15. Not Crazy, Just Fond of You
15
NOT CRAZY, JUST FOND OF YOU
A lberto was the best-looking guy at school. Someone even voted him Best-Looking Girl, too. It was enough to seduce Mathias, once. Hopefully tonight, he could do it again.
He stood in nothing but his underwear in front of his mirror, and he carefully stared at his own reflection for the first time in four years. His thighs and his forearms slightly shaking just like last time, he gave himself a serious inspection.
In his opinion, he looked too skinny. Frail, even. He had moles on his body he didn’t care for, and dark circles under his eyes. And speaking of, they were a dull grey and not at all worth remembering. Nothing like the burning embers Mathias had been gifted with. His hair was fine, he supposed — smooth and black, like Mamma’s. But his skin tone was too pale; he often looked sickly. However, tonight, his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and his entire face was flushed with thoughts of retribution, yet he somehow looked even hotter.
That’s because he knew how to dress. Growing up around models and designers had its benefits, after all. He had an eye for what looked good, especially on him . That and a mother who spent her allowance buying him the kind of clothes that would make anybody look like Prince Something.
After he got dressed, ready for battle, Alberto sat at his dressing table and lit a cigarette, perfectly aware he wasn’t allowed to smoke in his room, or to smoke at all, for that matter. But he couldn’t care less tonight. As he was pondering earlier how he could make himself not merely sexy but devastating, dressed to kill — or simply to remind a certain someone of what he was missing — he opted for the I don’t give a shit about clothes but still, I look like a rockstar style, that I’m not afraid of looks, in fact, please, do look at me vibe that he often had to fake for the magazines. Alberto blew smoke at his reflection and smirked; he looked insane tonight. Reckless. Dangerous. Shut one drawer, open another; Pandora’s box is filled with uppers and downers.
The heady notes from Discobitch’s hit single pounded through Xavier’s speakers, making the walls of the villa shake and pulse in rhythm, like the bloated heart of a corrupt monster . Alberto made his entrance into the packed living room thinking he was the baddest bitch tonight, and he might as well have been right: the mere sight of him had such an effect, the other guests parted like sycophants to let him through. Alberto split the crowd feeling like Cleopatra—regal and doomed—and with a sweeping glance across the room, he easily spotted his Mark Antony.
Standing against the wall near the kitchen, Mathias was accompanied by the inescapable Elodie. Alberto tried his best not to charge straight at him and scream, “Why won’t you talk to me?!” It had been almost two weeks already — two weeks of this torture . Alberto couldn’t accept the idea that Mathias had gotten hurt and he wasn’t there to make it better. Nor could he accept Mathias might not miss him their games at all, so he came here to find out, and not just that: he came to make sure Mathias would not only leave with him tonight, but also renounce girls – and to hell with it, all others — for the rest of his life.
The rolling mass of dancers — which seemed to include half the bloody school — regurgitated people from all sides; Alberto did his best to go around it to get closer to Mathias, grimacing when a gesticulating guy accidentally shoved him into the wall. He found himself face-to-face with Eric, who was coming from the opposite side, and whose burst of laughter died in his throat at the sight of him.
Alberto tightened his lips. Should he say hello? But Eric, his expression unusually anxious, barely spared him a nod before slipping away. Alberto didn’t know what to make of this. If Eric really knew or suspected something had happened between Mathias and him, and had invited him on purpose, didn’t that count for something? Eric had always disliked Alberto, and Alberto later made sure to give him a reason why. If Eric was nice to him now, it had to be related to Mathias — it had to be. Everything was so much clearer now! So, why the long face? Had he been quietly encouraging a relationship between them, only to regret it at the last minute?
But Alberto didn’t want to waste too much energy worrying about Eric. He tossed a look over his shoulder, hoping to find Mathias searching for him, but the latter was still talking to Elodie, and he wasn’t paying attention to him at all , as opposed to the number of girls who couldn’t help throwing him avid looks. Alberto could see every one of them tonight, and he decided he needed a drink. He elbowed his way to the bar, where he found Zak rearranging the snacks display while bobbing his head to Discobitch. His eyes doubled in size when he saw him.
“Alberto? Hi!”
Alberto briefly held up his hand in salute and returned his attention to the bar. Zak watched him read the labels on the bottles with a slight frown.
“You’re… Are you drinking tonight?”
“Think so, yes.” He pursed his lips. “Is there any Champagne?”
Zak’s frowned deepened. “Champagne? Why?”
