Here’s a valuable lesson for life, at least in my country: whenever you buy a house, check the city hall for any pre-existing urban project that might cause your house to be forcefully bought by the city for demolition. It’s like calling dibs on the house, if the project already exists, if it ever comes to fruition, you have no choice but to sell. If you got there first, you get to decide.

My family didn’t know that. Especially in the 60s when they bought the house where I grew up.

I was dating Peter for a month and it did feel healthy. He lived really far from my house, I had to take two buses, but I was always willing to go to his place. He had this room built on top of his parents’ house that gave us a lot of privacy. The family dynamics was quite ordinary, his mother was really loving and my favourite mother-in-law. His father hated his being gay so we were actually never introduced. His younger sister was fucking adorable and I still miss her. She was the first lesbian I ever liked. Hey, don’t judge me! I’m from the ‘old days’, remember? Gays and lesbians never got along.

It was the first time that being in a relationship brought the ease I would still take another year to learn is supposed to be natural. I would take my Wii on my bag with me whenever I went to his place and he, his sister, and I would always have a wonderful time in his room. He had some weird friends and I was never much fond of them and I could tell the feeling was mutual. We were around his friends more than I would ever wish for, but those were the only times I had to put on my own mask and play the part of the good boyfriend, but whenever we were at his place, he could tell how much more comfortable I felt.

My life changed too fast for comprehension during the middle of ’12. My sister, her husband, and my baby niece moved into our house while their new one was still under the final stages of construction; I had reached as far as I could at the job I had gotten in ’09 and I was bored as shit by it, the fact that my mind was a fucking turmoil since breaking up with Cooper about a year before didn’t do anything to help. I had tried to resign from that job, but the personal friendship I thought I had with my boss prevented me from doing so. I won’t say it’s the worst mistake out of innocence I’ve ever made because nothing will top moving in with a violent built junkie. But things got weird at work.

She was from another state and she had a nephew who thought any opportunity deserved a chance of investment. Thank God his parents were wealthy. He had visited a year before and decided to open a school for himself. He was a political marketeer. He decided to open a language school. Go figure. I noticed my boss had disappeared and one day she was finally back. She had visited her family home and was at a loss at the situation of her nephew’s school.

The universe worked in really strange ways that month.

During the two-week July break she would have us attend trainings for one week and give us the other one to rest before the start of a new semester. Somehow, 2012 had a three-week July break and she really didn’t know what to do about that extra week. I suggested a solution at least for my own schedule.

‘If you want, I could help. I’ll coach the teachers here first for one week, you send me there for another week to coach his teachers, and I get the third week for myself. That would solve more than one problem.’

I could see her eyes gleam.

‘It really would. What a great idea! I’ll call him and check what we can do about it.’

I didn’t tell Peter about it. After all, it would be just a work trip. Only one week. We sure could survive one week apart, plus we’d have another full week only for ourselves. I was eyeing that one more, if I’m honest.

Again, the universe was acting very weirdly.

Two nights later, at his place, out of nowhere, he hugged me, smiled and said:

‘If you want to go anywhere and start from scratch, I’ll go with you. Anywhere at all.’

I was twenty-four, two years before and still so distant from the image I had in my childhood about my adult life. Still, I didn’t think about moving out from home anytime soon. Especially at a time when my professional future seemed so uncertain.

The next day my boss came to me.

‘I talked to my nephew and we have an offer for you.’

‘Hit me’ ah, my choice of words.

‘Think about it overnight. How would you like to go there and be head manager? You would be completely in charge of the school and report to me and only me, no matter what he says.’

The offer was actually really good. The salary was almost three times more what I was doing and at a cheaper-to-live city, which made it feel like even more money. Financial independency, a promotion with a transfer. One day after Peter telling me he would follow me anywhere. After a year of pain and feeling as if I was in the centre of a circle of people beating the crap out of me, things finally started falling into place. It felt like everything I needed, a job to take me over completely. With a beam, I said yes.

So many people said it was advisable to leave without Peter, but I had the chance of not being completely alone there, someone to come back to every night. Someone willing to stay by my side no matter where life took me. I was taking him with me. Also, it would be good having someone caring for the house while I spent the whole day at work, right?

Even back then I knew I was taking him with me for all the wrong reasons.

My mother, obviously, reacted just like any latin mother would, with tears and a guilt fest. My grandmother was the same. My sister, however, was thrilled and a strong advocate of my cause. It felt nice not having to fight all my battles for once, I’ll tell you that.

On the 26th of July we were boarding our plane towards our new life. This time I had properly moved out, not just disappeared from my family’s sight. My boss was with us, she was going to assist me during my first two weeks to get me in shape for the job. She had us at a hotel while we were sorting out our apartment. The people from her town lived through appearances and people from my town are famous for a certain malice, a clever way to solve life. Peter and I were never much of appearances anyway, so we decided to rent an apartment two streets into a poorer neighbourhood of the city. Rent was considerably low because who would want to live in a poor place, right? But still next to one of the most ‘respected’ areas of town. Ah, the social contrasts of our twisted and sick society! Better take some advantage of it.

Cut to one year later and my severely depressed self. We had to move again. This time all of us. The city hall had picked up a transportation project designed back in the 50s and our street was part of this new special bus route. We didn’t have a choice, the city hall had called dibs on our place and we had to accept their purchase offer. At least it was somewhat fair. My mother had decided to move closer to my sister in order to be near her granddaughter. I decided I really didn’t want to live in that town.

