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There’s no space for such thoughts. It’s as if he’s holding his breath, like underwater, testing how far he can go without the water filling his lungs. The steering wheel his hot beneath his palms, or maybe it’s just his palms that are sweaty. He keeps his eyes fixated on the road. Holding his breath, but not really, trying to keep quiet so he can hear David breathe beside him. Like being awaken by something as a child, in the middle of the night, waking up a parent just to see they’re still breathing, still alive.
There’s no space for such thoughts. Matteo bites down on his lower lip. It doesn’t hurt. Should it? Maybe. Perhaps it would be better. Something is crawling across his skin, a feeling of being guilty of doing something terrible. How do you cope with that? David sighs. Still alive. God, it doesn’t even make sense. Who dies on the passenger seat, out of nowhere, a cardiac arrest before the age of twenty, just like that.
David, maybe. Impossible and out of ordinary. He’s like that.
No, not really. It’s just Matteo, and the weird thing in his brain. The unnamed thing. The creature that keeps him awake at night. The hand that lights the joint. That thing. Him. It. It doesn’t make sense.
Matteo coughs.
“So,” he says, nowhere to go with it. The desert is vast and swimming in sunlight.
“So,” David repeats. Matteo wants to stop the car, right in the middle of the endless road, turn towards him and grab him by the face, kiss him. Like in the movies, a great Western. On a run, the two of them against the world. A bullet missing the heart by an inch, and then keeping the bullet to never forget of much it hurt.
But there isn’t bullets, no magnificent story of love and death. It’s just this—whatever this is.
“Pull over,” David says, and it probably is a suggestion but it sounds like a command, and for that reason he does as he is told. He wants to please. Wants to make him happy. And Christ, why is it always about want? Why can’t he just be, let go, and be, just be—
David opens the car door and steps out. Matteo watches as the sunlight licks him clean. Hair pushed back, white t-shirt, like a goddamn James Dean. How is it fair? For someone to look like that, and how is it possible, for someone as brilliant to fit so well in Matteo’s arms. How weird life is. He gets out of the car and follows David across the sand.
“C’mere, darling boy,” David laughs, looks happy, looks nice, so nice. Matteo just wants to forget. It’s so peaceful to be with him but there’s a chaos underneath his sternum. He’s so tired.
“Okay,” and walks closer. It’s warm. David is warmer when he pulls him into his arms. Matteo doesn’t know if it’s pliant or apathetic to fall into him like this. He’s tired of dying. So sick of it. Tired of the dreams on the bridge. He presses his face against David’s shoulder and makes a home for himself.
“Sorry,” Matteo says, muffled by the fabric, “for being a...mood killer.”
“What mood?” David laughs softly. His lips are in Matteo’s hair. It’s a silly little thing, an embrace in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he’ll get his great Western and gunshots. Hopefully not. Being in love is so hard. It feels so safe. It’s too hard. It’s harder to quit the cycle of self pity, the spiraling.
He thinks about swimming pools and holding his head underwater. Sometimes it’s David holding his head underwater. The thing is, not everything feels like something else. It’s just easier to pretend so. Sometimes it’s the both of them, holding each other down. The greatest romances end in tragedy, of course, of course. Matteo doesn’t want this to end. He just wants to stay, but how do you keep something forever?
It’s awful, the way his brain works. So he shuts his eyes as if it would change something. Hopefully it does. David is drawing patterns onto his back. Matteo doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
It shouldn’t be like this, it shouldn’t be this hard. The dramatics make it worse. There’s nothing beautiful about this. Or maybe there is. Shit, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t get it. Hold me tighter, he wants to say. Saying the things he needs to say, it’s too hard. Apologizing for your own existence, for taking space, it’s too silly too.
Matteo takes a step back, avoids eye contact, keeps his gaze on David’s right shoulder. Matteo’s right. Not David’s. It doesn’t matter. (None of this does, we are either in love forever or someone’s heart ends up cracking in two.) (Shut up, shut up, shut up.)
“What’s wrong?” David asks, instead of Are you okay?
Matteo shrugs his shoulders, doesn’t dare to look him in the eye. He’s petrified, he shouldn’t be, oh, it’s such a bad day, such a bad time, he should’ve just stayed in bed. He could hide beneath the blanket and pretend to sleep, David could draw in the room behind the thin wall, and no one would hurt, no one would feel awkward, get uncomfortable. Now he’s just exposed, laid bare, what a fool. And a desert? All the ideas he has are bad. He’s so bad.
“Just… thoughts,” he gestures lazily towards his head, mumbling. Matteo doesn’t want to elaborate. He wants to get in the car, stretch over the backseat, let David kiss him all over, maybe make him hurt him, a little bit, just to get his mind off this. Or he could just lay his head on David’s lap, let him pet his hair, maybe pull it. Why is it always about hurting? About pain. About losing. It hurts too much. Everything shouldn’t be this hard. It should be easier. It isn’t.
He’s being dramatic. It isn’t this bad. Not always. Not like this. It’s just—bad, bad, bad. Today. Even when the light is falling all over them and reaching the bone.
“Baby,” David says, voice soft. Gentle, soft. Matteo loves him. Matteo hates him. This is a lie. Of course. Of course. His brain is turning into liquid and dripping out of his ears. He stares David’s shoulder. He should tell Matteo to snap out of it, to stop being such a baby, to get his shit together. Turn him inside out.
David looks down at his hands. They don’t really look like his. I’m so scared, I’m so sad, I can’t deal with it, I should feel great, but I don’t, why am I so difficult, I should be easy, I’m sorry, he wants to say.
“Baby,” David repeats, puts his palm on Matteo’s cheek to lift his head up to face him. He looks concerned and Matteo just wants to wipe it off from his face. I’m fine, he wants to say, but lying feels bad, too.
“Sorry, I just—,” Matteo doesn’t really have anything to say.
“Let’s go back to the car. I’ll drive,” David strokes his cheek as he speaks. Matteo swallows, then nods.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. He shouldn’t feel this guilty. It’s not David’s fault. Just the thing, like a tumor, behind his skull.
David drops his hand but in no time his fingers are intertwining with Matteo’s. The smile he gives him is reassuring and content, as if to say, it’s alright.
“Thank you,” it’s barely a whisper. The sand beneath their shoes dulls the sharpness of their movements. They aren’t really that sharp anyway. He’s making things up.
“It’s alright,” David keeps smiling. Matteo feels like smiling too, just a little. Emotions shouldn’t be something to feel this ashamed over. It shouldn’t be like this. It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright. It just feels like teeth. But it’s alright, it’s alright.
He wants to count the clouds. He turns his head toward the sky as they walk to the car. There’s no clouds, no dead sparrows raining down, no nothing, just sunlight. It feels—well, beautiful. And when Matteo looks at David, he just looks like gold. Swimming in the light, he looks like an angel. Then, it’s almost like drowning, but in a way that isn’t all that bad.
And it really matters, somehow.