Alberto pointed at the speakers. “Bad bitches drink Champagne.”
“Oh.” Zak scratched his cheek. “No, I haven’t seen any. Xavier’s cousin Gwen probably drank all of it. She broke up with Kayvin, and he’s in a terrible mood, even worse than usual. Xavier’s been running around all night, making sure no one causes trouble…”
“So… no Champagne, then?”
“… No.” Zak hesitated for a few seconds before he picked up something hidden behind half a dozen bottles of strong liquor. “But… could I perhaps interest you in a glass of red wine?”
Hearing the word wine and remembering the bottle he once shared with Mathias, Alberto first felt tempted, but here was the problem: he had no recollection of his behaviour once he got drunk, but he vividly recalled Mathias ditching him the morning after, so he still wasn’t confident he hadn’t done or said something repulsive.
“The thing is…” Zak added bashfully in the face of his hesitation, “I always bring a good bottle of wine to parties, thinking, one day, some other weirdo will want to drink it with me, and we’ll talk about things no one else wants to talk about, like adults , and hahaha! I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”
Alberto gave him a long look, then snatched the bottle from him. “I can do that. I’m a weirdo. ”
“Well, let me open it,” Zak said, seizing the bottle back. “Because you’re shaking — is it that cold outside? — and this is actually good wine, according to my sister, who gave it to me…”
A quick look at his hands told Alberto Zak was right, so he let him carry on without a word.
“… Because, unlike you , I’m still a minor,” Zak went on, “and I’m not allowed to drink, technically, but I mean, live a little, right?” His lips stretched in a grimace. “Oh God, I really am talking too much.”
Alberto felt like telling him that there were worse things a minor could do than having a glass of wine — he spoke from experience — but he swallowed back the urge and waited for Zak to pop open the bottle instead.
“So, what did you do for your birthday, anyway?” Zak asked, searching for glasses.
It took Alberto a few seconds, but he eventually recalled, even letting out a chuckle. “Cemetery stroll.” Zak froze and almost dropped the two little plastic wine glasses he’d found. “Fancy,” Alberto said, pointing at them.
“Right?” Zak appeared both confused and relieved by the change of conversation. “Xavier said Gwen broke most of the proper ones in a fit of rage, so the baronet got mad.” He tasted the Saint-émilion like a connoisseur, which Alberto found amusing since until six months ago, he had never had a drop of alcohol. “So, what should we talk about? Maybe not your birthday, then… What about?—”
“I got one,” Alberto cut in. “You know Xavier’s father isn’t a baronet, right?”
He took an enormous sip of wine, but Zak was too shocked to notice. He was looking at him as if he’d just announced the President was actually three children stacked on top of each other under a trench coat.
“No way…”
“Way. Way, way .”
“But why…”
Alberto giggled into his glass of wine. “That’s not even the worst part. I don’t think he’s lying. I think he’s clueless!”
Zak’s magnificent eyebrows drew together. “W-What?”
“First, baronets are an English thing, and they don’t even have them anymore. There are almost none left anywhere. Xavier’s father is a baron , not a baronet. And the funny thing is that a baron is of a much higher rank, too, but for some reason, Xavier got his father’s title wrong.”
Zak finally noticed his mouth was wide open; he hastily cleared his throat and smiled. “How do you know all this?”
“My mother has an interest in those things. I looked Xavier’s father up once. It was an easy find.”
Before Zak could answer, Xavier emerged from the crowd and stopped before them, his face glistening with sweat. “Alberto! You… you came?”
To Alberto’s surprise, Xavier looked more shocked than happy to see him. It brought the former an inexplicable feeling of vexation. He retorted, “Why do you call your father a baronet even though he’s a baron?”
Xavier blinked several times. “I… uh… I just thought it sounded cuter. Less, you know… threatening .” He briefly squeezed Alberto’s shoulder. “Just stay close to Zak, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Mind your own business , Alberto thought, throwing back his drink.
“Oh, you like the wine, at least,” Zak said with a nervous laugh.
“Yep.” Alberto poured himself another glass and winked at his ex’s dubious expression.
“You seem different tonight.”
“Oh? Am I not handsome in your eyes anymore?”
Alberto instantly regretted saying that. It felt cruel, for some reason. But Zak merely lowered his eyes. “Don’t play games with me,” he mumbled. “You know you look handsome, even more so tonight. But still, you look… different.”
