The CDs 2.0
Part 2 - Andreas II
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The CDs
Adriana came back from New York changed. Not in a bad way, no. More attuned. More present. For a few days before she reappeared, she went completely off the grid. No replies. No sign.
She left a gift on my desk: the CD 12 Memories, wrapped in recycled paper. There was a penciled note, folded three times with ritual precision. I knew the handwriting at once. It was our song. Track seven. I knew it already. She had told me. Not out loud, maybe. But she’d told me, sometime. Somewhere else.
“Did you know some people recognize each other before they ever meet?” she said once, flipping through her father’s records. She ran her fingers along the edge of a Domenico Modugno LP and then looked at me. Not straight at me, but inward. “Sometimes that happens with songs too.”
With her, music wasn’t just taste or pastime. It was code. Memory. Something like an altar. We fell in love that way, recommending songs, like sharing secret maps.
She had come from Puerto Rico a few years earlier with her Peruvian mother and Puerto Rican stepfather. Both doctors. They settled in Lima to work at a private clinic. For months, we were just two shadows crossing at recess, until one day, in religion class, she leaned toward me, eyebrow arched, pencil between her teeth.
“Sometimes I think Jesus didn’t even turn water into wine. They made it up to justify the hangover. And because, well, priests need reasons to toast, right?”
A laugh burst out before I could stop it. I clapped a hand over my mouth, but too late. “Out of the classroom!” the teacher yelled.
I was walking to the door when I heard Adriana raise her voice. Not angry. Not pleading.
“It was my fault, miss. I told him Jesus was a wine fan, and, well... he took it literally. Don’t throw him out. Throw me out.”
Laughter rippled through the room. The teacher clenched her jaw, then lowered her hand.
“Gael can come back. But I don’t want to hear either of you again.”
When I sat down, Adriana was looking at me. It wasn’t an apology. It was firmer than that. Like recognizing a song you’ve never heard before.
Back at my desk, I opened the case. I didn’t imagine that song would change meaning so soon. Twelve memories, sealed. I reread the penciled note and folded it three times. The seven marked an edge.
*
One August afternoon, sprawled on the rug, we were watching that movie where two people try to erase each other from memory. Without realizing it, I slipped my arm around her waist. My hand slid farther than it should have. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She just pressed her fingers into the rug. Then she turned her head toward me, just a little. I did it again, slower this time, with intent. Her breathing hitched. I felt the warmth of her lips. The kiss was clumsy. Our teeth bumped, but she didn’t pull away. She let out a brief laugh, then rested her forehead on mine. We stayed like that for a moment, breathing the same air, hearing only the faint rustle of the rug.
We didn’t talk about it, but from then on we made room in each other’s lives. Months went by, and we got used to seeking each other out, to simply being. Today I was finally going to see her. Only a few weeks had passed, but I missed her. It felt like years. While I was changing, I wondered what to say, what to keep to myself. I adjusted my T-shirt in the mirror for the third time, not sure whether I wanted to look good or look the same as before.
The doorbell rang. I ran for the stairs. Adriana. It had to be Adriana. A familiar smell rose through the house. Damp earth. Mango. Then my mother’s voice cut through the air:
“Gael, come down, son! Andreas is here!”
*
Halfway down the stairs, I stopped.
I took another step. My chest tightened, but I kept going. It wasn’t a big deal, I told myself. No different from seeing him up north. It was just Andreas.
He was there. In the middle of the living room. The same gestures. The same body. I stood still a few seconds before moving closer. He didn’t wait. He hugged me hard. He smelled like wet earth, freshly cut fruit, that smell that stays on your hands after hauling mangoes at harvest. A smell that hurt.
I tried to smile. My lips moved. It came out tight.
“You let your hair grow,” he said, running a hand across his forehead. “It looks good.” The comment slipped out, and he didn’t take it back.
I adjusted my sleeve, though it didn’t need adjusting.
“Thanks,” I said, without looking at him.
“I came for some papers about your grandfather’s land, you know...” He paused. “I’ll stay a couple of weeks.”
“I didn’t know you were coming… I’m glad,” I said, clearing my throat. “How is everything up north?”
“Quiet. They sent you fruit, a few things. Camu and Francisco have been asking about you. And your grandfather... grouchier, but he sleeps better.”
“My uncles...” I murmured. I smiled without forcing it. “I’m glad he’s improving.”
