Page 92 of Matteo

“You okay?” I peer at his face, trying to read his expression for clues.

He shrugs. “Family stuff.”

“Family stuff?” My voice is deliberately low and dramatic, but I now understand the cause of his heaviness. “Want to walk and talk about it?”

He doesn’t answer, but starts walking, so I set off with him and keep quiet, letting him be. We walk in step, side by side, as people pass us by. Dogs strain at their leashes, tourists snap away on their cameras and phones. As the world ambles by, I feel something tectonic shifting between us, because this isn't a team meeting. We’re not discussing a technical problem.

This is us meeting out of work, on a weekend, and spending our personal time together.

He changed that. He turned up on my doorstep with a care package, offering to make things better while I suffered my monthly cramps.

“That kidney I was telling you about, for my old man,” he says after a while.

The way he says it makes me stop and turn, like the words are weighted with something. “Yeah?”

He turns to face me. “Looks like it might be mine, maybe.”

“Yours?”

“Zach’s still having tests. The others didn’t match.”

“That's ... big,” I say, quietly. “But he might be compatible.” I want to reassure him. “You don’t know what you don’t know yet.”

“Even if Zach matches, he won't do it.”

Won't.

I’m itching to ask why. I’m itching to ask a lot of things. “And you?”

He looks across the park, to a group of teenagers playing with a frisbee. “I don't know. It's complicated. I feel like I don't want to.”

“Then why did you get tested?”

“We all did. It was expected. It would be wrong to not at least go through the motions.”

Offering a kidney is no easy feat, not even doing such a thing for a parent or a sibling. It's noble, and kind, but it also means that you can't have anything happen to you, that you need to be careful in your life, with your one kidney.

Matteo's dilemma feels like a cross to bear because he's offering life to a man who he clearly doesn’t like.

“Why won't Zach offer?”

He lets out a heavy exhale. “It's ... complicated.”

It’s always complicated. I thought my life was complicated but Matteo’s family life sounds like a nightmare, even from the little I’ve seen.

He doesn’t know what it feels like to not belong. To not have your people, your tribe. I had something like that when Vlad asked if I wanted to join his group. Turns out later it was a hacking group, but to me that was a place where I belonged, and mattered.

He reaches for my hand. It’s sudden and unexpected and catches me off guard as his fingers intertwine in mine. But he’s fallen silent again and it’s clear that he doesn't want to talk about it.

So I don't push. Or comment, or judge. I just watch him in the long silence that follows. A silence that fills with words neither of us are saying, and we stay like that, facing one another, waiting for the other to speak.

“How are you feeling today?” he asks.

“Better.” I smile. “No cramps. No hot water bottle needed.”

“That's good to hear.” I love the way his full lips curve upwards, how his eyes sparkle. Like he needed it. Then, he lifts our intertwined hands and kisses the back of mine. My insides jump with joy and a lightness permeates my body because I feel more alive than ever.

A dog barks somewhere nearby. A child laughs. The sun breaks through the trees, warming my face. Every sound, every sensation feels sharper. Standing here beside Matteo, with his hand wrapped around mine, I don't want this moment to end.