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Why did he have to arrive late today? Why do they think it is okay and appropriate? Why do they think they have the right to make him see that, to make him hear that, to make him think about it?
He has never hated more the front row of the class than in this moment, when the tables are arranged in a U where everybody can see his face redden and his eyes water, no matter how long he keeps them glued on the paper-sheet laying in front of him, paper-sheet everyone has already read and discussed.
He shouldn’t have looked up, he shouldn’t have signed for this class, maybe he shouldn't even have woken up this morning. “Creative writing.” it’s none of that. They don’t write. He wants to write and hand it to the teacher, he wants to write and be free, he doesn’t want to be told to read in front of the class, he doesn’t want to take a ‘powerful picture’, he doesn’t want to watch the movie he’s been asked to, movie that opens with a sex scene that last longer than his breath can be held and his mind can be kept away. He doesn’t want to hear the word.
He feels ridiculous, absolutely idiotic, foolish, stupid. For the sting in his eyes, for the sickness in his stomach, for the way he doesn't seem to breathe quite right. He doesn’t remember feeling so hateful towards himself. Idiotic, foolish, stupid. Perhaps you deserve it.
He doesn’t want to run away as soon as the teacher says there’s a break of five minutes, he doesn’t want to make his best friend cry when she finds him at the end of the corridor, looking out the window with his blood-shot eyes. He doesn’t want to run away. But he is. He’s fleeing. The thought of going back in there and be in the front row, and have the teacher projecting a picture he’s only seen a glimpse of in a miniature makes him sick. It takes him by the throat, plunges his whole being in an abyss he can’t get out of.
Naked bodies. He’s tired of seeing them when he hasn’t asked for it. He’s tired of hearing people talk about it. He’s tired of having images in his mind he just wants to get rid of. To him it isn’t art. It disgusts him. The simple thoughts of it makes him shake.
“I wish I was normal.” saying it hurts. He is hurting everywhere. His whole body aches, his whole mind, heart, very soul. But it's true, he wishes he was normal. Lydia stares at him, her lips are pinched, her face is red. He doesn’t want to make her cry.
“You don’t choose these things. You don’t like what you don’t like. What’s normal anyway?” she says, her voice soft, hand squeezing his forearm.
He shakes his head. He hates himself for having said that. He hates himself for feeling like that, too – why is this darkness following him around, why is everything triggering it, why is the cold burning his skin?
He stares out the window, not even noticing the buildings outside. He hears people laugh. Walk behind him. And he feels like there’s no ground underneath his feet. He can’t see anything outside. Can’t see the phone in his hands. His mind concentrates only on taming the shaking of his limbs, on not starting to sob, on breathing evenly.
He tries to think about something else but the movie he’s started to watch for this exact same class haunts him, the picture of hairy privates in miniature in the file for today’s lesson haunts him, the extract of the movie shown earlier haunts him. Demons everywhere. They take him by the feet and drag him further under the surface.
He needs Liam. He needs to call Liam.
But Liam is still sleeping, he knows, Liam is warm and soft under the covers and he has no idea and he shouldn’t be disturbed because Theo is being ridiculous. Ridiculously himself, not able to handle a picture or two, not able to handle something no one else feels sick even thinking of.
He wishes he was normal. He wishes he was like all the people in this classroom. He wishes he had been able to finish the movie he had been asked to see, he wishes he hadn’t cried so much afterwards, he wishes it didn’t haunt his mind.
Naked bodies. He hates them, so much. He doesn’t want to hear about it. Why is he being forced to? Why is it everywhere? Why does he hurt everywhere?
He shouldn’t be like that. He shouldn’t run away. Yet he is. Lydia looks at him as he’s falling apart, and the fact that he wants to be anywhere but here is probably painted all over his face. The thought of coming back in there and risking to be shown this picture or discuss the movie is a thought she knows is running in his head. Not only running, but attacking him, biting his flesh, opening up his wounds, tearing at his insides.
“You should go home. I’ll tell the teacher you didn’t feel well.” she says, and when he finally looks at her, she’s the one staring out the window. Two tissues are lying on the windowsill next to his hand clenching his phone. He takes them silently, wiping his eyes before nodding.
He knows she isn’t looking directly at him, but her senses are on him anyway. “I’ll get your bag.” she simply says. Her hand touches his shoulder gently before she walks away. He thinks he doesn't deserve her, the way she always understands, the way she holds him without touching him, the way she tells all the right words even when she is silent.
