I snatch it out of his grip, harder than he’s prepared to hold onto it, and harder than the situation warrants. I rip the page out and I’m about to tear it down the middle when I look down in my hands. I see Luke and me. I smell Jasmine and feel the same eerie sense of déjà vu I felt that night.
I sigh very heavily, hating myself even more than I hate this fucked up situation I’ve found myself in. Then I hold the page out to him, rolling my eyes and giving another exaggerated huff when he takes it and clutches the page to his chest.
“Did you mean it,” he says a few days later when the lights are out and we’re curled up in bed. “When you said I was the best you’ve ever had, did you mean it?”
It’s been at least twenty minutes since the last time I came and my mind is feeling the clearest it’s felt in days, if not weeks. Part of me wants to pretend I’m asleep and that I didn’t hear the question, but the rest of me is so close to Luke. It’s like he’s everywhere. His arms and legs are wrapped around me, squeezing me tightly, and his body is pushed up against mine. He’s warm and hard and soft at the same time. He’s not just around me. He’s up my nose and under my skin. I should hate it. I really should. Seriously, three weeks ago I would have despised it. It would have freaked me the fuck out. I’d have been feeling hot and claustrophobic, but I’m not. I don’t want to move.
Fuck me.
I’m getting way into this cuddling shit.
“I meant it,” I whisper, grateful for the blanket of darkness.
“Do you think it’s because I’m a guy? I know you’ve mainly been with girls in the past. Do you think that’s why? Is it different because we’re both guys?”
“It’s not because you’re a guy.”
He’s quiet. I can’t tell if he’s disappointed or not. His hand moves in my hair, stroking so gently, I get that feeling that I might fall asleep again.
“It’s not ‘cause you’re a guy,” I say, mumbling a little this time. “It’s because you’re you.”
17
Jessie
I’vebeeninformedthatwe’re going out tonight and that we’re going to have a wonderful time. It’s one of those times where I’ve literally had the memo, but my brain doesn’t compute. To me leaving the guest house and spending time around actual people seems like a horrible idea. Seems like a recipe for disaster. We’re only just managing to keep a lid on things in front of our parents and we’re doing that by avoiding them as much as possible. The last few weeks we’ve been having dinner and a quick hang-out with them and nothing more. Wherever possible we tag team around them, taking turns to spend time with them on our own because it feels way easier than being around them together. We hot-foot it back to the guest house as fast as we can. The other day I heard my dad say, “The boys are thick as thieves, aren’t they?”
Rachel said, “Mm…” and I didn’t hear the rest of her response, but even that was enough to make me break out into hives.
Luke thinks I’m crazy. He thinks our parents will be happy for us. “They love us both, of course they’ll be happy for us.”
“They love you more. They’ll be worried I’m going to corrupt you or something.”
“Your dad loves you more than anything.”
“Yeah, right. More than he loves your mom? Get real, he’s been living his best life since the day he met her and every once in a while he surfaces and remembers he had me.”
He eyes me up and down thoughtfully. He does it until I start to think he isn’t going to say anything more. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
He leads me to the main house and into the study. The room has strong Pottery Barn vibes like the rest of the house, courtesy of Rachel, but it also has a lot of my dad in it. There are car magazines and brochures left out on the desk and a lot of stray paperwork dotted around. There are photos of him jubilantly holding up various fish he’s caught in his lifetime, and a couple of him and I on our road trip to Byron Bay.
Luke flicks through a few files in the bookcase and pulls out the one he’s after. He puts it down in front of me. I start paging through it, flinching internally almost as soon as I do. The file is at least an inch and a half thick, and every page is a letter or copy of an email to Australian Immigration, the Department of Health, or anyone else who could conceivably have the authority to grant a non-citizen entrance into Australia. I skim through a few of the letters, they’re desperate and they’re not pretending not to be.
It’s been six months since I saw my son.
I’m begging you to consider my case.
Please, help me. I haven’t seen my son for a year and a half.
Some of them are covered in Post-it notes that have things likeSpoke to Tish McDonald. Seemed nice. Call back next week – works mornings only, scrawled on them. Each page I turn hits like a punch to the gut. I was avoiding his calls, slacking so hard I had to drop-out of university, and spending my time trying to think of ways to get around lock-down, while he was going through this.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Your dad loves my mom an insane amount, yeah, but there hasn’t been a single day that he didn’t miss you or fight to see you.”
“Are you trying to make me feel worse than I already do?”
“I’m not trying to make you feel any way. I only want to make sure you have the facts.”
