“Shortly after...” Louis’s voice breaks. That’s not like him, and it hurts. He clears his throat and takes another breath. “Shortly after we broke up. You kissed her at school. You held hands.”
I did what? I can’t really remember the weeks after the breakup, everything is a blur. “I have no idea who you mean. Shit, I don’t really have any memories of that time. All I remember is that everything hurt and that it was so hard to even breathe.”
“She didn’t mean anything to you?”
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about. I’m so sorry if I hurt you. Shit...” Tears well up in my eyes mixed with a panic that presses the air out of my lungs.
“You didn’t do it to hurt me? You didn’t have... sex?” God, what kind of questions are these? How can you have such a blackout and not remember anything?
“No, fuck, I would never have intentionally... not more than I already have. I definitely didn’t have sex with her.” I hope. What if I can’t remember that either? My panic doubles. Louis isn’t looking at me anymore, but I need to be sure he understands me.
Kneeling in front of him, I take his face in both hands. “Look at me, please.” Two brown eyes lift, and I see the tears in them, the pain, the hurt. I knew I had done this to him, but I never had to see it. In brief moments, he let it slip here and therethat I had hurt him, but only now, in this moment, do I realize how much.
“Lou, I don’t know what happened back then, I’ll find out, I promise, but there’s one thing I know for sure. Never in my life has there been anyone who meant as much to me as you do.” Louis’s head falls on my shoulder, he trembles and his breath catches, and I hold him tight.
***
“Who was the girl?”
Finn looks at me in disbelief. “I never even had a girl."
I stumble briefly over the wording of his answer, but I don’t have time to go into detail right now. Later, for sure. “Not you. Me.”
Okay, now I’ve confused him completely. He looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. He takes another sip of his coffee before answering. “Uh, maybe I’m wrong, but I’d be very surprised if I was. You’ve never had anything with a girl.”
Now I’m confused. “But Louis said I had something with a girl. We held hands and kissed at school. Right after our... breakup. But I can’t really remember that time. It’s like a black hole.”
Finn and I have known each other for too long, I know every one of his reactions, and that little raise of his eyebrows was a groundbreaking realization for him. Then he bursts out laughing. Finn. My best friend. Who always seems so emotionally sorted and almost aloof.
“I’d like to laugh with you, but right now I feel more like crying. Could you share what’s so funny with me?”
He has a hard time calming down, but eventually he manages to get a coherent sentence out. “I don’t rememberher name, but there was this girl in eleventh grade. She was all over you, it was awful. She was determined to be your girlfriend, constantly holding your hand, touching you and stuff. Sometimes she even tried to kiss you. But you never responded to her. You didn’t respond to anyone at that time. I think when you got fed up, you fled to the bathroom.” Relief wants to spread, but I can’t quite let it yet.
“So I didn’t do anything with her?”
“I don’t know how it looked from a distance, but you didn’t feel anything for her. The only thing I sensed from you was pain. It was so bad, I could hardly eat at the time.”
Finn’s answer puzzles me. “What do you mean? You could hardly eat?”
“Oh.” Only now does he realize what he just said. His eyes widen; his cheeks glow a delicate pink. “Shit. I didn’t mean to... I... you know that people quickly become too much for me, especially when things get very emotional, like after games or something.” He waits patiently for me to nod before continuing. “Don’t think I’m crazy, okay? But it’s because I can feel people’s emotions. It’s like they’re my own. Not everyone’s, but some people’s, especially when they’re feeling strongly. I can almost always sense you, and at that time, it was particularly bad. But I can reassure you, you definitely weren’t with her in any real way.”
That’s reassuring, but this conversation raises so many new questions. “Do you know which feelings are your own and which are someone else’s?” I imagine that must be awful. “And could it be that you’re actually happy yourself, but really sad because of someone else?”
Finn shrugs helplessly. “Most of the time, I know whether they’re my feelings or not. But sometimes they’re so overwhelming, they’re all I feel.”
“Have you ever been in love?” It’s definitely none of my business, but I’ve been asking myself that question for so long.
“I know what love feels like. But I only know it as someone else’s emotion, not my own. Sometimes I think it might be nice to feel it for myself. Sometimes I miss the physical closeness I see in others when they’re in love; I imagine it to be beautiful. But so far, there has been no one with whom I could imagine that.”
Only now do I realize that Finn never played spin the bottle, truth or dare, or other classic teen games. That’s how I got my first kiss with a girl. It was awful, but also a revelation. “So you’ve never kissed anyone?”
He shakes his head sheepishly. “Like I said, I’ve never met anyone I felt close enough to.”
“Are you into men or women?”
“I don’t know. I don’t find people sexually attractive per se. Maybe I’m ace, I don’t know.” Finn says this with a shrug, as if it’s no big deal, but to me it feels huge. I couldn’t imagine living like that, constantly with so many feelings in my head that there’s hardly any room left for my own. Because even if they sometimes hurt, they are often way more beautiful.
I remember exactly how it felt when Lou and I fell in love, how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. How good it felt to be touched by the right person and to touch them. The closeness that Louis and I have now, the little touches, the warmth, the knowledge that someone is there—Finn doesn’t know any of that, and I feel so sorry for him. But it also makes me realize even more that I can’t screw up this chance with Lou. Not this time.
