The Boy with the Sad Eyes

Every year that passes, it becomes more difficult for me to write about my life from eight-plus years ago. How should I go about it? Do I refer to myself as a boy? Do I avoid it? If I refer to myself as gay, will people be confused when they read? Will they understand the context?

This has always put me off writing about very crucial parts of my life — relationships or moments that changed something in me.

Today, I’ve decided to finally write the one story that I’ve been meaning to tell properly, in detail, for about five years. Maybe the fact that I released a demo teaser for Vanilla Kiss, which is about him, is what’s bringing all the feelings back to my head. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m in my hometown in Mexico, about to leave back to the UK, and I’m feeling nostalgic. Or maybe it’s the fact that I drive past his street every other day because it’s on the way to my sister’s house.

I have become such a cold, rational, and disenchanted-with-romance kind of person that it’s weird to remember the days before it — because I was oh, so in love with him. And he was oh, so in love with me. But we could never be.

A simple favour…

It was 29 April 2015, my twentieth birthday. I had just come out of a rather brief relationship and was so over the whole dating thing in my hometown. There were literally no smart, interesting, or good-looking men in a 60 mile radius. I had lived in Mexico City intermittently for the past two years, so the dating pool in my hometown felt like a prison sentence to me. Now, I would spend my weekends with two of my “friends”, whom we’ll call Luca and Frida. We became friends because we liked the same music and would dance to it in impeccable choreography while we were drunk. Luca was in his early twenties and Frida was my age. We were cool together, and we would hang out and throw parties with other friends literally every week. There would be weekends of constant drinking from Thursday until Sunday. I was nineteen, so I guess it was normal for my age. But I was also getting tired of it, and had started to wake up to the realisation that those friendships weren’t real — they were party friends. They were there for me to drink with, not to connect with.

They were passive-aggressive, and low-key sassy people who would criticise me behind my back. If I didn’t go out with them to drink, drama would unfold, and if I hung out with Luca but didn’t tell Frida, it would be chaos. I soon grew tired of them. They were not real friends. I had barely known them for one year, after all. But I didn’t know how to shape the relationship or how to completely withdraw from it — I just started to slowly retreat. I would see them less, go to fewer of their house parties, and focus on myself. I was about to start university after two years of, well, drama in Mexico City. I was back at my mum’s, and my mental health had been spiralling in months prior, so the last thing I needed was constant parties and alcohol.

I was, I guess… growing up.

When my twentieth birthday arrived, I was supposed to only throw a dinner at the local Italian restaurant with all of my friends — real and fake — however, this would take place a couple of days after my actual birthday, which was on a weekday. On the actual day, I had no plans to do anything at all. I would just be home with my family. But Luca and Frida told me that we should do something, so we decided to go have some sushi. It was here, as we were in the car, that Luca asked me if he could bring his “new date”. Apparently, he had recently matched with a guy on Tinder and they had “hung out” once before, so this could make a perfect opportunity to have another casual date — to which I said, “yes of course, we can go pick him up!”.

We parked outside his house, waiting for him to come out, as Luca tried to make himself look better, and I was just hoping that it would be a decent guy. Luca was handsome and had a reputation in the city for being a “cool guy”. Back in the day Tumblr was our style guide, so you can imagine the outfits and vibe that we had back then. But Luca was the ultimate walking Tumblr advertisement. He had nothing to worry about — he looked good.

The front door finally opened, and what came out of it really made my heart stop. It was the cutest, most handsome boy I had ever seen. I remember thinking, How the fuck did Luca get him? Because I had been active on Tinder and I had never, ever seen him around.

There was an openness to his face that made people feel as if they’d known him forever — yet you could tell that he was hiding under multiple layers. His features were gentle but defined: high cheekbones hinting at quiet strength, and a graceful jawline. His dark hair framed his forehead in a neat sweep, giving him that timeless charm, as if he had stepped out of an old film reel or a dream someone never quite forgot. His lips were fleshy, and his discreet smile was captivating. His presence felt like warmth itself — familiar, kind, and just a touch enigmatic.

Who was this guy?

The most prominent — and, should I say, iconic — feature of his face was his eyes. Those dark, beautifully sad eyes. He looked like one of those cute Tumblr boys, you know, the sad boy aesthetic. His smile made him shine, but his eyes told a different story. There was something else in him beyond beauty. And I was simply captivated by him. I liked him. I liked him like I had never liked anybody else before.

But I had to stop my thoughts right there because, after all, he was dating my “friend”.

He got in the car, and we were introduced. Here, we’ll call him Alex. It was a simple hi, welcoming him into our gang as we made our way to the restaurant. Once there, we sat at a square table, and Alex and I ended up facing each other. But throughout the sushi brunch, there was barely any interaction between him and Luca, and truth be told, Luca didn’t have much to offer intellectually speaking. His life revolved around smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, skipping his uni lectures, listening to Marina or Lana Del Rey, and watching The Hunger Games or RuPaul’s Drag Race on repeat. That was it. It was cool on the surface, I guess, but that was it. That was his entire personality.

So it came as no surprise that, at the table, he had absolutely nothing to bring to the conversation I was leading. I can’t even remember what I was talking about — I can only remember Alex’s smile. His discreet laughter whenever I said something spicy or funny. His eyes set on mine, quietly. Discreetly. It felt like we could be good friends.

