Chapter 22 – Simo
‘What do you think?’ I ask, looking at the heart painted on the planks of the open-air stage. With the first day of school behind us, I thought it wise to see for myself what everyone was whispering about in class.
Luca’s head is tilted, a vein tracing his neck like a river of quartz in pale rock. My gaze keeps snagging on it, that exposed piece of skin with a single blue line disappearing beneath the collar of his coat, so much prettier than the crass pink shape on the peeling floorboards.
Like me, Luca is taking in the newest work of the anonymous shipper. I’ve seen this motif before, the heart and our initials, but never spread over several square feet.
‘They’re getting less subtle,’ Luca replies. ‘And it’s wonky.’
‘Yeah, they’re no Banksy.’ I’m surprised by the calm in my voice.
The first time I saw our names on the noticeboard, I’d have been happy to dig myself a grave and disappear into it.
It was scary because it was true. But even if the shock has worn off, I still hate the thought of proving them right. My feelings aren’t public property.
‘This has got way out of hand,’ Luca mumbles.
‘It has,’ I agree, caught between relief and irritation, between the urge to run from this place and the desire to pull Luca back into my arms, with his palms pressing into the small of my back.
At least Luca and I can openly address the hearts now, even if my pulse spikes every time – and not in a nice way, like it did at the Brandenburgs’ party.
I swear there was something in the air that night.
This, however, couldn’t be further from romance. Our initials scratched into wood with a key or a knife or sprayed across floorboards that people trample over without thinking.
‘They’re all different styles,’ Luca notes. ‘Posters, carvings, graffiti. Makes me think that it’s not just one person.’
The truth sinks in – a cold drop on the back of my neck that makes my whole body feel clammy.
‘We have a fan club,’ I conclude, repulsion tainting my voice. Before the break, things were changing for the better. I was more relaxed around Luca, it felt as if he was more open with me. We’ve reached a new level of closeness, and I’d hate for this to come between us again.
With a look on his face like he’s seen enough, Luca steps out into the rain. I expect him to head to the cafe, but to my surprise, he turns in the direction of my house.
‘Everything OK at home?’ I ask, hurrying after him.
Though I’ve tried my hardest to forget it, the conversation I overheard between Maz and Graham still haunts me.
I wonder if Maz told Luca about any of it.
And I wonder what it is exactly that the private investigator ‘dug up’.
They don’t need another family secret to rock their relationship.
I can’t help feeling guilty about not telling Luca what I heard.
But if he doesn’t know about his grandparents trying to bribe Polly into having an abortion, then it’s not up to me to reveal that.
It would only cause him pain. If Maz decided to keep it quiet, so will I.
‘Everything’s OK,’ Luca says, pulling me back into the moment. ‘But there’s something I want to give you.’
I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, and by the time we take the steps up to my bedroom, anxiousness has spread through my body, making my fingers twitch. What is it that he can only give me in my room, away from anyone else?
Luca sits down at the end of my bed and rummages around in his backpack. His hair is damp, water trickles down his temples and stains his jumper. I grab a fresh towel from my wardrobe, but instead of going over and rubbing him dry, I stand there, wondering if that’d be weird.
‘Stop hovering,’ he says, and throws me a quizzical look.
‘Stop dripping on my bed,’ I say, and throw the towel at him.
I move from the edge of the room and sit swivelling on my desk chair.
‘Here, your Christmas gift,’ he says and holds out a rectangular object in glossy paper.
I stop swivelling. While he dries his hair, I carefully unwrap it.
The sound of the paper mixes with the rustling of the towel, and though we’ve spent so much time in this room together, it now feels too small and quiet.
I’m aware of his body and my body and our breaths steaming up the window.
‘Did you make this?’ I ask, uncovering a picture frame with subtle wood carvings.
‘I found it at Sheila’s antiques shop, but I sanded it down and gave it a new coat of paint. Thought that photo should have a proper home.’ He nods to the picture on my desk.
I try not to buckle under the realisations that hit me. First, that Luca noticed the picture, second, that he created something to protect it, and third, that for the first time ever, we’re talking about my brother.
‘Thank you,’ I say, not quite able to meet his eyes. I take the photograph and attempt to slide it into the frame, but my hands tremble so much I almost drop the glass. A second later, Luca wraps his hands around mine. He holds me, while I hold Hamza. Neither of us lets go.
We sit like this until my fingers stop trembling, until my breathing falls in line with his.
He gently unclasps my grip, and I watch as he reassembles the frame.
When light catches the skin on the back of his fingers, fine hairs appear and shimmer like the crest of a wave.
They’re barely visible and only cover the first bone on each of his fingers, a soft patch of grass in the valley between his knuckles.
I wonder if I could feel them if I touched his fingers right there.
I’m mesmerised, until Luca hands me back the frame. When I place it on the desk, Hamza looks at us with smiling, crinkled eyes. I thought I’d be sad, seeing him stuck in the past like that, but instead his smile makes the heavier days a little lighter.
‘I have something for you too,’ I say, my voice raspier than usual. ‘But first, promise you’re not going to judge.’
‘I don’t judge,’ he says.
‘Not out loud. But you make a face.’
‘I don’t make a face!’ he protests, and when I stay silent, he adds, ‘Fine, I promise. But I’d never judge you.’
‘Well, you haven’t yet heard my dark family secret.’
‘How dark can it be?’
‘Hmm. Murder?’ I take a book of postcards from my desk drawer, but rather than the typical images of the Alhambra castle, they show something else.
‘How is a flamenco dress connected to murder?’ Luca asks, staring at the cover.
‘It’s not the dress. It’s what comes after.’
He keeps leafing through and finally reaches the section that shows colourful men’s garments with intricate embroidery.
‘These are stunning,’ he says, and traces the artful stitching with a finger.
