Chapter 25 – Luca
I’ve been drowning myself in chai lattes.
It means I’ve been buzzing from the sugar intake, rushing through the cafe, serving and collecting dishes at double my usual speed.
It also means that every time someone starts asking about the charity ball, I’m off again before they can finish the question.
Our display bar is bursting with cakes and muffins, because I stay up till late and bake until I’m exhausted.
The beetroot cake is back, and this time I’m forcing it on customers whether they want it or not.
People don’t know what’s good for them. I’ve also been spending more time with Mum, not even talking, just kind of hanging out on the phone.
She takes me with her on hikes, occasionally points out insects or landmarks, and lends me company while I bake.
‘You’re making me redundant,’ Dad said on the second day, ‘and not just me, all the other staff too.’
I kind of had to tell him what happened when he picked me up from the train station, with Simo running off in one direction and me being a whole snotty mess.
‘Have to admit, I’m kind of proud of you,’ he said, once I’d collected myself enough to tell the whole story.
‘Huh?’ I said.
‘I mean, first of all, I applaud anyone who pisses off my parents. It is my life’s mission to inconvenience the Brandenburgs, and I stand in solidarity with all those who join the cause.
So, well done, son.’ I only stared at him, my sense of humour absent after single-handedly laying waste to mine and Simo’s friendship.
‘But to get back to the point, you took a risk. Because you love someone. Do I think the method was flawed? Duh. Do I understand what it’s like to act on impulses when personal feelings are involved and subsequently bury your head in the sand rather than owning up to the mess you made?
I am the master of burying one’s head in the sand.
Did it explode in your face when you pulled your head back out?
Sure. Did it pay off in the end? Who can say? ’
‘Who can say? I can say!’ I sniffed.
‘Don’t count your eggs before they’re laid.’
‘Yeah, that’s not how the saying goes. And the eggs are laid and smashed, thanks.’
I’ve not heard from my grandparents since. Not that I can blame them for what happened after the ball, but that doesn’t excuse their behaviour towards Simo.
‘Oh, babes, they did that with my friends all the time,’ Dad said when I told him about the ball. ‘They think he’s not good enough for you. It’s kind of sweet, in an extremely twisted way.’
If anyone’s not good enough, it’s me. I don’t deserve Simo. Mostly, I followed his warning not to contact him. I sent a text when he didn’t show up at school on Monday, but the message didn’t go through. Either I’m blocked or his phone is off. I really hope his phone is off.
‘I still remember the day my first boyfriend ended things with me,’ Miss M tells me, when I take a piece of beetroot cake up to her flat.
Mind you, I’ve not asked for her opinion, but as usual she decides to share it anyway.
Must be the misery written all over my face.
‘Striking resemblance to Freddie Mercury, that one. I knew how to pick them! But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
Do you know what I did? Found myself another man.
A strapping lad, with hair like a young Bjorn Ulvaeus! ’
‘Who?’
‘ABBA! He’s the first “B”. Or the second one. Doesn’t matter. What matters is, Freddie came running back with his tail between his legs, begging at my door!’
‘Freddie Mercury?’
She tuts. ‘You’re not listening.’
‘Sorry, Miss M. But Simo . . . he’s not my boyfriend. I know it’s what everyone wants. And I guess I did too,’ I admit, my voice almost giving out. ‘Pretty sure that I’ve ruined our friendship too.’
I can feel her watching me, but I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. Seconds pass, then a hand brushes my cheek, the metal of her rings cool against my skin.
‘Darling, of course you haven’t,’ she says, and I don’t know where she gets the confidence from. She drops her hand and slides the cake towards me. ‘Now be a good boy and take this back where it came from, yes? I’m not eating that.’
It’s almost ten by the time I enter the flat that night. I’m at the kitchen sink, scrubbing dough from beneath my nails, when the house phone rings, which either means the caller is old or a teacher. Or, I realise as I pick up, it’s an emergency.
‘Luca?’ a voice asks, and it takes me two seconds to place it. I was right about the teacher bit.
‘Safa?’ I say, and immediately regret it. I tend to avoid calling her anything, because ‘Mrs Lorca’ feels weird after knowing her for so long, but her first name implies a closeness we don’t share.
