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*
Fate would have it, and she did.
She snuck up like a conniving snake in greener pastures and she made him say his words, just as yours are about to leave your mouth and so you can’t.
Not now.
It would just sound like a way to trap him. He’s reminded immediately of Das Heptameron.
Reden oder sterben?
Right now? He’ll take death. Ticket for one please, and make it quick.
The poison is slow with this particular snake though because you’re friends now.
It’s what you insisted on. You were married and this was the only way to be in each other’s life. He’d agreed even though you could see the battle in his stomach play out on his face, the way you did all summer.
You watched his face like others watched paintings, intense and looking for the hidden meaning, waiting for it to reveal its truth to you.
You watched his face like others watched television, your eyes drawn to it, always, and in every room, regardless of what’s playing.
You watched his face for six weeks straight and dreamed of it for many more than that and yet, in this moment, it’s as if you’re looking at a stranger.
I’ve met someone
“That’s…that’s wonderful.”
He knows Elio remembers this conversation on the phone 7 years ago.
“Do you mind?”
Of course he remembers.
Of course he minds.
He doesn’t answer because, like then, the answer is clear.
He fakes a smile with minimal effort because he knows he can’t fool Elio anyway. They both know this is killing him but turnabout is fair play.
“So, dinner?”
“Yes. Dinner.”
He doesn’t ask about the someone and Elio doesn’t offer anything more.
When he comes back to the house that night, he looks at his suitcases, packed up and ready to move into the apartment he’s rented on the other side of the city.
He could stay perhaps, try to mend what had been broken to begin with, but he won’t.
He’ll just have to live without. He promised Elio his friendship because he couldn’t promise him more than that and now he has to keep up his end of the deal.
Elio deserves this someone, whoever it is and no matter how much Oliver hates the thought of him or her or them.
He understands now for the first time, and isn’t Turnabout a bigger bitch than Fate that way, what it is like to watch someone go home and know it’s to not-you, to stand in your kitchen and know that the person you’ve come to know better than you know yourself and who, much worse, knows you better than you know yourself, is standing in a different kitchen with a different person, sharing a different life.
He pours himself a drink because he figures he’s allowed and lies down on the sofa. He can’t bring himself to sleep in the bed that was his to share with Lis. Lis took the kids to her parents’ for the holidays so he could move out. She’ll be back soon and she shouldn’t have to sleep in the bed where he spent time obsessing over Elio and his someone, instead of being sad over the end of his marriage.
*
He doesn’t tell him. It’s not a conscious decision and every time he heads out to meet Elio for brunch, for lunch, for the museum, for almost-but-not-quite dates (almost, because he spends too long frowning at himself in the mirror, and but-not-quite because Elio is with someone) at the Aquarium, the theatre, the concert hall, he reminds himself that this time, he’ll tell him. Just to get it out of the way.
But their meetings are always so full of everything they carry with them, their past and their present and all the ideas they’d once had about their future, that there is no such thing as casual.
Which is just as well because they have been many things but never, ever, casual.
They got used to dealing with all their baggage, he thinks, and he can’t bring himself to add to that.
Besides, what good would it do? There is nothing to be gained from it. He’ll just sound desperate or manipulative or it’ll seem like his divorce happened only after Elio announced someone, and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want that for Elio either. To have to deal with having to let him down. He knows exactly what that is like and he never wants Elio to carry that weight.
Then there is the even darker path looming ahead, the other turn at this fork in the road.
The one where they’ll never meet again.
If Elio decides he can’t deal or doesn’t want to or he’ll feel too guilty or he’ll be too angry because getting to say too little, too late is never as satisfying as it sounds and then Elio will go his separate way, forcing Oliver to take whichever route available to him and they won’t see each other again until maybe 15 years from now, when Elio will show up in his classroom, happy and married and settled with someone who knew a good thing and knew it in time and who had the good sense to pass on all the detours, and they’ll have a coffee and say their goodbyes as if it was always going to be this way and what were they thinking trying to fight that…
Well, fuck that.