He watches her walk away before focusing ahead again. He closes his eyes. He doesn’t know if he’s ever felt so stupid. So disgusted with the world and with himself. He is doing it, he is running away like the coward he is, because he’s different and can’t handle what everyone enjoys. He feels the time ticking by. He’s doing this. He’s going home. He’s bothering Liam. He’s being a burden again.
His limbs feel heavy. He doesn’t want to cry.
No one will understand. He’s aching all over.
No one will understand. He’s being a burden again.
The copper taste in his mouth is there again, a shadow walks behind him before his blurry eyes realise it’s Lydia. She’s silently putting the bag at his feet and leaning against the windowsill. He doesn’t look at her when he talks.
“Did you tell him?” She stares ahead as well as she answers. Theo can see her bangs move as she shakes her head.
“Not yet. I will when the break is over.”
Theo bites his lips, munching at the skin inside, his eyes still blinking rapidly. “Just tell him I had a migraine or something. Whatever will do.” she nods again, looking over at him. He realises the corridor is silent again. Both checking, locking eyes afterwards, they know they should get going. Theo picks up his bag, it's heavier than he remembers, and Lydia links their arms together.
The few steps between the window and the staircase are extremely short in time. He’s doing this. He’s running away. The thought stings his eyes. She faces him with a sad smile, her face red, her eyes blinking like his.
“Don’t cry, yeah, I’ll be all right.” he tells her, his hand now being the one squeezing her arm in comfort. She takes a step and envelops him in a hug. He feels her nod against his shoulder.
“Yeah, okay.” she gives him a real smile when she pulls away, her eyes glistening in the artificial light of the neons. She squeezes his hand before turning away and walking off. He stares at her a second, feeling tears well up in his eyes, and decides to also turn away. It’s too late anyway.
He tried not to cry on the way home.
He really did. But then the music is playing in his earphones and he’s totally gone, breaking in a million pieces, not even having the heart to care about what the people passing him by might think of a grown man sobbing in the street.
His hands are clenched in his pocket, the little nails he has digging into his palms. The tissues Lydia has given him earlier are now reduced in a ball, wet with tears, and yet they still flow down his cheeks. The cold air stings the wet trails they leave, and prickles his running nose. He doesn’t stop himself anymore. He looks down where the pavement is still soaked from the rain during the night, and makes sure he doesn’t step in any puddle. Funny how his sobs are making him smile. Crooked, distorted smile, bitter, fake. He's laughing at himself.
The walk to his flat is faster than it usually is. Maybe because for once he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t think about the way there, doesn’t realise he’s actually walking. Or maybe because he doesn’t really want to get home, open the door and risk disturbing the man sleeping so soundly in their shared-bed.
Standing in front of the door, keys in hands that shake too much to do anything with them, is so much harder than he thought. His safe haven is standing right there, but he can’t allow himself. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
He swallows a sob and forces both of his hands to still in front of him. When they’re somewhat stable he decides to open the door. More silently than when he left at eight this morning. More silently than when Liam had decided not to go out and he comes back in the middle of the night. He doesn’t want to burden him. He wants to disappear.
He holds his breath as he steps in. Silently settles his bag in the entrance hall, taking out his shoes, and makes his way to the bathroom. The room is not exactly silent. He can hear the fridge that has always been too loud for his liking, but he can’t hear the soft snores that usually come from Liam. Instead there is the whistling of the coffee-machine in the kitchen. And the next second a head is poking from the kitchen, eyes still sleepy and half opened.
Theo crumbles down all over again as Liam’s eyes open almost fully in realisation. He barely gets the time to choke on a sob that Liam’s arms around him, still warm from the blanket he’s just let fall to the floor. The tighter Liam holds him the more guilty he feels, the more he thinks about why he’s here and how he ran away and how Liam can’t enjoy a calm morning because he’s not normal.
“Please stop.” Liam tells him, his hand firm against the back of his head, each finger a pressure Theo feels being printed in his skull. “Whatever it is, stop blaming yourself for it.”
The fact that he knows makes it hard for Theo to stay upright, his legs seem to give up on him, his whole body feeling weaker than it had in a long time. He probably puts his whole weight on Liam because he’s helplessly being lead towards their bed, the door pushed open quickly so their entangled bodies can go and crash against the soft covers. Theo’s head doesn’t move, stays in its safe place – the place where Liam’s right shoulder meets his neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.” he says, words cut by sniffles and hiccups, breaths sucked in and sobs threatening to make him lose the way he usually so easily gets to the air surrounding him. Liam shushes him gently, the hand in his hair going up and down in a soothing motion.