How to tell Oliver I had to move?

I didn’t do it well. That’s the worst part about texting, people don’t hear the tone of your voice.

At first he thought I was breaking-up with him, moving away from him. I adjusted myself and brought my laptop closer to me. I had started using the table again, which meant I was leaving my bed more often. That day I didn’t feel like it, though.

‘No, my love. I am not moving away from you. I decided to find a place for my own in town.’

‘Oh, Ralph. Are you sure you’re okay to live alone?’

‘Ol, I have always lived alone even if at my mother’s house. I hardly ever leave my room anyway. The one thing mom has never allowed me to buy was a mini-fridge, no matter how much I wanted one. She feared I would officially never leave my room if I had food inside of it. So I’ll be fine.’

I had something else in mind. Was I brave enough to tell him? After a deep breath I remembered the whole point of my entire relationship with Oliver was taking chances.

‘Plus, with my own place, who knows… you might decide you want to visit.’

‘I would love to visit.’

‘You could spend a weekend or two, if you liked. I wouldn’t say no to waking up next to you more often.’

‘Spending the weekend would be very nice. But, Ralph, I’m still worried about you.’

‘Don’t be, Ol. I finally got another teaching job. I’ll be fine.’

The two things I say the most: ‘I’m fine’ and ‘no problem’. Lies. Still, why would anyone care?

‘I can help you.’

‘Oh. I’ll need help packing and moving. Thanks for offering.’

‘Sure, love. But that’s not what I mean. I can help you keep the house. Maybe pay a bill or two.’

‘Ol, you know how much I love you, right? I could never accept that, my love. How could I ever take your money to pay for a house you don’t even live in? I would have to be a true selfish bastard to do something so low. You need your money to help keep your home.’

‘Please, Ralph, let me help.’

‘Love me. That’s all help I could ever need.’

‘That’s not something you ever need ask me, Ralph. I love you so much. But please, let me help.’

‘Okay? Here’s something else I could use some help with: finding a place. It’s tiresome, but I learned a thing or two about it last year.’

‘And after we find a flat will you let me help you keep it?’

‘I’m sorry, Ol. I won’t back down on that. I still feel bad for taking your bus card. At least I use it for you. But no, I could never take your money to pay for my house. You need to spend your money where you live.’

‘And what if I come to visit every day? Would you accept my help then?’

‘I will love more than anything to have you at my place every day, Ol, but you still won’t be living there, so I can’t accept your money.’

I was really uncomfortable. A part of it felt like pride, but I could never do such thing. He didn’t make much, I could never do that. I well knew how he needed every cent he made. I was also very dumb whenever it came to Oliver’s subtle advances. I never really saw them.

‘And if I visit for longer times?’

‘Ol, please. I want to have you with me without worrying about. Unless you actually live there, I can’t take your money.’

‘Can I?’

‘Can you what?’

‘Live there. With you. Can I?’

Telling me he loves me on the first day. Wanting to move in after two months. He’d make a great lesbian. I had just come from a nasty break-up after living together didn’t work out at all. He had also come from something similar. One thing I knew: I didn’t want him to be my maid like I wanted Peter. I wanted him to be by my side, nothing else.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Since the first time I asked if I could help you.’

‘Oh. That makes sense. But… are you really sure?’

‘That I want to be with you every day? I’m sure of that since our first date. That I love you? Since our first date? That I want us to have our place? For a while now.’

‘I’ll try to make things different for us, okay? I don’t want to repeat the same mistakes.’

‘Me neither, Ralph. Being with you isn’t a mistake.’

‘That’s not what I meant, Ol. If anything, being with you feels like the most righteous thing I’ve ever done. I just don’t want to make you regret your decision.’

‘I know I won’t.’

‘You’re still helping me find a place, right?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Our place.’

‘Our place.’

‘How are you doing it?’

‘I don’t know. What do you suggest?’

‘I think I have an idea, Ol. I’ll look places I like and send them to you to choose from. Anything you choose from that list will be a great choice because we’ll both like it. How does it sound?’

‘Amazing.’

Our talk drifted towards another topic. We only stopped talking because it was time for me to get ready to pick him up from work and walk him home, stopping at our square and maybe getting a nice burger.

Finding a place was harder this time. We didn’t have influential people at a phony city to help us and a sad memory I still have was a sweet village house that was rejected to us because the owner didn’t want to rent to gay people. We were at another mall when he got the rejection message and both of us felt miserable.

Flat-hunting loses only to wedding preparations when it comes to how stressful they make people. The day I finally seemed to have found a suitable flat for us, Oliver was having a lazy sleep-in and wasn’t happy at all when I was outside his place practically demanding him to get up and go check the place with me.

Jesus, it was small. You had to cross the kitchen to get to the only bedroom. The flat was basically three rectangles: a living room with the bathroom at a corner, the kitchen with laundry area behind it and next the bedroom. The bathroom was the worst part, but we could make it work. We both felt we could be happy there.

It was a bit troublesome getting the place, but we did get it alright. An insane thirty-month lease. He’d better not break-up with me before that. Was I really entering a long and steady relationship with a man I loved and who loved me back? I didn’t want to dream so big, but I couldn’t help it.