There is no way that’s happening. He wants all of Elio but he’ll accept what he can get and this is it right now.
Maybe, if this someone turns out to be an idiot and lets Elio go or if Elio walks away from it, out of his own accord, not Oliver’s, maybe then…
So, no, he hasn’t told him.
He’s told other people though. Or, two people, and only just now. Jake and Jeff have been his friends for years so of course they knew something was up when he and Lis split up and he moved out and then nothing whatsoever happened after that. So after the guessing games of what ‘irreconcilable differences’ could mean in Oliver’s life and after trying in vain to set him up with every single woman they could find, they sat him down after work one night and told him to just tell them whatever it was that needed telling so they could all get drunk and then never talk about it again.
And he did, because he figured he needed to tell someone at least and yeah, maybe they would be disgusted and maybe they would never talk to him again but maybe, in that case, he didn’t want to talk to them anymore either.
They weren’t and wouldn’t because despite his parents and his childhood and the stories surrounding him, not everyone he meets actually cares who he wants to sleep with and these guys know him well enough to see that this, this, this is love that he’s talking about. So he tells them. He doesn’t tell them everything but what he does tell them is true. He’s in love with someone who loves him but is with someone else, like he himself used to be, even though he’d already loved him then too. So yeah, in fact, they love each other and have for years and very likely always will but no, they’ve never really been together apart from those few weeks, years ago.
They stare at him from across the table, say fuck a fair few times, then signal the bartender for a “keep ‘m coming, faster than we can drink ‘m” order and raise their glasses.
“So…to…love?”
He looks at Jake and then at Jeff and he’ll never be able to put into words how grateful he is that they look him in the eye and understand that nothing is okay.
“To fucked-up love.”
Jake looks at him in a way that tells him they’re not done talking about this, but they are done for tonight.
“But love all the same, yeah?”
Yeah, pretty much.
*
The thing that convinces him, every time, to not say anything is that nothing else changes. They meet and they talk, they talk endlessly, they sit and stand and walk too closely together, orbiting around each other the way they had from the moment they met, always aware of where the other person is.
They never stray, which strikes him as funny in the way that’s not. They stick together in art galleries, one pausing when the other does. They have at least a coffee or a jog or a lunch every week, and they become better friends than they ever were before.
He still likes the way Elio says things. He speaks the way he plays his music. And his music and his words and the damn shape of his ears makes Oliver fall in love with him all over again. Every week he falls in love, never able to get a handle on how to do so without giving it away but getting used to the sensation all the same.
If Elio notices, he never says anything.
And that is exactly what is very slowly becoming the problem. He never says anything. Oliver doesn’t want to ask because he doesn’t want to hear the answer but this…this can’t go on, can it? It will have to come a head or an end one day.
Where does Elio say he is going, when he leaves someone to go meet Oliver?
Oliver remembers all too well the casual tone that he had to force out whenever he told Lis he was meeting Elio. At some point, he stopped mentioning Elio at all, just said ‘coffee’ or ‘lunch’.
*
It’s Jake who forces him once again to talk about instead of around it.
“So, you won’t tell him that you’re single now because you don’t want him to feel like he has to choose between you and this other person?”
“I just don’t want to pressure him into anything.”
“Pressure him? You don’t think he’ll be thrilled? Dude’s waited for you for like…years, right?”
“Yeah, but he’s happy now.”
“How do you know? Maybe he just figured he was waiting for something that was never going to happen and went for the next best thing.”
“Yeah, but he seems good now, you know?”
He watches Jake shake his head and down his beer.
“Actually, I don’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about. You seemed good too, with Lis. Turns out you were pining for this kid the whole time. And now you’re actually single, and he’s not a kid and he’s in the same city and you’re not doing anything about it. That’s a shitty movie that no one wants to watch, right there.”
“You genuinely think I should?”
“Fuck, man. What do I know? But….”
“But?”
“Well, what if he was single now but didn’t tell you?”
God, what if.
