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A movie about homes and their foundations, about breaking and remaking, about making art and its ability to speak for when we can’t, about loving whilst angry because there’s no other choice, about the root of anger being simmering loss, about forgiveness and reconciliation, about quiet slow destructions, about trauma across generations, and about the hope of it all.
When Carlos is seventeen, he writes an essay for his college application.
In it, he writes about his house. He writes about the clatter of feet on the stairs as his sisters race to school, out the door, through the hole in the fence, and across the neighbour’s land before Carlos couldn’t hear them anymore. He writes about the corner of the kitchen, where cupboard meets linoleum and dust gathers in the impossible to reach places, and how his mother tried to clean it but never could. He writes about the bowing of the floorboards under the table where each night the whole family would sit, say a prayer, and eat; pressure pushing downwards, bending around it.
His father said the crookedness was an old flaw, discovered after the house was built a hundred years ago. Consequences of the dusty land, he added. There’s a crack in the foundation wall that you can track all the way up the house. Carlos writes about the afternoon he was home, sick from school, and did such a thing. Basement to living room to Luisa’s bedroom to attic.
He writes about how the crack was growing. This whole house bowing, collapsing, imploding onto itself just in very slow motion. The entire time his family had lived there was just a split second in mid-air.
He writes about the silence. Gabriel’s work trips got longer and longer, and Andrea’s shifts on the ranch got longer and longer. Three children should make a lot of noise. Instead, Carlos learns to cook and Luisa helps him load the dishwasher and Ana mops the floor. It’s silent in the house, when the girls are in bed and Carlos is making all their lunchboxes for the next day and forging signatures on their permission slips and ironing their clothes. “Be the man of the house, Carlitos,” Gabriel would always say when he left, and Carlos never really knew what that meant but he tried his best. It never felt like enough.
That is not the essay he submits.
Carlos gets into college and then never goes. Carlos is offered a job on a set in a film his father is directing and turns it down.
Carlos signs up for the APD academy instead.
When he graduates, his mother and sisters, and Iris too, are in the front row. His father is at a film premiere in Los Angeles. He can’t miss it, he said, he needs the networking for his next movie.
When he marries Iris, his mother is the only one sitting on his side. Luisa tells him she can’t sit there and watch him make such a fucking stupid mistake, and Ana is at college on the west coast. His father texts him to tell him he’s coming– his flight from Amsterdam was delayed but he’s definitely coming– and then he never shows. Two days later, a bottle of whiskey turns up on his doorstep with an apology note. Carlos is pretty sure Gabriel’s assistant sent it.
When a case goes wrong and he’s kidnapped by a psychopathic mother and son duo for a night, Andrea, Luisa, and Ana all meet him at the hospital. Gabriel, who was in Texas last time Carlos checked, got in a cab to the airport to catch a flight to his new filming location. Whilst Andrea filled his freezer with meals, and Luisa and Ana made sure he was following concussion protocols, Gabriel and Carlos play phone tag with each other until Gabriel sends a simple text message that maybe it would be better just to catch up when he gets home.
Gabriel doesn’t come home for another eight months.
Carlos stops reaching out first, lets their communication fester and rot, and tries to live his life like the little boy reaching and reaching for his father’s attention isn’t still trapped behind his ribcage.
///
Gabriel is home. Carlos finds out from his mother who texts them all to tell them they have to attend a family dinner.
It’s a usual thing they do when Gabriel is at home. Sometimes, there are weeks and weeks of family dinners with all five of them– in the lulls between Gabriel’s works, in the times when Gabriel seems to remember he has a family to come home to.
Sometimes, there are weeks and weeks where Carlos will go round on a Sunday night to see his mother cooking a meal for a family of five when there’s only two of them that will be sitting at the table. His sisters, with their own families and their own lives, never come when Gabriel isn’t there, and his father, too caught up in his own creations to remember that there are people he leaves behind when he goes.
But this week, his father is home, so they’re all gathered round the kitchen table with wine glasses and empty plates. His mother looks happy, Carlos thinks, and then he’s glad that at least someone is.
It’s Gabriel’s first week back after getting back from some film festival or another, and Carlos has sat through a whole dinner hearing all about it. Andrea was delighted, whilst Luisa, Ana, and him simply weathered the storm, smiling in the right places, humming when necessary.
After dinner, Carlos tells the table he’ll clear up, ushers the others into the living room, and takes a beat to breathe. He’s tired; tired and a little angry and ashamed that he feels all of this. It’s a complicated, tangled mess of emotions, and Carlos hates complicated messes.
At least, he tries to take a beat, because he barely gets half the dishes into the dishwasher before the door swings open and Gabriel steps in.
Gabriel clears his throat, leans on the counter opposite, watching. “I heard you saved a young girl the other day.”
Carlos hums, half uninterested in hearing his father trying to pretend he knows about Carlos’ life, half angry enough to drag it out. “They’re gonna give me a commendation apparently.”
“Oh– that’s very good.”
The conversation peters out and Carlos can’t even be surprised that his father’s effort cannot extend a whole exchange; talking about Carlos has never been a particular skill of his father’s.
“I have a new film in the works,” Gabriel offers eventually, and Carlos thinks, oh here it is. Here’s what he really wants to say.
“That’s nice.”
“I want to film it here actually,” Gabriel says, leaning back against the counter and just watching Carlos tidy up.
Carlos scrubs harder at the non-existent spot on the counter. “Here? As in Texas?”
“As in this house.”
“This house? Where Mom still lives?”
“Yeah. It’s perfect. And your mother’s already agreed to it.”
Carlos holds back his scoff, chucking the dish cloth back in the sink and taking a seat at the table. His father loves to do this– come home and blow up all of their lives as if everyone is just on pause whilst he’s away. “Right. Sure.”
“I think it might be the best thing I’ve written.”
