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i took the stars from our eyes, and then i made a map
and knew that somehow i could find my way back
—florence + the machine, “cosmic love”
THE STARS
It goes like this:
"Spend the weekend with me," Max had pleaded. "I was supposed to leave Friday, but I’ll leave on Sunday. I wanna talk to you, I wanna figure this out. Come over.”
And so, Matt did. Even though there was no furniture left in Max's shitty apartment but a mattress on the floor and the nice sheets Rivette had given him as a housewarming gift years ago, the ones Max used to joke cost more than everything else he owned.
They don't leave Max’s place all weekend. They order in food, they lay half naked in bed, they let their phones ring through to voicemail, a universe of two. They take a bath together in a tub too small for two adults, water sloshing over the sides as the temperature goes from hot to tepid to cool. They sit on the newly cleaned floor, smoking with the windows cracked, listening to this one English song Max loves so much on repeat; the looping piano and strings are beautiful, but Matt doesn't have the heart to tell Max that he's pretty sure the song might actually be about a gorilla.
“I didn’t ask my dad,” Matt confesses at two in the morning, his voice echoing in the nearly empty apartment, the glow from the streetlights filtering in due to a lack of curtains. He’s lying on his back in Max’s bed, Max curled up beside him, the port-wine stain on his face pressed against a flattened pillow. “About the letter, I mean. I never asked him about it. I’m sorry.”
Max blinks slowly, once, twice. He doesn’t even look angry about it; maybe a little resigned, a little sad. “Why?”
In the middle of the night, everything feels a little bit like a secret. “Because I didn’t want to contribute to you leaving.”
“Matt,” Max says gently, and this is wrong, all wrong. Max is a lot of things: he’s patient, he’s a peacemaker, and a caretaker, but he has never, not once, been gentle. “Matthias. I can’t stay. There’s nothing for me here.”
What about me? Matt wants to ask, but doesn’t because he knows exactly what Max is trying to say, so he just nods instead; reaches out an arm to pull Max toward him, doesn’t startle when Max shifts willingly.
(Two weeks later, when Maxime’s tucked away in Melbourne, when Matt is back at his job, his life, his bed, with Sarah beside him, silent and still in the dark, he tells her he kissed Max.
“For the film, I know,” she says.
“No,” Matt says, urgently. “At Shariff’s.”
“Oh,” she says to the ceiling. Her voice keeps steady, giving nothing away.
“And then again that weekend,” Matt continues. He can’t seem to stop. “And again. And again.”
“And then what?” Sarah asks.
Matt stares up at the ceiling, keeping an eye on the sliver of moonlight from the curtains that never completely close, just enough that a wink of starlight is visible on every clear night. “And then nothing. He’s in Australia. I’m here.”
“Are you?” Sarah intones. “Are you really here?”
“I”m here,” Matt repeats.
Sarah sighs. Doesn’t roll over; doesn’t try to touch Matt. She’s the kindest person he knows, maybe one of the most forgiving, too. She’s always loved him, always loved Max as well. Matt doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to forgive him this though.
“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” she asks, finally.
Matt’s almost surprised, how it only takes several minutes after his ascent for Sarah’s breathing to even out.
He follows suit; sleeps. Dreams about crude tattoos and the smell of curling cigarette smoke and other things he won’t remember in the morning.)
THE MOON
When Matt thinks about how the world unfolds, he imagines a possible future where Max has a mom who loves him as much as Francine loves Matt, as much as Francine loves Max.
(“Like two moons,” Francine used to say about the two of them, about Matt and Max.
When he was old enough to understand, Matt had furrowed his forehead in confusion and asked, “Isn’t the expression ‘the sun and the moon’?”
“You and Maxime? Where’s the sun, you tell me?” But she had squeezed him tight as she said it, so that he knew she loved him for always, no matter what.)