‘Luca, is Simo with you?’
‘No, he isn’t,’ I say, my throat constricted.
‘Do you know where he is?’ She sounds panicked. ‘He isn’t home and he left his phone behind.’
‘I really don’t know, I’m sorry. Did he go running?’
‘In this weather?’ Her voice jumps to uncomfortable heights. A quick look outside tells me that the world has been swallowed by fog. ‘I hope not. Oh god, what if he did?’ I hear quick footsteps and the creaking and banging of several closet doors.
‘His running shoes are here,’ she says, sounding relieved. ‘Are you sure he’s not with you?’
It’s an odd question to ask. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t snuck into the flat to hide beneath my bed, though I’d welcome it if he did.
‘I can go look for him?’ I tend to have a good sense of where he could be.
‘I’m not sure that would be safe,’ she says, and I think I can hear actual fear in her voice.
‘It’s no problem. I could find my way around this town blindfolded.’
‘Would you? But please be careful. And call me!’
‘I will,’ I assure her.
‘Be careful!’ she repeats, before I hang up.
Dad is snoring softly in his bedroom, so I send him a text as I make my way out.
For a while, I linger in the doorway, trying to decide where to go.
The fog is a wall; I can’t even make out the flower shop, and the light of the street lamps is struggling to reach me.
It’s so thick that it soaks up every sound.
Usually I’d be able to hear the ocean from here, and any cars on the junction.
I take a few steps and it’s like walking into a void.
Everything is closed, so Simo won’t be at Sheila’s or the library.
The stage is out of the question, as something tells me that he’d rather not stare at a giant heart with our initials in it, and Clifford Island is cut off by the tide.
But sad people are drawn to the sea, and if Simo is anything like me, and I hope he still is, he’ll be on the beach.
When my shoes slide over sand, I know I’ve reached the promenade. Even from here I can’t make out the sound of waves.
I should be worried, but I’m as eerily calm as the fog around me.
If something had happened to Simo, I would know.
You can’t unravel a connection so deep in a matter of days.
It’s impossible to ever get Simo out of my system, because he’s been with me at almost every important step of my life.
It’s a calming thought, but I still feel heavy, grieving what I likely destroyed.
A walk along the waist-high wall that separates the beach from the promenade leaves me empty-handed. There’s no point in shouting, so I step on to the sand. I go barefoot, because even though it might be cold, there are few things I hate more than sand in my shoes.
The bank where the ocean laps against the shore leads me down the beach again.
My instinct tells me that I’m getting closer.
Heat gathers in my chest, like a magnet finding its opposing pole.
But when I reach the point where I think he is, there’s only vapour milling shapelessly around me.
Maybe I have lost it, the bond I considered unbreakable.
‘You looking for me?’
I jump and almost land on my arse in the water.
But when I follow the voice a few steps away from the shore, there he is, sitting cross-legged on the sand.
His feet are bare too, and he’s only wearing running shorts.
I try not to stare at the exposed skin, reminding myself that this is the worst time to thirst over his thighs.
‘How did you see me when I couldn’t see you?’
I can’t see his eyes, because he stubbornly keeps his gaze on the sand, but his hair is tousled and there’s a shadow of stubble on his cheeks. Neck bent and shoulders hunched, he looks angry and vulnerable at once.
‘I didn’t. But I could hear the sand crunching beneath your feet.’
‘So you knew it was me?’
He looks up at me with an unreadable expression. ‘I knew.’ Despite the hardness in them, I’ve missed his brown eyes and the flecks of gold in them.
I swallow in a useless attempt to get rid of the shame at the back of my throat. ‘I’m not stalking you.’
‘OK,’ he says. Neither his voice nor his expression gives away any emotion.
‘Your mum called, looking for you. She sounded upset.’
A flash of guilt crosses his face. ‘She hates the fog. She’s scared of it.’
‘I find it kind of soothing. Almost like snow. Everything is muffled.’
Silence unfolds. We stay frozen for so long that I begin to wonder if time has simply stopped, until Simo speaks up again.
‘You say that, but . . . the day Hamza died, he was riding his bike home from a friend. It was only a few doors down. He was wearing a helmet, and his lights were on. But in the fog the car still caught him. He didn’t stand a chance.’
