Chapter 38
One minute Bilal had been standing outside the dining room, the low hum of voices surrounding him as he had his seventh existential crisis of the day.
The next moment he was being dragged away by Anwar into one of the empty rooms by the library that was once used as one of their classrooms. Or laboratories, as his father liked to call them.
There was nothing remotely lab-like about the room though; it looked much like every other communal area in the house.
Dark woods, vintage damask wallpaper, and the chopped-off heads of taxidermized animals on the walls.
Bilal was so tall that he was often eye to eye with his father’s trophies, like he was right now, staring directly into the pupils of a dead bull, the animal’s large horns nearly poking him in the face.
“We need to talk,” Anwar began, breathless. “I know now is probably not the right time given that we are literally in the middle of a murder investigation, but I don’t know when the right time will be. I don’t even know when next we’ll see each other after this is over—are you even listening?”
Bilal’s vision quickly moved away from the soulless eyes of the bull and down to the wide, vulnerable gaze of Anwar. “I’m listening,” he said, and he really had been, even with the brief bull distraction.
“Okay, well. I lied earlier … about the Duolingo notification.”
Bilal hadn’t been expecting to hear that. “So you’re not actually learning ancient Sanskrit?” he asked in a way he hoped would lighten the mood. Anwar blinked at him unsmiling. “I’m sorry, go on.”
“It was my family trying to get in touch. They’re throwing this party for me because of the Prodigy of the Year award … I was meant to be on my way there, hours ago. I missed my train. In fact I think I’ve probably missed the last direct train back to Boston tonight.”
Bilal raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting but this wasn’t at all what he’d thought Anwar was going to say.
“The party will be over by the time I arrive home, which I honestly don’t mind at all,” Anwar continued. “I don’t mind because out of all the places I could be today, I wanted to be here with you.”
Bilal realized then what Anwar was saying.
His ex-boyfriend had skipped his own celebration because of him.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Bilal said quietly, feeling like the worst person on earth.
He’d been so caught up in himself and his own feelings, he didn’t ever question why Anwar was still here, despite being dismissed.
He didn’t think that he’d be the reason.
“I wanted to do it, I wanted to stay. But not only because of you; I wouldn’t throw everything away over a boy, you know,” he said, a glint of something lighter in his eyes. “I honestly didn’t want a party, but you know how my parents are.”
Bilal did know how Anwar’s parents were.
When Anwar’s mom found out that they were dating, she threw an actual dinner party for the pair.
Anwar was embarrassed about her dramatics, but Bilal thought it was really nice having parents be that proud of you, so willing to celebrate all your wins.
Parents who didn’t constantly put you down for not being good enough.
He loved Anwar’s parents, and it had been another loss when they broke up, not being able to go back to visit them in Boston.
“But I did stay partly because of you, and maybe that was silly of me to do, seeing as I have no idea if you even like me anymore,” Anwar said.
This surprised Bilal most of all, so much so that he literally startled. “Of course I like you,” Bilal said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Anwar folded his arms. “Well, you have a very strange way of showing it. You never talk to me,” Anwar continued.
“At those rare events that we both happen to attend, you avoid me. You don’t answer my texts.
When we broke up, I thought we agreed to be friends, but friends don’t avoid each other like the plague. ”
Bilal hated hearing the hurt in Anwar’s voice. Hated that he was the reason that hurt was there in the first place.
“You broke up with me,” Bilal pointed out.
“No, I told you that we couldn’t work out the way we were going.
I told you that I could not date someone who I hardly saw or who never told me what he was thinking and feeling.
I told you that for us to work, all of this would need to change, and if it couldn’t change, then there was no point in us trying, and you agreed.
You ended things when you didn’t fight for us. ” Anwar angrily wiped his eyes.
Bilal looked away for a moment; he couldn’t bear to see Anwar cry. But when he looked back at the boy, he was no longer crying. Instead he had a serious expression on his face, the same serious expression Bilal’s tutors used to give him in this very room when he’d get a B on one of his assignments.
On Anwar this look was at once terrifying but also really adorable.
“I know this weekend has been really difficult for you. Losing your dad … the police being here, this entire investigation in general … and I know it is probably really selfish of me to be bringing up all of this now, when you’re grieving and probably dealing with some really dark feelings …”
Dark feelings, Bilal thought. Anwar didn’t know the half of it.
“But the last twenty-four hours has also all been really confusing for me. I think I find you confusing most of all,” Anwar continued.
“In what way am I confusing?” Bilal asked defensively, despite thinking of a few ways he might have given off perplexing signals.