‘They’re my abuelo’s clothes. He used to wear them for bullfights in the arena when he was young.’
‘Your grandfather was a matador?’
‘Yup. Tío Andrés said that my abuelo and his brothers used to kill bulls for money and fame. They stopped when one very angry bull returned the favour and violently ended the life of one of the brothers. Abuela threatened to divorce him if he kept putting himself in danger. And she’s a devout Catholic. ’
Luca stares at me with horror in his bright blue eyes.
‘We are talking decades ago,’ I clarify. ‘Anyway, my family still has a collection of traditional costumes gathering dusk in the attic, but a few years back this photographer turned it into a postcard set that’s sold in shops around the city.’
‘That’s so cool. The clothes, I mean, not the animal cruelty.’
‘My cousins made me try this one on,’ I say, and show him a black traje de luces adorned with so many silver leaves it gives the effect of armour.
‘Please tell me you have pictures.’
‘Sorry, I don’t,’ I say, and feel my neck grow hot. The clothes are very form-fitting, leaving little to the imagination. I both do and don’t want to see Luca’s reaction to the pictures.
‘Are you lying? You’re lying. You know I have your cousins’ socials. I’ll just ask them.’
‘I’m offering you a piece of my ancestry and that’s how you repay me?’
He sulks for a few seconds, looking far too cuddlable with his bottom lip stuck out and his hair up in tufts, before he drops the attitude.
‘All right. Thank you.’
The sincerity in his voice fills my chest with warmth, slows my frantic heart.
I can think of nobody I want to share my history with but him.
Unlike his grandparents, my abuelos can’t be found online.
In my family, stories are passed on as night-time tales and dinner talk, a gift from one generation to another.
I want to let him in on the lore, whisper it like secrets into his ear.
As if my thoughts propel him closer, Luca places the postcard deck on the bed and gets up. His knee bumps mine when he stops in front of me, and I’m forced to tilt back my head in order to meet his gaze.
‘Your hair is wet too, you know,’ he says, voice low and gentle.
He pulls the towel from his shoulders and lifts his hand, but if he intended to dry my hair, I’ll never know.
He halts at the sound of steps on the landing, and when his attention flicks to the open door, I feel a rush of irritation at its loss.
A silhouette appears in the frame, followed by a knock.
‘Luca, I shouldn’t be surprised,’ Mum says, and I can’t tell if she’s being nice or passive aggressive. ‘Did you have a good break?’
He takes a step back, creates a casual distance between us.
Before I can stop myself, I wonder if Mum is scared that his homosexuality will rub off on me.
It’s not a new thought, but always a brutal one.
I try to banish it from my mind, find something to distract me.
My gaze settles on Hamza, and I take several steadying breaths.
‘I did, thank you. How was yours?’ Luca asks, ever polite.
‘I’ll never be a fan of flying, but Granada is beautiful,’ she admits.
‘Mum, look what Luca gave me for Christmas,’ I interrupt. I don’t know what it is exactly that prompts me to take the frame with Hamza’s picture and hold it out to her. Her face hardens and she steps back, as if I was dangling a dead bug from my fingers.
‘That’s nice. Luca, are you staying for dinner?’
He hesitates. From the corner of my eye, I sense that he’s asking me what to say, but my arm is still outstretched, my gaze on Mum.
‘I . . . I think Dad’s making lasagna. But thanks.’
She makes an odd grimace, a failed attempt at a smile, and flees the room.
A bitter feeling settles in my gut. I don’t think I’ll be able to sit across from her at dinner tonight.
I wouldn’t be able to swallow a single bite.
She acted exactly like this when Abuela summoned up the little English she knows to tell us that she keeps Hamza in her daily prayers.
Mum instantly changed the topic, pretended she didn’t hear.
‘She acts like he never existed,’ I mutter, and the bitterness in my gut begins to simmer. That’s nice, she said. How cold can a person be?
‘She’s hurting,’ Luca says so softly the words are barely there.
‘We’re all hurting.’ The last thing I need is for Luca to defend my mother. I slam the picture back on to the desk. Immediately I feel guilty for mishandling Luca’s gift, for mistreating Hamza.
‘I should go,’ Luca says after a minute of tense silence. He grabs his backpack and makes to leave. As I watch him cross the room, something in me buckles with a violence I haven’t felt before.
For the past two weeks, the whole time I was away, I held my breath at every boy I came across, quietly hoping for Luca.
He was hundreds of miles away, more distance between us than ever before, yet I saw him in the curve of a neck, the fall of a step, in strangers passing by.
I saw him in my nights too, in the moonlight that fell through the shutters, wishing it was his fingers drawing lines on my skin instead.
‘Luca,’ I call out. He stops in the door but doesn’t turn. ‘Mind if I come?’
His shoulders relax.
‘Course not.’
I leave without saying anything to my parents.
Outside, I’m glad, for once, that night falls early.
At least nobody will see us in the dark.
I don’t keep a forced distance, instead I let my body find its usual spot to his right, so my shoulder nudges against his.
I catch his scent – a hint of coffee, a bite of sea salt – and inhale deeply. He’s where I belong.
Luca’s gaze is glued to the ground. In the faint light, the exposed skin of his neck glows white like the moon, the vein a dark shadow blooming beneath.
‘So your dad’s made lasagna?’ I ask, to break the silence.
‘Daniel, more like,’ he replies. The way he says it makes me perk up.
‘Is that, like, a regular thing?’
‘We’ve definitely had a lot of Italian food lately,’ Luca replies. ‘I’m not complaining.’
Overcome by a sudden boldness, I place my hand right below the base of his skull and pull him into me without breaking our stride. His skin is cold, and I feel the ridges of his vertebrae press into my palm. We continue like this, heads close, hearts beating, all the way home.