Chapter 8
Dayyan
He’d been crying. It was more than obvious.
His eyes were red-rimmed, and his smile was a little strained, reserved.
He didn't want to tell me what was wrong though. He never does. Talking about himself isn’t his thing, but when I ask the right questions, I get answers.
Sometimes hesitantly, but he never ignores them.
In moments like this it feels like I haven't asked the really important questions yet.
It’s not the loss of his mother preoccupying him, nor his early childhood full of neglect and rejection. The pain he carries within him has a different origin.
Jannis is relaxed today despite his earlier tears. His smile is soft. “Do you miss Frankfurt?”
I take a deep breath, first in, then out; the question is not that easy to answer.
“Yes and no. It was difficult at first. Before we met, I felt very alone here. I missed my friends a lot then, we constantly texted or talked on video calls. It’s less frequent now, and I’m sure it’ll get even better when school starts next week and I have something to do in the mornings. Is our class nice?”
Jannis just shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m probably not the right person to ask.”
I search for irony in his voice, or humor, but there’s none. Maybe shame, but as so often, I don’t understand where it comes from. There’s something new though, an openness and vulnerability I suspected was there, but I’d never noticed it before.
“Why were you crying when we first met?” Oh, fuck, did I really just say that? Okay, that wasn’t the plan, but fine. “You don’t have to answer that, I understand if it’s too personal.”
Jannis interrupts me with a vehement shake of his head taking a deep breath. “How much time do you have?” His voice is quiet but firm.
“No plans for today. Why?”
“How far can we walk with Flocke?” I don’t quite understand the question; we’ve been on really long walks over the last few weeks. Where does he want to go?
“She’s a husky, you can’t wear her out that easily.” My dog wags her tail, happily running around us. She heard her name and the word “walk” and that’s enough to get her pumped up.
“Can I show you something?”
“Sure. Where are we going?”
I don’t get an answer to my question. Not when I ask it, and not when Flocke takes a few sips from a stream. There’s no need for an answer anymore because before long we’re standing in front of the cemetery entrance. I have no idea what I was expecting, this wasn’t even in my top 50 guesses. Shit.
Jannis falls silent beside me as we follow the path under big trees.
This isn’t the first time he’s taken this path.
He takes the countless turns without thinking twice, like it’s muscle memory.
When he stops, we’re in front of a grave decorated with colorful plants.
A small tree still bears its last dried-up flowers.
“That’s a magnolia. It was cold for a long time this year, that’s why it bloomed so late.” He shrugs helplessly and points to the small tree next to the gravestone with the blue inscription. Danny Maier. He died three years ago at age 15. Fuck.
Jannis’s eyes fill with tears, his lower lip trembles.
“You were friends.” His head falls to his chest and he shakes it. Just slightly. If I hadn’t been looking at him, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. For a brief moment, I’m confused, then it clicks. “You were together?”
He nods. “But... no one knew. We wanted to tell everyone at school the next day, but... I never saw him again.” His voice is nothing more than a broken whisper, choked with tears.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry. I... I don’t know what to say. That’s terrible.” Maybe it’s best if I just keep my mouth shut and give him a hug. He’s shaking all over, but we’ve never hugged each other before.
“How did he die?”
“Meningococcal sepsis. It happened so fast. I was so sure he’d make it.”
I can’t even imagine how this must have knocked him off his feet.
Carefully I place my hand on his shoulder, a firm touch.
He flinches and stiffens at first, his eyes wide and panicked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Then he leans into my touch, his eyes closed, and his mouth contorted in pain.
If he were alone, he’d scream. When his head falls onto my shoulder his whole body is shaking and I feel his legs give way beneath him.
Jannis is taller than me and heavier, it’s absolutely impossible for me to hold him up. Slowly, I let myself sink to the ground with him. His head falls into my lap, his fingers claw into my T-shirt and shorts, and the floodgates open with a force I’ve never experienced before.
I don’t know how long we’re sitting like this before Jannis calms down. The sobbing subsides, his breathing slows, and the trembling ebbs away. Eventually, Flocke comes over and nudges him until he cautiously lifts his head.
Jannis’s eyes are red and swollen, and the corners of his mouth still twitch in pain. “I’m sorry, I got overwhelmed, I...”
He wants to get up, but I pull him back onto my lap. “Hey, shhh. You don’t have to be sorry for anything. Thank you for bringing me here.”
I gently brush a curl from his face. His hair falls in soft strands around my fingertips and I let it slide through my fingers once more. A shiver runs through Jannis’s body, but he doesn’t turn away and he doesn’t sit up, so I take his silence as consent to continue.
“When you said you wanted to make it official, does that mean even now no one knows what you were to each other?”
A slight shake of the head. “You know now.”
He had to cope with his grief all alone all these years. How could he even manage that?
“But why didn’t you talk to your family about it? You’re close, aren’t you?” I can’t hide the bewilderment in my voice.
“I didn’t want to out Danny. No one knows he was gay, it felt wrong.”
Jannis slowly sits up. My hand slips out of his hair, we are no longer touching, and even though I know there is no worse time for this realization, I immediately miss the warmth of his body. Luckily, I don’t have time to think about what this means.
“And I didn’t want anyone to think I was exploiting his death to make myself more important than I am. Or telling lies about him.”
I don’t understand his logic. “But...”
“No one knew we were seeing each other. No one, literally no one.”
Jannis has been mourning a loved one for three years, and no one was allowed to know what that person meant to him. That it wasn’t just a classmate who died, but his first love. “You miss him. That’s why you cried.”
“It sounds ridiculous, I know. We weren’t even together that long, but...” He stops abruptly, as if he has to think about how to finish the sentence, only to leave it hanging in the air.
“You don’t have to justify what you feel. Grief isn’t the same for everyone. And it’s certainly not easier when you have no one to talk to about it. Thank you for your trust, Jannis. I mean it.”