the sweet, bitter pleasure from watching Eve’s struggle with my arsenal of belts — they seem not to be so much intuitive mechanisms.
Ironically, I wish my heart could lock itself away, silent and sealed, untouched, be kept shut. Not having this intense aching desire for a deep, five-wounded connection.
Yet beneath the skin, I carried an unspoken, and persistent hum.
Many moons before that night, I’d convinced myself that certain pieces of my hometown were too sacred to abandon. So I made a pact with some of my inner demons: if the chance ever came, I’d ask her what I never dared to before.
And so I did it my friends, like one speaking through a dream (or a wound):
— Eve, do you know I wear the honored title of being your friend with great pleasure. But still, I can’t help wondering…do you ever wonder, as I do, if we might be good together? — we were still taking back each other’s breath when I asked.
I had always fancied myself clever — cool, untouchable, forged from colder elements. But the body doesn’t lie. Flesh is a traitor. It wants. It aches. It reveals.
— Are you asking, what I think are you asking? Are you inkling that we entangle into a romantic affair? — can’t tell how Eve felt about such proposal, seems to have to much in her mind.
— Of course — honestly, I felt sure, however I can’t help but admit that this thought alone also frightens me to death.
— Are you in love with me? — a strange question, isn’t?
— Not exactly — even stranger that I have thought about it — but look at us, look what we are, this alchemy, this spark, how could anyone not mistake that for falling? — yet, just because I’ve entertained the thought doesn’t mean I understand its weight when put this on words.
That I could fully grasp how sharp they are when spoken aloud. And certainly not when it brushes against someone else’s skin.
But here, dear reader, lies the wicked trick of storytelling: the narrator comes trailing the hindsight of future knowledge. Whether blessed in the soft silk of pride or the heavy stained from guilt and regret (and yes — it is funny. Don’t you dare rob me of my little ironies).
But hear me out, first and foremost, falling in love is overrated. And if you’ve read even some of my essays with a pulse, this shouldn’t surprise you. I had fall in love so many times at this point that I’m very convinced that isn’t a rare phenomenon at all, isn’t sacred, It is one of my common fevers, a familiar bruise for which I have no salve, no skill, no life lesson learned experience to know how to deal with it — it’s even a clumsy accident most of the time. I fell for movie stars, I fell for songs, I fell for Eve through our static of phone calls — can one imagine what would happen if we had time to show affection on a regular Tuesday?
Which brings me to the second truth: falling is not a feeling — but a craft, making people fall is a skill. One that Eve possesses like a language that she certainly masters, and if I may be honest, I have plenty of experience in such art as well.
However, to find someone you can build a love out of it, not just fall for and recover from, but build a quiet fortress of shared mornings and soft silences — that, my friend, is rare as goddamn starlight.
I’m not talking about love in spite of friendship — but because of it. That strange, shimmering fever that whispers — no one else makes me laugh quite like you do. Or better, no one else sees the wreckage in me and still stays.
For love is not always tender. There are love songs that are very hard to us to sing, sometimes requiring conversation that feels like swallowing nails — yet these awkward and aching talks are our altars. Flickering, fragile sanctuaries where we meet without armor. It’s there, in the hush after the hurt, that we begin to unpeel one another. Carefully. Slowly. Tracing the rot, the soil, the sunlight — all the quiet things that taught us how to see.
Each scar.
Each gleam of grace.
A small surrender.
Still, I must admit — being that exposed, in that dim, terrifying moment, should have been a far from comfortable conversation.
I needed to reach into it, gently.
— Are you scared? — I could feel her silence tightening around us.
— Yes — a small tear traced a path down her cheek.
— You don’t have to be. You’re not risking me. I promise you that — yet inside me, a half-silent prayer: Lord, please don’t let me lose her to my holy, selfish longing — I’m also terrified you’ll never trust me again. Scared you’ll never look at me the same, never believe I meant well — yet how could I not say it? — I’m sorry, but to keep that ache sealed inside felt like a lie, and I wish from all my heart to never having to lie to you — I felt as I was committing quiet little betrayals with every breath — all I’ve ever wanted, really, is to be the kind of person you never have to doubt.
