Chapter 12
ELIAS
Of course I Googled it. What I found was a lot of churches, like a lot.
Those white steeple kind that aren’t anywhere near as prevalent in Germany.
I think they’re Evangelical. Anyway, there was a lot of them.
Also, a lot of big white houses with white picket fences, and well, just a lot of white everything.
On the morning we’re due to leave, I pack a bag, suddenly nervous and feeling out of my depth.
While I didn’t grow up poor, we weren’t particularly wealthy, either.
Since my brother signed to a Premier League team, of course he took care of his family, but that was ‘new money.’ Even I know that’s very different from ‘old money.’
I pack my tennis clothes and rackets and some clothes to relax in as well as one good shirt and pair of trousers for the party. When I moved, I didn’t bring a good pair of dress shoes like the kind Ben wore to the sorority party, but I’m sure I can find a pair at if I really need to.
Ben’s waiting in his discreetly expensive car, when I come downstairs, lugging my bags over my shoulder. He gets out and helps me load them into the trunk.
“I don’t know if I overpacked,” I say as I put the last bag in.
Ben laughs, but he seems nervous, too. “Having to carry your rackets everywhere can make it look like you’ve overpacked, but that can’t be helped.”
I could be paranoid, but now I’ve been living here for a little bit, I’m sure I can hear a certain refinement in Ben’s accent.
Don’t get me wrong—most American accents still sound the same to me.
But the little differences are there. I thought I noticed something in Nate’s accent, too.
The slightest hint of something different from his fraternity brothers.
“Ready?” Ben asks.
I feel like a little kid again, going on a trip. I wish he’d let me drive, but of course, that’s ridiculous.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Whatever music was playing when I climbed in, Ben switches off immediately in favor of the radio. A little blush appearing on his cheeks.
“What were you listening to?”
“What? Oh, nothing, just a playlist.”
He backs out of the driveway leading up to the dorms and I find myself suddenly desperate to know what he was listening to.
“Put it back on.”
“You don’t want to listen to my moody playlists.”
“Yes, I do.” I shoot him a teasing grin in the mirror.
He smiles through the blush.
“Fine, but don’t make fun of me.”
My heart sinks. Why would I make fun of him?
A vaguely familiar voice comes through the speakers while Ben chews his lip, one eye on the road.
“Is this Lana Del Rey?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve never heard this one before.”
“It’s an album song.”
I listen to the haunting melody, the depressing lyrics. Ben catches me smiling.
“You said you wouldn’t laugh.”
“No,” I correct him. “I said I wouldn’t make fun of you.”
“Nate teases me for my taste in music. He calls me a Tumblr Sad Girl.”
“How old is he?”
Ben laughs. “I’m sure he’s secretly thirty. He has a PlayStation 2.”
He smiles lovingly and that little ripple of jealousy I felt when Tom walked into the room is like a tsunami now.
I change the subject.
“Well, if you like sad music, you must like The Smiths.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
I practically eject from my seat. “You’ve never heard of The Smiths?”
“Are they a new band?”
I shake my head, trying to smother my laugh. “They’re an 80s band.”
“Oh, that’s why then. I don’t really listen to old music.”
I still don’t understand how a person can reach the age of twenty-one and have never heard of The Smiths while they listen to album songs by Lana Del Rey, but whatever.
His phone is sitting between us in the drinks holder. I gesture at it. “May I?”
“Go ahead,” he shrugs. “But remember, you said you wouldn’t tease me for my music taste.”
My neck gets hot. Tease isn’t quite the word we used before. It has connotations that make me wish I was wearing something less revealing than grey sweatpants.
“I won’t tease you,” I say, grateful his attention is focused on the road.
I type The Smiths into the search bar on Spotify.
Of course they pop up before I even finish typing because, well, it’s The Smiths.
I decide to put Spotify’s ‘this is…’ playlist on to give him a feel for them first. “This Charming Man” starts to play through the speakers. I can’t help but bop to it.
Ben frowns. “I feel like I’ve heard this before.”
“See!”
“And it’s not sad.”
“Well, it is, sort of. Morrissey’s voice is sad.”
“He’s the singer?”
“Yes.” I roll my eyes. “He’s the very famous singer of The Smiths.”
Ben just shrugs, but I notice him start to tap his fingers on the steering wheel, smiling a little when I start singing along with my best Morrissey impression.
When the song ends, Ben actually looks disappointed. “That was fast.”
“This was the 80s. Got to grab people’s attention quickly.”
“I thought we were the ones with short attention spans.”
