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Ivan Kovačić, for once, thinks fate might be on his side.
He stops his Tomos and swings his right leg over the back to get off, his heartbeat still a little high and infrequent in his chest. His head feels a little hot under the helmet despite the cold temperatures of Zagreb in January that normally manage to find its way even through the thickest of blankets and clothes.
He sniffles a little, his nose slightly runny from the cold air, and he’s unable to keep himself from smiling.
If he concentrates, it’s like he can still feel those hands at his side; a soft touch, not much more than necessary just to keep from falling, but a touch nonetheless, real and undeniable and his.
When he got to the party and saw him there on that balcony, Lovro accompanied by his friends—one abrasive and a little too sure of himself, the others just giggling and on their way to get high—this outcome was not among the ones Ivan had thought out beforehand.
It’s not like he came without a plan, but fate really seems to be on his side tonight, and what did Ivan do for it? He just arrived. He just arrived in the possession of a getaway-Tomos. Well, he’ll take it.
Ever since that first time he saw Lovro at school, a month or so after arriving himself from a different school in the city, Ivan hasn’t been able to think about that boy.
Back then he still had blonde hair, a shitty dye job he probably did himself—and from the Instagram page Ivan managed to get his hands on in the time that followed, by far not his first rodeo in the self-dye saloon.
The first time Ivan saw Lovro, Lovro was sitting alone on a bench in the schoolyard, sneaking drags from a joint every now and then, cautious not to be spotted by the headmaster or any other personnel—or snitching students, because God knows no one at high school has ever heard of the word solidarity.
Ivan thinks he can shake God’s hand in that regard.
He had his phone in his hand, against his ear, and Ivan was too far away to hear what the conversation was about—but it was clear that Lovro wasn’t happy and that whoever was on the other side of the line, or anyway, whatever they were discussing, frustrated him to no end.
Lovro listened for a while, his expression changing from bad to worse with each moment that passed, and then he went on a tirade of his own, trying not to raise his voice too loudly but obviously struggling to do so.
When the syllables ‘mama’ seemed to leave his lips, Ivan was sure he had it all figured out—well, the basis of the frustration anyway, the unique way in which a mother’s concern manages to piss off her rebellious teenage son.
There was something about the abrasiveness in Lovro’s demeanor back then that kept Ivan’s eyes glued to the other boy like they hadn’t stuck to anyone in a long time—not even his girlfriend, as much as that displeased her, and at times himself as well.
Everything was just different then, and everything is still very much different now.
Ever since the inferential diagnosis and the pills becoming a daily routine and everyone always walking on eggshells around him, everyone always trying their absolute best to be the nicest they muster, just so they don’t set him off ‘again’—ever since then, Ivan yearns for something new, something to get out of whatever this is.
And back there in that schoolyard, the force with which Lovro’s words left his mouth, the way he expressed himself and his frustration and didn’t try to sugarcoat shit—ever since then it’s like Ivan’s been drawn to him, his heart skipping a beat when he sees Lovro in the hallways, a small smile on his face when he opens Instagram and sees a new post on Lovro’s feed.
He’s still quite proud of himself for finding that Instagram, but then again, once he found out Lovro’s name and his connection to Vanessa, everything was pretty smooth sailing. The only thing that kind of confused Ivan was the profile picture on Lovro’s account, seemingly of a friend of his that Ivan hasn’t cared to figure out the name of.
Lovro’s profile picture has since been changed, but Ivan still at times feels a small stab of jealousy at the fact that that boy is so close to him and Ivan, well, isn’t.
But Ivan has always been more about getting things done than just letting them happen, has always been about rolling up his sleeves and putting himself out there. Well… now less so than he used to, but he refuses to let his illness take even more away from him than it already has. At least, he’s trying.
So when he heard through the grapevine that there would be a party and that Lovro would be there, he didn’t hesitate to find out exactly when and where.
