Chapter 17
Jannis
I firmly grab a hand, and it grabs back, holding me tight—but it’s not his.
It feels warm and soft. I feel the little hairs on his fingers, knowing they’re black, not blond.
A song I haven’t heard in three and a half years plays in our earbuds.
I see his face in front of me, Danny’s face, see him laughing.
In my memory, he is well, he is happy. I see the empty grave, the light wooden coffin, I remember how the emptiness felt back then, so dark, so deep, so hopeless.
It's different now. I feel a warm body behind me, Dayyan’s breath on my neck, coming at a frequency that’s become so familiar to me over the last few weeks.
His hand in mine. I want to let myself fall and I hate myself for it, still I don’t break free from his embrace.
Not immediately, not when the song is over, and not after the next one or the one after that.
At some point, my tears subside, I remember that, then my body gives up.
The first thing I notice when I wake up is Dayyan.
I’m not quite conscious when I turn in his arms to look at him.
My gaze flicks briefly toward the blue sky, then I search for his deep brown.
What the hell am I doing here? Why is my stomach tingling again?
We’re friends. Platonic friends. No feelings.
My heart doesn’t belong to Dayyan. Danny took my heart with him.
It’s his and that will never change. He can’t give it back to me, he’s gone. Gone, gone, gone.
But what’s pounding in my chest so loudly then?
***
“You’re late today. Everything okay?” Papa is standing at the sink, pouring himself a glass of water. I mumble in agreement, but I already know I won’t get away with it. “Did you meet up with your friend?”
“Since when do you speak German to me?” I reply in French, and Papa grins. Not cheekily, or mischievously, as Louis or Luca would, rather a little sheepishly.
“I don’t know how you feel about each other, so I wanted to keep the question neutral.”
“We’re not together. There’s nothing going on. We just get along well.” I can hear how defensive I sound. I wouldn’t believe myself, so I’m not surprised Papa doesn’t either.
“Janni...” Only he calls me that with a genuine French accent.
It sounds like Jeanne with an y at the end, and I love it.
“You don’t have to talk to me about it, but I hope you know that it doesn’t matter to us who you love.
You two just spend an incredible amount of time together, and you never used to go out so much before. ”
“I never had any friends, so who would I’ve met up with?
” My tone is bitter and almost a little reproachful, which is unfair, because my parents always asked if we needed to change schools to make a fresh start in a hopefully more open environment, but I never wanted that.
I was too afraid of failing again, and finding out I was unlikable as a person, regardless of my selective mutism.
“Unfortunately, your classes have never given you the chance to show who you really are. It was easier with Dayyan, of course, because you communicated with him verbally from the start. Paps and I are just happy you have someone you enjoy spending time with. Whether as friends or more.”
“We’re really just friends.” My defense is crumbling, and Papa knows me too well.
“But for you, there’s more?”
“I don’t know.”
No, that’s not true. I have an idea, I just don’t want to admit it. That’s the big difference. And I can’t talk about it, or I’d have to tell him about Danny, and I can’t do that.
“There’s more for you, but you don’t know if Dayyan feels the same way?”
Well, that’s another problem. He knows I’m into men, but he’s never said a word about his own sexuality. And then he touches me, holds me in his arms, puts his head on my shoulder, so naturally, without any fear and my body bursts into flames.
Unasked, because I don’t want that. I don’t want to feel that way about Dayyan.
If I do, it means I don’t feel that way about Danny anymore.
That’s it, isn’t it? But I can’t let go of Danny, I can’t just replace him.
Danny was unique, the way he looked at me, the way he touched me.
He wanted me so much... almost a little too much.
.. which made me feel insecure, because.
.. okay, sometimes I had the feeling it wasn’t about me, just about my body.
About the fact that I’m gay too. I just didn’t understand that feeling back then.
“I feel safe with Dayyan. We meet because we get along so easily, as friends.” Because we can laugh together, because we can be serious together, sad, silly, thoughtful. “I can be myself. You know what I mean?”
I always thought it was the same with Danny, but the more I’m with Dayyan... it was not the same and my guilty conscience is eating me up. Like a parasite, attacking my heart, regardless of the consequences.
Papa smiles gently. “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve never been more myself in my whole life as I am with your father.”
“Did you know from the beginning that Paps was gay too?”
“Not immediately, but pretty soon after we first met. élias was kind enough to share that crucial piece of information with me.” Yeah, that worked out because élias’s wife is Paps’s best friend.
That’s how the two of them met in the first place.
But I don’t have anyone who can tell me where we stand, what it all means.
I don’t even know what I want it to mean.
There’re an angel and a devil sitting on my shoulders, and while the angel whispers softly that Danny loved me and surely wishes me all the happiness in the world, the devil screams in my ear.
“You’re cheating on your dead boyfriend.
After only three years, you’ve forgotten him and found yourself a new one.
How shabby is that? Danny loved you and you’re replacing him that easily. With some random guy.”
“You don’t know where you stand, do you?
” I nod, because that’s not a lie, even if it’s only a small part of the problem.
Carefully, slowly, Papa shuffles toward me, his bare feet clearly audible on the tile floor, his arms slightly open, just wide enough for me to fall into his embrace, and I accept the invitation.
“If you two are meant to be, you’ll find each other. Somehow. Somewhere. Sometime. Everything will happen as it should. Don’t fight it.”