IT’S PAST NOON WHEN I wake up on Sunday. Two days into my vacation, and my sleep schedule is already screwed up. When I walk out of my bedroom, I realize the house is empty. Our apartment is pretty small, so it doesn’t take me long to check all the rooms. No sign of my mom or Caio. While I look for my phone to call my mom, I think of possible reasons for why they’ve gone missing. My mind jumps to kidnapping, alien abduction, and zombie apocalypse.

The call goes straight to voice mail. She probably ran out of battery from playing Candy Crush before bed. I think of giving Caio a call, but I don’t have his number. I get a little desperate as I ponder the best way to negotiate for my mom’s life with kidnappers. Or, worse, to negotiate the future of the human race with aliens, who probably won’t speak my language.

I keep pacing around the house, as if waiting for Caio and my mom to jump out from behind the curtains and yell, “SURPRISE!” at any point. My stomach starts to rumble, and I feel like a heartless monster for being hungry at a moment like this. Even so, I go to the kitchen to look for food and let out a sigh of relief when I find a note on the fridge.

Felipe,

I couldn’t wake you up for the life of me! Going to the mall and taking Caio with me.

There’s food for you in the microwave, just heat it up!

Love you!

And, right below, in handwriting I don’t recognize, it says:

Thanks for the book. ;)

Four words and a little wink. At least it looks like a wink. I can’t tell for sure because Caio’s handwriting looks like chicken scratch (hey, nobody’s perfect). Anyway, if it’s between a wink or a really weird exclamation point, I’ll go with option one. Caio left me four words and a little wink, and I can’t stop smiling. I’m so excited, you’d think he stroked my hair and gave me a coupon for one kiss. But no, it’s only four words. And a wink.

The wink is a good sign, right? It’s a flirty smiley. Does this mean he’s forgiven me? That he’s thankful for the book and wants to give me a shot? The possibility makes me so happy that I almost forget to eat.

I shake my head to wake up from this dream in which Caio flirts with me, then reheat the food my mom left me. I have lunch in silence, watching the minutes go by on the microwave clock. It’s two and a half hours slow. My mom and I keep forgetting to fix it.

It looks like I have the whole day to myself now but no idea what to do with it. I could use the alone time to work on some personal projects, but I’m the worst person in the universe when it comes to completing them.

I once tried writing a comic book that’s set in my school. An explosion in a fictional lab (because my school isn’t the kind that has a lab) gave my teachers superpowers. My favorites were the heroes, naturally, and the ones I hated were the villains. I wrote and illustrated two stories but gave up on the idea because A) I can’t draw, and B) I could never get this thing published due to the extremely offensive content against my gym teacher.

After I realized how bad I was at drawing, I focused my angst into short stories. Some were actually kind of cool, and I thought it would be a good idea to put them out in the world. I created a blog and published my stories, but no one ever read them. I abandoned that project, too.

There was the time when I decided to learn how to play the guitar. My mom approved of the idea, even bought a guitar for me, and I started taking classes with Mr. Luiz, a retiree in our neighborhood who gives music lessons. I spent two months learning (trying to learn, really), but I knew in the first week that it wasn’t going to work out. I had the willpower, and I even enjoyed practicing at home, but the truth is that I have no sense of rhythm. I can’t play the guitar, can’t clap my hands, can’t even whistle.

Origami, cooking, juggling, belly dancing. I’m not good at anything! Maybe that’s why I watch so many useless internet tutorials. I think I am, subconsciously, looking for something I might be good at, but I’ve never lucked out in the talent lottery.

I finish lunch without the slightest idea of what I’m going to do for the next few hours, but I feel determined and optimistic. So I decide to begin the afternoon by adjusting the microwave clock, taking my first step toward change.

In an ideal world, I’d have spent the entire afternoon composing a song, writing a poem, painting the next Mona Lisa. Caio would get home to find me focused on my work of art, and he’d find himself in awe and in love at the same time.

Of course, that’s not what happens. I spent the entire afternoon catching up on my favorite TV shows, and when Caio and my mom open the door, it’s already dark out. I sit up on the couch, startled, pull my T-shirt down to hide my belly button, and hug a pillow to camouflage the folds of my stomach, which appear when I sit down.

My mom is yapping away, and I feel sorry for Caio, for having to withstand her chatter all day long. The only thing my mom needs is a pair of willing ears, and she can talk for an eternity.