My knees buckle beneath me. I glide into the sand, and though I want to reach out, I stop myself.
‘I had no idea. I shouldn’t have said.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s not like I ever told you.’
I pull out my phone and frantically type out a message.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
‘Texting your mum that I found you. And that we’re back at mine, so she stops worrying.’
‘So you’re lying.’
‘Yes, I’m lying,’ I challenge him. ‘Sometimes, when the truth is too explosive, you have to lie.’
Simo snorts. ‘You and I both know that’s bullshit.’
‘Oh, so let me ask you this: in all the years we’ve known each other, you’ve never pretended? Never acted against your feelings? Never kept the truth far away from yourself because admitting it would’ve hurt too much?’ He stares at me with cool disdain. ‘Fine, just me then.’
The vein on his forehead pulses, ‘No, not just you,’ he admits, ‘but, Luca, there’s a difference between not acting on your feelings and lying about your actions.’
I know he’s right, and I have too much respect for him to point out that I never said I didn’t do it. Omissions are lies in a different coat. ‘That was the worst part. That I thought we were on the same page, when all this time you were putting on an act.’
I shake my head. ‘It was never an act, Simo. When I realised what I’d done, I was so damn scared.
I was angry at myself. I was ashamed. I just couldn’t say that out loud.
Like so many things.’ The truth is that I’m still angry, still ashamed.
A little less scared though, because the worst has come to pass.
‘So why did you?’ he asks.
‘Huh?’
‘What made you do it? Something must have changed.’
I think back to the morning when I typed out the message on my phone and submitted it to the council webpage.
‘We’d both just turned seventeen. You were asleep next to me, and watching you like that made me feel happy.
And safe. In that moment, I let myself feel how I’d secretly always felt about you.
It was such a strong impulse that I couldn’t keep it to myself. ’
‘I was right there. You could’ve told me.’
‘That’s easy to say, now that I’ve missed the chance. And who knows – if I had woken you up, I might still not have been able to tell you. So I chose a more anonymous way.’
‘You didn’t think to, I don’t know, write a letter instead? Set up a fake profile and send me a DM?’
‘It needed to be something drastic that I couldn’t take back. Something to force us into action.’
‘It sure did.’
‘I regret pressuring you. Pushing you so far out of your comfort zone that it hurt.’
He tilts his head, as if he’s considering my words. ‘I don’t regret it.’ I stare at him, confused. ‘I hated the attention, don’t get me wrong. But you’re right, it forced me out of my comfort zone. It woke me up.’ He meets my gaze and holds it. ‘You woke me up.’
I can’t tear my eyes away. Something begins to break through the messy feelings I’ve had since our falling-out. I don’t dare to hope, but the way he looks at me has changed. The hardness has shifted into something softer.
‘Simo, have you . . . picked up The Current lately?’ I ask, because whatever is happening, he needs to have the full picture. And there’s more than enough pictures of us in the town newspaper.
‘The Current?’ he repeats, and I can tell he’s not following.
‘It’s all over social media too. Have you looked at your phone at all?’ He shakes his head. ‘Tuned into Lombard FM? Watched the regional news?’ Still nothing. ‘Then I think you should know—’
‘I don’t care. I don’t care what they have to say. Come here.’
A tingling sensation travels up my spine. ‘What?’
‘I said, come here.’
I shuffle forward on my knees, but before I can fall back into a sitting position, his hands wrap around my neck and pull me forward.
His grip is far from gentle. I struggle for balance, until my hands find his thighs, and the next moment, his lips are on mine.
His hot breath fills my mouth and burns in my lungs.
We don’t break the kiss, not even to come up for air.
He pulls me down, down on top of him. With my entire weight on him, he still tears at me.
I’ve never known a kiss could hurt this good.
Something breaks in me, wracks my bones, covers all of me in shivers.
It’s longing, built up over years, then doubled in the past three days, tripled under his touch, and, finally, released.
He winds his fingers through my hair, grabs shocks of it in his fists, as I sink mine in the soft flesh of his thighs, let them wander over burning skin.
I might be crying, or maybe he is. All I can think, with our bodies pressed into the sand, and the fog erasing everything but us, is that Simo feels truer than anything I’ve ever known. He feels like home.