But Luca had a tendency for control. He was a very insecure guy and was known for controlling his boyfriends and keeping them away from his friends because he had a paranoia that his other gay friends would steal them. Right there, I saw a glimpse of annoyance in his eyes. I could tell he didn’t like that I was making Alex laugh. So I retreated for a bit.

Later that evening, we ended up in Luca’s bedroom — Frida, Alex, Luca and me — all chilling on the bed. We had spent about an hour watching Luca’s RuPaul videos, and now we were watching a couple of my favourite creative videos. I was in love with Inez and Vinoodh’s creative direction back in the day — still am — and played the video they did for Dior, titled Secret Garden. Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence started playing as I was right next to Alex, and I could feel our shoulders touching.

There was something about him — some magnetism or energy that I could feel. He was so attentive to the videos I was playing, as if he was learning something new, so much so that he wasn’t even paying attention to Luca. He had him by the hand, but it looked as if Alex were mentally somewhere else.

That was day one.

Throughout the summer, I retreated more and more from Luca’s and Frida’s orbit. I only saw Alex once during those months, when one of Frida’s friends asked me and my friend Victoria if we could be his models for a photoshoot. I greeted him with a hug, pleased to see him, but that was as far as our interaction went that day.

Frida and Luca grew resentful of me because I preferred to stay home than hang out with them — especially Frida. She was the one who would create drama if I was spotted somewhere else with different friends but hadn’t gone out with them the night before.

By the time September arrived, I was almost completely out of their orbit. But Luca knew that I was about to start university — he knew that I would be studying Journalism — and now he had a favour to ask me.

It turned out Alex was going to start uni as well, and he would be majoring in Journalism, meaning we would most likely be in the same classroom for the next three years. “I need you to keep an eye on him,” Luca texted me. I thought he was joking, as people do sometimes, but I would come to realise later that he really meant it when he said, “Keep an eye on him. Don’t let any sluts talk to him” — meaning other gay boys.

Considering I liked to see myself as Lucas’ good acquaintance, I simply said, “Of course, dear. No worries. Eagle eye!” and went to bed.

The morning after, I was fashionably late to my first class, and when I entered the classroom, I saw Alex setting his eyes on me. His smile widened, and his eyes lit up as he stood up in excitement to see me. I felt very excited to see him as well, because everybody else were just strangers to me. We hugged each other in overwhelming excitement to say hi — as weird as that may have seemed to the rest of the class — and we were just really happy that we would be in the same classroom. It was great. We were not alone. We had each other.

It was then that our relationship properly began.

Alex was great to be with. He was smart, sophisticated, talented, and a dreamer — just like me. He enjoyed writing and exploring philosophical conversations, and just like me, he felt somewhat stuck in our town, hoping that getting that degree would somehow promise a better future. But he was also somewhat depressed. He had a melancholia within him that was even more palpable than mine. You could feel it. You could see it in his eyes. And I loved that about him — that vulnerability. I was able to talk about my inner thoughts, my hopes and fears, and we soon created a safe space between us.

We were drawn to spending time with each other. We sat next to each other in every class, we would go with the other to the cafeteria regardless of whether you needed to go or not, we would be a team for projects and stay late at uni to work on them, and we would sometimes hang out after uni — go for iced coffees, or just to the mall.

Those were some of the happiest moments of my life until now. It was so simple. It was my life before England, before complications, before adult problems — and maybe that’s why those memories have haunted me so much these past couple of weeks.

But there was a problem: Alex was easy to manipulate, and he didn’t know how to say no. I would discover this on many occasions when Luca demanded that he go see him after class. He didn’t understand if Alex had a project to work on, or if he had another lesson to stay for — he demanded that Alex go to his place whenever he pleased. And if he didn’t go, he would explode on the phone.

The worst part is that he would call him names and use nasty language that I could hear from the speaker — that’s how loud he was. I would look at him struggling on the phone, just listening to Luca go crazy at him, and I would think to myself: He doesn’t deserve that.

Of course, it could have just been that — an angry Luca, upset because his boyfriend couldn’t go see him. But the issue started when he noticed that, instead of being with him, Alex was with me. He was with me all day. He couldn’t go see him because he was working on a project… with me. He couldn’t pick up the phone because he was in class… with me. He couldn’t go because he had something to work on… with me.

So, in Luca and Frida’s minds… now I was the problem. I was the slut.

But however much I was into Alex, back then it was all more subconscious. Because he was dating Luca, I could not properly admit to myself that I liked him — because then that would surely make me a slut, right? So I didn’t like him. In my mind, we were just very good friends. Obviously, I was in denial.

Our university was the only institution in our town with a news show on regional television. It was a primetime show broadcast every Friday at 6 p.m., and they now wanted that news show to be presented by an actual journalism student. They opened a six-week workshop, from which they would pick the best student to start appearing as a guest presenter.

Because of this, Alex and I would spend even more time together. Along with our classmates, we had to spend additional hours at university during the week, and on Saturdays we would go to the local radio station at 10 a.m., where we also helped co-host a show. It was on one of these radio Saturdays that my sister, my mum, and my little brother picked me up after we wrapped the show. I asked them if we could give Alex a ride, and my sister, of course, said yes.