But when I look at Caio, I don’t find a desperate plea for help in his eyes. He’s smiling and looks happy. Actually, this is the happiest I’ve seen him since he came to stay with us.

“We went shopping!” my mom says, all excitement, walking down an imaginary catwalk while holding a bunch of bags from different shops. I can’t contain a smile, because seeing my mom jokingly parading down the room makes me think that she could have been the prettiest model in the whole world.

“This morning I tried to wake you up in every possible way, but you were passed out.” She keeps talking while she removes items from their bags, one by one. “So I grabbed Caio and said, ‘Let’s go to the mall!’ Because this boy has been stuck in this apartment since Friday. Imagine if the police found out! They’d lock me up and throw away the key!” She starts laughing at her own joke.

Caio laughs, too.

“Of course, I bought a thing or two for you so you wouldn’t be jealous, now that I have a second son!” my mom says while rummaging through the bags for my presents. “Here!” she yells in excitement, and hands me a bag.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, a bit uncertain, because that’s what Caio’s presence does to me.

I stick my hand in the bag and feel like dying when the first thing I pull out is a pack of underwear.

“I got you new briefs,” my mom starts, “because I went to wash one of yours, and for god’s sake, Felip—”

“THANKS, MOM!” I repeat, almost shouting in order to get her to stop talking. Caio muffles a laugh.

I hide the briefs under the couch pillow and go back to exploring the clothes in the bag. One gray shirt, one black sweatshirt, one pair of jeans, as if I were the most boring participant in the history of a fashion TV show. But the last item surprises me. At first I think it’s a tablecloth, but it’s a checkered flannel shirt. It’s black and red, kind of like a lumberjack Kurt Cobain. It looks nice, but it’s not my style.

“Caio picked that one! I wanted to get you something a little more dressy. But Caio liked the color,” my mom explains, and I don’t know how to react.

“I hope you like it. I think red will look good on you,” Caio says, a gigantic smile on his face. I try to smile back and lower my eyes to look at the checkered shirt.

I feel my face burn and realize that if there were a contest between my face and this shirt to see which is the reddest, my face would definitely win the grand prize.

I try to process the idea that there exists in the world a color that looks good on me that’s not black or gray. Red. I was wrong this whole time.

The house goes silent for a few seconds until my mom resumes her chatter all over again.

“Help me organize these bags, and, Felipe, order a pizza for us. I’m not getting in that kitchen today, not even to paint!”

She’s laughing, and so is Caio. But this time I’m not jealous. I’m happy. Because the two of them are, officially, my favorite people in the world.

We have pizza for dinner and play three rounds of Uno (my mom wins twice, and Caio wins the other one), and it’s late by the time I decide to retreat into my bedroom to sleep. I give up on the beige pajamas and am back to my old habits: old shorts and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt that I can’t wear outside anymore because it has a hole under the armpit.

I leave the bedroom door open one more time, feeding the little bit of hope I still have in me. I don’t know if it’s luck, destiny, or Venus in the house of Mars, but for the first time in my life, things start to go the way I was hoping.

I’m lying in bed, checking what’s new on Twitter, when I hear a slight knock on the door. I lift my head and see Caio standing there, holding a pillow and looking like an abandoned puppy.

I don’t know what to say, so I keep staring at my phone and tweet my reaction: Houhfjkxhfdoduighl. Send tweet.

“So, um … Hi. Can I sleep here tonight? It’s … the couch, you know? It—” Caio starts to explain himself.

“It’s terrible. I know. You can say it,” I interrupt, trying to sound funny. But I think my answer ends up sounding a bit rude, so I try to fix it by being cute: “Of course you can sleep here! It should have been that way from the beginning, but I … well, you know. I’m sorry. Make yourself comfortable. I’m sorry, again.”

Caio just stands there looking at me, and I almost break out into a rendition of “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast, when I suddenly realize that I put away the guest mattress. I get up to pull out the retractable bed where Caio is going to sleep and apologize three more times. Two because I bump into him in the process and a third one for no apparent reason. I do all that in darkness because at no point did I realize that it might be a good idea to turn the lights back on. But Caio doesn’t seem to mind.

When the guest bed is all set, I go back to my own bed and try to assume a position in which my belly won’t flop to the side, so the hole in my shirt won’t show. The room is still dark, so I honestly don’t know why I even care. Caio throws the pillow onto the mattress, lies down, and lets out a sigh of relief. I can imagine him saying, “With god as my witness, I’ll never sleep on that couch again!” like in that scene in Gone with the Wind.