“That’s great, Dad,” Carlos sighs; he’s weary– tired to the bone– of this little facade they’ve been playing all dinner. “Why are you telling me this?”
“The film is about a young man, about a–” Gabriel grabs something from the counter behind him– a large wad of paper– and lays the paper on the table in front of Carlos before stepping back. Carlos glances down at it– it’s a script. “I wanted… I want you to play the lead role in my film.”
Carlos has acted once before in his life. When he was twelve, Gabriel let him play the young version of a character in one of his movies. They filmed in Paris and Carlos got a whole week off school. He was good at it too– or at least, that’s what everyone said. Even the film critics applauded his performance once the film was released; Gabriel had printed each good review off and kept them in his office. Carlos had gone home from that week and said he loved it, the acting, and maybe that was kind of true, but what he really loved was the attention Gabriel paid to him that week.
Gabriel took him out for fancy French dinners, and let him stay up late, and took him out with the rest of the cast like he was actually part of something big. Gabriel let Carlos sit in his director chair and talked him through different shot compositions and even let him call ‘cut’ occasionally. Carlos felt special, like he was doing something good, something important, something his father would be proud of.
And then filming wrapped and Carlos went back to Texas, back to school and his role as “man” of the house, and Gabriel went from Paris to London to Tokyo, promoting the movie, shooting another. Whatever bond Carlos thought they had made that week disappeared along with Carlos’ name on the call sheet.
Carlos scoffs at the thought of acting with his father again; he’s not twelve anymore and he’s long since outgrown chasing his father’s attention. “I’ve not acted since I was young.”
“You’ve done some theatre.”
“Yeah, amateur theatre. And only because the Ryder’s really needed a last minute stand-in.”
“Mijo, you’re the only one who can play this role.”
“Why? Why am I the only one? I’m not even an actor, dad.”
“Just read it,” Gabriel says, nodding to the script Carlos still hasn’t touched. “Read it and let me know.”
Gabriel walks out then, leaving Carlos in the dark kitchen with a ticking time bomb in the shape of paper sitting in front of him.
///
Carlos finds out that Gabriel has already cast some of the other characters in the movie when TK Strand messages him on Instagram. He’s not very good on social media but even he knows that a blue tick next to a name means it’s a verified account.
Carlos spends ten minutes having a slight gay panic about it– TK Strand is fucking hot– and then he opens the message.
TK.Strand: Hi. Sorry if this is weird, but your father said you knew about the script so I hope this is okay. Gabriel just cast me in this movie and considering we’re about to spend a lot of time together, I wondered if you might want to grab a coffee. I’m arriving in Austin tomorrow so I’d love to have someone show me around.
For a moment, Carlos considers that when his father said this script is the best he’s written, he wasn’t exaggerating. TK Strand is a big actor; he rose to fame quickly in some procedural drama before being snapped up by major directors to star in some of the biggest movies of the decade. He’s only a year older than Carlos and he’s already secured a BAFTA nomination and a Golden Globe. To have TK on board is a major endorsement for the project.
Then Carlos wonders why his father would jeopardise that by even considering having Carlos– amateur dramatist as he is– as the lead. Why does his father really want him in the film? Why, after all these years, has Gabriel decided that Carlos is worth his attention again?
Because that is what this message is implying. TK thinks they’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Gabriel seems to have told the other cast that Carlos has said yes to the project.
Except, Carlos hasn’t said yes to the movie– hasn’t even read the script. He’s not going to do it. He knows he’s not going to do it.
C.Reyes: Hello TK. Congratulations on your casting. Hope it’s not strange to say I’m a big fan and I was surprised you reached out. I’m not sure what my father told you but I haven’t committed to the movie yet. Sorry for any confusion.
Except then he, a gay man with a crush on openly bisexual TK Strand, realises he essentially just said no to meeting him for coffee. So what, Carlos thinks, if I’m not going to be in the movie; TK and his father are still going to be filming in Texas for a while– in their family home, apparently. It’s likely he’s going to meet TK anyway. And it’s even more likely that TK doesn’t know anyone else in Texas beyond the Reyes family.
He’s just being a friendly neighbour, Carlos tells himself. He’s just being a good ambassador for the Reyes name.
Carlos sends another message.
C.Reyes: But if you still wanted someone to show you around Austin, I’d be happy to take you to the best coffee spot.
///
The best coffee spot is the cafe run by Nancy and Mateo, just a few metres from the police station. Carlos gets a discount on coffee, and sometimes Nancy even slips him some of the leftover lemon slices.
Carlos takes a seat outside. He keeps his hands still, no matter how much he wants to fiddle, because this is not a date so there is no reason to be nervous.
Nonetheless, Carlos almost chokes on his coffee when TK rounds the corner. This isn’t a fucking date, he tells himself again, but TK just looks so good and Carlos is getting hot under the collar in a way that has nothing to do with the heat. Then TK spots him and his grin grows wider and Carlos’ heart does something weird in his chest. Carlos waves TK over, shakes his hand (how fucking sweaty are his palms, he stresses) and sits down.
It’s easy, immediately. Carlos isn’t the most social person– finds people confusing and stressful– but he muddles by. But TK is different. He’s bright; Carlos can’t quite take his eyes off him. He talks like he’s known Carlos for years, like Carlos could say anything and he’d go along with it. TK steers the conversation, pulls Carlos into it, makes him feel like there is no one and nothing more important. It’s heady for Carlos who’s so used to slipping into the background, so used to being left behind, so used to having something else prioritised over him. TK looks at him and Carlos feels like he’s being seen.
They’re on drink number two when Carlos eventually asks, “How’s Texas treating you?”
TK chuckles, holds up his iced tea. “It’s hotter than New York, that's for sure. Not sure how you’re drinking hot coffee in this weather.”
It’s comfort, Carlos thinks, curling his hands around the warmth of the cup. “You get used to it after a while.”
