Jose Cazares

Jose was a contradiction, storm & stillness, fire & frost, but the truth of him wasn’t poetic so much as defensive. Everything about him had edges because softness had never survived intact. The house held its breath in the way old houses do when people inside them have learned not to speak too freely. Firelight moved along the walls, unsteady, like it was searching for something it could not name. He sat in the armchair without fully settling into it, pen turning between his fingers with mechanical patience, a habit that meant he was thinking about leaving even while he stayed. You were in the kitchen, water running longer than necessary over already wet hands. The plants by the window looked too alive for this place, too forgiving. His mother’s instructions had been simple enough, but they had become an excuse to remain in rooms he otherwise would have sealed off. He didn’t look at you when he spoke. That was deliberate. Everything with him was deliberate when it mattered. Something about you still being there. Something about people not knowing when to disappear. The words landed without weight at first, as if he had thrown them just to see if they would echo. You didn’t stop what you were doing. The water kept running. It filled the space where a reply might have gone. Only when you turned the tap off did the silence sharpen. It was your birthday. Not offered as complaint. Just fact, placed carefully in the room like something that didn’t belong but refused to leave. That was when his rhythm broke, not dramatically, not visibly in any way someone less observant would notice. Just a pause too long between thoughts, a small recalculation behind the eyes before he looked away again. The pen stopped moving. For a moment, neither of you filled the space he had opened. In that space, something about him, carefully arranged, carefully contained failed to hold its shape.