*
He’s asked once, because it felt too weird not to, how it was going with Elio and his someone and Elio had looked at him in that way he has when he knows that Oliver is forcing himself into a conversation he doesn’t want to have.
Good, it’s…good. Better than I thought I…..He told me he loved me…
And Oliver wants to die in that moment, he wants to twist the knife until it stops hurting.
He’d better
His voice is so clear-cut, so clean. He doesn’t know how he manages to sound whole. Elio looks away from him but not before Oliver sees the disappointment play out on his face, the sadness.
Yeah..
He sounds resigned and Jake’s words flash through his mind. What if Elio is with someone only because he’s given up on Oliver?
But then Elio speaks, faster once more.
I could…I could love him, maybe.
He’d trailed off, his gaze on something miles behind Oliver…years behind him, probably, and Oliver once again swallows his words.
*
Of course, just because you decide something is going to go down a certain way, it doesn’t mean it actually will. For example, if you decide to not tell the love of your life that you’re single now and that you’ve moved house as a result, that does not mean that they won’t find out. It doesn’t even mean that you won’t be the one to tell them.
“Wait, where are we going?”
“My apartment, you said you wanted to stop and shower, mine’s closer...”
“Your apartment?”
“Yes. We can stop there for a minute. It’s faster than having to go back to yours.”
Not to mention he tries to avoid going to Elio’s apartment as much as he can. He knows Elio is with someone, but he doesn’t think he can handle seeing the proof all over his room.
“But…did you move?”
Ah.
Well, this had to happen at some point and he’s glad, in a way, that it’s happened like this. He’s spent a lot of time on how to broach this subject without making it sound like he’s trying something, like he’s manipulating Elio and now it’s done without any input from him at all. In his defense, he’s been living in this apartment for over 6 months now and it’s become home. He forgot for just a minute that Elio didn’t know that because they’ve been neutral zoning it since the start.
“Yes.”
Maybe if he acts like this isn’t a monumental moment, it won’t be.
“It’s two blocks down, so come on.”
He doesn’t stop walking and so Elio doesn’t either but his pace slows a bit. Oliver picks up his own because he wants to get this over with and he wants to keep moving. He doesn’t want any place in this city to be the place where they have this conversation. He’ll never be able to walk this damn street again.
“Why? Needed more room?” He eyes Oliver, his face carefully placid, “Expecting an addition to the family?”
“No.”
Here goes.
“I…uhm, left. So….I had to move.”
He’s forced to stop now because Elio does.
“You left.”
It’s not a question. It’s just processing. Perhaps he didn’t even mean to say it out loud.
He stares ahead, sees a woman hurrying to catch a cab, a couple arguing over tulips or whatever at a flower stall.
“Yeah.”
“You left.”
There’s an undercurrent of anger in Elio’s tone and Oliver knows what’s coming. He goes in for the kill, who the victim will be remains to be seen.
“Yeah…we’re getting divorced. Almost through now, actually. It’s a lot more paperwork than you’d think. Takes forever.” The casual inflection is so incredibly forced it feels like cardboard in his throat.
“When?”
“What?”
“When, Oliver. When did this happen?” Elio has always been impatient. It’s one of his worst best traits.
“About 8 months ago.”
“8 months.”
“Elio…”
“8 months?? You left 8 months ago…”
“Yes, but..”
“Are you serious right now? What, you actually have a reason for not telling me?”
“I do.”
He’s surprised at his own calm.
“I didn’t want…”
“What? Didn’t want what? Didn’t want to get my hopes up? You realized it was never actually going to be me after all and you didn’t want to give me the wrong idea?”
“What? No, of course not. I…”
“What the fuck, Oliver.”
And Oliver is a bit taken aback because Elio doesn’t really swear. He’s got too many other words at his disposal, usually.
“Elio..”
“Fuck off.”
He’s still standing, the arguing couple having settled whatever score and paying for their tulips now, long after Elio has disappeared around the corner.
