16. All Eyes on Me
16
ALL EYES ON ME
A lberto was drunk, probably. He had no idea. But suddenly, the people dancing didn’t seem so ridiculous or so repelling. They looked young and beautiful. Carefree .
He could spot them in a crowd, the ones who were truly loved. Confident, smiling with their teeth, their eyes brightened by the knowledge they were adored. Alberto wasn’t like them; his eyes carried the shadows others had passed on to him. Tonight, it was okay, though. Tonight, he would laugh in their faces. An unstoppable force, just like his father.
Alberto puffed out a bitter laugh. He had to be drunk, or he wouldn’t think of him. Good. He worried he wouldn’t be able to get Mathias back in any other state.
Right as he was filling another glass of wine, Kayvin showed up, flanked by the inseparable Joy and Melissa, his expression overcast as usual. He cursed under his breath when he saw Alberto. “See?” he asked. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Wait.” Melissa poured her friend and herself a drink with a dubitative frown. “What are you saying, exactly?”
Kayvin leaned into her space, stealing a grimace from her. “I’m saying the world has already gone to shit compared to, I don’t know, two years ago? Now, there are gays everywhere. What the hell happened to this country? ”
Melissa giggled. “You should join the fray, Kayvin. Just be bi and be done with it.”
He glared at her. “Do you want to get bitch-slapped or what?”
To Alberto’s surprise, Melissa stretched on her toes, her eyes glinting with anger. “ Do I ? Do I want to get slapped in the face? Never mind the country, what the fuck happened to you ?”
Joy let out a frightened noise and inadvertently backtracked into Alberto. Kayvin saw it and broke into a mean laugh. “You think he’s gonna defend you? Look at him, he’s practically a girl.”
Noticing Alberto gazing at him, Kayvin pointed his finger at him. “You… I’m watching you.”
Alberto scoffed. “That will be one thousand.”
Kayvin lurched forward, looking as if he were about to hit him. Alberto’s fingernails scraped against the edge of the table he hadn’t realised he was gripping, but Kayvin only seized a six-pack of beer and left without a look back.
“What a dick,” Melissa said, her hand on her chest.
“Stop provoking him!” Joy hissed.
“You’re kidding, right? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Melissa let out a groan of frustration as she followed her friend into the sea of people.
Now alone, Alberto resolvedly sipped his wine. Save the secret costume parties he had with Mamma, he had always dressed like a boy, then like a man. He talked like a man, styled his hair like a man, even stood taller than most men, and yet, he’d often been called delicate, weak, and feminine over the years. His mother always told loud mouths not to mock him for being shy and gentle, but they never got the message, because to some, being gentle meant being pathetic, and being pathetic was a feminine thing .
The first slap he received was because he looked too much like his mother, and the first time he met Stasia, she’d called him a helpless little girl. Girl. That bulletproof insult.
What was it about people, that they constantly came up with the word girl as a substitute for weak ?
You’re like a girl.
But in reality, girls and women were far from being weak. It takes a certain strength to keep going, especially when beaten, humiliated, ridiculed by others. Women tend to keep going. Alberto worked with young girls whose feet were crooked and bleeding from wearing thankless heels, and yet, they never uttered one word of complaint. His own mother quietly served as trophy-wife to one business man-child after another, despite being worth ten of them, if not more. Mathias’s mother had cancer, and she died fighting, whereas Alberto could barely find the will to get himself out of bed.
And Stasia? She wasn’t evil because she was a woman; she was evil in spite of it. But weak? No, she wasn’t weak. And she was right about some things: women weren’t fragile little creatures at all. Men just happened to be bigger.
Alberto would freely admit to being weak, but that had nothing to do with his sexuality. He would say being gay didn’t somehow make you smaller. The horrible way others treated you for being different, on the other hand, certainly had a way of making one shrink.
Alberto wondered if it was the booze, but he was starting to make sense and was not too impressed by it. His thoughts returned to one person, and he cackled into his glass. Look at Mathias: whatever he was… weak would never be a word associated with him.
Mathias …
Alberto swept the room in search of him. He hadn’t moved and was still leaning against the wall with his signature scowl as Eric happily chattered in his ear.