I shrug. “It was the start of MTV, I suppose.”
The next song is very melancholy. Ben seems right at home.
“How do you know all this stuff?” he asks.
“All what stuff?”
“80s trivia. And what does MTV have to do with music?”
I almost bite my tongue to stop from laughing in his face. When he asked me not to tease him, he really seemed to mean it.
“My mother.” I say, my chest tightening. What would she think of me planning to throw someone as kind as Ben under the bus to get noticed by pro coaches? “She liked all that stuff.”
Ben nods, his eyes on the road. Somehow he’s letting me know he’s listening. Like he’s purposefully not looking at me so I don’t feel self-conscious.
When I don’t say anything else, he just keeps driving, commenting on each song as it starts to play. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” elicits a smile.
“Okay, this is a sad song.”
We laugh.
The motorway splits off into dense residential areas full of lush greenery.
“Where are we now?” I ask.
“This is Westchester County.”
“It sounds like something from a book.”
Ben huffs a laugh through his nose. “Like you don’t live in a country with a Black Forest—they named a dessert after it, for Pete’s sake. Talk about fairytales.”
“Oh, so you know about the Black Forest, but you’ve never heard of The Smiths?”
Ben shrugs, those cute, pink blotches appearing on his cheeks. “I like geography, or maps more specifically.”
“What kind of maps?”
“Old ones, mostly.”
“Of the US, or…?”
“The world. It’s nice to see how the world looked before people started splicing it up.”
“You’d have to go way back to pre-Roman days to see that.”
He side-eyes me like he’s impressed. “Exactly. I like being reminded of the impermanence of things. How drastically things can change. It reminds me not to take anything for granted. That you have to stand up for what’s right or the powerful people will just take over everything.”
Wow. I don’t know what to say. “Do you have a favorite map?”
He rubs the back of his neck, his hands leaving a sweaty handprint on the steering wheel. Am I making him nervous? Or is he nervous about taking me home to meet his parents?
“I have a few old pre-World War One maps of Europe that I like. Things changed most drastically—after the decline of the Roman Empire—following the First World War.”
“Now we’re getting into dangerous territory.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, well, the treaty of Versailles has a lot to answer for.”
“A history buff, too?”
“Not really. Just the maps. It’s nice to have context.”
“Any other secret enthusiasms I should know about?”
“No. Except the LEGO thing.”
“LEGO thing?”
He shrugs, his face beet red now. “I like LEGO. LEGO and maps ... and Star Wars. Star Wars LEGO to me is kind of like a new Taylor Swift album to a Swiftie. I’m a dork, I know.”
I can’t stop smiling.
“You said you wouldn’t make fun.”
“I said I wouldn’t make fun of your music taste. And who says I’m making fun?”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his smooth throat.
“I’m going to see these things anyway now, right? I’m sure your room is full of LEGO—Star Wars LEGO—and maps.”
“It is, but you won’t see my room.”
The pit of my stomach burns as my heart drops with disappointment. “Why not?”
“Because there’s a guest room.”
“Would your parents have a problem with a guy sleeping in your room?”
I know we’re getting into dangerous territory right now. Ben looks like he’d rather be talking about the war. Yet, I can’t help but push.
“They don’t know I’m gay.”
“Oh.”
We’re quiet for a moment. Stones crunch under the wheels of the car. Wind whips past the windows.
“Do your family know you’re gay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Are they okay with it?”
“Of course.”
“Not necessarily ‘of course,’” Ben says. “Not everyone’s family are okay with them being queer.”
“No, but we don’t have anywhere near as many of these little white churches as you guys do.” I try for a joke, but Ben doesn’t smile.
“Are your family religious?” I ask.
“Not in any real way, no. I don’t even think they have a problem with people being gay per se.”
“I sense a ‘but.’”
“But … I’m already the runt of the litter.”
My heart sinks. “What does that mean?”
“My siblings are all really successful. Set for the kind of conventionally impressive lives people dream about their kids having. I’m already planning an unconventional life by starting my own business.
I’ll probably be financially insecure for the first few years, and that’s if the business ever actually gets off the ground.
Add to that the inability to have children with whoever I marry and—”
“Gay people can have children.”
“They won’t be full heirs, though. Not in my parents’ eyes.”
“Full heirs? Are your family royalty?”
He laughs, some of the tension shucking from his shoulders.
“Even if ninety-nine percent of people they know—which is a generous estimation as it is—are fine with queer people, that still leaves one-percent who will judge, or pity, or even just be unimpressed.”
“That’s a very sad way to live a life.”