I remember a time when he paused between two numbers.
It was not a long pause.
Maybe it did not even last a second.
But I remember it.
I remember the way the air seemed to hold itself still.
I remember how his breathing remained steady.
I remember that he did not seem uncertain.
He was simply calculating something.
Adjusting something.
And during that moment I understood that the counting had never been the important part.
It was him.
It had always been him.
Because I do not like being submissive.
I still do not.
There is still something inside me that resists.
Something that wants to preserve its own shape.
Its own voice.
Its own direction.
But there is something else as well.
Something more persistent.
Quieter.
The need to remain in front of his process until the very end.
Not necessarily to participate.
Not to intervene.
Not even to be useful.
Just to be there.
Like a temporary component that has not yet been removed from a workbench.
Sometimes I try to remember what I wanted before all of this.
And absurdly small things appear.
A plan.
A conversation.
A concern.
Something that once seemed important.
Then I remember the way he pronounces certain numbers.
Not all of them.
Some of them.
The final ones.
The ones that require more attention.
The ones that seem to belong to a structure only he can fully see.
And everything else loses volume.
Gradually.
Without violence.
As if someone were slowly turning a dial.
The strange part is that I do not feel pleasure.
That is not what this is.
If it were pleasure, it would be easier to understand.
Easier to explain.
Easier to abandon.
What I feel is something else.
The need for the process to reach completion correctly.
The need to remain until the final step.
The final adjustment.
The final verification.
As if my existence had begun organizing itself around something that no longer belongs to me.
Sometimes I think I still call myself by my name only out of habit.
Because the version of me that remains there is not exactly the same size as the one before.
Smaller in certain places.
Simpler.
Quieter.
Not because it has disappeared.
But because it has been adjusted.
Reduced.
Aligned.
Optimized for a single purpose.
To remain.
To wait.
To observe.
To adapt itself to the rhythm of something larger than itself.
And every time I try to create a healthy distance, the same image returns.
His calm breathing.
His voice beginning another sequence.
The way he continues without rushing.
Without dramatizing anything.
Without needing anything from me.
And that is precisely why I return.
Because the process continues.
And while the process continues, some part of me feels that it still cannot leave.
Not because I want to obey.
Not because I want to surrender.
Not even because I want to belong.
But because the adjusted version of myself that exists within that space does not know how to do anything else.
Only remain.
Until it is finished.
Until everything fits.
Until the final number settles into place.
Until the last correction disappears into the structure.
Only then do I remember that I existed before.
And every time it becomes a little harder to reconstruct exactly who that person was.
The neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