Mathias was the only one who saw Alberto, really saw him. Even at his worst, when they were together, and he was so strangled by shame that he held on to Alberto tightly enough to break his ribs, even then… Mathias loathed him because of how masculine he was. With Mathias, Alberto truly was a man. He might have been resented for it, but under the sheets, he was honoured for it.
Another song started playing, with a beat as urgent as Alberto’s pulse. He blew away his distracting thoughts in a cloud of cigarette smoke and chugged down the rest of his wine. Then, he jumped in. The crowd was moving in waves, giving him the impression he was swimming again.
Alberto knew what to do. He stopped in front of Melissa and asked, like in the movies, “Do you want to dance?”
Her mouth fell open; she watched him with round eyes. Before he could say “Forget it,” she gulped downed the shot she held and dumped it in Joy’s hands.
“Fuck yes,” she said, while next to her, her best friend’s expression soured.
Alberto cast Melissa a faint smile. He felt like a character from a teenage romcom. Hey, handsome, look at me, are you jealous yet? But was it working? Over there, in the back, Mathias did look close to punching someone in the face, but again, he never looked any other way.
A voice whispered in Alberto’s mind, That’s a lie. He looked quite sweet whenever they were alone . “Do you like this?” Mathias would ask, his fingertips gliding along the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. “ Remember your safe word,” he would grit out, always so concerned about his well-being. “ Are you tired yet? ” he liked to ask, teasing, when dawn broke through the curtains and they lay, still panting, in the middle of his bed. Alberto missed him so much, his skin was on fire tonight… No, he wasn’t tired. Not anymore.
Alberto drew closer to Melissa, and she responded in kind, laughing. He threw Mathias a look back, and this time, their eyes met, and Mathias’s jaw clenched .
Are you tired yet? Alberto thought. No? Just wait .
She was a good dancer, Melissa; that’s why he picked her. She could make anything look sexy without even meaning to. And she was relaxed around him, as girls often can be around gay men. She was soon gleefully rubbing against his crotch, causing more than one head to turn. As for him, Alberto’s gaze never left the corner of the room where Mathias, Zak, and the rest stood watching.
The song was so catchy, Alberto felt almost feverish. Melissa complimented him on his dancing, saying something like, “ Sweetie, you can move .” Alberto said she should thank his mother for that. She laughed and asked, “ Are you close to your mother, Alberto?” And he replied, “I guess ,” while his heart screamed, “ Mamma and I are one, forever and ever . No place for anyone else, unless…”
He glanced back at Mathias, who wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. No, apparently, the football players on the side were way more important. That scowling brute would be the death of him.
Alberto took Melissa’s hand and twirled her around. She beamed at him. She was a beautiful girl; he’d never noticed before how gorgeous she was. Between her and Mathias in the back, his attention was fully taken, so, naturally, when by the third chorus, everything exploded, he was caught by surprise.
In the blink of an eye, the crowd started shoving in every direction amidst cries of shock and protest. Kayvin’s fist flew toward Alberto’s face, who instinctively pushed Melissa out of the way, but someone slammed into Kayvin right before the impact. It turned out to be Mathias, whom Eric was unsuccessfully attempting to restrict with both arms .
In the chaos, Melissa lost her balance and fell into her friend’s arms with a gasp, but Joy pushed her down with a snarl, and Melissa, holding on to Alberto, retorted by kicking her in the tibia. In less than five seconds, the dance floor had turned into an angry mosh pit, with football players punching the shit out of each other and girls screaming and pulling each other’s hair.
Kayvin boldly swung his fist at Mathias, who dodged, only to hit Eric squarely in the jaw. When Zak saw his boyfriend struck down, he threw himself at Kayvin with a vengeful battle cry. Some burly fool hurried to grab him, only to be tackled by Zak’s friend Camille.
With a fire burning in his chest, Alberto broke from the crowd and watched as hell broke loose all around him. A slow, twisted smile stretched his lips, and he shut his eyes. As he was basking in the chaos, a hand grabbed his, pulling him away. Xavier held on to him, his eyes wide.
“Run,” he said. “Before they catch you.”
“ The dead travel fast ,” Alberto muttered, not remembering where he got that from.
They slipped outside through the patio doors, Alberto shivering from the unearned pleasure of it all. “Where are we going?” he asked, laughing.