“I guess I’ll find out then.”
Carlos’ stomach flips at the reminder that TK will be here and will be here long enough to adjust to Austin life. “Are you upset to leave the city for so long?” Carlos asks, even if he’s not quite sure he wants to hear the answer.
TK takes a long sip of his drink. Carlos is not looking at TK’s lips around the straw- he’s not. “Not really. Things kinda blew up around me there. I think I needed to get out. Gabriel’s offer came in at the perfect time.”
Carlos thinks about the man sitting in front of him, the bags under his eyes, the way he flinches at every sudden movement. He thinks about the tabloid headlines that flash up on his phone every so often– tales about TK Strand and his late night endeavours to drug dens, his cheating fiancé, a stint in a hospital followed by rehab. He thinks about what it would be like to have your whole life spread across the front pages for anyone’s grubby hands to pounce on. He thinks about the TK sitting in front of him and sees someone who is asking the world for a little bit of gentleness– Carlos would be damned not to give him that.
“Well,” Carlos offers. “I’m glad that you’re here then.”
TK looks surprised at the answer– surprised that someone didn’t pry, surprised that someone’s first question wasn’t about the past he’s so clearly running from– and it makes something heavy swell in Carlos’ gut.
“Yeah,” TK says softly, eyes fixed on Carlos. “I think I am too.”
It’s only when he gets back home that he realises he never did tell TK that he’s definitely not taking the role in the movie.
///
TK.Strand: Thanks for inviting me out earlier. I had a great time.
TK.Strand: And sorry for yapping your ear off like that.
TK.Strand: It’s been a long time since someone has listened like that to me.
C.Reyes: Thank you for coming, TK. It was a pleasure listening to you.
C.Reyes: You can yap my ear off anytime.
TK.Strand: Careful what you wish for, Carlos.
TK.Strand: Next thing you know, I’ll be following you home, talking at you.
C.Reyes: oh no. the horror.
///
Gabriel knocks on his door early one morning and ruins Carlos’ plans of just ignoring this until it all goes away.
He welcomes Gabriel in, turns on the coffee machine, plays the perfect host. All that time Carlos wonders why Gabriel has knocked on his door. Carlos doesn’t think Gabriel has ever sought him out before. In fact, Carlos isn’t sure Gabriel has ever stepped in his house before.
“You playing in my film before,” Gabriel begins quietly, “that’s the most beautiful memory I have.”
Carlos does not like where this is going; he isn’t taking the role and his father still doesn’t know. Carlos has to tell him. Carlos doesn’t think he’s ever told his father ‘no’ to his face before. Something sickly grows in his sternum, thick and oily, grasping hold of him and sending him spiralling.
“Me too, but–”
“This will be good,” Gabriel interrupts. “We’ll ease you back into it so you can get the feel for it again. I think TK will like doing scenes with you– he talks about you a lot.”
“TK’s a great actor,” Carlos says instead, trying to bite his tongue from asking exactly what TK says about him. Neutral answer, he thinks, nothing in there to point to his glaring crush on the man.
“He’ll be great alongside you, that’s for sure.”
And maybe TK would be. Maybe Carlos would get on set and whatever made him great as a child actor would just come to the forefront again. Maybe Carlos would bring authenticity to the set, able to bounce off the real actors through his lived experiences. Maybe Carlos would love it– the acting, the partnership with TK, the way his father’s eyes light up if he does a good take, like finally Carlos has done something he can be proud of.
But Carlos doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to take awkward amounts of time off from the job he actually loves. He doesn’t want to put himself out there, doing something he was happy to keep as a long lost memory and a casual pastime. He doesn’t want to pretend to be something he’s not just to get his father to look at him.
“I don’t want to be in the film.”
Gabriel looks up at him then, shocked. “Carlitos,” he says, reproachfully, as if admonishing a small child. It chafes on Carlos; he feels like he is still the small child waiting on the doorstep, his father telling him he cannot come with him, to go back inside.
“It was nice, Dad; it was nice when we worked together.” Carlos swallows hard. “You made me feel like the most important person in the world. And then– then you were gone again.”
“You were amazing,” Gabriel tries to begin, but Carlos just keeps talking.
“I don’t get it– how you can just switch off… how you were so close and so real and then you just disappeared again. You just disappear and make someone else the most important person in the world.”
“Mijo.” Gabriel looks taken aback, and Carlos thinks he’s heard him for a moment but then Gabriel just shakes his head. “I don’t need this now. Not from you.”
Therein lies the rub. Carlos’ whole life has been on Gabriel’s terms. He raised his sisters because Gabriel chose to take the jobs that kept him far away. He came out to his father over video call who barely replied before hanging up to attend an event. He stopped telling his father’s friends he was a police officer after Gabriel told him it made their family look ‘unaccomplished’. Carlos has been the perfect son. He’s put aside his own wants, his own needs, that small part of himself that still wants his father to turn around and hug him. Carlos has been the perfect son and it’s still not enough. It will never be enough.
“We never got the best of you,” Carlos murmurs. “That’s okay. I accepted that, but I don’t want to put myself back there just to be disappointed again. I’m not doing it again.”
Gabriel shakes his head as if Carlos is the one missing something here. “Read the script. Carlos, just read it.”
“Why don’t you get it?” Carlos exclaims, rocketing to his feet before he can even process the movement. “I don’t care if it’s good or not.”
Gabriel follows Carlos to his feet. “I can’t speak to you when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
“Emotional.” Carlos reels back as if he’s been hit. “You always were such an emotional boy; it makes it impossible to have a conversation with you.”
By the time the first tear has slipped out of Carlos’ eyes, Gabriel is gone.
///
TK.Strand: [video of a lizard with a fidget spinner on its nose]
TK.Strand: Look!!!!!
C.Reyes: oh wow.