Some boys he got acquainted with at school proved very useful in the scenario, since they’d heard from a friend of a friend of Lovro’s—apparently Lovro was part of the organizing ‘team’—what the address was and from what time onward they were expected. They’d even invited Ivan to tag along, but he’d acted blasé about it and like he only just might if he had nothing to do that Saturday.
Another thing Ivan is good at: pretending to be much more chill about a lot of stuff than he actually is. Sure, he can’t fake all of his confidence, and he doesn’t—but he’s not going to go run circles around the school and tell everyone he likes someone there. Not when it’s a boy. Not when it’s so early on.
Not when that boy doesn’t even know his name, and not when Ivan had to find out his through shreds of conversations here and there, through passing by people at the right place at the right time.
But after last night?
While it was about the last outcome he expected so early on, he has absolutely nothing to complain about.
The three weeks of Christmas break that were put in between Ivan and seeing Lovro’s face somehow felt torturous, as if they were laughing at him for leaving him with only Lovro’s pictures to look at—though the pictures always gave a better sight than looking from afar, but looking from afar meant that Lovro was there and might see him, too.
By Saturday afternoon and after about a week full of anticipation and little plans that came to Ivan at random moments during the day, inspired by random things, Ivan felt—well, a little nervous.
All he planned to do was talk, really—talk and then offer Lovro a joint, maybe, lure him outside to be with just the two of them, or anyway with less people than inside. Maybe he’d catch Lovro at the toilets or getting a drink or doing something, anything on his own—and then he could get the ball rolling, then he could at least make an attempt to get Lovro to see him, too.
Though he felt a little pathetic about it on his way there, Ivan even took two helmets for the Tomos, something he usually only does if he knows there will be someone tagging along. He ended up doing heads and tails to decide if he should take the second helmet, and when the tail-side of the coin negated his choice for heads, he took the second helmet anyway.
What the fuck is a coin going to do?
He’s better off safe than sorry anyway, and though he doesn’t think Lovro would have minded much to be on the Tomos without a helmet, this only completed the picture—and Ivan felt almost sick with validation when Lovro came running outside and asked for a ride.
He’d almost lost all his hope already, in any case.
When he came there and saw Lovro’s crew on the balcony, including Lovro himself, his heart already skipped a beat at the first obstacle being overcome: there was always the chance that Lovro somehow wouldn’t be there after all, and that Ivan would have driven over all the way there for nothing.
Well, he would have enjoyed the party still, but Lovro’s absence would have felt like a void he was being sucked into.
But Lovro was there and he was looking down and Ivan thought he might have even heard the boys talk about him. That’s when Lovro’s friend butted in, the annoying one with the blond hair.
Ivan could only take his jokes and smile up at them, because there Lovro was, in the flesh, after three whole weeks of free time and holidays that should have made Ivan happy but simply didn’t anymore.
When nothing else seemed to be happening, Ivan decided to take it slow for a bit and go inside, just to check out the party first and let everything run its course. After all, it was still early, and anyway, Ivan had people to say hi to.
First of all, there was Tina, the main organizer of the party. She’d invited him to come after he’d already been invited—although apparently illicitly so—by his friends, and so he felt obliged to say hi to her.
Going in, he could immediately spot her, her and her other friends crowding the couple the party apparently was for. Ivan had no idea who they were and also didn’t much care, but he went up to the group and tapped Tina on the shoulder to make some conversation.
She turned around and seemed ecstatic to see him, two other girls turning around as well—one with long, dark brown hair, and the other with a shorter blonde cut, an open bottle of vodka in her hand that she sipped on every so often.
“Ivan!” Tina squealed, placing a hand on his arm in a way that Sonja wouldn’t have liked, had she been there. Ivan didn’t like it much either, but it was over before he knew it, and anyway, Tina seemed like a nice enough girl. “You’re here! Welcome!”
