Page 36 of Contested

Paula shook her head. ‘You’re on the same team now.’

‘It’s complicated.’

Marcos watched Paula as she swept his room, taking in the organised chaos. Posters on the wall, clothes half sorted in the basket, training gear thrown over the chair, old school things still shoved on the bottom shelf, even though he didn’t need them anymore. Then there were all the trophies, not in any order or in one specific spot. Just scattered.

Paula’s eyes landed on him again. ‘Talking in three languages at the same time seems complicated,’ she signed, her mouth crooked at the thought.

Despite everything, Marcos smiled. ‘Different kind of complicated.’

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not sure I have the words.”

Paula nodded slowly. ‘You didn’t really go for a run, did you?’

Marcos took in a deep breath and shook his head.

Paula didn’t look surprised. ‘Get it off your chest.’ She pushed off the desk and walked across the small space between them, sitting on the bed next to Marcos. ‘Don’t sign. Just talk.’

She leaned her head on his shoulder, her arm snaking around his shoulders, letting her fingers gently rest on his throat, and he hummed, the sound vibrating under her fingertips.

Marcos closed his eyes. They hadn’t done this in a while. It was something they used to do when he was a teenager and he and his father were having trouble getting along. Marcos never knew how to properly articulate how he was feeling or how to line his thoughts up so that he would make any sense when he was talking.

Sometimes English wasn’t enough. Sometimes Spanish didn’t have the words. And signing just complicated it even more.

So, Paula sat with him, head on his shoulder, hand somewhere she could feel the vibration, to know he was talking. And that was what he’d do. It didn’t matter what he said or if it made sense. It didn’t matter what language he spoke.

What mattered was that Paula was there, and he had someone to talk to and feel like he was being understood, even if all his words were his own to keep.

Marcos sucked more air into his lungs. His fingers sank into the sides of his knees, and his feet shifted against the wooden floor.

Then he started talking.

At first, it came out. A few words caught at the back of his throat and stayed there, rough enough that he had to clear them before he tried again. Paula’s fingers moved with the swallow, then settled back into place, patient and warm on his neck.

His voice shifted without him deciding to shift it. English first, then Spanish threading through when the sentences got too hard to hold. He didn’t know if Paula could separate the rhythm of it under her hand. Maybe she could. Maybe she only felt the change in his throat, the way his voice went lower when Spanish took over, and faster when he lost it.

It didn’t matter. No matter what she could feel, he knew what he did.

Shame sat under the words, growing sharper whenever his mouth got close to saying too much.

It sat inside him.

It pressed under his ribs and up the back of his throat, hot and insistent, turning every memory of wanting into something he flinched from.

Marcos swallowed and kept talking. He talked until the words lost shape. Until English and Spanish tangled, until he repeated the same half-thought in different ways and still didn’t arrive anywhere cleaner. He talked about not knowing where to put his hands. About feeling angry when Sebastian stared at him and worse when Sebastian didn’t. About how a thing could feel right for one second and wrong the moment there was room to think about it.

Eventually, Marcos ran out.

Not because he had reached the end of it, but because his body stopped being able to hold the talking up. His voice thinned, then went rough, then disappeared entirely. He sat there with his eyes still closed, breathing through his nose, shoulders aching from holding too much tension for too long.

Paula didn’t move straight away. Her fingers stayed against his throat, waiting for another vibration that didn’t come. After a while, she lifted her head from his shoulder. Marcos opened his eyes and dropped his gaze to the floor again, at the scuffed wood between his feet and the shoes still sitting there with the laces tied.

Paula took her arm from around him and gave him space. ‘Better?’

Marcos stared at her, then gave a small shrug. He still felt hollow and like there was a hole sitting in the pit of his stomach. But it no longer felt like it was trying to swallow him.

Paula nodded once at him, then once toward the door. ‘You need to shower.’