TK.Strand: where’s your enthusiasm, Carlos?!?
C.Reyes: sorry, I’m just not sure lizards are my favourite animals.
TK.Strand: what!!
TK.Strand: No!!!
TK.Strand: but look
TK.Strand: [video of a lizard sticking its head out of a car window]
C.Reyes: are you now just going to send me lizard videos until I admit they’re cute?
TK.Strand: maybe
TK.Strand: yes
TK.Strand: [video of a lizard holding up a full sized sword]
///
Carlos, as he always does when he’s upset, goes to his sister.
He arrives just as Luisa and the kids get home from school and so he’s very quickly roped into watching Maribel show him how good her basketball aim has got and teaching Diego how to get a better spin on a cricket ball. He loves the kids, and for a moment, Carlos forgets about his father and the script currently burning a hole in his bag. Even through everything, he has this family; the one who doesn’t care what job he does, or who he loves, or if he’s too emotional.
Eventually, the kids are tucked into bed and Luisa’s husband leaves them in the kitchen with a kiss to Luisa’s head that makes Carlos long for something steady. He thinks, briefly, of TK and then shakes that away.
Luisa sets a cup of tea in front of him– he asked for coffee but she just looked at the time and pulled out tea– and settles in the chair opposite him. They sit like that for a while, and Carlos thinks of the evenings when his sisters couldn’t sleep and he’d make them a hot chocolate and let them curl up on the sofa to watch Beauty and the Beast.
“Carlos,” Luisa murmurs eventually, “I love you, but we can’t just sit here in silence the whole night?”
“Why not?” Luisa just raises an eyebrow and Carlos sighs. “Dad came to see me this morning.”
Luisa hides a hum behind a sip of tea. “What did he want?”
“He wanted to talk about the movie.”
“The movie he wants to film in the house.”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe he’s making Mom move out for months.”
Carlos huffs out a laugh– of all the things his father has done since coming back, deciding to film in their house with no consideration of the person living there is probably the least surprising. “He’s never been very good at thinking about others.”
Luisa narrows her eyes. “I’m sensing that something else might have happened.”
Carlos nods, reaches down to his bag and pulls out the script, placing it gently on the table as it were liable to explode. “He offered me the lead role.”
“What!” Luisa exclaims, choking on the sip of tea she just took. “The lead role?”
“Yeah… but I told him today that I don’t want to do it.”
“Ah,” Luisa murmurs, placing her cup on the table to reach across and wrap a hand around Carlos’. “How did he take it?”
Carlos just shakes his head, eyes burning at the vitriol in Gabriel’s voice as he told his son he was too emotional to even talk to. Carlos always has been too weak for his father but to have it thrown in his face so clearly has rattled him. He thought he was past seeking approval from his father, but it turns out he is still the twelve year old boy, desperate and needy.
“Oh Carlos,” Luisa breathes out. “Maybe the role was his way of trying to reach out to you. To build a connection.”
“He’s had nearly thirty years to do that, Luisa!”
“I know,” Luisa soothes in a voice that she uses on her children, and Carlos wonders when did Luisa become the one to comfort him, when did all their clearly defined family roles get so distorted.
“Why can’t he just talk to me?”
She squeezes his hand. “I don’t know.”
“This,” Carlos shakes the script in his hand then slams it back on the table, “is probably all he can give.”
Luisa shrugs, and idly plays with the top page of the script with her finger. “Then it’s all he can give.”
“It’s not enough!” Carlos exclaims, voice echoing off the walls of the kitchen.
Luisa doesn’t flinch at the outburst. She barely looks up at him, eyes fixed on the table and the pile of paper that’s been the cause of the slow implosion of Carlos’ life.
“How did it end up like this?” Carlos mutters into the silence. “You and Ana turned out so good and I so fucked up?”
Luisa blinks at that, shakes her head. “That’s not true.”
“I married my best friend because I was too scared to be who I am. I still feel like I’m– I’m scared all the time. And I don’t know what to do about it because it’s part of me. Some rotten, fundamental part of me.”
“It hasn’t always been easy for me either.”
Carlos blanches because that wasn’t what he meant. He’s watched his sisters fight and struggle to become the women they are today and he’s endlessly proud of them. “No, I know,” he clarifies, “but you– you have a family. You have a home.”
Luisa stares at him piercingly for a beat. “You know, there’s a big difference in how you and I grew up.” Carlos doesn’t understand, furrows his brows, thinks about how all three of them had to watch Gabriel leave again and again. “I had you. I know you think there’s something wrong with you, that you’re too scared, too much or not enough, but– when Mom was working and Dad was gone too and you got us to school… made us dinner… did our laundry. You were there, Carlos. There’s nothing rotten inside of you.”
Something inside Carlos snaps. Luisa is up and next to him before Carlos can even blink, pulling him straight into her arms. It’s an indulgence Carlos doesn’t get very often, to be hugged as he cries, and it soothes something inside of him that he didn’t know needed soothing. It feels like maybe he’ll never stop crying. It feels like cutting himself to the bone and pulling out all the black weeds sprouting from his rot.
“I’m so scared… scared of being a disappointment again,” he sobs.
“You could never be a disappointment.”
When he leaves that night, he makes sure to hug Luisa extra tight, trying to express all the things that just get tangled in his throat.
As Carlos turns to walk away, Luisa stops him with a hand on his arm, asks, “have you read it? The script?”
“No.”
Luisa shrugs, draws her arms into herself and Carlos thinks of all the things his father has missed by being gone so long. “Maybe you should.”
“But I don’t want the role.”
“That doesn’t mean you can read the script, Carlos. Maybe it will do you good to find out why Dad wanted you for this role so badly.”
Carlos’ stomach twists at the thought. “What if I don’t like what I find?”
“Isn’t that an answer in itself?”