He looked incredibly handsome in that long-sleeved white shirt, and I could tell my sister approved of him. We talked for a bit with my family until we dropped him off. Once he was out of the car, my sister stared at me through the rearview mirror and said, with a mischievous smile: “You like Alex, don’t you?” I immediately shut myself down and said, “Alex? No, of course not. We’re just friends.” But my sister knows me, and she said, “Yeah right, I can see it in your eyes. You have that light that shines in them when you talk about someone you like.” I repeated myself incessantly and said that I didn’t like him, that he was very handsome indeed, but that we were just friends. Nothing more.

I decided to suppress my feelings for the sake of my non-existent friendship with Luca, and my growing relationship with Alex. I could not like him-like him.

As the weeks went by and our relationship grew stronger, a smear campaign against me started on Twitter. Luca was convinced I was on a quest to steal his boyfriend, and a venomous Frida was quick to stir the drama on social media. From passive-aggressive tweets referencing my persona to full-on name-calling, the whole thing blew out of proportion.

They had decided that if they couldn’t break my relationship with Alex, they would certainly try to break me.

I guess Luca always thought that me advising Alex not to let his boyfriend shout at him was evidence enough to believe I was plotting to steal him. The reality is that I was done with Luca’s abuse towards Alex. I hated how sometimes he had to rush, in a micro state of anxiety, because Luca was upset. I really hated when he called him “idiot” on the phone. I got tired of it until I said, “If he’s already talking to you like this six months into your relationship, imagine how it will be in the future. Don’t go see him. He doesn’t own you. He cannot demand that you go to him when you’re busy at uni.”

Luca had failed a semester of uni because he wouldn’t go — he’d stay home and watch RuPaul’s. He would sometimes walk up the stairs and hyperventilate from how fumigated in smoke his lungs were, and all he cared about was his cool status and being perceived as affluent. So I said, “He will never understand that you’re busy studying. You don’t deserve that.”

This was really like living our very own You Belong With Me music video.

A couple of days later, the hate on Twitter intensified, and at school, I arrived to a distant Alex. He was avoiding me. He avoided me for hours. And every time I saw him purposely walking away from me, I could feel something very similar to heartbreak.

By the end of the day, I saw him sitting on a bench, reading a book, so I decided to go and talk to him. He looked up at me with regret in his eyes, almost as if ashamed of his actions. When I asked him, “What’s going on? Why are you avoiding me?” That's when I realised just how insecure Luca was, and just how far his manipulation would go.

It turned out, he had demanded that Alex never speak to me again.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Alex told me, trying to apologise. “But he’s my boyfriend. I don’t know what to do.”

Right there, I could see in his eyes the one trait of every gay boy in my hometown who was desperate to be in a relationship: conformism. He would rather stay in a toxic relationship and lose a good friend than end up single again. It was hard to find a boyfriend in our town. It was even harder to find one with good looks. When you find that, you treasure it. And I could tell — that was the reason Alex couldn’t let go.

It wasn’t that they had a great, torrid, passionate romance. It was that he was desperate to belong to someone. Desperate to be loved.

As was I.

Alex apologised to me. He recognised that it was wrong of him to ignore me, when I had done nothing but listen to his drama with Luca for months. I said to him, “I care about you very much. You’re my friend. You shouldn’t walk away from our friendship.”

He knew I was right about that, and he said that he wouldn’t. He just didn’t know how to deal with Luca’s controlling behaviour.

The bottom line

Months went by, and I was picked as the student who would become a guest presenter on the news show. My university life was great — extremely social, and overall busy with events, and work on TV and the radio. Alex and I shared some good friends too, as it seemed about seven of the ten men in the classroom were gay, so we had our little gang. It would usually be me, Alex, and Jonathan who would hang together by the cafeteria. He would see our dynamic up close and could notice things that even Alex and I ignored… or chose to ignore.

By the time Christmas arrived, Jonathan had some questions about our relationship. He asked me if there was something going on between me and Alex, to which I strongly replied no. He said that a lot of people in our class thought we were either together or about to be. And it was true — it wasn’t just Jonathan or our classmates who noticed it. It was the entire school. If I had gotten one peso for every time someone asked whether we were a couple, it would’ve covered my tuition for a semester.

There was one time at a 7-Eleven, when the cashier looked at us with curiosity and asked: “Are you brothers?”

No.

“Cousins?”

No.

“Boyfriends?”

Alex and I just stared at each other, trying to fill the uncomfortable air that followed the question, and replied one more time: “No.”

The girl said we just looked very similar. And it was true. Physically, we were very alike — both slender, fair-skinned, with dark hair and big, sad eyes. We could’ve been brothers. Or we could’ve been an item. But right there, we said we were “just friends.”

By 2016, I had now been offered the entire news show. I was given a scholarship for my work, so I didn’t have to worry about paying 50% of my tuition fees. They ordered a rebranding of the show, which included a photoshoot of their new presenter — me — and it led to my face ending up on a billboard.

Everything was going great for me academically and professionally speaking, but my heart stopped when I discovered that Alex would no longer be in my class. Suddenly he had become more quiet. He looked sad, tired — as if he couldn’t wait to be somewhere else, in another era or dimension of his existence. He had a few issues at home — between his parents not being entirely supportive of him being gay and feeling responsible for his little brother on a parental level — his head was full of responsibilities.

He told me that he had decided to switch to Saturday uni — a modality our university offered for those who had to work during the week. A full immersive day of lectures from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., non-stop. He needed to get a job and generate some income, and the only way to properly do so would be by switching his schedule. But he was sad. He was in the middle of a break-up with Luca, and we would have long conversations about how to make our lives better.

