Leonidas
“Doyou have a phone I can use?”
Leonidas was at a small hostel and cafe on the hillside town of Galicia, and it was everything he’d imagined it to be. The rooms were small and basic, the food was fresh and rich, and he’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d completed the pilgrimage he’d dreamed of taking his entire life… but he didn’t feel the way he’d always thought he would.
There had been a moment, when he’d finally reached the large square in front of the Santiago de Compostela and he’d blinked up at the tall spires of the church, then dropped his knapsack at his feet and pulled the small front zipper open, fishing out the postcard he’d stolen from hispateraso many years before. He held the postcard up with one hand and shielded his bright eyes from the sun with the other.
Leonidas had felt accomplished, but also…empty.
Even as he raised his hand above him and traced the outline of the spires against the sky and his eyes had filled with tears at the sheer magnificence of where he was and what he’d done, his chest ached. It fucking ached with misery and memory and want. He’d clenched his jaw and waited for the feelings to pass over him, and in time they did, like a rough wave that tried to knock him off balance, but he’d fought against it, through it, and then his vision cleared and the church remained—tall and grand and ancient.
Now, he scratched the back of his head, his curls tied back with a leather strap a stranger had gifted him when they’d walked together for a few kilometers weeks before and crossed the border from France into Spain together. He hadn’t seen his beanie in weeks, relatively sure by the first morning that he’d accidentally left it behind in Andy’s twisted sheets. It hadn’t meant anything, but he’d had it for years and he wore it often, and now being without it felt bare and exposed.
Much like the gaping hole in his chest.
“Si,” the man sitting on the patio of the cafe said, passing him a handset that looked like it was a relic from the late nineties.
Leonidas pulled a few euro from his pocket and dropped them on the table in front of the man.
“Long distance,” he said.
“Calling home?” the man asked, his English strong but broken.
“Si,” he confirmed. Leonidas walked to the other end of the courtyard and sat on a white wrought iron chair, then rubbed his fingers together and dialed the only number he knew by heart.
“Hello?”
“Mama,” he spoke softly, his entire body softening at the familiar sound of her voice.
“Leonidas.” He could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s been so long. Where are you? How are you?”
“I did it, Mama.” He tipped his head back and blinked up at the pale blue sky.
“I knew you would.” A pause, and then, “It doesn’t make you happy?”
“I am. It’s just…it’s not as I thought.”
“Because of that man,” she said.
“It has nothing to do with him.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” she chided him, even though she laughed. “You are my only son and you are so much like your father.”
“Maybe him,” he conceded. “But it doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t work between us.”
“You know that as a fact?”
“He is the life I’ve been running away from.”
Leonidas dropped his chin to his chest and frowned, letting out a shaking breath. He’d thought that maybe when he’d gone to Andy in Bordeaux, he could have been persuaded differently, that he could have let Andy’s body convince him that he could stay, or that he could come back. But then Andy had started talking about his brothers and how close they were and the hotel and…
“Oh? So you’ve been running from us?”
“Not you,” he grumbled. “The idea of you.”
“I think that’s offensive, Leonidas.”
“I don’t want to come back to Mykonos and just work in the hotel and find a wife…”