But he doesn’t say a thing.

Neither do I.

I keep staring at my phone screen. Surprisingly, I got two likes on my last tweet. I start typing “How to start a conversation” in Google, but even before I hit search, Caio breaks the silence.

“Thanks, Felipe.”

“For the bed? I told you. It’s fine.”

“Also for the bed. But I meant the book. That you left for me. Thank you.”

“Ah. Yes. The Two Towers. A good one. I hope you like it.”

And there I am, thinking this would be another standard-issue dialogue in my collection of standard-issue dialogues with Caio, but he keeps going:

“I’ll take good care of it, don’t worry! It looks like it means a lot to you. It even has a personal dedication. Who’s Thereza?”

“My grandmother. It was the last present she gave me before she died,” I say, swallowing hard.

My grandmother, Thereza, would always give me books as Christmas and birthday presents. Most of them were classics that I never felt like reading, but after she was gone, I ended up reading all of them to feel closer to her. In all the books, she always wrote the same dedication:

Lipé,

The whole world is yours.

With love, Thereza

I always hated it when people called me Lipé, but when it was her, I didn’t mind. My grandma gets permission.

The bedroom goes quiet again because, true to form, on the first opportunity I have for an actual conversation with Caio, I decide to bring up my dead grandmother.

“I’m sorry,” Caio says in the softest voice.

I smile because I can tell that he’s really sorry.

“It’s okay. She’d love to know that someone borrowed the book. My grandma used to work at the library downtown. She spent her whole life helping people borrow books.” Caio laughs a low laugh, and I don’t know if it’s the darkness in the bedroom or the fond memories of my grandmother, but I keep talking. “What did you think of the first book?”

“In general, I was surprised! I’ve always wanted to watch the movies, but I can’t watch a movie unless I read the book first. It feels like cheating otherwise, y’know? So I grabbed the first book out of curiosity and I’m really liking it. Some parts are a little boring, but the story is awesome. I couldn’t put it down! I just wonder what the second book is going to be like, now that Gandalf is dead.”

I hold back a laugh, because if he hasn’t watched the movies, he has no idea what’s about to happen.

“When I read the books, I’d already seen all three movies, so there were no surprises for me. And yet, I cried when Gandalf died because he’s the best part of The Lord of the Rings,” I say, and Caio laughs again.

I’m suddenly invaded by a good feeling—the kind you feel when you get the right answer twice on a BuzzFeed quiz.

“So you’re the kind of person who likes the movie better than the book?” Caio asks with mock judgment in his voice.

“No, no!” I say right away. But then I stop to think and start to develop my arguments. “Though, to be honest, I think we’re conditioned to say that the book is always better. But in reality … I don’t know.”

That’s me, Mr. Articulate.

I reorganize my thoughts and continue, “I really like books. And I really like movies. Some good books are made into horrible movies, and great movies came from boring books. And the opposite is also true. I don’t know. I like both. That’s the worst answer, but it’s what I have for you today.”

Faced with the crappy case I’ve made, Caio lets out a final laugh, followed by a long yawn. It seems we’re done talking for the night.

“Felipe, I think I’m going to sleep.”

“Me too,” I lie, because there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to turn around and fall sleep, knowing he’s right here, lying next to me.

“Good night,” we both say at almost the same time.

I look up at the ceiling and stare into the darkness while I wait for sleep to come. And that’s when I notice something that I’ve never paid attention to before: Right in the corner of the bedroom, there’s still one remaining glow-in-the-dark star sticker. I must not have noticed it when I removed all the others. But I have no doubt. It’s almost not glowing anymore, but it’s still there. One star on my bedroom ceiling. I know this is going to sound stupid, but I simply close my eyes and make a wish.

And three seconds later, I hear Caio calling my name.

“Felipe, can I ask you for something?”

I want to say, “A kiss? To hold hands? To profess my eternal love?!” But all that comes out of my mouth is “Yes?”

“What’s the Wi-Fi password?”

I take a deep breath (a little frustrated, I have to admit) and answer, “merylstreep123, all lowercase.”

I can see Caio smiling because the phone screen lights up his face when he enters the password. His smile is as intense as a thousand star stickers glowing in the dark and carries the satisfaction of someone who’s just spent three whole days without knowing how to get onto the Wi-Fi.

“Okay, now good night,” he says.

“See you tomorrow,” I respond.

And the day after that. And the next, and the next.