I wouldn’t see him at uni, but I would go to pick him up some afternoons. I wanted to cheer him up. The job hunt didn’t go as planned, and I was surprised — he was such an intelligent guy. He would then spend most days indoors, looking after his brother, and would only go out on Saturdays when he had to attend uni.

By the time he broke up with Luca, I was now starting a little romance with someone else… as silly as it may have been.

Before I briefly delve into that, I must talk about the main reason that made it easier for me to suppress my romantic feelings for Alex. It all had to do with sex. Yes, sex. You see, in gay relationships, there’s a top and there’s a bottom, and from what Alex shared with me, I could tell that he was a bottom. So technically, we would never, ever work. “Two bottoms cannot be together,” I would say to myself — and to my friend Jonathan, who was convinced Alex and I were meant to be.

“He’s not a bottom!” he would tell me.

To which I’d reply, “He is! He’s told me stuff that clearly implies he’s a bottom.”

My friend, however, in a rush of optimism said, “No. I know he would be a top for you!”

I laughed hard that time and said, “I mean, great — but I don’t like him. We’re just friends.”

So, when I met a handsome harpist in February, I didn’t hesitate to focus on that new relationship. However big the magnetism between Alex and me was, what was the point of admitting feelings or falling for someone you wouldn’t be sexually compatible with?

That rendezvous with the harpist was silly, because it was all online. You see, in response to the lack of good prospects in my hometown, I would often resort to the internet to find one. I was well-connected with musicians and artists all over the US and Europe, many of them gay, and I clicked with one who lived in Florida. It was an online thing — but better than nothing, and certainly better than just giving myself away to some random douchebag from my hometown.

I would talk to Alex about him, and he would listen carefully. He’d give me advice too. Our communication was a two-way avenue. We were incredibly open with one another, and it felt as if we could fully trust each other.

Although, part of me always felt weird talking about another man with him. As if the one man I had to be talking about — and in love with — was him. But the bottom line was: he was a bottom, I was a bottom, so there was no way in hell we could work if I ever “realised” I was actually in love with him.

But our plot got a twist by the end of the month.

The Kiss

It was my best friend Ulises’ twentieth birthday, and he was throwing a house party that night. He had also been a member of the toxic Luca and Frida nightmare, so he was well aware of every single situation. I asked Alex if he wanted to join me. I would actually always invite him everywhere — and to be honest, there was a moment in space and time when we would simply go everywhere together. It was as if we were each other’s perpetual date, wherever we went.

We arrived at the party, looking our best — our youngest, freshest, most energetic selves — and decided that we deserved to have fun. We ate, we sang happy birthday, we danced, we played beer pong, we did everything a couple of twenty-year-olds were supposed to do.

And we got drunk.

My God, we got so drunk.

The weirdest part is that we were at the party, but it felt as if it were only him and me. We had a blast together, and somehow we started hugging each other as we laughed. I felt so lucky to be with him, because I knew a lot of people wanted him. He was your classic boy next door — the kind that boys and girls wanted to have. He gave Freddie Prinze Jr. vibes in She’s All That and, to be honest, not just the vibes — also the face.

It was one of the first moments when my heart really beat fast, as I felt him so close to me.

Something was changing.

Maybe it was the alcohol.

Maybe it was the fact that we were just utterly happy.

But that night, it felt like something changed.

We were so dizzy, so he asked me if I could go with him to the toilet, because he was afraid he could fall. I said yes.

We were there, laughing because he was stumbling and trying to stay on one foot.

“Hold me, please,” he asked, as I could hear him remove his belt. My heart jumped, and for a moment, I hesitated. It felt like an extremely intimate moment to share.

I placed my hands over his back, feeling his warmth, and slowly surrounded him, holding him by the waist. I was standing behind him, embracing him, as I heard him urinate and giggle at the same time. I just stayed there, behind him, surprised by the scent that emanated from him. Drawn to the beat of his heart that I could feel in his stomach. Tempted by the eroticism of having him somewhat naked in front of me. Once he finished, he washed his hands, as I stood there next to him, making sure he was okay.

We chilled out for a moment as the party continued outside. We drank some water to cool down and sat on the couch to recover. We were still dizzy, a bit drowsy even—tired after partying and laughing for hours non-stop. But his eyes were set on me now, I realised, once I took my sight away from the party outside. I rested my head on the couch and set my eyes on his as well. It felt almost mystical. I felt so deeply in love with him at that moment, even if part of me still wanted to ignore it. With those eyes in my eyes, I felt like I was finally home. He leaned in, placing his hand on my face. And I got closer to him. With our lips about to touch, I could feel his passionate breath call me, invite me, want me.

That was the moment when Alex and I kissed—so passionately, so desperately—as if we had been waiting months to do it. His lips were everything I could’ve imagined that day when I saw him walk out of his house on my twentieth birthday. The way he kissed me screamed desire. And the way we held each other’s faces was proof of the existence of something that had been brewing for quite some time now.

We opened our eyes, and Alex went back to rest his head on the couch, but when I turned around, I saw Ulises by the door frame, staring at us in absolute shock.

There was no doubt that that had been a great party.