He wonders where that woman in her taxi went. He wonders if the couple have other things to fight about than tulips or if that is the extent of their drama. He wonders if it was always going to end this way and he just didn’t want to be the one to set it in motion.
*
It wasn’t going to end that way.
He knew that even still standing there, watching the Tulips enter a lunch room and considering going after Elio. He didn’t because he didn’t want to risk having to meet someone by showing up unannounced.
He was planning to go and see him in the morning because no way is he going to let things end this way but he’s spared that anguishing subway ride because Elio is here, on his doorstep, in his face. He’s never seen him so angry, he doesn’t think.
“No.”
It’s a strange word to start a conversation with but he knows Elio, always, and Elio has been having this shouting match in his head the entire way here. For him, this probably makes sense.
“No?”
“No. No fucking way are you pulling this shit on me.”
The swear words really do throw him off, not because he can’t handle a cuss word or two but because it’s telling of how not himself Elio is. How out of control.
“Elio…”
“Oliver. Seriously. What the fuck?”
“How did you even know where I live?”
“Called my father, because of course he would know before I do.”
“He writes to me, I didn’t want..”
“I don’t care, that’s not why I’m here. Answer me.”
It’s so tempting to search for a way out, but he owes Elio more than this answer and besides…he’d been planning on hashing this out tomorrow anyway.
“I didn’t want to ruin..”
“Ruin what?”
“Ruin what you have with …”
He can’t supply the name. He’s never able to bring himself to say it.
“Robert”
He swallows. Still can’t do it.
“Right…it seemed like a good thing.”
“It is a good thing.”
There’s a vindictive edge to Elio’s voice. He’d known that would sting, even the mention of Robert does, but this just about breaks him.
“See? That’s why..”
“But it’s never going to be more than that, is it, because he’s not you. How can you not know this? I love you. I have loved you for 7 fucking years. I love you more than I can handle most of the time. It takes everything I have not to beg you ….”
He runs out of steam because he’s run out of the confidence that brought him here.
“And it’s not because you don’t want me. I know you do, I see it in your eyes the same you see it in mine.”
It’s a statement out of his mouth but his eyes supply the question mark. He wants to reach out and pull him inside, his apartment, his arms, his body.
His soul, he’s already occupying.
“Of course I want you. Of course I love you. Why do you think I left in the first place?”
“Then I reiterate…what the fuck?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing, giving you a chance to…I don’t know..”
“What? Giving me a chance to settle for second-best?”
“You like Robert” he forces himself to say the name, but it’s sandpaper, “you might even love him, you told me so yourself.”
“Yes, I might. But never really, could I? Because I belong to you.”
Fuck, but it feels good to hear him say that.
“I belong to you too.”
“Yes, you do.”
The confidence is returning along with the anger. The question in his eyes turning to fury, it rolls off him in waves.
“But….”
“I know. Robert. I went to see him after I left…I don’t even know how I got there and fuck knows what I even said. He’s probably really angry. He has the right to be, I burst in there and blurted out the whole story. He threw me out.”
“Well…”
“Yeah, he was right to, I know. I’m pissed at you for that though. What the fuck.”
“You don’t swear.”
A scoff.
“I swear all the time, usually about you.”
“No you don’t.”
He’s already turned around, moving around Oliver’s apartment like he’s on a treasure hunt.
“I do in my head. You piss me off.”
His reply is off-hand, barely listening. He’s touching random objects, running his hand down a desk, a chair, the back of the sofa. He’s still plenty angry but he seems at ease at the same time, as though he’s added up the clues and figured out the ending.
He loves seeing Elio here, in his home, surrounded by his things but he’s not sure where they are now. Elio seems to have come to some sort of conclusion and Oliver thinks he knows which one it is but he’s afraid to presume.
“I piss you off a lot?”
“Not a lot, but sometimes. Having you in my life is frustrating. It’s heartbreaking.”
He turns around, a copy of Armance in hand and almost meets Oliver’s eyes.
“It breaks my heart.”
The candor with which Elio can answer questions, can bear his heart, give everything, astonishes him still.