Xavier held his hand in a tight grip. They advanced into the garden under the cover of darkness and took refuge under a large tree, the shrieks and shouts dying down with each step.
“I can’t believe it!” Xavier whooped and clapped his hands while Alberto lit up a cigarette. “My dude, you just started a riot.”
Alberto arched an eyebrow. “Did I?”
“Yes!”
“How so?”
“I think that suggestive little dance with Melissa had something to do with it.”
Alberto tilted his head. “Then, Melissa deserves half the credit.”
“Yeah.” Xavier’s smile turned soft. “She’s a great girl.”
“And…” Alberto let out a puff of smoke. “You’re an idiot for letting her go.”
“You said it. I am an idiot.” He leaned toward Alberto’s cigarette.
Alberto let him take a drag without a word. The other swung his arm over his shoulder and pulled him close.
It was quiet for a moment, the muffled sounds from inside all but stolen away by a wisp of wind. Out here, it might have been cold, but with how he was burning from the inside, Alberto couldn’t feel it. He could, however, feel Xavier’s fingers kneading his shoulder. He let him steal another drag from his smoke before he asked, “Why are you always touching me? You know how it looks.”
“I know, I know,” Xavier said. “I know how it looks. I don’t care.”
“But… why?”
Xavier released him. “You’re so cool, Alberto, you’re so cool! And… and you’re smart. And I was just…” He burst into a nervous-sounding laugh.
“What?”
“I don’t know… I was kind of hoping it would rub off on me.”
Alberto scoffed and only brought his cigarette halfway to his mouth before he met Xavier’s eyes and saw he had meant every word. He truly thought Alberto was cool. And smart. The same wave of gratitude from before washed over Alberto, sweeping away all other thoughts.
Barely taking the time to look around for bystanders, he abruptly seized Xavier’s chin and brought their lips together. After a brief hesitation, Xavier hooked his hand around Alberto’s neck. They kissed, tongues and all, against the tree, until Alberto gripped chunks of his hair with both hands and heard it tear at the scalp. When they parted, Xavier looked completely undone. He stumbled back against the trunk. “Wow…” He panted. “W-What was that for?”
Despite feeling aware enough of the old shards of pain rattling through him, Alberto did his best to show little emotion.
“You’re sweet,” he said.
“I’m sweet?”
He shrugged. “I was hoping it would rub off on me.”
Xavier watched him through dim eyes. “I… I must be really drunk.”
Alberto left him there to pull himself together, and he retraced his steps back toward the house. The drawn curtains didn’t allow him to see clearly inside, but through the ajar door, he found out the scuffle was over.
Recalling what had just happened in there, Alberto let out a laugh. That’s what it feels like to walk away from an explosion , he thought. Let’s see if Mathias wouldn’t fuck him after that.
A faint shuffling sound startled him, and the thin hair on his neck rose on its end. Turning his head toward the shadows, he spotted a thin ladder of smoke, and underneath, Mathias was smoking a cigarette. In the absence of light, how could he have seen him? Alberto steeled himself and walked over to him. He almost flashed him a smile, but the look on Mathias’s face made it impossible.
“Hey,” he said, breathless.
Mathias didn’t speak.
I came for you , Alberto wanted to add. He pointed at the bandage around Mathias’s hand instead.
“Are you all right? What happened?”
Mathias glanced down at it with a half-shrug. “I punched my fist through a window.”
So it was true, then. Alberto wasn’t sure Eric hadn’t exaggerated the facts.
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
“I didn’t plan on it.”
“But… was it because of Kayvin?”
“No.”
Alberto hesitated. “Was it because of me?”
“Goddamn it,” Mathias said, lifting his gaze to the black sky. “It’s not all about you, you know.”
Tonight, as things were, Alberto couldn’t miss the frost in his eyes. As if to confirm his worst fears, Mathias ground his cigarette in the nearest ashtray and quietly sneaked back into the house, clicking the door shut behind him. Once he was gone, Alberto’s stomach suddenly lurched; he doubled over and forced down the bitter taste that had risen in his throat.
The taste of power from a moment ago had already turned to ashes in his mouth. Alberto turned on his heel, draped in bitter disappointment. When, eager to leave this place, he slipped into the dark passage on the side of the house, he ran straight into a moving wall, and his vision turned black.