We got the early train. I’d planned to say something light on the platform, something vaguely charming or at least competent, but all that came out was “This is the right train, right?” and she just smiled and showed me the tickets on her phone. I hadn’t seen her use the app before. She has one of those quiet, terrifyingly efficient ways of doing things, like she’s always five minutes ahead of me but politely pretending not to be. We found our seats. Facing forwards. I took that as a good sign.
I tried to start a conversation about the Alhambra and completely blanked on anything factual, so I pivoted to whether she wanted coffee from the trolley. She said yes. We drank it in silence but it was fine. The train did that thing where it goes fast enough to make your brain settle. Fields, fields, solar farm, mountain, tunnel, light. I liked sitting next to her. Her elbow didn’t flinch when mine touched it. At some point I noticed she was reading something on her phone and smiling. I didn’t ask what. I just leaned into the silence.
We arrived around midday. The Airbnb was exactly as advertised: slightly too white, echoey in a way that suggested minimal soundproofing, and there was definitely a faint smell of detergent in the sofa cushions. She chose the room with the bunk beds without blinking, said she liked the window view better, then made a joke about top bunk diplomacy. I laughed too hard. She raised an eyebrow like she was noting it down for future reference. We unpacked without really unpacking. I opened the fridge, found a single miniature bottle of cava and a carton of orange juice. Neither of us mentioned it.
We walked most of the afternoon. Down through the Albaicín, where the streets turn into threads, and the tiles on the buildings are prettier than they have any right to be. She pointed out something about the rooftops — how they look like the ones in her aunt’s village — and I nodded like I knew where that was. I didn’t. We didn’t bother with a tour guide. We stopped when something looked interesting, kept walking when it didn’t. She stopped to take a photo of a door. I took a photo of her taking a photo. She didn’t see.
Dinner was early by local standards. A side street near Plaza Nueva. Grilled artichokes, lamb with cumin, two glasses of wine that turned into four. She told me about a time she got locked in a library overnight when she was nineteen. I asked her what she read. She said she didn’t — she slept in the children’s section under a paper mache whale. I told her I once got kicked out of a museum for touching a dinosaur exhibit I thought was a replica. It wasn’t.
Back at the flat, she changed in the bathroom. I tried to brush my teeth quietly. We both said goodnight at almost the same time, then laughed. I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling fan for a while. I could hear her moving around, then quiet. Then the tiniest sound of a wrapper. Earplugs. I don’t know why that made me weirdly happy. It just did. Like she knew the world was too loud sometimes, too close, and had a system for keeping it at bay.
I didn’t sleep much. I wasn’t anxious. I just didn’t want the day to end. There’s probably a German word for that. We’ll pretend I knew it and forgot.
Next morning we’re heading to the Alhambra. She says she has a shortcut. I believe her.
If you want to know what kind of slow this trip reminded me of, it’s the kind that doesn’t announce itself. Not peace exactly, more like permission. Which is weirdly the same feeling I had the day the village nearly rioted over lettuce and somehow I ended up defending someone I barely knew — that afternoon when everything went sideways but nobody stopped being kind.