“I never wanted that.”
“I know. I didn’t say you were to blame. I’m just saying…”
“You still love me.”
Elio looks at him, his face pale and serious, eyes focused and intense. Whatever he’s about to say won’t be ignored or forgotten.
“With every single bone in my body.”
He breathes, feels his body loosen as warmth rushes through.
“Good. Good. Then stay.”
“I am planning on it.”
*
They don’t talk for a while after that. They barely come up for air.
True to his furious word, Elio does stay. He stays for 4 days straight in which they don’t leave the apartment. They both call in sick for 2 days and they order in and they never once bother putting on decent clothes.
After 4 days though, Elio needs to go and hand in a paper and Oliver does actually have to go and grade some. They go out in the morning, both late and out of breath, and they meet up at Elio’s apartment to pick up his stuff and tell his roommates to find someone else. They tell them they’re sad to see Elio go but they don’t question it and he wonders if they are surprised at this, at him. Or maybe they just don’t care about having to find a new roommate because this is New York and this room will be filled in probably ten minutes.
*
Oliver takes Elio to meet Jake who does a double take when they walk in. He forgot Jake didn’t actually know this had happened between the last time they had drinks and now. He doesn’t have to introduce them to each other though because Jake stands up as soon as they enter the bar and pulls out a chair for Elio.
‘Fuck, you’re him. You’re a skinny thing, aren’t you? I imagined someone as gigantic as my boy here, for some reason.”
Elio isn’t sure how he feels about that but Jake wins him over within about 2 minutes by ordering himself a beer and telling Elio to pay for it.
“You owe me about 10 more of these, for all the sorting out your boyfriend’s head I had to do.”
Of course, Elio doesn’t know anything about this but he looks at Oliver who nods, if sheepishly, and then proceeds to order 10 beers.
Jake laughs so hard people actually look up, then nods at Oliver.
“Okay, yeah. I approve.”
*
There’s no rule that says you have to run in to your ex at any point in life but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Fate makes her own rules, they know that better than many, and she likes to have fun.
They run into Robert who throws them a look that tells them he’s still plenty pissed if not hurt, and Elio spends the rest of the day quiet and miserable. Oliver lets him brood in silence but he stays close and when Elio eventually takes his hand and suggests cooking pasta for dinner, he knows they’re good again.
They might as well run into Lis as well and so they do. She nods at them, smiles a peculiar smile that he knows she’s having to work hard at, but she shakes Elio’s hand, doesn’t mention his parents and doesn’t yell at either of them. She tells them she’s seeing a someone from Rhode Island, a chiropractor, but she’s candid about not being ready for anything serious. “I’m still……you know.”
And he does, so he says “yeah” and they part ways even though he and Elio were actually headed that same way.
“She’s nice.” She’s pretty too, but Elio’s curiosity was always more about her personality than her looks.
“Yes. That was never the problem.”
*
“I was the problem.”
He looks up, his hands in a bowl of tomatoes. Mafalda consented to share one of her prized recipes on the do-or-die promise that they come to Italy this summer and he cook it for her, and he’s trying, with monumental effort not displayed since his doctoral thesis, not to fuck it up.
“Huh?” Damn tomatoes are always everywhere and he should have worn an apron because now it’s in his shirt and there’s no way he’s getting that out without again consulting Mafalda, which will just make him seem like a college boy on his own for the very first time.
“You said: ‘that was never the problem.’ About Lis. Because I was the problem, right? Because you ran into me again…”
He gives up on the shirt with a curt nod and turns his attention, if not his hands, to Elio.
“The problem was not that I ran into you again. The problem was that I met you in the first place.”
He’s serious but he’s not being very serious at all, but he can tell Elio’s not sure what to think and that he’s been worrying about this.
“Of course, the problem in the first place was that I was never in love with her. Or with anyone, for that matter.”
Elio looks at him because, yes, he knows this by now but he might need to just hear it one more time.