Alberto should think so. After so many days, his head was buzzing, his jaw was aching, and his heart wouldn’t stop beating madly in his chest, so fast that it made the rest of the world look and sound eerily slow—trapped, like him, in an ever-spinning carousel.
And Mathias still hadn’t returned to him. On the contrary, he was flirting with blonde girls who looked exactly like that blasted Eric; that was enough to set his blood on fire. Speaking of, Alberto ignored the odd look of terror on Zak’s face and asked, “What are you doing so far away from the boyfriend?”
Zak laughed, but not before his cheeks darkened, rendering him absolutely adorable. “We can spend some time apart, you know. Might as well get used to it,” he added in a thin voice.
“Even if you’re talking to me ? ”
“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah, even if we dated .” The way he said the word gave Alberto pause.
“What? Are you denying that we were together now?”
Zak scoffed. “Were we? I mean… were we together? You…” He lowered his voice. “Let’s be serious, here. You didn’t even like me.”
Alberto’s shoulders sank. “Of course I liked you, Zak.”
“Clearly, not enough.”
“No… maybe not.”
“Finally.” Zak exhaled a sigh of relief. “You admit it. So, what was it in the end? Why did you ask me out? Was it out of pity?” He scowled. “Did you feel bad because you said these horrible things to me when I first asked you out? Is that it?”
“No…” Alberto pinched his brow. “What was it I said again?”
Zak let out a dry laugh. “You don’t remember. Great. As a matter of fact, you said you couldn’t throw yourself away?—”
“—to the first one who asks. Right.” His fingers tightly wound around the stem, Alberto studied the wine swirling around in his glass. “Did I ever tell you about my mum?”
Zak gave him a startled look. “No, never. You… you’ve never told me anything.”
“You’re right, I haven’t,” Alberto conceded with a half-smile. “She… My mother, she got married way too young. It’s by far the biggest regret of her life. She jumped into that relationship, and it almost cost her… everything. For years, she told me to be careful, to not, well… throw myself away to the first one who asks as she herself did. She meant for me to be safe, but she drilled this into me over and over, and it’s the first thing that popped into my head when you asked me out.” Alberto let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Zak. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know you at the time… I thought you were like everybody else: just interested in my looks.”
Zak’s expression twisted. “You were right in the end. I’m just as shallow as you thought.”
Alberto vehemently shook his head. “That’s not true! After that party, I spent a lot of time watching you. I saw how hard you worked, and how devoted you were to that Drama Club project…”
“Oh…” Zak’s voice fell to a whisper. “No, not so much, really…”
Alberto knew Zak was probably more devoted to flirting with Eric than to the film, but he pretended not to pick up on that. “And you were kind to me, always. No matter how many times people tried to tell you I was soulless and uninteresting, you never said a single bad thing about me.” Alberto looked away from Zak’s rising eyebrows. “In any case, my words at the time made it sound like I thought you were beneath me or something. But it wasn’t like that.”
“And this whole time, I’ve wondered if there was something wrong about me…”
“No!” Alberto held up his hands. “No. It wasn’t your fault, Zak. It’s me who did wrong. I knew you were attracted to me, and I used it against you. I also knew Eric liked you…”
Zak’s expression turned bitter. “You knew?”
“He was clearly all over you; only an idiot wouldn’t have noticed. So, of course I kn?—”
“All right!” Zak balled his small fists. “Then why, why on earth did you ask me out if you didn’t even like me?”
The hurt, the confusion flashing in his eyes… All of it was Alberto’s fault. It was a sorry sight, one that churned his stomach with guilt.
“You were asking earlier if I pitied you. It’s not you I pitied, Zak. It was me.”
When Zak’s expression softened, Alberto turned his face away. “I know what people say about me… I’ve known it since the start. My first week at Colette wasn’t even over before Joy was asking me out. I rejected her, but she wouldn’t get it. She kept coming back, so I told her to leave me alone, and she got vexed. She started telling everyone that I was soulless, boring, and dead inside…” His voice grew weak as he spoke. “I saw it become this thing, but what could I do…? It’s not like I could make myself interesting all of a sudden… So, I said nothing.”
Inside his glass, the wine looked like another dark pool he was on the verge of falling into. “You know… you hear something often enough, and eventually, you start believing it…”
“Oh…”
“Zak… the truth is, after observing you for so long in Aurons, I really wanted to be your friend.”
“Oh,” Zak repeated. “But… but we could have been friends! You could have just asked. You didn’t need to ask me out !”