— You know this could hurt others, right? — she said, and I heard the weight of our discretion still echoing from that very morning.
— That isn’t your cross to carry. Don’t let the ghosts of old fantasies dictate your now. The past is long gone, buried, rotted — then, almost absurdly, I added — what I’m asking is… do you want me? If not, say it. Tell me that the reason that we can’t be together it is because you don’t wish me that way.
One can only imagine what kind of confusion I brought to her vacation with that mess of a talk. Yet, because we are who we are, because we act as we act, even this heavy talk somehow tasted sweeter than it should’ve. Yes, nerves were raw. But we were still there. Still willing to meet at the soft edge of each other.
The next morning, she pressed her lips against my throat, breath warm and cautious:
— Thank you for last night. For your kindness.
Which I replied:
— Of course, no worries. it is one of my deepest pleasures.
Déjà vu?
I don’t know what’s wrong with me — though surely, something must be — why else would I keep walking barefoot into the fire, calling it warmth? There’s something hauntingly familiar in this moment, like a déjà vu stitched into the lining of my chest.
Have I whispered longing to a woman before, only to watch her vanish, as if I had become some strange, unbearable thing? Yes… I have.
Welcome, dear reader, to the grand theatre of self-inflicted wounds — would be now this the second act?
No. No, that was another ache entirely — another fever in another room. So, let’s move on before someone starts quoting old ghosts.
Trouble in paradise
Ironically, I had every intention of keeping quiet, holding my shame and guilt curls behind my ribs like smoke — never letting it show my most vulnerable self — for my true colors seem to always colorblind others and make them ignore me as if I wasn’t ever there. Such as that night I served fear and longing at the peace of our most precious, most delicate conversation.
I carry the knowledge that my trembling soul might set someone else’s balance off-kilter — and still, I had spoken my truth.
Isn’t it always this way with me? — my fiercest affections come dressed as self-sabotage — perhaps, I could’ve (should’ve) kept playing our old game: laugh, kiss, forget. Stay light. Keep quiet. Never, ever get attached (perhaps not).
But how could I go without knowing?
How could I ignore the quiet fantasies that live just beneath my skin — those flickers of hope for companion, an imagined place where the storm of my mind and the fragile cradle of my heart might be held gently?
That desperate wish still belongs to the child inside me, that soft thing who just wants to be safe.
Though I failed. I failed miserably before the fever of my own longing. I trespassed the unspoken truce — the one where Eve and I agreed, silently, to keep it simple.
To not need.
To not hope.
For my search for meaning, for somewhere I might belong — has betrayed me once again.
Yet, bringing myself to feel ashamed for dreaming of a quiet heart and fevered skin seems to be a very cruel torture. Even for those who bleed for self-delight, even at the sight of our wicked God. If it’s a sin to fever for tenderness. God to be damned, for it’s one I’ll keep confessing.
(Though I should really learn a gentler way to carry these wild hopes. I fear there won’t be enough skin left for all the scars if I keep playing it this way.)
They say love is purest when one wishes for others happiness, even if one is not in it. And maybe that’s true. Maybe it should be enough.
Yet, my flesh — stubborn, aching thing — seems to resists such sainthood. It pulls me toward the edge where my prayers, once quiet and clean, sour into selfishness. Numbing me with the wish for heaven to be here. With me.
Just for a little while.
Just enough.
Strange, isn’t it? How none of this is mine to decide.
As if I were merely a footnote in someone else’s plot, drifting along margins I didn’t write. For I don’t hold the pen of fate (most days I barely hold myself together).
So I do what the quiet ones do. I dream.
I dream of a day — absurd — when someone looks at my mess as if it were a relic. When even despite my cracked heart, one still chooses to offer a piece of their own, still warm, mercy-soft. Dreaming to hear:
Here. This piece is for you.
This piece is yours, too.