Andreas touched his forehead again, the same way as before. This time he left his hand there a second. A slight hesitation went through his gaze.
“I missed you,” he said.
Barely above a whisper. Fragile. But enough. A vibration. A hum that wasn’t just physical. I’d felt it before. For a moment I saw something in his face. A slit. A cut, opening.
I was about to tell him I’d missed him too. He blinked instead. Rubbed the back of his neck, trying to erase something. He took half a step back, almost imperceptible. Then he fixed his eyes on the big color-block painting on the wall. I knew that gesture. With Andreas, talking had always been easy. Until it wasn’t.
One afternoon in the storehouse on Grandfather’s land, the heat was heavy. We were looking for a box. The air stopped. He turned. He touched my eyebrow with his thumb, absently, as if brushing off dust. For a second, brief and inevitable, I thought it would happen. It didn’t.
He stepped away. Not roughly—more like a clumsy kind of care, as if he had to protect us from something we didn’t want to face. Since then, something had cracked. Nothing dramatic. Just different. Fewer words. More pauses.
My mother came in from the kitchen at exactly the right moment.
“Andreas!” She lit up, warm. “You look so handsome! How you’ve grown!” She hugged him, then held his face in both hands, the way she had when he was a kid.
“I can’t believe it. Time has flown. How’s life up north?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Andreas said, with his usual modesty. “All good there. I’m still helping your grandpa, you know... the usual.”
She nodded, pleased, and added, “I’m so happy to see you. You know this is your home.”
She turned to me. “Gael, your brother is still in Argentina with his friends, so Andreas can stay in his room, okay?”
I nodded. Suddenly the house felt warmer. More in order. My mother had that gift. Inside me, though, things were still a little out of place.
Andreas looked around the living room, taking in every corner. His eyes returned to the painting. He wet his lips.
“Do you have plans today?” he asked, careful with his tone. “We could go out, or stay in. It’s been a while since we talked.”
I hesitated.
“A friend from school is coming over,” I said. “She just got back from New York and wants to see me.”
He raised an eyebrow, a faint mocking smile.
“Your girlfriend?”
I let out a short, dry laugh.
“Just a friend.”
“Perfect,” he murmured, still smiling. But he was no longer looking at me.
*
Andreas went upstairs with his backpack and settled into my brother’s room. I stayed in mine, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, opening drawers and closing them. I changed twice before picking something that didn’t look chosen.
The doorbell rang again. This time I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed the T-shirt off the chair and went down. Adriana had arrived. Her perfume hit me before I saw her, sweet and fresh and clean—more polished. When I opened the door, she hugged me hard. Long. As if the two of us could erase the weeks apart just by holding on.
“We have to go to New York together. You’ll love it. I brought art and pencils from MoMA, you’re gonna love them,” she said, taking things out carefully, trying to stretch the moment.
“This is incredible,” I said. “But the best part is you being here.”
“Wait, there’s more.” She rummaged in her backpack and, with a little theater, pulled out two CDs: Give Up and Room on Fire.
“What? No way!” I couldn’t hide it. I picked one and hit play. I set the cases next to 12 Memories on the edge of the shelf. An unlikely trio, but the mess had its logic. Seeing them together made sense.
We looked at each other and started moving with the song, especially during the robotic part. Our exaggerated gestures turned into a kind of absurd, improvised choreography.
While the song kept going, Andreas came down the stairs. He stopped when he saw us. He was smiling, not sure whether to join or stay out. Adriana gave him a tiny hand signal, an unspoken invitation. In a blink, he was with us. “I hope this song will guide you home...”
His steps were clumsy, like ours. But there was a freedom in his laugh, that way he had of giving himself without fear, that made us laugh harder. When the chorus hit, we moved without talking. The music seemed to pull us closer on its own. “Come down now...”
When the song ended, the laughter didn’t fade. It hung in the air a moment longer, lost between our bodies. Something alive remained. Recognizable. A faint, old tuning born right there.
Andreas looked at the CDs. His fingers moved toward them, then stopped just before touching. At 12 Memories, something in his face, barely, gave way. A muscle remembered what the rest of his body seemed to want to forget.
The player made a hard click. But it didn’t sound like a click. It sounded like someone in another room closing a door.
“We will become silhouettes,” the three of us said at the same time.
The song repeated it. And for a second, I felt we were being watched.
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Beautiful writing.
This one about music felt so slow, in a nice way. A slow burn. Something blossoming, gently.