She had asked him if he could kiss her in front of his friends.
And for a second—a long, frozen second—he didn't answer.
Not because he didn't want to.
But because he didn't know how to.
Because he was watching her fall apart right in front of him. Her lips trembled, even though her voice stayed steady. Her fingers curled against her knee. Her shoulders looked still, but everything else about her was screaming.
Could he kiss her in front of his friends?
He wanted to say yes. God, he wanted to say yes so badly it hurt.
But the truth was tangled. Ugly. Unfair. Because it wasn't just about Luis. Or Eliana. It was about him.
About how he'd spent years building his identity around being a gay man. Not just to the world, but to himself. Coming out hadn't been easy. It had been painful. Lonely. Some days, bloody. There was a time he had almost ended it—almost disappeared completely.
