Chapter 24 – Simo #2
I take several calming breaths, because I can barely form a sentence in the state that I’m in. I’m only a boy with limited room for big emotions. I can’t deal with so much at once.
‘You get . . . funny when you’re around Maz or Luca.
Cagey. Like their presence makes you uncomfortable.
’ They look surprised, but neither of them says anything, so I go on.
‘Sometimes when you talk about Luca, you use this weird tone, as if he’s beneath you.
And you warned me away from “those” bars last summer. ’
Mum wrings her hands, while Dad wears a shameful expression.
‘I only wanted you to be careful. I never thought . . . I didn’t think.’
‘Maybe we’ve not been very good or understanding. But we do love you, Simo. Very much,’ Mum says quietly. ‘Being a parent is hard enough, you know. Nobody teaches you how to raise a child that isn’t . . .’
‘Straight?’ I offer through gritted teeth.
‘Yes, that. It’s no excuse. But I guess we weren’t sure how you really feel and didn’t know how to ask.’
‘A “How do you really feel?” would have done the trick,’ I say, and I can’t help that I sound bitter.
‘Well, now we know,’ Mum says. I think that’s as much an apology as I will get from her.
‘And, so we know for next time, what was so wrong with the question about you and Luca?’ Dad asks. My heart, which has just stopped pounding, is twitching in my chest.
‘It wasn’t such a bad question. I wasn’t prepared for it, is all.’
‘OK, that’s good,’ Dad says, and pats my hand, looking more self-assured already. ‘But I’m still confused on the matter of what’s going on between the two of you.’
Might as well tell them now. ‘He’s the one who put our names on the noticeboard.’
Dad nods. ‘Yes, and?’
How are they not getting this? ‘He’s a coward.’
‘So, he confessed his love for you for all of Lombard to see, and he’s a coward?’
‘He never owned up to it!’
‘But I thought he just did?’ Mum asks.
‘Months later!’
‘I’m not entirely sure I see the problem. Does he want to be with you?’ she doubles down.
‘I – yes. I think so anyway.’
‘And do you want to be with him?’
‘I thought I did. Now I don’t know.’
‘Well,’ she says and seems to ponder her next words, ‘if it helps, I think he’s good for you. And you for him.’
I want to get angry again, because it’s a little late for the endorsement, but I’m running out of energy. I wind my hand out of Dad’s grip and get up.
‘I’ve got a headache,’ I say truthfully. Crying does that to you. ‘I’m gonna take a nap.’
‘Simo, you can come to us any time, OK? I want you to know that,’ Dad says before I can leave the room.
‘And you’re going back to school tomorrow,’ Mum adds.
‘Safa!’
‘What? He can’t hide forever.’
Obviously, I don’t stand a chance at sleep, because my sleep pattern is fucked, and I’m far too riled up.
That exchange with my parents was not on my bingo card.
I thought we’d ignore the elephant in the room forever, until the day when they’d get my wedding invitation – if I decided to go down that route, anyway.
It went . . . better than expected and, simultaneously, it was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. I never want to repeat it.
The one good thing that came from it? I know that they care.
Most of the time, it feels like I’m a duty, a box to tick at the end of the day, right after ‘mark tests’ and ‘weed the garden’.
And on bad days, where my most self-destructive thoughts scream the loudest, I suspected that the only reason they kept going is because they’d already lost one son, and they somehow had to keep the leftover one alive.
But to know that I’m wanted, it’s something I’ve been longing to hear.
The same is true for Luca. Though when he told me on the train that he loved me, I blocked my ears and ran. But I already have a headache and don’t want to dehydrate my body any further. Which means back to the books, and back to Lorca, so I don’t have to think about anything else.
I’ve reached a section that rings differently to the rest of his work.
Sonetos del amor oscuro – Sonnets of a Dark Love – draw on the same distressing images of weeping moons and pooling blood that I’ve encountered before.
At first, I can’t put my finger on why it’s these poems that speak to me, with their disorienting pull between violence and tenderness.
It dawns on me slowly, as I comb over the lines and collect pieces of evidence.
The poet – Lorca – addresses his lover and pleads to be loved in return.
But this lover isn’t just anyone; the lover is a man.
A quick search on my laptop confirms what I already know. Lorca was gay. The country’s favourite poet and playwright was a man who wrote poems to other men because he loved them.
I guess Tío Andrés was right. Federico García Lorca and I speak the same language, just not in the way I expected.
Tú nunca entenderás lo que te quiero
porque duermes en mí y estás dormido.
I find myself in the simplicity of these lines, and that’s not all.
Though I want to escape him, Luca is there too.
He’s the breath on my cheek when he sleeps next to me and the beat of my heart when he dreams on my chest. Lorca was meant to distract me from Luca, but all he does is pull me back to him.
He forces me to remember the moments when I was at peace; endless days reading and studying on the sofa, the hundreds of nights with my arms wrapped around his chest. That was real, wasn’t it?
I hate myself for missing him. I miss his casual touch and the muffins he bakes because he knows how much I like them. His confession was a shock, but now that that’s wearing off, the longing is returning.
I throw Lorca off the bed, feeling like he’s complicit in the betrayal.
The books, too, aren’t serving their purpose; the escapism is turning into life lessons.
Though it’s late, I steal down the stairs.
Huddled in a winter coat, I leave the house.
If even poetry fails me, maybe darkness will swallow me up.