///
TK.Strand: hey thanks for showing me that farmers market today!
TK.Strand: got home and ate 90% of those cakes I bought.
C.Reyes: didn’t you say those would last you the week?
TK.Strand: I am a liar
TK.Strand: a dirty liar
C.Reyes: you told a lie- an odious damned lie
TK.Strand: okay mr.shakespeare
TK.Strand: bringing out the othello references
C.Reyes: i may not be a fellow thespian but i do know some things
TK.Strand: you know loads of things
TK.Strand: you’re one of the most interesting people i’ve ever met
C.Reyes: in a good way or a bad way?
TK.Strand: in the best way
///
It’s haunting him, the script. No matter where he moves in his apartment, Carlos feels like he can still see the stack of papers sitting on his table.
He spent the day after Gabriel came over with TK, showing him the local farmers market. It was the perfect day really. TK’s face would light up with every new stall, would chat to every owner, would buy something from everyone until they both had bags full. Everything was warm, fizzing, endless horizon. Carlos wanted to sink into the day and never leave.
He didn’t tell TK what happened with his father. He imagined doing it, giving words to this tangled mess of memories in his chest, and his mouth becoming stained with black tar. Carlos refused to do that to this day– this warm day with the boy he liked and the jam doughnuts and the sugar left on the side of TK’s mouth that Carlos felt brave enough to wipe off with his thumb. The hitch of TK’s breath as he did so will follow Carlos to his dreams.
Except, now he’s home alone again and the script is still sitting on the table– a taunt, a haunting.
He thinks of Luisa’s words again. Maybe it will do you good to find out why Dad wanted you for this role so badly. Isn’t that the question at the heart of everything; why now, why him, why, why, why.
He thinks of his father’s words too. Mijo, you’re the only one who can play this role. Gabriel has never thought Carlos was good enough for anything, let alone being the ‘only one’ who could do something. Carlos could never be the perfect son for Gabriel, so what made his father think he could be perfect for something else. He’s failed at the one inherent role he has in his life– son– so what makes his father think he could play another?
He thinks of the crack running through the foundations of his family home. He thinks of how he can trace it from beginning to end, follow the strands of it, track the slow implosion of his home.
Carlos wants to trace his own slow implosion; wants to know what cracks his father sees him in; wants to follow the strands Gabriel left him and make them into something he can understand. He looks at the script, still burning a hole in his table, and decides he needs to know.
Carlos opens it and reads, and reads, and reads.
///
C.Reyes: have you seen the latest Love Island episode?
TK.Strand: no!!
TK.Strand: i’m so behind
TK.Strand: wait
TK.Strand: since when do you watch love island
TK.Strand: what happened to grand designs
C.Reyes: can’t I like more than one show?
TK.Strand: hmm suspicious
C.Reyes: fine. I started watching after we met for coffee.
TK.Strand: carlos are you telling me I inspired you to watch love island
C.Reyes: you really sold the drama of it.
TK.Strand: i am an actor it is my job
C.Reyes: would you want to come over tomorrow and watch the episode with me?
TK.Strand: i want nothing more
TK.Strand: i’ll be there
C.Reyes: :))
TK.Strand: Carlos Reyes, was that an EMOJI
TK.Strand: who taught you that
TK.Strand: ;))
///
Carlos isn’t sure why TK is the first person he wants to talk about this with, beyond the fact TK is the one he wants to talk about everything with now.
Somewhere along the way, they’ve become friends– good friends. Between the coffees and the stupid lizard videos and the trips to farmers markets or cafes or cinemas, TK has become one of Carlos’ closest friends.
Carlos still has a giant crush on TK and he’s self-aware enough to notice that TK is definitely flirting back (Carlos definitely didn’t spend all night overthinking what a winky face meant). It’s nice though, Carlos thinks, to have something good in his life with no need to rush it. TK’s here for months more and Carlos wants him, desperately, but he likes the way things go warm when he thinks about TK– the anticipation, the slow crawl to something better.
They make it through three episodes of Love Island before Carlos breaks. He’s been fidgety and distracted, and TK definitely noticed, but has been kind enough not to ask– at least, not yet. Carlos doesn’t know whether he wants TK to prod or wait patiently; doesn’t know if he wants to tell TK his problems or just drag him down and kiss him senseless.
“Tea?” Carlos asks in a gap between episodes, already hightailing it to the kitchen. There’s something soothing about tea– the repetitive motions of making it, the warmth of the cup, the companionship of it.
TK follows Carlos to the kitchen, brows furrowed like Carlos is some kind of puzzle he has to solve. He doesn’t ask though, simply sits down at the table and waits patiently
“Sorry I’m making you watch episodes you’ve seen before,” TK says lightly, when Carlos passes him a cup and sits down opposite him.
“I don’t mind.”
I’d do anything with you, is what Carlos doesn’t say.
They fall into silence again, not awkward, just anticipatory, and Carlos chews at his lip. He knows he needs to tell TK, talk to him, ask him what he thinks. It’s just TK, he tells himself, loving, kind, non-judgemental TK. If Carlos can’t speak to him, then who can he speak to?
Carlos takes a deep breath. “My dad came to see me– about being in the film.”
“Oh yeah?”
Carlos hums. “I told him I don’t want to do it.”
“Oh,” TK says, surprised. “But I thought you were already signed on.”
“No– he just assumed I’d say yes. He always just assumes.” TK looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t quite know what to say. Carlos gets it– this is his boss they’re talking about, and so he keeps talking before TK can open his mouth. “I’m sorry I kind of misled you about it last time.”
“You don’t need to apologise, Carlos,” TK smiles wryly. “I guess I’m just disappointed I won’t get to act opposite you everyday.”
Carlos does not blush. He definitely does not blush.
“I did read the script though,” Carlos says, averting his eyes. “Stayed up all night reading it, actually. It was– completely different from what I thought.”