Alex and I spoke about the kiss a couple of days later. The first thing he said was, “We were drunk,” to which I added, “Yes. We were super drunk.” It was then decided that we would never bring it up again, we wouldn’t talk about it, and we would certainly move on from it. It was a mutual agreement, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It felt as if neither of us wanted to ruin the friendship we had.

But I’ve always been excited by such episodes in life, and I couldn’t keep that piece of information hidden from my other friends. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t tell my friends the one thing everybody was dying to hear?

Jonathan was quick to jump off his seat at uni saying, “I told you!! He likes you!! He will top for you!” And as funny as his excitement was, I couldn’t help but wonder if that would actually be true. Were Alex and I supposed to become an item?

Never let me go

My virtual relationship didn’t last long with the harpist, and Alex had been dating some sexy yet problematic older gay man. By the time April arrived, we were both properly single once again. No Tinder. No virtual lovers.

Jonathan, Ulises, and my friend Jesús decided to go on what we called a girls’ night out, and I invited Alex as well. He had been somewhat stressed because it had been four months since he switched to uni on Saturdays and he still hadn’t found a job, so a night out would do him well. In fact, I had been trying to keep him upbeat for months. Without a job, and without Lucas in the equation, he seemed more secluded than ever. But I was always there to listen to him or to take him out. I would take him to the cinema or the coffee shop, and in all honesty, I guess it was a bit selfish. I just loved to hang out with him. It was so unpretentious. We could be ourselves and talk about anything.

I was at a time when I was starting to feel the pressure of working in television, as there were some rules that I had to follow. Ultimately, it was a regional TV show broadcast in one of the most conservative states in Mexico and South Texas. A visibly gay young man presenting was not something they wanted. At least not in 2016.

I had always struggled with my femininity—not because I had any issues with it, but because it always presented a problem to others. I was forbidden to smile too much on camera, because “it gave me away”. I was told to hold my pen a certain way—or not to have one at all—because I grabbed it in a very feminine way. I had to deepen my voice, because I couldn’t sound high-pitched if I was a man. I did my job perfectly, and I loved to present, but I would always end up with back pain caused by the stress I felt whenever I was on set. And to make matters worse, I had been dying to let my hair grow for quite some time, but now, it would be impossible to ever achieve if I wanted to continue down that line.

So, right there, it felt like we all needed a drink.

It was one of the most popular bars in our hometown at the time, where we could run into anyone from our immediate circle. Alex and I looked sharp that night. I was in a tie and americana, and he was wearing a sophisticated white turtleneck. My friends observed our behaviour, fully aware of the kiss and our history. We giggled with each other, sat extremely close, and they took a photo of us in which we looked like a couple. We were literally a couple.

When we decided to make our way to a different bar, Alex grabbed my hand, and we walked out of there hand in hand. I didn’t understand why he did it. Why was he holding my hand like that? We could literally run into so many people here—why was he holding my hand? It was so confusing, but I loved it. I loved every minute of it.

My friends gave me low-key stares of WTF when Alex wasn’t watching, all of them convinced he had always been secretly in love with me and would only dare to show it when he had a few drinks in him. “He kissed you like his life depended on it. Of course he’s in love with you,” Jonathan told me that night. Still, I was in denial. Him holding my hand was just… us being friends. Whatever. Didn’t have to mean anything. We went to a different bar—a gay bar this time—and the hand-holding continued. Alex told me he was a bit scared of going in. To be fair to him, it was a really nasty one, but that’s all we had in our hometown. So he asked if I could just hold him all night, and I said yes. To the amusement of my friends, we held hands most of the night. It was a little game. It was pretend. We were kind of boyfriends for one night.

After we dropped him at his place, my friends and I had a sleepover at Ulises’, where they tried to convince me to open up to Alex. But I couldn’t. I was so convinced that it was just a playful thing we were doing, and it didn’t actually mean he liked me—or that I liked him.

Weeks went by, and Alex was there for my 21st birthday. I’ve always found it funny how I met him on my birthday. Almost as if he had been a gift of some sort. Somehow, I think he was. But it was time for me to properly assess what was going on. I couldn’t fool myself any longer. We continued spending so much time together. We met whenever we could, and there were times when he would look at me as if to say, “I want to kiss you,” but we would immediately ignore the feeling. Whenever I drove him back to his place, we would hug to say goodbye, and those five seconds were such a treasure. I realised I loved him. “I love him,” I said to myself one afternoon as I went back home. “I’m in love with him.” I finally admitted it out loud. At that moment, it was clear he was the right man for me. I had to tell him.

Bodies intertwined

A few weeks went by as I tried to figure out a way to tell him without blowing up our friendship, but then he started seeing someone new. Casually, but someone. At this point I don’t remember if it was Lucas trying to get back together or someone new, but I do remember there was someone. So I stopped myself from saying anything. I assessed everything—every possible outcome—and realised it would hurt me immensely if I ever lost his friendship. So why would I risk that? I decided, once again, to suppress my feelings for him—this time fully aware—in the interest of preserving our friendship.

We continued our friendship for another five months, and by August I was eager to find a job. A proper job, on top of television on Fridays. It was at a pool party that summer in South Texas where an acquaintance told me they were looking for an assistant at a transportation company, so I told her I would send over my CV. Three days later, I was hired, and I, too, switched to uni Saturdays so I could work full time on weekdays. Alex and I were now reunited at university. But after nine months, he still hadn’t found a job. There was something really odd about it—he was such a great guy—but another part of him minimised himself. That resulted in him sinking in his thoughts and melancholia, which I think is what stopped him from landing anything. Two weeks into my new job, they still needed a second assistant, so I put in a word for him. Two days later, he was hired. Now we were together Monday to Friday at work, sitting next to each other, having lunch together, and all day on Saturdays at uni. However, it was clearer than ever that we were just friends.