They meet when they’re seven, years before Matt's dad has an affair with his secretary, leaving Matt and Francine to fend for themselves. Before Max’s dad walks out on Manon and Max and his brother, before Max’s brother walks out on them too. Before Max’s mom spends all her time trying to forget that her husband doesn’t love her anymore.
Matthias and Maxime kiss at fifteen at a houseparty. They’re a little tipsy on shitty Molsons and Peach Schnapps and they're all playing some kissing game that Max doesn't want to play because no one will want to kiss him anyway, so Matt does. Matt kisses him and kisses him and he doesn't stop.
Tonight, just like the last decade and a half, they’re together, piled on a singular armchair in Shariff’s living room in the suburbs—Rivette brings his new boyfriend and Brass brings his new girlfriend, Sarah. Frank’s saying something that makes Max throw his head back and laugh, and Matt watches the line of his throat as he tugs him closer, drawing him in like the way the tides are pulled by the gravity of the moon.
THE DARK
Frank drives Max to the airport. He picks Max up from the old apartment and takes the house keys; promises to return the keys to Max’s landlord. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel to a Roch Voisine song they both hate and Max watches him. Frank looks nervous; Frank is never nervous.
Max leans over to turn off the radio and gives Frank a look. "What?"
Frank doesn't say anything for a long moment, merges onto the highway. Finally, he says, staring out the windshield, “I see the way you look at him. And I see the way that he looks at you.”
“You don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm not stupid," Frank says, still not looking at Max.
"I know that,” Max says, trying to placate. “But there isn't anything there."
They drive the rest of the way in silence.
When they arrive, Max insists that there’s no need for Frank to go in with him, so they drive to the departures area instead and pull over. Frank awkwardly hugs Max while they’re still both buckled up in the front of the car before Max gets out, hefting out his luggage from the trunk.
And then, with one last wave, Max watches as Frank drives away, until he can’t see the car anymore, the sun starting to set in the distance.
THE TWILIGHT
Or it goes like this: as Shariff's house party winds down, Max, with practice at making himself unseen, stands up and quietly walks down the hall and lets himself into the first room on the right. No one else notices but Matt, who watches him go.
And when the rain starts outside, and everyone else at the party runs into the backyard to help Shariff rescue the clothes on the drying line, Matt takes the opportunity to follow Max; lets himself into the room and closes the door.
It’s probably Shariff’s bedroom, with banker’s boxes stacked across the floor and old posters tacked on the walls. The flag of Lebanon hangs proudly behind the headboard. Max is already lying prostrate on the top of the bed’s plaid duvet cover, so Matt gingerly lies down beside him and looks at Max. And looks. And looks.
“What?” Max finally asks, turning his head to that he’s watching Matt now.
“Nothing,” says Matt.
Matt’s phone buzzes. He fishes it out of his pocket. It’s McAfee. Matt wonders what the hell he could possibly want. When he looks up, Max is looking at him inquisitively.
“It’s no one,” Matt says. “Just that lawyer. He wants to go out. Strip club.”
Max moves his hand as if to touch Matt’s arm; stops just centimetres from touching Matt, hovering like the ghost of a memory. “Stay,” Max says. “Stay. Please stay.”
“You’re the one who’s leaving,” Matt tells him, trying not to sound resentful or cross.
“Not tonight,” Max says. “But let’s just stay here. Five minutes, ten minutes. It doesn’t matter. Just stay. Please.”
So Matt does.
THE SHADOW
“The film’s to be impressionist but also expressionist,” Erika says, snapping her gum. “You know?”
Matt hates, hates, that he’s been tricked into appearing in her short film. He can’t stand Erika, never was able to muster up the fond patience Max always seemed to have for her.
“It’s just a kiss,” Matt finds himself saying. “You’re literally just filming us kissing, it’s not like you’re Godard.”
“Matt,” Max says lowly, a bit of a warning as Erika’s face falls a bit at that. He turns to Erika. “I’m not sure what you mean. So we’re to kiss because it...means something?”