“Well, for one thing, we literally spent the night together but then this morning you acted like nothing monumental had happened. And then this afternoon you kissed me and—I don’t know what I’m supposed to read into any of this.
I’m not even sure there is anything to read into, maybe you were just blowing off some steam.
” Anwar’s face was drawn into a frustrated expression.
“Honestly, trying to understand you is more confusing than trying to understand Chaucer,” Anwar said.
“I have always loved your metaphors, Wari,” Bilal replied with a smile.
Anwar didn’t return the smile but there was a small jolt of surprise at the nickname. Bilal hadn’t called him that in a very long time.
“It’s actually a simile, not a metaphor. But to my point, what is up with you? Do you or do you not want to be together? I’m tired of playing this guessing game. I won’t be offended if you don’t want to be. I just need to know.”
Bilal was quiet for a few moments, gathering all of the thoughts he’d had over the past eight months.
He had really missed Anwar, truly missed him, in a way he missed no one else in the entire world.
In a lot of ways, losing Anwar was like losing his closest friend.
Things had been great between them—up until the last two months of their relationship, when Bilal had felt his own decline, mentally and physically.
After winning his first Olympic gold medal, he’d been under an unimaginable amount of pressure to keep up with his successes, to get the next gold and the next one after that and so on.
To live up to his alias, the Olympian. This meant longer training hours, early morning until late at night, never seeing his friends, always pushing himself way past his limits.
Until one day a few weeks ago, he finally broke.
He felt a twinge in his left leg as the fragmented memory of that night played again in his mind.
The night he’d hurt himself on purpose … not in an accident like the reports said he had.
He remembered what his father had said when he’d found out the truth. He called him weak and disappointing. Called him useless. Even though the rational side of his brain knew that Anwar would never think of him that way, he couldn’t help but hear his father’s words echo in his mind. The
irrational parts of him were scared that Anwar would secretly think
the same.
Bilal had so many things he wanted to say to Anwar but had been too scared to. Like how he knew he hadn’t been the best partner to him in those final days, and how he knew he was bad at talking about his feelings even though he really wanted to, and how much he still cared for him.
Most of all he was scared to tell Anwar the truth, the truth that might change how Anwar saw him for good. But maybe the truth would finally set him free.
Now was his chance, probably the only chance he’d get.
“I want to be with you,” Bilal answered hoarsely, and a flicker of something crossed Anwar’s face. “But I can’t be,” he finished.
Anwar’s eyebrows were knitted together. “Why not?”
“So many reasons … too many,” Bilal said.
“Tell me all of them, I have time,” Anwar replied stubbornly, folding his arms, his face pinched in a way that made him look even more adorable.
Bilal forced himself to stand up straight, against his better judgment and his strong desire to slump over.
Earlier he hadn’t just been having another one of his existential crises, he also hadn’t been feeling too good.
He was sweating profusely, his pulse felt weaker than usual, and he was lightheaded.
“Well, first of all, I am probably not going to have a career anymore. Even if this leg heals, it’ll never be the same,” he said.
Omitting the part he truly wanted to say.
I made sure of it. “I’m going to be a washed-up ex-prodigy who was once great and is now sad and pathetic.
A failure at the one thing he was meant to be great at.
The one thing he spent his entire life training to be great at.
You deserve someone great, Wari, and I’m not that. I don’t think I ever have been.”
Anwar shook his head, clearly wanting to refute it all, to tell Bilal that his worth wasn’t in his talents or abilities, but in him just existing. That was enough. But Bilal was talking again.
“I’m not the person you think I am, Wari. I’m not a good person. Partly because of my father, partly because of myself and my own faults.”
“You’re not a bad person, Billy,” Anwar said in a soft voice that made Bilal’s icy exterior melt. He moved closer to Bilal, who was now shaking his head.
“I am, trust me.”
“Name one heinous thing you’ve done, and I promise you it won’t change how I see you. You could tell me you kick puppies in your spare time, and while I’ll tell you to stop and ask you to seek serious help, it won’t stop me loving you.”
“Wari,” Bilal began, but Anwar stopped him.
“You’re not your father, you’re a good perso—”
“No,” Bilal said, forcefully cutting him off. His voice was hoarse now, tears caught at the back of his throat. “I did something really bad. Really, really bad … I hurt someone; we hurt someone.”
Anwar was staring at him, worry digging a pit in his stomach. He’d never seen Bilal like this before. “What do you mean?”
Bilal couldn’t stop it now, he couldn’t stop the tears, or block the pain rising from within him. Maybe it was time to let go.
“My brother … Octavius and I … we … we killed someone.”