“In what way?”
“I was moved by it.”
TK shrugs. “It is a moving script.”
Carlos gets frustrated at the way his thoughts tangle and refuse to translate into the right words. “No– I mean, yeah it is– but I guess it’s just different to what my dad’s done before, you know.”
“Yeah it definitely is,” TK agrees, smiling at Carlos over his cup, “but it’s good for artists to branch out and do new things.”
“I guess so.”
“Can I–” TK hesitates.
“What?”
“Can I tell you what I think about it?”
Carlos fiddles with his coffee cup, reminds himself that he’s here because he wants to know what TK thinks. “Well, you are the only one here still acting in it.”
“I think he’s written it for you.”
Instinctively, Carlos wants to refute TK. He wants to say that his father has never given him more than a glancing thought, let alone enough thought to write a script for him. He wants to say that he isn’t that man in the script– the lonely one, the sad one, the misunderstood and floundering one. He wants to say that his father doesn’t know him well enough to consciously see how maybe Carlos is absolutely that man.
The dark, little seed of shameful thought– of shameful association– that Carlos had buried when he started reading rears it ugly head again. The script became a mirror, became a looking glass into all the things Carlos thought he could escape. Every ugly wound laid out in size twelve typeface.
He thinks of the passage he underlined and highlighted and returned to this morning. It was a monologue from the lead role, the role he was meant to take, and it had made something unfurl in his chest; some dark, lonely, scared part of him that had sprouted up as the words on the page twisted in front of him:
‘I had this crisis. I was left all alone in the house again. I couldn’t sleep– everything was too dark or too quiet or too heavy. I know, everyone can’t sleep at some point, but… I got up out of my bed, crept downstairs, and sat on the couch, just watching, watching the door, until the sun came up. For the first time, I realised that the world just spins on. There I was, alone in the dark, waiting for something that never came, and the world just kept going. I was the frozen one. I was the one ruining my own life, and I was all alone. And the door never opened and I just thought, ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this alone. I want a home. I want the world to wait for me to catch up to it.’
Carlos swallows down bile, frantically tries to calm his racing thoughts.
“He’s a great character,” TK continues when it becomes clear Carlos isn’t going to say anything, “really broke my heart reading the script.”
“You think I’m sad?”
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say at all.”
“Then what are you trying to say?”
“I think there’s something deeper in him; something lost… something powerful. He’s compelling. He’s real. He wants to be enough for everyone but the goalposts keep moving. The more he tries to please everyone, the more he gets lost himself.”
Carlos chuckles, a little bitterly, a little tired. “So I’m the lost, depressed son?”
TK shrugs. “I think the script is meant to be Gabriel in conversation with his version of you.”
“His version of me isn’t the real me.”
“It’s real to him.”
“I don’t want that version of me. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to read it, and I certainly don’t want to play it on screen. He can’t just do all this instead of sitting down and talking to me.”
“Is that why you aren’t going to do the role?”
“We just– I can’t talk to him. He’ll just be disappointed in the end.”
“I’m not sure you could ever be a disappointment, Carlos,” TK offers in some strange echo of Luisa’s words. Unlike his sister though, TK’s words warm him in a different way, only exacerbated by the weight of his gaze on Carlos.
“Why did you say yes to the script?” Carlos blurts.
TK’s face shutters slightly and he hides behind the cup, sipping it slowly. Carlos waits him out though, knowing TK well enough by now that sometimes he just needs time to order his thoughts, needs to know he’s in a space where he’ll be heard. Carlos won’t push if TK doesn’t want to answer, but there is a deep burning need to understand in Carlos that won’t settle.
“I, um, was not in a good place in New York,” TK says eventually. “I’m sure you saw the headlines,” he laughs self-deprecatingly, and Carlos wants to throttle anyone who ever hurt him.
“I never paid much attention to tabloids.”
“You’d be the first.”
“When you grow up with your father as a famous director, you learn not to look at things like that. Let alone, trust them.”
TK smiles. “I guess so. But in this case, they were all true. I was high most of the time, even on sets. I was in this godawful relationship and then he cheated on me anyways. I nearly overdosed and I woke up in hospital with my dad and agent hovering over me, telling me how the press knew everything.”
Something curdles in Carlos’ gut. “TK, that’s awful.”
“I guess I brought it upon myself.”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Carlos says firmly, and takes it as a win when TK smiles softly at him.
“But the roles dried up, for obvious reasons after that. And I got better, I did, but nobody wanted to take a chance on me anymore. And then I got the call from Gabriel– a new role, a reason to get the hell out of New York, a chance to prove myself again. I still don’t know why Gabriel even thought of me, let alone just offered me the role straight up, but…”
“It’s because you’re amazing, TK.”
TK blushes slightly, dips his face into his shoulder and Carlos’ stomach swoops. “I didn’t have to say yes, though,” TK continues. “I wasn’t going to at first; I didn’t want some kind of pity role, or some awfully written role that I take only out of desperation.”
“What changed your mind?”
“The script. I mean, you’ve read it, you know it’s good.” Carlos nods in encouragement. “But it unlocked something inside of me that I thought I had lost when I woke up in that hospital. It made me feel like an artist again. It made me feel like I wasn’t quite as alone as I felt. I was seen by it. I think a lot of people will feel seen by it.”
Carlos has to blink back tears at TK’s open honesty. He tries to imagine TK reading the script for the first time; wonders if he was as entranced as Carlos was; imagines their hands connecting over the same words, hundreds of miles and months apart. “I guess so.”
“Didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Feel seen by it?”
Carlos chuckles, bitter, a little sad, mainly amazed at how easily everyone seems to see through him lately. “Perhaps too much.”
TK smiles, tilts his head. “You’re still not going to do the role?”
“I can’t,” Carlos says immediately. “I’m not an actor. And I’m not the man in that script. At least, I can’t be. Do you get it?”