She seems to brighten up again at that. “No, but like that’s just, like, the point, right? It doesn’t have to! OMG, it’s like, totally up to the viewer. Maybe it’s just aesthetic. But maybe it’s a metaphor!”
“A metaphor for what?” Matt can’t help but ask.
“Inevitability,” she says, with a flourish.
Matt furrows his brow. “Like...soulmates?”
“Matthias,” Erika says, stretching out his name into an impressive five point four second whine, a hand on her hip. “There’s no such thing as destiny or soulmates. Everything is chance. We live in the moment. Maybe your generation needs a label for everything? But my generation, we are fluid. We just are.”
“We’re the same generation!” Matt splutters.
“Okay boomer,” Erika says in English. “Can we start filming already?”
When Matt looks over at Max, who’s no help because he looks like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Apparently it’s inevitable,” Matt mutters under his breath, quiet enough that only Max can hear.
Max does laugh at that, and Matt can feel the line of tension in his shoulder ease. “Kiss me, boomer,” Max says, in his terrible English, tilting his head to meet Matt’s mouth with his own.
They’re still kissing, long past when Erika calls “CUT!” and she resorts to flicking the overhead lights on and off to get their attention, like an overzealous kindergarten teacher. When they finally pull away and look over, she’s grinning back at them like a cat who’s just caught the largest canary of all.
“Like I said,” she says, turning off her camera. She straightens up. “Inevitability.”
THE MAP
Matt tells his boss that he’s taking a leave of absence. He buys a plane ticket to Melbourne and makes two phone calls while he’s waiting at his gate to board: his mom doesn’t pick up the first time, so he calls his boss, and then tries his mom again.
(Take the week, his boss says. You’re only young once!
Are you out of your goddamn mind?! his mom yells down the line. And then, a sigh as her voice softens when she says, I love you. Be safe. Give Max my love, too.)
One week becomes two weeks, becomes three; he’s lucky his boss likes him. Matt and Max try Malaysian food for the first time and order flat whites in the coffee shop around the corner from Max’s tiny furnished apartment. They eat meat pies, trying not to burn their fingers as they’re pressed together on the park bench, and at night they share a single mattress on the floor. Matt walks Max to his interview for a job at the student-frequented dive bar down the road; they walk home together afterward, lamenting about feeling old around all the fresh-faced eighteen year olds.
That night, they make the fifteen minutes trek to the grocery store to buy a loaf of bread and a singular container of Vegemite to try, just to tell Brass that they did. They wander the aisles, Matt’s hand on the small of Max’s back, as they pretend that this is their life now—steady and comfortable and happy—staunchly avoiding the reality that Matt’s almost out of vacation time, that Matt will go back to his life in Montreal while Max will go on living here in his small apartment, his small bed.
Without Matt.
“Found it,” Max says, breaking the spell and reaching into the shelves for the smallest jar of spread he can find. He grins, the corners of his eyes crinkling up in a way that suddenly feels both familiar and new, and Matt’s helpless as he feels himself grinning back despite every impending uncertainty.
(THE HEART)
It goes like this:
Matt is standing in front of Max’s place, hands tucked into his jeans pockets, looking like the most important thing Max has ever seen. And there’s the smile, the one that has never not made Max feel like the only person in the world.
So Max tentatively makes his way down the front steps, the decades of muscle memory of being drawn toward Matt. Peripherally, he can see Frank’s car, can see Frank duck back into the driver seat, for once trying to give them some privacy. Matt doesn't move, just offers a little tilt of the head, so Max goes to Matt; stops right in front of him.
“Hi,” Matt says, his smile notching up even wider.
“Hey,” Max says in response, and in that moment he can feel every infinite possibility stretch out between them in a yawning void, in which nothing else matters—not Australia, not his mom or his brother, or even Frank in his car pretending he’s not gawking at them. Just Matt; Matthias and Maxime. Max and Matt. Always.
[end]