Paul looks confused, as if he’s trying to understand something that defies all logic.
“But you love him.” The coffee tastes even more bitter in my mouth. Yes, I love David. But love isn’t a one-way track, and I’m not willing to give up my freedom for him. We don’t deserve that, neither of us. Sometimes love just isn’t enough. Sometimes fear is stronger. I feel sick.
Chapter 42
David
25 years
“Damn, why do you look like… that?” I shrug and plop down on our sofa. I have no idea what I look like, but if I look even remotely as bad as I feel, I don’t think I want to know.
“Did he tell you he didn’t love you?” Finn sits down next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder. Louis’s words play like a stuck record in my head, a thick lump fills my throat, and an indescribable pain in my chest brings tears to my eyes.
“Nope, he does love me. Still. But... unlike me, he’s out and doesn’t want to hide anymore.” My voice sounds bitter, a tone I don’t recognize as my own, and I flinch.
“You still wantto hide?” What kind of question is that? My heart screams“no”, my head yells“definitely”, and I stand in between. Silently. Cowardly. Paralyzed. With pain in my chest and too little air in my lungs.
“What choice do I have?” My voice is quiet. I know if I spoke louder, there would be a high risk of it breaking.
“Is this about the company? David, honestly, what were you thinking when you started seeing Louis again? That you were going on like you did before your breakup?”
Honestly? I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I convinced myself that this time I could make it work. Maybe I just stopped thinking altogether because my head goes blank when I’m with Louis.
“I missed him so much, and when Jannis and Luca approached me, I just... I don’t know. All I could think about was him, there was no space in my head to think I couldn’t do it.”
I feel incredibly stupid. How naive to believe that I’d be able to come out. “But we could’ve met here, or at his place...”
“Are you even listening to yourself? No public displays of affection, no kissing, no holding hands, nothing. You can’t expect that from him.” Finn’s voice is gentle and soft, but firm. “I thought you were going to go through with it this time.”
Ouch. And the worst part is, he’s right. I know he’s right. But that doesn’t make it any less painful. Everything I imagined for our future has vanished into thin air. I’m alone, and I’ll stay alone. I’ve loved the same boy, the same man, since I was seventeen. Why should anything change, and for what? In the end, I can’t be with anyone, because Finn is right, I can’t expect anyone to go back into the closet for me just because I’m too weak to stand up to my father and fightfor my love. Shit, how fucking pathetic am I? Frustrated, I throw my head back, the thud against the wall less painful than I had hoped. I don’t deserve him, not like this.
Images flash through my mind. Louis. Of course Louis, who else. But he’s not alone. I see him holding someone else’s hand. Standing on tiptoes and kissing him. Laughing together. The other person is hugging him from behind and resting his head on his shoulder, just like I always did. It hurts, it hurts so much to know that everything he did with me, he will do with someone else sometime in the future. I always thought it would be me, or at least I hoped it would be.
A future without Louis never existed for me. For me, it was always him or no one. The second option has come to pass, and it hurts more than I can bear. It pulls the rug out from under my feet, and I wonder if Louis feels the same way.
Does he have no idea how to move on right now? Is everything hurting him as much as it hurts me? Can he breathe freely, or does he feel like he was run over by a forty-ton truck that crushed his lungs?
A sharp pain brings even more tears to my eyes than are already streaming down my cheeks. It’s all my fault; I should never have gone to the club. I’m usually such a rational person. How could this have happened? Where was the risk analysis? Where was the three-year plan? At that point, at the latest, I should have realized that we didn’t stand a chance. No matter how much we love each other and no matter how much we want to be together. And why? Because my career is more important than my happiness? Our happiness? Or because I’m so damn afraid of my father’s reaction?
My father. Just thinking of him makes everything inside me contract. I feel sick, not figuratively this time, but literally. I jump up from the sofa and run to the bathroom. Just in time, Ikneel in front of the toilet, and my breakfast finds its way back up. The breakfast I had with Louis, still in the parking lot in front of the club, because he was so hungry and couldn’t wait any longer. Our last breakfast.
With every second that passes, I become more aware that there is no going back. No more breakfasts together, no more laughter together, no more fire in coffee-brown eyes, no more little touches, no warm shoulder against mine. Just a vast emptiness. Darkness sucks me in and engulfs me.
I let myself slide to the floor and curl up into a little ball, unable to make my way back to the living room. Not now. Maybe never again. Who knows.
Everything hurts. So much that I can’t move. Three hours of sleep on the cold tile floor of my bathroom certainly contributed to this, at least to the excruciating neck pain that shoots up to my head, but every fiber of my body knows what’s really hurting me. I can’t have him, I have to accept that, let him go, somehow try to move on.
“Hey. You’re awake. Would you like something to eat? Coffee?” Finn pokes his head through the bathroom door.
Coffee... he doesn’t know how little I like coffee. Only... oh, fuck. Tears again. I can’t breathe and I shake my head. A hand touches my shoulder. But it’s not the hand I really want, it’s nothis. “Come on, get up. I’ll take you to bed.”
I let Finn pull me up and push me into my room, but instead of going to my bed, I let myself fall into my chair and pull open the top drawer of my desk. Finn’s eyes widen when he sees the envelopes. I don’t know how many letters I’ve written to Louis over the last few years and never sent, don’t know how many times I’ve read them. My fingers glide over the paper and I know there’s one more thing I have to write to him. One last thing. One last letter, the first one he’ll ever receive. The paper in front of me is wet before I’ve even started.
Chapter 43
Louis
24 years