It had been months since our drunken kiss, and months since that night of hand-holding. When you look at those things with some distance, they seem like insignificant, silly moments that meant nothing at all. So we moved on from them.

He had been going on a few dates here and there, and so had I. We would tell each other about them. And by September, I met a new guy who lived in McAllen, and I really fell for him. Hard. Right then, the roles reversed. My relationship turned out to be a toxic nightmare with an emotionally dysfunctional guy—not to mention he was a prick—and I would vent to Alex. He would listen. He would advise me. He was there for me through all of it, the ups and the downs.

By the time November arrived, I found myself completely devastated by the toxicity of that relationship, when he had the audacity to break up with me after all the emotional distress he’d caused. To cope with it, I decided to throw a “Post-Breakup Party” (because that’s how I deal with things).

One of my friends had a house he would lend to people for parties and overnight stays. Being one of them, I thought I’d throw a little party there. I invited some of my high school friends—and Alex. He and I started drinking from 6pm, and by the time the rest of the guests arrived at 9, we were already out of ourselves. My high school friends didn’t know him—they had never seen him before—but immediately asked if we had a thing going on, to which I replied, “I don’t know.” But everything that had happened in the past nineteen months had led to that moment.

Alex kissed my cheek twice that night. Unannounced. Out of nowhere. He just kissed it. And by the time my friends were leaving, another of my very best friends, Jess—knowing he and I would spend the night there on our own—gave me a little wink, as if she knew something was about to happen. I laughed, questioning that, and she said “Something’s gonna happen tonight”. I denied it in my drunkenness. “Of course not!” But Jess said “He’s like so into you, come on”.

I said goodbye to all my friends and shut the front door. Alex was picking up a few cups from the table, so I helped him. But there was something magnetic. Natural. The way he came closer to me raised my temperature. Suddenly, he pulled me by the waist, and started to kiss me. It was totally unexpected, yet, somehow…expected. We dropped everything. Cups and liquor fell to the floor. Nothing mattered. We were finally alone. The rest of the world didn’t matter. He kissed me intensely, and I held on to him with everything I had—because I never wanted to let him go.

It wasn’t just a kiss. We were about to do so much more.

We kissed all the way to the bedroom—bouncing against the door, against the walls, tripping—but never stopping. There was a desperation, just as there had been the previous time. As if it was now or never. As if that was the one and only night to live our desire. I lifted his shirt, and he lifted mine. I kissed his chest and he kissed mine. I was finally tasting his skin, not just his lips. I had wanted more of him since forever, and now it was finally happening.

He was euphoric. Hyperventilating. We undressed each other until we fell naked on that bed. And that’s when I realised—“Oh my God, we are doing it.” The alcohol went straight out of my system. It was as if I sobered up in two seconds. We had secretly loved each other for such a long time, and that night we were finally letting the other see what had been hidden beneath the surface.

With the curtains half open, the moonlight fell on his face as he began to pleasure me. I felt completely shaken. I wanted that man. Being there with him on that bed was like nothing else existed. I didn’t feel like we were in my hometown—it felt like we were somewhere else. It was a powerful, erotic moment that I don’t think I will ever forget. I explored his body as he explored mine. In a rush. Frantic. As if there was some sort of timer about to go off. He grabbed my ass and squeezed it, saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God.” His frantic desire was so strong I could hear the beat of his heart. It was intense. He squeezed my ass with such appetite that I was surprised. He turned me over and began kissing my back, my hips—kissing all of me.

I knew that the one thing he had always wanted was to be loved. To feel the embrace of someone who truly loved him for who he was—not for what they wanted him to be. And that was me. I was ready to give him my everything.

He then wanted to make love to me, but my logic stopped me. Surprisingly, in this instance, Alex was definitely not a bottom. I guess I was shocked by it, but I was also mortified by the idea of having full-blown sex just like that. He was so incredibly drunk. I was drunk too, but he was next-level drunk. “Is this how I want our first time to be?” I asked myself, as he really tried to get inside me.

I tried to slow him down. But he didn’t want to—he was desperate to do it. I stood up and faced him, telling him to slow down, but instead, all he could do was kiss me, telling me, “I don’t want to slow down.” I said, “I know, me neither. But I want to do it right. I don’t want our first time to be drunk.”

He begged to get in me. He literally wanted it. I was completely shocked to see just how much he wanted to have me. And how much he wanted to be a top for me that night. It really blew my mind. None of Jonathan’s comments prepared me for that moment. He grabbed my ass one more time and said, “Please! If we don’t do it now, I don’t think we’ll ever get to it.”

But I managed to stop him. We did other stuff instead, but I didn’t want for that to happen in full during my post-breakup party, when we were both super drunk. We deserved better than that.

The breakup

The morning after, I woke up before he did, and I watched him sleep for a while. He looked as handsome as ever, and I cuddled him for a moment until he opened his eyes. He looked at me, and I could immediately feel some sort of awkwardness. The vibe was off. Some kind of regret was in the air. Had we ruined everything?

