The selfie

Just another New Year's Eve story

Vasco always thought of Clara as his best friend, though if someone asked, he would hesitate, scratch his head, and say something vague like “a person I talk to a lot online.” He was afraid that if he named it, it might disappear, like those soap bubbles that children blow. But in the quiet corners of his mind, where he didn’t dare to speak too loudly, he knew: Clara was his best friend.

They met in that strange marketplace of souls that was the social network, a place where there were memes, playlists, and people shouting opinions into the void. Vasco had stumbled into a group about Latin American literature, half out of boredom, half out of a vague desire to feel less alone. He had posted something clumsy about how Cortázar made him feel like he was walking on a tightrope between dream and reality. The post got two likes and one comment.

The comment was from Clara.

She wrote: “Cortázar is good, but he doesn’t know how to sweat. Amado does. He smells like the street, like frying oil and sea salt.”

Vasco read that sentence three times. It was as if someone had opened a window in a stuffy room. He replied, and she replied back, and by the end of the night they were no longer talking about Cortázar or Amado, but about the music they listened to when they couldn’t sleep, the books they pretended to like and secretly hated, the way the city felt at dawn when the buses were still half empty and the world seemed to belong to the tired and the invisible.

Their jobs were the kind that wear down the edges of a person. Vasco worked in a call center, repeating the same phrases every day, his voice turning into a tool, a product, something that belonged more to the company than to him. “Good afternoon, my name is Vasco, how can I help you today?” He said it so many times that sometimes, when he was alone in the bathroom, he caught himself whispering it to the mirror and felt a wave of shame and sadness wash over him.

Clara worked in a small accounting office, buried under spreadsheets and invoices, her eyes burning from the glow of the monitor. She once told him that the numbers danced in front of her like drunk fireflies, and that if she didn’t have music in her headphones, she would scream.

They were both poorly paid, exhausted, and bored in that deep, existential way that makes a person feel like they are slowly dissolving into the wallpaper. The world around them seemed to be made of gray: gray offices, gray buses, gray faces. But at night, when Vasco logged into the network and saw the little green dot next to Clara’s name, the gray faded a little.

They talked about everything: the books that made them cry, the songs that made them feel like they were standing on a rooftop with their arms open, the films that left them silent for hours. They invented stories about the people on the bus, gave them secret lives, lovers, crimes, miracles. They shared links, quotes, fragments of poems. Sometimes they sent each other photos of their coffee cups, their desks, the view from their windows. Never their faces. It was an unspoken rule, like the rules of a game that no one explains but everyone understands.

That social network was their refuge, their little corner outside the real world where everyone was bored and pretending not to be. In that digital alleyway, they were not employees, not tired bodies in uncomfortable chairs. They were voices, ideas, jokes, confessions. Vasco would spend the whole day waiting for the moment when he could go home, kick off his shoes, and log in.

Time with Clara did not behave like normal time. It slipped through their fingers, disappeared. They would start talking at nine in the evening and suddenly it was two in the morning, and Vasco would realize he had to be up in four hours. But he didn’t regret it. The next day, even with red eyes and a heavy head, he carried a secret warmth inside him, like a small candle that refused to go out.

Everything remained like that, balanced on a thin line, until New Year’s Eve.

Vasco spent the last day of the year as he spent most days: working. The call center was full of people trying to solve last-minute problems, shouting into their phones as if the year would only end when their complaints were resolved. He left late, with a headache, and took the crowded bus home. The city was already dressed for the party: lights hanging from balconies, music spilling out of bars, the smell of grilled sardines and beer in the air.

He didn’t feel like celebrating. He had bought a cheap bottle of sparkling wine and some leftover snacks from the supermarket. His mother had gone to spend the night at his aunt’s house, and he had refused the invitation, saying he was tired. The truth was that he didn’t want to answer the same questions as always: “And you, Vasco, no girlfriend yet? No plans to move up in the company? You’re a smart boy, you could be doing better.” He preferred the company of his silence and his computer.

He got home, took a shower, put on a clean T-shirt, and sat in front of the screen. The clock on the wall said 23:17. He logged into the network, his fingers already knowing the path by heart. The page loaded, and there she was: Clara, online.

His chest loosened and before he could type anything, a notification popped up. A message from her.

“Happy New Year, which would be much better if you were here with me.” And, below the text, there was an image. A selfie.

For a moment, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. His brain, used to associating Clara with words and not with flesh, took a second to adjust. Then the image settled in his eyes.

Clara was lying in her bed, reclined against white pillows and looking toward the camera with a wide, cheerful smile. A white, textured comforter or blanket was draped over her, partially covering her torso in a way that made Vasco suddenly aware of his own breathing. Her hair was loose and her lips looked like if she had just said his name.

The image wasn’t pornographic. It wasn’t even particularly revealing. But there was something in the angle of her neck, in the softness of her gaze, that carried a weight he had never felt in their conversations. It was as if, for the first time, the ghost had a body.

Vasco read the sentence once, twice, three times. The words seemed to expand, filling the room. “If you were here with me.” Here. With me. The phrase had the taste of forbidden fruit, of something that had been growing in the shadows and now stepped into the light.

He felt a heat rise from his stomach to his face. His hands, resting on the keyboard, trembled slightly. He looked again at the photo, at the curve of her shoulder, at the way the light traced a thin line along her neck. He thought of all the nights they had spent talking about books and music, about the jokes, the confessions, the small intimacies. He thought of how careful they had always been, how they had kept their friendship in that safe, disembodied place.

And now this.

The message forced him to think about what he had been avoiding for months, maybe years. What was Clara to him? A friend? A voice? A possibility? Had he fallen in love with her without realizing it, like someone who gets drunk slowly and only notices when they try to stand up?

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Outside, the city was already exploding in fireworks, the sky lit up in red, green, gold. Shouts, laughter, music. Inside, the only sound was the faint hum of the computer and his own heartbeat, loud in his ears.

If he replied, if he said something like “I wish I were there too,” the ground would shift. The friendship would no longer be just a refuge; it would become a bridge, a path leading somewhere unknown. Maybe to a meeting, to a kiss, to a night like the ones in the songs they shared. Or maybe to disappointment, to awkwardness, to the realization that the magic only existed in the distance.

If he didn’t reply, or if he pretended not to understand, he would be closing a door that she had opened with trembling hands. He would be saying: “Let’s stay where we are, in this safe, half-lit place.” But could he go back to the old way after seeing her like that, after reading those words?

He opened his eyes and looked at the screen again. The photo was still there, her gaze fixed on him, patient and vulnerable. The message blinked at the bottom of the chat window, waiting.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, uncertain. Clara was no longer just a collection of sentences on a screen. She was a woman in a room lit by yellow lights, on the last night of the year, saying she wanted him there.

Vasco felt something inside him crack, like the shell of a fruit finally giving way. He realized that, whether he liked it or not, the world had shifted. The refuge was no longer just a refuge. It was an invitation.

He took a deep breath, the kind a person takes before diving into the sea, not knowing if the water will be cold or warm. His fingers touched the keys.

He still didn’t know what he was going to write. He only knew that whatever he typed next would change everything.