I shake my head weakly. “That’s Paul. They’re close friends, but there’s nothing going on, even if it looks like it.” I’m lying with my back to Finn and I’m not willing to expend the energy to turn around. Without a word, he turns and leaves my room. The door closes and the first tear collects in the corner of my eye.
***
At some point, Finn dragged me back to university. “For the credits,” he said, but I don’t get much out of it. I’m only physically present; ninety percent of the time, I don’t even know where I am, neither spatially nor in terms of content. Finn takes me there and picks me up again. Actually, he’s doing everything for me right now. But that doesn’t mean he has to get on my nerves at home.
“David... sorry to bother you, but someone is here to see you.” My heart skips a beat and hopes it’s Louis, until I remember that he doesn’t have our address.
“I don’t want to see anyone...”
Finn’s tone is almost pitying. “I don’t think I have a...”
“Hello, coward!”
“...say in that matter.”
Oh, fuck the hen, seriously. What. The. Hell. Not him. Groaning, I turn around at a snail’s pace and shit, he’s not alone. Of course not.
“Whoa, shit! Why do you look like that? Do you shelter animals in there? Should be enough room for a possum.” He wags his hand in front of my face, his eyebrows raised.
“Luca, Jannis, so nice to see you. Why aren’t you in school?” Rolling my eyes, I turn back to the wall.
“Sunday.” Ah, that makes sense, I’m not at university either. “Louis is not well. And neither are you.”
“And you’re so sure of that because?”
One of them takes a loud breath. I suspect it’s Jannis who has to stifle his laughter. Fantastic.
“Your look doesn’t exactly scream ‘I have a grip on my life’. More like ‘homeless’ or something.”
I turn back to the two of them, and if looks could kill, they’d already be dead.
“Oh, oh, oh, don’t be like that. We won’t hurt you.” Just the choice of words. Nobody talks like that at sixteen. “We’ll meet you in the living room in five minutes.”
Honestly, I don’t know why I do what Luca says, but three and a half minutes later, I’m sitting on the sofa with a coffee in my hand. Just the smell...
“We thought Louis was bad, but you’re really completely screwed up. This has to stop.”
Jannis quickly types something into his phone, then a synthetic voice comes on, deeper than when he was a child. “You love him and he loves you. How can you just let him go? Why aren’t you fighting for him?”
“Because I can’t have him. We’re not allowed to be together.”
“Who says that?”
“My...” At the last moment, I press my lips together, but it’s toolate. Damn it.
“Who?”
Defeated, I exhale. “My father. I’m not allowed to be with a man, otherwise I’ll lose everything. My family, the company...”
“So instead you lose the only person who has ever made you happy.”
I pull my knees up and lower my forehead, squinting my eyes to hold back the tears.
Jannis types again. “Sometimes you have to decide what’s more important to you, who or what you really need in life. Look at yourself. Your heart made the decision long ago, it just hasn’t reached your mind yet.”
I want to say something, argue against it, but I remain silent. The realization slowly seeps into my body. Like honey, it flows viscously through my veins. He’s right. So what now?
“Ah, look. It clicked. You know what you have to do.” Jannis again with the voice output. Before he’s even finished, the two of them get up.
