It’s been an evening of confessions and unexpected emotions, but this tops it all. I don’t know how to react. I wish I could believe him, let myself fall into his arms and let him hold me close. I wish I could entrust him with my heart, believe that he’s being sincere, this time. But my head, my pride, and all the experience behind me are telling me something else.
“You married someone else.” I didn’t want to be so direct, but he’s showing his cards – I might as well show mine. “You married a woman.”
Leo lets go of me slowly, taking a step backwards.
“I felt something really strong for Rachel.”
“What about the other women? Did you feel strongly towards them, too?”
“I was a kid, and they were just crushes. You know it was nothing with them. Besides… We were just friends at school.”
“Just friends?”
“Come on, you know what I mean.”
The fact we never took things any further doesn’t change the way I felt about him.
“There was nothing between us.”
Those silent walks, brushing hands, lengthy hugs, searching eyes, held breaths, painful absences.
“Okay, there was… A lot between us,” he says, as if we’ve just had the same déjà vu. “But you still hadn’t kissed me yet.”
The memory of our first kiss overpowers me, a high-speed train. It happened after our last match, at the end of our final school year. I thought that, with the end of lessons, and him going off to university, I’d have lost him forever, but… He came back. He always came back to me. Until the day he decided not to come back anymore.
“And then, after you kissed me…” He approaches me again, his fingers searching for mine. “No one has ever kissed me like that.”
After that kiss, there were others – so many others. And not just kisses.
“But when you said…”
“That I was in love with you.” This time, I say it. It still hurts the way it hurt then, maybe even more. “You ran away.”
“I did.”
“And you never came back. Then you met Rachel and you got married.”
“I already knew her.”
His confession leaves me speechless.
“When I came back, that time… I’d just met her. We went out in a group together a few times. Then one night, I walked her back to her halls, and… And she kissed me.”
I drop his hands and back away.
“Then I came running here. After Rachel kissed me.”
If I’m still standing somehow, I don’t notice.
“We never promised each other anything, never defined what we were. And I know you were only doing that for me.”
It’s true. We never made each other any promises. We would write to each other, though, and talk on the phone. Sometimes I told him I wanted him there, and he would sigh from the other end of the line. And that was enough for me. When he came back for the holidays – a break from exams, or an event of some kind… I would just let him come back to me.
I never asked him where he’d been without me. I just needed to know he was there.
He was my love. Secret, suffering, destined to fail. But he was mine. I simply wanted him.
“Rachel kissed me and I… I was confused and scared of how I felt. And you told me you were in love with me, that you always had been, and you wanted us to be together, out in the open. You wanted us to tell everyone.”
I remember that I said to him just as I remember the terror in his eyes.
“I didn’t know who I was, but you… You were so sure, so real, and… I felt suffocated. I felt like I was exploding. I didn’t know what was happening, why I felt so confused…”
He shakes his head, running his hands through his hair and turning his back to me, taking a few steps along the dock. He stops, letting his arms drop to his sides.
We’re alone, with only the lapping of the water against the boats interrupting us.
Leo was confused, and came to me because he didn’t know how to feel, what to feel. He didn’t know who he was. And I threw my love at him, my desire to love him, to build something together, out in the open. So he ran away. I didn’t listen to his reasons, didn’t think of how he might’ve felt, what he was dealing with, the fight within himself.
It isn’t easy to understand or admit to being attracted to men, and it’s even more difficult when you can’t understand who you really are. I just thought he was playing around with me – that he was curious, in a way. I thought he liked my company, but the thought of being with me had never even crossed his mind.
But instead, he was fighting a battle against his own emotions.
“I’m sorry.”
Leo turns suddenly.
“I should’ve given you time and tried to understand. I should’ve let you explain, and… Come to terms with everything that was happening. But I pressured you. I just wanted you to be…”
Mine.
I wanted you to be mine.
“I wanted you to return my feelings, be ready to yell it from the rooftops. I thought you wanted to hide me away because you were ashamed of me, of us.”
He comes back to me, his hands on my face. “I could never be ashamed of this.” He presses his lips to mine and I melt at his touch. “I was the problem. I was so confused… I couldn’t understand why I felt such a strong bond to you, even though I’d let Rachel kiss me. And I didn’t know why I let Rachel kiss me when all I could think about was you. I couldn’t explain any of it, and it was driving me crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“No, please… No. Don’t justify the way I behaved. I should’ve spoken to you about what was going on, but I was afraid you would stop giving me this.” He kisses me again, his hands slipping into my hair. “And I’d have lost my mind if you’d rejected me.”
“I never intend to,” I reassure him, making him smile. “You can be sure of that.”
Leo laughs, resting his forehead against mine, his hands sliding down my back, pulling me close to him.
“I still don’t know what I feel.” His voice is serious, now. “But I know that the way I feel about you is stronger than anything else. And I have no need to feel anything else.”
Leo drops me home later that evening. I feel guilty for keeping him out so long knowing that he has to get up early, but we were having fun. We were in perfect harmony, as if nothing had ever broken us apart. We were together, the way I’d dreamed of so much over the years.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have kept you out so late.”
“I never wanted tonight to end.”
I look at him, in the darkness of his car, parked just outside my house.
“I can’t ask you to come in. It’s not the right time.”
His hand strokes my face.
“I would never have expected you to.”
“But I want to invite you over, one evening, when you’re free. Even if it’s late.”
“Here?”
I nod, anxious.
“I want to have some time together, alone, so we can talk, and…”
“And…?” he asks, a flicker in his eyes which makes the keys in my hand tremble.
I lean into his mouth and press against it; Leo inhales deeply at the feeling of my lips on his.
“I’ll do my best to get off as early as possible.”
I laugh and pull away.
“My days are pretty full,” he says then, pain laced into his voice.
“I know.”
To be honest, I’m worried, too. I know he works a lot, does double shifts at Veldons and gets up at dawn to help his brother with the deliveries.
“I’m sure it’ll get better soon.”
“I’m sure it will, too.” He smiles at me again, his hand tracing the lines of my jaw. “Now that you’re here.”
I can’t tell my heart to keep quiet this time, to slow down – not when I can feel his words, his hands all over me; his desire slipping across my skin the way my hands are slipping across his.
“Because you’re here, right, Silas?”
I kiss him again, then I say it.
“I’m here, Leo. I’m here with you.”