“A little, I think.”
“I can’t let myself be that man– sad and lonely and angry and bitter– I just can’t. I think if I start letting myself feel those things, then I’d never stop, and I can’t live like that. I don’t want to.”
“It’s not healthy to just… repress everything,” TK offers, brows furrowed in concern.
“Trust me, I know,” Carlos laughs. “But that’s not what I mean. If I gave myself permission to be that man in the script, then I’d never find my way back to me, to Carlos, to this version of myself that I fought so hard to be.”
“The version of yourself that you know,” TK murmurs, hand reaching across the table until their fingers brush, “the version that you made.”
“Yeah. And it’s not the version that my father sees.”
“That’s okay, though. To be someone different to who you used to be.” TK assesses Carlos’ face for a beat before adding: “to be different than how someone else thinks you are.”
“I think,” Carlos murmurs, stretching his own fingers out to wrap them around TK’s, “I’m learning that.”
///
C.Reyes: thank you for this evening. Sorry for using love island as a cover to talk about myself.
TK.Strand: don’t ever apologise for talking about yourself.
TK.Strand: in fact, talk about yourself more.
TK.Strand: i want to know everything about you, Carlos.
C.Reyes: me too.
C.Reyes: i mean, i want to know everything about you.
TK.Strand: i think, for the first time in a while, that concept doesn’t scare me as much.
TK.Strand: as long as it’s you.
C.Reyes: you’re not a scary person to know, TK.
C.Reyes: you’re one of the best, actually
///
It’s Sunday night family dinner. Carlos felt sick about the concept all day, the thought of seeing his father again making him queasy. But he’s never missed a Sunday family dinner and he’s not about to start now.
Luisa and Ana are already there when he arrives, and he’s relieved at the built-in buffer. He hasn’t spoken to his father since he told him he wasn’t doing the movie, and Carlos still feels on edge, waiting for the fallout. He’s sure it’s coming, and he’s sure it’s coming tonight.
“We think we’ll start filming in a few weeks,” Gabriel says, once they’d all finished eating. “So this might be the last family dinner in this house for a while.”
“Maybe Carlitos could host us instead,” Andrea says and Carlos’ stomach sinks.
“I’m not–”
“Great idea, mama,” Ana cuts in with a shit-eating grin and Carlos wants to throttle her.
“Carlos isn’t exactly a natural host though, is he?” Gabriel says, trying to pick up on the table’s laughter and missing the mark. Carlos flushes a little in embarrassment, looking up at the clock as if it would make time run faster.
Luisa kicks his leg gently under the table and says, “his hosting has always been great when I’ve been there. His lasagne is almost as good as Mom’s.”
“Well, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration,” Ana adds, “but it is pretty good.”
Carlos loves his sisters. Carlos really loves his sisters.
Gabriel chuckles. “Well, he’s never fed it to me.”
“Well, it’s not like you were ever here to be fed,” Carlos murmurs.
“I was working, mijo,” Gabriel shoots back immediately, defensive.
Luisa sighs, “aren’t you always, Dad?”
“And,” Gabriel replies, whirling on her, “what is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re always working,” Luisa repeats. “Even if you’re here, you’re always working. In your office writing, or in your head thinking, or on the phone to one producer or another.”
“I’m an artist.” Gabriel insists, as pretentious as he sounds. “Artists can’t be like everyone else, you know, so dull and mindless. You can’t make art if you have to drive to after-school clubs and… repair leaky bathroom taps, right? Artists have to be free.”
“Sure,” Carlos replies instinctively, “but maybe don’t have children then, Dad.”
Gabriel’s face twitches. “I must have done something right if you three have turned out so well.”
“Carlos–” Andrea says, a gentle warning, but Carlos barely hears her.
“How would you know? You don’t even know us… so how would you know?”
Gabriel is taken aback. “I know it’s been tough for you. I can relate to it. But you’re so goddamn uptight, Carlitos… you’re more sensitive than your sisters.”
“Stop,” Carlos murmurs, world shifting unsteadily around him, everything narrowing dangerously. He wants to scoff at his father’s hypocrisy. He wants to scream all the words he keeps buried. He wants to beg him to see his point of view just once. He doesn’t do any of that– instead, he sits very still and breathes unsteadily.
“It’s not easy,” Gabriel continues, “to love someone who has so much pent up inside them.”
“Gabriel,” Andrea says, sucking in a breath. “That’s enough.”
“I’m just saying that Carlos wasn’t always the easiest child.”
“Maybe don’t say that,” Ana exclaims, and Carlos is done.
Carlos rockets to his feet and follows them where they lead him: the back garden. It’s a little easier to breathe out here, but there’s still something heavy sitting on his chest.
He turns to look at the house from his place on the lawn. From here, he can see the crack in the house. It runs from top to bottom, a familiar path. He’s traced it from the inside of the house many times, knows it like the lines on his own palms. It looks slightly different from the outside– a new angle Carlos had not considered before, like a mirage. For the first time, Carlos considers the crack as an exit wound, as an edge sharp enough to cut if he reaches for it.
Gabriel follows him outside and Carlos wishes he was surprised but Gabriel has always loved having the last word.
“Did Mom send you to apologise?”
“No,” Gabriel says as he comes to stand next to Carlos. “She did send me a lot of angry glares though.”
Carlos just hums. “Not going to apologise at all then?”
“Why are you so angry at me?”
Carlos can’t help but laugh. “I thought I made that perfectly obvious.”
“I was working, Carlos. This life you lived– you loved– was made possible by my work. Why can’t you understand that?”
“I do understand that, Dad. I just–”
“Does it even matter?” Gabriel interrupts. “Will I ever be able to do anything that will make you less angry at me?”
“I don’t know– are you ever going to stop doing things for me to get angry at?”