“You’re not stupid.” he adds softly, and Theo only shakes his head. He knows he can’t talk in this state anyway, and Liam knows it as well. And so both stay silent, bodies speaking for them. Liam’s cheek rests against Theo’s head, his hands and fingers dance softly along his back or his nape, wherever he can touch, wherever he knows soothes Theo the best. The only time they leave him is when he blindly searches for tissues he knows are resting on the bedside-table.
The coffee might be done by now. Cold even.
Theo has finally stopped crying, his cheeks are dry and he can finally breathe through his nose. He’s looking around the room through sore eyelids, eyes taking in the details of the wardrobe by the door, one he knows already. He had never noticed that one of the feet was a bit dodgy though.
“Better?” Liam whispers to the back of his head, lips moving against his hair. Theo guesses he’s also staring at a corner of the room noticing things he never knew were there, or of any importance.
“Yeah.” Theo answers. He’s not good, not yet, but he’s better than before.
“Good.” Liam simply says, his voice not louder than before. Theo is aware he’s now waiting for him to explain, to talk about it when he’s ready. He waits a while as the thoughts spin in his head, how he could explain, how to tell him about what happened without it opening the wound starting to scar and without it hurting so much. He is trying to trick his mind into thinking it’s no big deal, so the blow is softened.
“There...” he starts, and he feels Liam shift slightly against him, his thumb dancing along his jawline, as if to say ‘I’m listening’. “You know that teacher. He’s special in his own way. He… He wanted to talk about obscene things. And-” his voice breaks, he swallows the lump trying to form in his throat. He shakes his head at himself. No big deal, it’s no big deal. “-he showed pictures of privates and I hated it, I felt sick during break. I hated it so much.” he speaks faster than he had before, to finish it, to stop his explanation there and so to stop thinking about what he’d seen and in aim to get rid of the sickness forming in the pit of his stomach.
“And so you went home?” Liam asks, no longer a whisper, his voice clear. After he feels Theo nod against his shoulder he keeps speaking. “I’m proud of you.” he simply states, and Theo feels his lips land a kiss on the top of his head.
He doesn’t understand why. Theo had run away. Theo had and feels sick when he sees something others laugh at, or enjoy. Theo had sobbed in the middle of the street because of it. Theo had come home risking to wake him up just because he couldn’t handle something so simple. And Liam is proud. Proud of Theo, who’s broken.
This doesn’t make sense. Liam can’t be proud of something broken.
“Why?” His voice breaks. And the darkness is back, all around, circling Theo even though Liam’s fingers are still in his hair.
“Because you know yourself. You know your limits. You went home because this didn’t fit you and you did right.” Liam says, and his voice seems to bring back the sun, as if he were physically pushing the clouds away, chasing the darkness gathered by their shadows. “You’re extremely strong. And I’m proud of you, and I love you.” The words are light, clear, warm. Theo can almost see them under his eyelids, appearing softly, printing themselves in a part of his brain that is his and his only. That is full of Liam and the love he gives Theo.
“I love you.” Theo says, his voice still a whisper, and Liam squeezes him in his arms. “Thank you.” he adds after a moment of silence, his eyes closed still, and Liam answers with a soft press of his lips against the skin just behind his ear. Theo feels it tingle and it stays warm even after the lips are gone.
Liam starts to rock them left and right, his arms holding Theo tightly. “Would you like hot chocolate? I can make you that so we can stay in bed until I need to go to work, yeah?” he says, his nose nudging the side of Theo’s head. He can hear how Liam breathes him in. He smiles, and is momentarily struck by how easy it is. How easily Liam’s presence can make him forget, or make him better.
He nods. Finally craning his neck to look at him. The fondness of Liam’s eyes floods his heart. He wants to tell him he loves him again. He wants to look at him always. It almost aches.
Liam smiles widely, his eyes crinkling at the sides, and Theo can’t help but do the same.
With a quick kiss on his nose, Liam is getting up and walking out of the room. Theo stares a second at the empty door-frame, a dazzled smile tugging his face upwards. His cheeks tingle from the dried wetness. The place where Liam kissed him is warm. And so is the one behind his ribs, where blood pulses through his whole body.
When Liam comes back in, the blanket that laid forgotten in the hallway in hands, Theo smiles. “Did you know one of the feet of the wardrobe is shorter than the rest?” he tells Liam as the latter puts the blanket down on the bed.
Liam’s laugh is loud and cheerful. “Yeah, you clearly didn’t help to put it together.” he says, shaking his head. The blanket ends up in Theo’s face as both laugh, and he hears Liam walk out of the room again before he can see anything.
He wonders why when he closes his eyes, it isn’t dark but shining yellow.