I asked him how he felt about the night before, and all he could say was, “I don’t even want to talk about it,” closing his eyes, visibly ashamed. But I did want to talk about it. We can fool our friends all we want, but we can’t fool that. That was nineteen months’ worth of lustful desire. A passionate infatuation. A romantic, magnetic connection that had always been there, ready to explode. That meant something.

But instead, I agreed with him and said, “Okay.” We got dressed and left the house to go about our day.

Two weeks later, I quit my job. It hadn’t been the easiest of years due to other reasons, and that job was tedious as hell. Not to mention I had to sit next to him every day, which after this, could be awkward. Seeing him on Saturdays should be enough. Maybe we needed space.

2017 arrived. Alex and I had seen much less of each other during the winter break. It was helpful, though. It was clear that nothing would happen between Alex and me. We would not be a couple, ever. And it would be wasteful to spend more time thinking about it or making things awkward.

By late January, I got a new job as the operations manager of a restaurant, and I would be in charge of a rebrand. I had also decided to quit the news show, because I wanted to be myself, instead of having to worry about my femininity or how much my smile would be “giving my gayness away”. On the other hand, Alex quit the assistant job too and told me he was thinking about quitting uni altogether.

Why would he do that? I thought to myself. No job, no uni? What is he going to do then?

I couldn’t help but wonder… Did he switch to Saturdays during our first year to be away from me? To focus on maybe fixing things with Lucas under the radar? He supposedly did it to get a job, but he never got one in nearly a year. I’m here now, and now he wants to quit uni completely? What’s going on?

I don’t want it to be understood as if every single decision he made had something to do with me, but… when I look back on things, as I’m doing now, it’s impossible not to pose these questions.

He became more distant as days went by. We still talked and hung out sometimes, but it was far less than the year before.

The last straw happened in March, when I needed urgent help with the shoot of an event the restaurant I worked at was sponsoring. I needed someone to be a camera assistant, as I would be in the frame running a few interviews—so I thought of him. I was in my mini office and I phoned him. I explained what I needed, but he sounded insecure, unsure, even lazy in his reply.

“But what do I have to do?”

“But when?”

“I don’t know”

It was so bizarre that he was talking like that—with such laziness—and asking me when, as if he had a full agenda when he did nothing all week. Which prompted me to say, “I mean, what else do you have going on?”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” he replied once again, in full laziness.

I thought, God damn, it’s just a favour. I’m not one for throwing the things I’ve done for friends in their faces, but I had been there for him for two years. I had supported him, landed him a job—and he can’t even help me by holding a camera for one hour when he has nothing else to do all week? What the hell?

So I said, “You know what, never mind. Thanks.” And I hung up.

I think I was within my rights to arrive a bit upset the following Saturday at uni. I sat next to him and I didn’t say hi. But I—stupidly—expected that he would say something. Something within the lines of, “Hey, sorry about the other day,” or, “Hey, sorry I couldn’t give you a hand with that.”

That would’ve been it. I would’ve moved on. Instead, he decided not to speak to me either as if I had done something wrong. And when the class was over, he got up and rushed out of the classroom.

I didn’t have any friends in the Saturday shift of uni, so I was left there alone. All day he avoided me. I thought it would only last a day, but the following Saturday, he continued to ignore me. If he saw me walking down the hall, he would turn away and disappear. If he saw me enter the room, he would walk out. Everybody noticed.

We weren’t really friends with the people in the Saturday group, but they knew that he and I were always together—so after a few weeks, it seemed weird to them that we weren’t talking. Every time he walked away from me, it broke my heart. I didn’t know what I had done wrong.

Was I too harsh on the phone? Is that reason enough to ignore me for what is now nearly a month? Do I deserve this kind of treatment?

“No!” I said to myself, and left my seat. I walked all over uni to find him. I had to face him and ask what was going on. But at this point, I was boiling in anger.

An empty hall. He was there. Walking towards me. Me, walking towards him. Both about to collide. He avoided making eye contact, until I urged him to stop.

“Why the hell are you avoiding me?” I questioned him.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he replied with some sort of uncertainty, trying to continue his walk.

“How fucking dare you?” I stopped him right there, and my voice engulfed the entire hall. “I have been a good friend. I’ve been there for you.”

But all he could do was stay quiet. As if an invisible man were holding a gun against his head, threatening him not to talk.

“How fucking dare you,” I continued, hurt. “I’ve looked after you. I’ve taken you out when you were down. I got you a job. And this is how you pay me? By ignoring me as if I was the one who did something wrong?! You’re so fucking ungrateful!”

As if the fact that a bunch of students had started walking down the hall listening to my angry delivery weren’t enough, the tears that covered Alex’s eyes really made it all worse. That hurt him. It was all true. But I regret saying that. I felt like it could have reminded him of when Lucas shouted at him, and I felt like shit for that, even if my pride wouldn’t let me admit it.

We were known for always being together at uni, and now lots of people had witnessed our breakup. I remember he kind of apologised for ignoring me, but he didn’t give me a proper answer as to why he was doing it. I know he felt ashamed, because his face was all red, and he was really trying to keep those tears in his eyes.

A couple of weeks after that, Alex quit university. I had never felt more lonely there. The previous months had already been socially exhausting for me, and I found strength in my closest friends—all of whom now lived two hours away. The only real friend I had left was him. And now he was gone. Without the excuse of university, there was no other opportunity to see him. We parted in separate ways.