“Elio. I love you. You know this. Many things about me were the problem and then some things about her were the problem and then there were my parents and hers and expectations on all sides…you were never actually a problem. You were salvation. And then the solution, once I got my head out of my ass.”
“You never regret it?”
“What’s bringing this up, huh? Is it because I’m fucking this up? Because I really don’t think you can divorce someone over messed up tomatoes.”
Elio smiles his huge, huge smile and it tells Oliver that these questions aren’t because Elio is genuinely worried, it’s just him working through this information.
“Ask Mafalda that question.”
“Never.”
“We’re not married either, so divorce is not really in the cards.”
“Technicalities.”
Elio leans forward, eyes bright, still smiling, and presses his lips against Oliver’s neck.
“You should’ve used ice water.”
“Now he says that.”
*
Elio’s books have slid into the book case with the same ease as the rest of him slid into his life. They share a kitchen and a bathroom and a bedroom and a life and it all works with minimal effort. He supposes that’s one upside of spending years believing it would never.
They get on well, which sounds like it should be a given but he knows it’s absolutely not. There can be attraction and great sex even with those you don’t get on with. Sometimes because you don’t. But they have all that and they do get on. They share a love of books and music and movies and food, they never run out of things to talk about and they’re so madly attracted to each other that some mornings, it’s genuinely nearly impossible to get out the door and into the real world.
So of course, a bump in their otherwise finally bumpless road must present itself.
This time, it pops up in the shape of his parents which, if he’s honest, had to happen sometime and he’d rather it be sooner.
What he would have liked, however, is to not have Elio’s parents staying with them at the precise moment his mother rings the doorbell.
He’s too shocked at their appearance to respond in any way but Annella steps forward to introduce herself and Samuel and then excuse them both.
“We will go and have lunch, yes? We’ll meet you for dinner?”
She touches his arm as she moves past him, Samuel smiles encouragingly.
He nods but he’s not even sure what he’s agreeing to. The only thing he can think about is that Elio will be home in less than an hour and he really doesn’t want him to have to deal with this.
The door closes behind the Perlmans and he’s still standing in the same place, watching his parents walk into the living room.
His father doesn’t say a word, only frowns at what he would consider a mess. Shoes by the sofa, Elio’s jacket over the back of a chair. The mail on the table that Oliver knows is addressed to E. Perlman. The sheet music and headphones on the table. The picture that was taken that summer on the desk in the corner. His home.
“There’s coffee.”
It’s all he manages to say before his father turns to him and walks out the door without saying a word.
Well, that’s fast. He expects his mother to follow but she doesn’t. They listen to the door open and close and it’s silent for a bit too long.
“This is a very small apartment.”
“It’s big enough.”
“Don’t you want something bigger? Something nice, Oliver. Someplace you can come home to.”
They’re not talking about his apartment.
“This is home.”
“But..”
“No but. This is home. I like it.”
She opens her mouth but he doesn’t need to hear it.
“I love it.”
She takes a very deep breath at that and he can see, now that he’s really looking, all that she wants to say but what she knows won’t make a bit of difference. Perhaps she is really looking too, this time.
“You will not have us in your life, Oliver.”
“That is your choice, not mine.”
“You know perfectly well that there is no way….”
“There is a way but you won’t accept that one. Which I did know, yes. So..”
“So you are willing to do without your family, in order to live like…this?”
She gestures at the room. He wishes she would drop the pretense. He waits for her to look at him before he answers.
“Yes.”
“You better be very sure about this.”
“I am”
And he understands how cold he must sound, how indifferent. But it’s been years in the making, this detachment. It didn’t happen overnight. It’s just that they never saw it happening and that only seems fair because he spent years trying to cover it up with smiles that threatened to break him.
“I’m not sorry. But… I am sorry for that, I suppose.”
“How do you expect to live without the support of your family?”
He can only raise his eyebrow at that because he knows she’s not that stupid.
“Have I ever had it?”
“If you would just…”
“Yeah, but I won’t just, so I don’t have it. And it might have been enough, at one point, to keep me where you wanted me to stay but it’s not anymore.”
