“No,” I admit. “I haven’t travelled much. France, yes, with my mum. But Crohn’s doesn’t exactly lend itself to backpacking.”
“I guess not,” Dion agrees. “I also haven’t travelled much. Just to Spain a few times with my family. Once to Trinidad and Tobago for my great-grandmother’s funeral. And I went to Paris once.”
He holds my gaze and the light seems to change in the room. It brightens. And the air thickens. There really is something about his eyes. Their liquid darkness. Those perfect eyelashes.
“Did you like it? Paris?” I ask. I guess talking is one of the only ways we’re going to pass the time and I don’t hate it. Not at all.
“I liked the art I saw there. Especially in the Louvre.”
“Oh, yeah. The Louvre is great. If you can put up with the hordes of tourists.”
I think briefly about my first time to the Louvre, about walking around the sculptures unabashedly admiring the marble forms of men and women. And then D— flashes into my mind. The girl from my French class. That afternoon we shared together.
“I saw the Mona Lisa there. Did you know that some people believe she is actually based on Leonardo Da Vinci’s gay lover?”
I wait for Dion’s curiosity, his amazement, his follow-up questions. But he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me over the top of his mug and his eyes sparkle. His mouth is hidden but I’m pretty sure he’s smiling.
“What?” I ask, feeling immediately self-conscious. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “So, you said earlier that you’d moved back here, because of your mum. Where were you before then?”
“Birmingham,” I tell him. “I went to uni there, undergraduate and then did my teaching qualification there too. When I was doing a placement at a school, a permanent position came up and so I applied. I really liked the school. After a few years, I met a local girl and fell in love, and well, that was me for the next eight or so years.”
“But you broke up with the girl?”
“Yeah, when I moved back here,” I explain with a wry smile. “We tried long-distance but it didn’t work.”
I hope he doesn’t ask me any more questions about Sandra. It’s so much easier to say that long-distance broke us up when in reality, I think our relationship had run its course. That sounds so sad.
“So you’re a teacher? What do you teach?”
“PE. Sports. Whatever you want to call it.”
“So that explains the tracksuit.” Dion nods at my attire.
“Yeah.” My self-consciousness returns.
“And where are you teaching now?”
“At the local secondary school. At St Edwards.”
Dion spits out a mouthful of tea. “You’re teaching there?”
“Yeah, why?” I frown at him.
“Oh, nothing. No reason. I just,” he holds eye contact for a beat, “I went to school there.”
“Oh, really? What year did you leave?” Maybe that’s why he looks so familiar. Maybe he really was in the year above or below.
He opens his mouth to answer but then his phone rings.
TWELVE
BENJI
THEN - MAY
“I'm going to do it,”I announce as I push away the now-empty bowl of hot chocolate. A circle of powdery liquid and croissant crumbs in the bottom are all I have to show for the breakfast that I just gobbled up. If only I could guarantee it won't make my stomach cramp on the way to school like it always does. But I'll worry about that when it happens. For now, I have to stay focused.