“I’m not going to stop working because my thirty year old son needs a bit of attention.”
“Trust me,” Carlos murmurs, “that is not what I’m asking.”
“I tried to reach out, you know. This role, this script– but you just turned it all down.”
Carlos looks at the crack in the house again. Something broken to its very core; some old flaw you can follow from root to stem. Carlos turns away from the house then to face his father.
“I didn’t want a script, or a role. I don’t even want to be an artist… I don’t want any of that. I just want, as I always have, a father.”
“I don’t care if you’re an artist, if you do this film or not, if you even watch it. You’re still my son.”
Carlos’ brain is not sure he can even compute what Gabriel is saying– his words so at odds with how he’s treated Carlos all his life. “It’s never felt like that, Dad.”
“I’ve just been doing my best, mijo. To get the kind of life I used to dream about.”
“That’s all I’m doing too, Dad. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
“Why didn’t you read the script?” Gabriel says, and Carlos hears, why didn’t you reach out for the hand I was extending to you?
Carlos sighs and quietly recites, “there I was, alone in the dark, waiting for something that never came, and the world just kept going. I was the frozen one. I was the one ruining my own life, and I was all alone.”
Gabriel’s mouth drops open in shock. “You did read it.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“What did you think?”
“Did you know I used to do that?” Carlos asks, instead of answering– or perhaps, as some kind of answer.
Gabriel just furrows his brow. “What?”
“I used to sneak downstairs when you and mom were both working late, and I’d sit on the couch just watching in case something bad happened. You told me I had to be the man of the house, that I had to… to protect my sisters, so I did. Or I tried to. Every night, I’d sit there, just in the dark. Did you know that?”
Gabriel seems to flounder, shock fluttering across his face. “No. I didn’t know that at all.”
Carlos nods like he knew this already. “The script was good. Really good. Probably your best.”
“So they are saying,” Gabriel hums.
“It felt like me,” Carlos murmurs, hating the way his voice turns paper thin. “Or some version of me, at least.”
It’s a question, perhaps, although Carlos isn’t sure what kind of answer he’s searching for.
“I don’t know, mijo.” Gabriel shakes his head, turns his face away from Carlos to look at the dark horizon. “I just don’t know.”
Carlos suppresses the urge to get frustrated– to rage and say how can’t you know; you’re the one who wrote it! He doesn’t though. He just breathes. “TK thinks you wrote it for me.”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel repeats. “Maybe I did.” He takes a shaky breath. “Maybe I wrote it for me.”
Carlos still feels confused, all these messy thoughts tangled in his brain. “Then why did you say only I could play this role?”
“I thought you’d be good at it,” Gabriel says. “And perhaps, I thought it would be a good way to get to know my son again.”
“If you wanted to know me, you could have just asked.”
“That was me asking, mijo.”
And, oh. Isn’t that something to think about? Carlos has spent so long wondering why his father wouldn’t talk to him that he never considered that his father’s preferred form of communication has always been writing. His words in size twelve typeset, indented from the margins, blank ink. All of the things Gabriel has trying to say wrapped up neatly and sitting on Carlos’ dining table, highlighted and dog-eared.
“Yeah,” Carlos sighs, facing away from the house, the crack, and looking for the horizon. “I see that now.”
This isn’t forgiveness, or redemption, or anything final like that. This is a little bit like confession, maybe, or perhaps like the edge of something, messy and ripe. At least, that’s how Carlos thinks of it, looking back.
At that moment, as the sun dipped below the horizon and Carlos stood there with his father to his side and the house to his back, it all feels more like a stubborn, stubborn weed turning its head towards the sun.
///
18 months later
The film premieres at Sundance. Carlos has never been to Sundance before, even though many of his father’s films start here, so he’s not exactly well-versed in judging what a good reaction to a film is.
He’d say this is a pretty good reaction though.
There’s a long standing ovation, and then some tears, and then it takes Gabriel and TK and the rest of the cast at least an hour to simply get out of the room because people keep stopping to talk to them.
Carlos is so proud that he’s surprised he’s not in tears.
The film is good. It’s really, really good. The lead actor is good but there’s no doubt that TK is the stand out. It’s a little strange, seeing his boyfriend on the large screen in front of him, but Carlos thinks of the way TK’s lip had trembled last night, full of worry that people would hate the movie, would hate him, would never see him than more as the tabloid headlines he’s tried to outrun. Carlos thinks he’s okay with sharing TK with the world as long as he still gets to have that tremble, those little open wounds TK trusts him with, and all the quiet joy that comes along too. That’s all his, Carlos thinks, deliriously happy, TK’s all his.
The world gets to see TK at his best now, and they get to see his father at his best too. The script is electric on screen, along with the directing. The script still cuts a little close to Carlos, but the world will never know that. All the quiet ways Carlos is in the film will only ever be known to him, Gabriel, and TK.
Once, Carlos thought that he would never be able to survive his father seeing all his faults and picking them apart. Now, they’re bared open on a cinema screen and Carlos doesn’t let him eat at him anymore. That’s a version of him he doesn’t recognise– one he’s worked hard to move away from, and one he’s trying to get his father to unlearn. It’s not perfect between them, but Carlos sees his father for what he is now: easily bruised, bad at speaking what coils in his heart, and more like Carlos than Carlos wants to admit.
Carlos watches them both now, as TK and Gabriel try to navigate the crowd of praise. There’s no real rush to leave, although he knows Andrea, Luisa, and Ana are all waiting for them at a restaurant nearby. The table will hold. The world beyond this room will wait for them.
Carlos just stands in the corner and watches, full of sunshine. Someone is talking intently to TK, but his boyfriend is at ease so Carlos doesn’t make a move towards him. Instead, he turns to find his father. Gabriel is already looking at him, and Carlos smiles at him, relishing in the rewriting of the story.