“You’re not the same person.”
“Maybe that’s because I’m happy now and that’s kind of new.”
“Do I get to see this Elio?”
“How do you even know his name?”
“I spoke to Lis, of course. What did you think would happen?”
“Right. Well, fine. I don’t even care. And no.”
“No?”
“No. Because I don’t want this poisonous air, the one you’ve come here to spread around, anywhere near him.”
“He must know people disapprove, it’s not like this is normal, Oliver. We are not the crazy ones.”
“I’m not getting into this, there’s absolutely no point. He knows, he knows all of it and despite the bullshit in this world, he is a good person. He’s kind and clever and a stunning human being. You’re not coming near him.”
“I am not a monster.”
He doesn’t say anything because calling her a monster is a step too far, even if he thought swirled around, briefly, in his mouth. But he doesn’t agree with her either.
“I see. Well, this is goodbye then, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“Do not call us, Oliver. There won’t be anything we can do when this goes south.”
“I won’t.”
“We’ll see if you feel that way when you need us.”
“Even if this did, which it won’t and the fact that you say that only goes to show how little you know me or us, but even if it did….when have I ever called you?”
It’s her turn to keep silent now. She stares at him, then reaches out to straighten a framed poster. It belongs to Elio. She can’t know that but he wonders if she does anyway.
She pulls back her hand and lets her eyes flit across the room, then she straightens her back and walks out without looking back.
It’s the first time he can see himself in her. It’ll be the last time as well.
*
He moves from the doorway to the sofa but that’s as far as he gets and then Elio is home. Elio, who takes one look at him and understands that what he needs to do is drop all his things right where he’s standing and climb into Oliver’s lap. He straddles his thighs and presses one hand into the back of his neck, the other slipping into his hair. He pulls a little and Oliver comes willingly, pressing his nose into Elio’s collarbone.
“They’re gone?”
Annella and Samuel must have called him.
“Weren’t you meeting your parents for lunch?”
His voice is muffled by Elio’s t-shirt.
“I was.”
Meaning he did and then came straight here.
“Yeah, they’re gone.”
And the way he says it makes it clear; they’re gone forever.
Elio pulls him back again and up a little and rests his forehead against his.
“I’m sorry.”
He closes his eyes, flexes his hands around those familiar hips, fingers slipping underneath worn fabric. Just touching this bit of Elio’s skin is soothing him.
“I’m not.”
“Oliver..”
“I’m not. I just…..I need some time to let it sink in, I guess. Honestly, I expected it to be much harder. Or not as quick anyway. Expected more of a fight, I guess.”
“I wish I had been here.”
“I’m glad you weren’t.”
“I know, that’s why I wish I had been.”
Elio moves back a little, just a little, but he recognizes the panic that still takes over sometimes, when their bodies forget that there is no need for goodbye, so he puts his hands on Oliver’s cheeks, holds his face like it has value.
“You don’t need to protect me from everything, you know. You can’t.”
He stares right back at Elio because they’ve spent too much time avoiding each other’s eyes.
“I know but I can actually protect you from them.”
Bouncing curls as Elio nods. He understands why Oliver wants to keep him away from what has had such a toxic effect on him and he appreciates the sentiment, even if he disagrees with it.
“We don’t have to go anywhere tonight. My parents won’t care.”
“Yes, they will.”
“Well, yes, but they’ll understand. They told me to tell you not to feel obligated.”
“I know, but…I kind of want to go. Otherwise I’ll just sit here moping.”
Soft lips kiss one cheek, then the other, his forehead and the tip of his nose.
“You know my parents are your parents too now, right? They love you. You were always family to them, even when we weren’t..”
He does know that. He’s never felt unwelcome in their house and in their family for even a minute.
He catches Elio’s wandering lips and holds on a little tighter.
“Guess that means I’m lucky too.”
*
They do go back to Italy that summer and for pretty much every summer after. It always, always feels like living both past and future at the same time, which Oliver supposes is what it means to come home.