Chapter 22
Louis
“Who’s that?” My buddy nudges me from the side, pulling me out of thoughts that aren’t good for me anyway. It can’t get any worse. My gaze follows the direction of his chin and my heart stops. My knees go weak, and my stomach turns.
Just in time, I manage to swallow back the vomit that has collected in my mouth. Tears well up from the indescribable pain filling my chest.
No, he can’t be serious, he can’t do this to me, not this.
I could’ve lived with anything, I mean it – but this is too much.
I want to go to him, shove him, shake him, ask him what this is all about, if he’s fucking serious.
But my feet remain rooted to the spot on the other side of the auditorium, with the best view of David and the blonde girl hanging on to him like a little baby monkey.
“Does he have a girlfriend now?”
I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t think she’s his girlfriend, David is gay, he never questioned that himself.
Although, who knows, bi-awakening and all that.
What do I know? I’m just the man he was secretly in love with for two years, behind closed doors and high hedges.
I’m just the man he begged to leave because he couldn’t do it himself.
And now? Now I’m the idiot who, after two years of secrecy, has to watch him holding hands with a girl.
That alone hurts like fucking hell, less than two weeks after we broke up, but what’s even worse is that he’s not doing it outside on the street, somewhere in public where I don’t have to see it. No, he’s doing it here, at school, right in front of me.
***
There’s a knock at my bedroom door. “Lou, it’s me. Can I come in?”
I don’t answer. For Paps, it’s enough that I don’t say no. I hear the click of the door handle and the familiar sound of his light footsteps on my hardwood floor, then I feel the dip of the mattress. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”
“He has a girlfriend.” I didn’t expect the despair in my voice nor the following breakdown.
Crying and sobbing, I curl up on my mattress.
The pain is back, with full force and without regard for the consequences.
Paps doesn’t say anything for a long time, gently stroking my back, then moving up to my curls.
“I’m sorry, Lou. I understand that this hurts. But we can’t dictate how anyone feels or who they feel for.”
“We were together for almost two years, two years where no one was allowed to know that we were more than just friends. He hasn’t even known her for two weeks, and yet she’s allowed to hold hands with him at school.
And do you know why? Because she’s a girl, because it’s fucking okay to be with a girl.
But it’s not okay to be with the person you’ve been in love with for almost two years publicly, to whom you say how much you love them at every fucking opportunity, that you can’t imagine life without them.
And you know why? Just because we’re the same gender, for fuck’s sake.
” My father doesn’t contradict me. Because I’m right and he knows it.
***
Today is the day. I marked it in my calendar months ago.
Today is officially David’s last day of school.
One more week of oral exams, then it’s all over.
Eight weeks ago, we were joking around, saying that we would come to school holding hands on that day.
Or that I would go up to him during break and kiss him.
None of that will happen today, instead I’m standing with my friends in our usual spot having the best view of David, who is standing with Finn and a few other people right in my line of sight.
The girl is hanging on his arm as usual.
Over the last few weeks, I came to the conclusion that he’s.
.. well, ignoring her is a harsh word, but that’s how it is.
However, I don’t know how to feel about this realization.
On the one hand, it fills me with a nasty sense of satisfaction that, as far as I can see, he doesn’t want anything to do with her.
On the other hand, I wonder why she has to hang on his arm at all. What does he need her for?
And I only have one answer: to hurt me. To show me that he doesn’t need me anymore.
To show me that his life moved on without me, while I still cry myself to sleep every night.
While I’m still waiting for WhatsApp messages from him.
Sometimes I tell myself that it’s all just a bad dream and wait to wake up, only to realize that I am awake.