Alberto let out a joyless laugh. “Would you really have wanted to be my friend? Really? You know very well it’s not my dazzling personality that attracted you in the first place. You liked my face, and I used it against you, and it was wrong. I know it was wrong. I feel so awful that I refuse to even think about it. It’s just… I just thought it would be nice to be just like everyone else. To not be alone, for once…” He briefly shut his eyes, then faced Zak again. “Don’t think I didn’t try to make it work. I thought it’d be really nice if I could fall in love with you. It just didn’t happen.”
And when he realised there was no chance of it happening, he waited for the right time to send Zak off. Why else would he have told him about Kayvin and Eric’s fight? When he understood Eric’s feelings for Zak had grown way beyond the mere crush, Alberto knew he had to find a way to tell Zak, if only to feel better about himself about asking him out when he shouldn’t have.
“You never really tried—“ Zak slammed his glass of wine down. “You never told me anything about yourself!”
“Zak… Don’t forget you were in love with Eric the entire time.”
“I’m not likely to forget!” Zak jabbed a finger in his arm. “Y-You stood in the way of our true love!”
Alberto rolled his eyes. “ You stood in the way of your true love.”
He meant it. In this affair, they were both in the wrong. Alberto just happened to think he was the worst out of the two. Not only for snatching Zak from under Eric’s nose in a sad attempt to curb his loneliness after the Michael debacle, but also because of his monstrous failure to feel anything when Zak ditched him after four weeks. Alberto had listened to Zak’s breakup speech, numb and frightened, not at the thought of being alone again, but at how collected he was, faced with the inevitability. He had always been alone, anyway. Him and Mamma against the world… Or so he thought until…
“Anyway…” Zak abruptly interrupted his thoughts, changing his stance and taking on innocent airs. “It seems Eric wants to be your friend now. What a notion, right?”
Alberto bit his tongue to stop himself from laughing. “It appears so.”
“He lied to your mother the other day. It was a lie, right?”
“It was. Eric never stayed at my place.”
Zak opened his mouth, and Alberto suspected he wanted to ask who did but decided otherwise. “Why did you introduce us to your mother?”
“She wanted to meet my friends.”
“Are we friends, then?”
“I think…” Alberto paused while a couple helped themselves to beers before jumping back into the crowd. “I think you and I should keep our distance. ”
“What the fuck?” Zak’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Didn’t you just say you wanted to be my friend?”
“I…” Alberto scratched his brow with the tip of his thumb. “I don’t want Eric to worry about us.”
“Why would he worry?”
“I just don’t want to antagonise him anymore,” he said, pretending to be absorbed by the snacks displayed on the table.
These past few days, Alberto had come to understand the depth of his resentment whenever he was faced with Zak and Eric’s love. How comfortable they were around each other, how relaxed. Their evident devotion was a prickly, painful reminder of everything Alberto was denied: a friend, a companion, someone who’d love and care for him, motivated not by the bounds of blood, but by genuine affection.
I chose you, and you chose me. We chose each other.
Nobody would choose Alberto. Mathias obviously didn’t, not that version of himself, anyway. Better luck with the next one.
Alberto grimaced at the food arranged in front of him. Looking at snacks was also like looking at couples: a display of delicacies he could merely gaze at, but never taste. Eventually, he found some olives. He could do olives. They were fine.
“I don’t want Eric to have ideas, that’s all,” he said. “To worry… that I might be up to something…”
Zak cut in with a laugh. “I’m surprised you suddenly care so much about someone who keeps calling you a shovel.”
“In all fairness…” Alberto stuffed an olive into his mouth. “My face is kind of shaped like a shovel.”
Their talk ended up leaving Zak looking completely nonplussed. “I’ll be damned…” he said. “You… you wouldn’t have developed any ideas about him, would you?”
Alberto almost choked on his olive and went into a fit of coughing. “Not— not my type!”
Who would choose a golden retriever over a wolf? Not him, that was certain.
“Good!” Zak didn’t bother to conceal his relief. “I wouldn’t want to be in a competition against you.” With these last words, Zak put his — almost untouched — glass of wine down and walked away.
Plucking a cigarette from his case, Alberto used his height to keep an eye on him. Why would Zak say something like that? Alberto never got what he wanted .
Zak met Eric by the sofas at the other side of the room, and the latter immediately brought him close, pressing a kiss to his forehead, barely even pausing in his conversation with his friends. Alberto briefly met eyes with Mathias. Before his heart could leap hopefully in his chest, the other immediately looked away.