The Pinball Machine

Ricardo stared at his computer screen, it was a late Colombian May night. He could not remember the last time he had enough free time to just relax all night long, between medical school and his ex boyfriend, life just seemed too busy.

Sitting in his chair he thought about this new freedom, he found it odd, he actually would think of things to do during the summer break. Furthermore the first idea popped into his mind, the driver's license, it had been a while since his father had started nagging him about it, although, he also thought, he had also pushed pretty hard for him to take the bus once the pandemic was over. Next came two easy ones, movies and videogames, at almost 20 he was still very much into strategy videogames and horror movies, however he did have a hidden passion for romantic films. Finally, Marco, "Let's not think about that" though Ricardo unsurely as he started playing a movie.

Another thing which Ricardo had been spending his time doing was practicing Arabic, which seemed both foreign to him, yet still alluring. As he was writing down different letters he though again of Marco, and even when he did not want to, he drifted off into pondering about him. It had been more than a year ago when they had met, when he was in fact still a senior in high school; Ricardo had not been in a great spot, it had seemed as if he had no boyfriend nor university, so he resorted to one of the few ways he knew to find support, a random camera website. That wasn't that odd of an activity for him since his boyfriend had suddenly left him less than a month ago. He felt lonely and the non-judging gaze of a stranger helped it. He then saw him: Brown wonderful eyes, a beard and mustache that did not quite connect but looked incredibly manly, beautiful wavy black hair, and something which Ricardo found funny, a hand in his pants which he was constantly moving. They then started speaking, after Ricardo told Marco he was 18, the latter made a joke about how wrong that could be, as much as Ricardo was intrigued about this older guy, he could not ask as many questions as he wishes because he had to worry about his family walking out, so they shared phone numbers and called it a night.

Over the following days Ricardo would come to know about Marco and his past over text, he was originally Italian, although he shared some ancestry with Ricardo's ex boyfriend, Arash. However Marco now lived in New York City, a city which Ricardo was very fond of ever since his visit there. Marco was a film maker, which seemed like such an interesting thing to Ricardo. All this information, kept on making Marco someone of interest to Ricardo

It was clear, Ricardo clearly had an infatuation with Marco, he would text him and joke around with him. Ricardo liked him, but he had also just been broken up with, which meant he was quite shy about expressing this. He knew just how bad of an experience that had been, being told to wait around for his mentally-ill boyfriend to bounce back and look for him, yet knowing that he for a fact was on dates. He still could feel the sense of betrayal that washed over him and made him lash out, which just left him with sadness and emptiness. He knew that he was still hurt and that he would need to face those demons first. Which meant he did not know how to approach Marco, who clearly though Ricardo was handsome and would flirt with him.

Still, it seemed like the decision was made for him, as Marco, after hearing everything that happened to him, rejected his advances, quite literally stating that he did not want a relationship. That made sense to Ricardo, although there was a familiar sense of failure that did sting and which prompted him to be afraid when it seemed like Marco did not even want to stay an acquaintance.

Still, as the months passed they grew closer as friends, this was not that quick and it in fact took months of back and forth. Ricardo was still chasing pavements by looking for a long-distance relationship as the pandemic was on full swing, which meant that it was up to Marco to give him some advice. Things were looking up for Ricardo, who had not only been accepted into medical school but had also received a sizable scholarship. During this time Marco opposed to the idea of them even going so far as going on a date together one day as he perceived their age gap as too large. However, not everything was good, Arash made his birthday and months following it very hard, as after having told Ricardo that he never wanted to speak to him ever again, he had surprised him with a gift which he sustained was a farewell and graduation gift. All of this made Ricardo very confused, he did not understand why he would send him a gift if he did not want him back, but after a while he accepted it. He sent messages to Arash apologizing to him for lashing out in the past, and just hoped the guilt he felt would go away. Instead, after some "random" conversations with Arash, he felt even worse about what he had done, he went to Marco for help, it was not a good night, he was crying and hyperventilating, which was not common at all for him, Marco helped him and soothed him. Ever since the moment Ricardo told Marco about Arash, he did not seem to like him one bit, that feeling only grew as time went by and Ricardo revealed more. Marco did believe that Arash was a bad man and that he had severely mistreated Ricardo, while the latter was still deeply in love with him.

Ironically, even after the hostility which Arash had shown Ricardo, they would reconcile as summer came to an end. It was a time of bliss for Ricardo who really experienced adoration from him. Still, it meant that maybe because of the guilt of being with Arash, Ricardo had stopped texting Marco. In fact, they would not talk for months as the other relationship blossomed and became incredibly intense, this until Ricardo decided to say hello again. After which, communication remained open, which led to Marco, with the help of Ricardo, traveling to another region of Colombia. Funnily enough, Arash was the first to suggest that even though the trip was far away from Ricardo, Marco still had covert intentions and wanted to meet, and do more with Ricardo.

After that trip, several months went by, during which Arash's mental illness once again sabotaged their relationship, Marco was not pleased to hear that and in fact urged Ricardo to stop letting such a sick man control and dictate his life. Even through all of that, Ricardo kept loyal and even if it did not pan out at the end, with a short stabilization of his relationship, he still had been impacted by Marco and had decided to not allow Arash to come back.

Since then Marco and Ricardo had been texting very often and calling, Marco would support him a lot with the aftermath of the break up and accepting that it had been an abusive relationship. Ricardo had decided to break his cycle and reevaluate how he was acting, no longer would he be chasing pavements online and trying to fix his problems through a guy, but instead he would focus on becoming comfortable with being single. All of that meant that at least for a while he wanted to not be in a relationship. Still, Ricardo felt that Marco was subtly flirting with him, and that complicated things a little.

It was clear that Ricardo was becoming once again infatuated with Marco, which was hard, because Ricardo knew how complicated the situation was. He knew that Marco probably did not want to set out for a long-distance relationship, he also knew that Marco would not want to engage with him as he felt he was very vulnerable after what had happened with Arash. Still, Ricardo could not help but think about Marco and how handsome he was, and picture a future with him.

Ricardo picked up his phone and sent Marco a nightly hello as he smiled hopefully.