And then, life happened.

Indulgent Nostalgia…

I concentrated on my job, and my job only. He began talks with the uni staff to become an English language teacher somehow—or so I heard. He went from being the cute guy I met on my birthday, to an exciting classmate, to a wonderful friend, to my biggest crush ever, to my secret lover, to a complete stranger.

My 22nd birthday arrived, and he was no longer part of my life, but I would think of him often. Summer arrived, and he was nowhere to be found. I knew nothing about him. He deleted me from Facebook, unfollowed me from Instagram—almost like he had to retreat from me. As if I were something he had to get cleansed of.

The biggest plot twist of my life until now happened in September 2017. From then on, my life became something else, a sort of melodrama that took me to the UK— though there’s far more to it than that simple explanation suggests. Something much darker. Much more intense. Much more than what a few Instagram photos can tell. Something that maybe, one day, I’ll be ready to share, when the time is right.

But my life was changing dramatically, at a crazy speed back then, and there was no way to stop it. One day I was living my normal life, working hard, studying, day-dreaming. Next I was planning my move to England. And when it was time to leave, I couldn’t help but think of him. Alex is the last memory I have of my youth. From mid-twenty-two onwards, I don’t consider it youth. My life became something else. I’m young. I look young. But I am not. Not after the past eight years.

Our days together, our friendship, is something I go back to sometimes, when the melancholia we shared invades me, and the only cure for it is to indulge in nostalgia. My friendship with him is part of the last days of my youth. So I had to see him one last time. I couldn’t leave without seeing him and saying goodbye. So I found his new Instagram, and I messaged him.

“Hey, I followed you to properly contact you and be able to say goodbye in person.

Anyway, I hope you’re doing great. My best wishes are with you always.

All the success and luck in everything you do.

I love you. Remember you can always count on me.”

But there was no reply. Or maybe he didn’t even read it. I would check my inbox every day, to see if he had replied. But there was nothing. The day arrived, and I left without saying goodbye.

We moved on with our lives. And in the summer of 2019, I thought of him again. I remember everything not from a place of wanting to relive it, but from a place of endearment and appreciation for our past friendship, and for him. I texted:

“Hi Alex. I hope you do read this message, since it seems you didn’t see the other one.

Throughout the years, I’ve felt curious to know about you and how you’re doing.

I would like to be able to say hi and talk, just because I have lots of appreciation for you and remember you as a good friend.

I’m always wishing you the best, and for many good things to surround your life.

Hugs.”

No reply.

I know I sent another message between 2022 and 2024, and this time he blocked me.

What did I do that was so bad, for him to give me such cold treatment? For him to disappear just like that from my life? I simply don’t get it. I probably will never know what he felt during those years, or how he truly felt about me. Did he get back with Lucas? Did Lucas tell him to cut communication with me? Is that what happened? Was it that he just didn’t know how to express his feelings, which created time and distance, and after all these years, to speak is impossible—almost unnecessary?

How is it that I, the supportive friend, the one who encouraged him to believe in himself, to focus on his career, the one who tried to help him be a better version of himself—the one who loved him unconditionally—am the one who ends up blocked from his life, as if I had committed a crime?

For some bizarre reason, I spent the night of the 20th to 21st July with these thoughts all over my head. Remembering those days. Looking at photographs. Falling back into the memories. Getting nowhere. There is no conclusion to this other than… we just stopped existing.

Maybe we taught each other a few things, but we were meant to grow apart.

Maybe it’s better to forget each other.

But maybe I don’t want to forget.

I think that’s valid too.

To write about these feelings and be read by non-creative or non-artistic people scares me. Because I fear my lines will be understood as “I’m still in love with him”—and that would be a massive misinterpretation of everything I’ve said here. It’s happened before with other posts or projects I’ve uploaded. People have used them to psychoanalise me. But what I do know is that part of me will always love him. Not romantically, just humanly.

It’s just that… after staying awake, rolling in bed until 3 or 4 a.m., reliving every moment, overthinking every decision, considering all the what ifs, I had to write something.

What if we had never kissed?

Would we still be friends?

What if he had owned up to it and said, I love you?

Would we have become an item?

Would my life—my reality—be different today?

Would I have left at all?

Would I be happier?

I’ll never know.

All I’ve done to let these thoughts go is to put them into a song called Vanilla Kiss, for which a demo teaser is now out. And to write this blog post. Although now, after spending six hours thinking and typing non-stop, I feel nauseous.

Maybe this is what I needed.

To let it all out.

To cleanse.

Just as he did.

But I was once a boy. A boy who fell in love with the cutest, most handsome boy in the whole city. I fell in love with him. I fell in love with my friend. And we laughed, and we shared, and we kissed, and we loved, and we were there for each other. It was youthful and energising—like sunshine over spring fields. It was mystical but real, like swimming in a red lagoon. His lips tasted like what I loved most. They were vanilla. They spoke gently, and kissed with passion. And for a brief moment, I was the embrace he needed. And he had the eyes I needed to see me. If only we had been mature enough to appreciate what we had right in front of us. But life is weird. We have changed. We became new people.

Nevertheless, I choose to stay with that: with the memory of the boy with the sad eyes, whom I met on my twentieth birthday, who gave me the most wonderful vanilla kiss, and whose memory shall forever live in my song.