“Hi,” Ivan said, smiling a crooked smile, pretending he was about twice more comfortable there than he actually was. From the corners of his eye he could see the set of stairs he assumed Lovro and his friends had ascended to get to the balcony, so he kept it in his field of attention while devoting the rest to Tina and her friends.
Ivan thought he recognized the one with the long, dark hair from something, but he couldn’t quite place it, and so he just kept talking to Tina for a bit.
“Nice party you’ve got here,” Ivan said. “Nice crowd as well. It’s pretty full, isn’t it.”
“Yeah!” Tina replied enthusiastically, and Ivan ignored the look the other two girls gave each other. Something about it told him that they really hadn’t expected this many people, but that the attendance had ended up being all Tina had hoped for.
“Say,” the girl with the vodka butted in just when Tina was about to say something else. The girl was a lot shorter than Ivan but didn’t seem to take mind of it at all, looking at him intently from down there. “Want a drink? I can mix you something.”
“Nix!” Tina hissed, but Ivan only laughed at the girl’s—Nix’s—question. He was flattered to be given a try, even though he already had a girlfriend and even though he came to this party in the first place for someone else entirely.
“I’ll just get a soda,” he said. “Not drinking tonight.”
“Oh, please,” Nix said, looking at him with disappointment in her eyes. “Are you pregnant or something?”
Worse. Much worse.
“Nah,” Ivan replied, holding up the keys to his Tomos and jangling her in front of her face. “I’m driving. Already been caught once. If it’s twice I get an actual criminal record.”
Well, that part was true, the thing about getting caught drunk driving his Tomos. He just doesn’t think the police really cared about it, considering they let him go without so much as a note but with a lot of dangerous ideas that someone should have picked up on way earlier than he did.
It took Ivan a while before he was ready to drive the Tomos again, but anyway—he’s now more concerned about his meds. He doesn’t want to be on them, anyway, but he is and it’s been drilled into him enough times that he can’t have alcohol with them that he wasn’t going to let some random girl mix him a 50/50 vodka soda or whatever she had come up with.
“I can help you find the soda,” Nix continued, giving him a bad wink. Ivan only beamed at her, because he could tell it hardly wasn’t as serious as Tina seemed to think it was, from the way she looked at Nix in a scandalized manner. Ivan, nevertheless, waved her away.
“I’ve got some friends here, I’m going to find them, I think,” he said, even though he had long before received a message from those guys that they’d changed their minds and were heading to a different party across town.
Ivan, instead, thought he might try his hand at getting to the balcony and barging in on the conversation with the boys—maybe bum off one of them, see where it could go, see if Lovro would be looking at him again.
“If you say so,” Nix said, shrugging and turning back around to get back to her conversation with the girl who returned from Amsterdam and another one that Ivan has seen on Lovro’s Instagram a few times.
Ivan kindly waved at Tina and the remaining girl before removing himself from the conversation and trying to figure out where the drinks were fast enough so as not to make it awkward. Well, easy said, easy done, and a few moments later Ivan was holding a glass of off brand Fanta that he downed in one go.
Not the smartest choice, if he was honest; he softly burped in his hand and hoped no one was around to see it, deciding to stay down a little longer so as not to embarrass himself in front of Lovro from the get go.
His phone buzzed with a few messages, and before Ivan had even looked he already knew they were from Sonja. And sure, a chain of messages asking if he’d arrived and how it was, to which he dryly replied but with semi truthful answers.
Yes, I’ve been here like 15 minutes
It’s fuller than I thought but not really my crowd
Those guys are here tho
Two truths and one lie. It was fine.
Ivan stood at the drinks table for a bit before, and just when he thought the coast was clear to go upstairs, Lovro and his friends came down, instead. They went past the girls and made a beeline straight to the very place Ivan was standing, the buzz cut guy’s eyes already stuck on four unopened beer bottles that seemed to be waiting for them.
They brushed past Ivan, and the blond one with the quiff snorted as they did so. “Hey, pizza boy, where has your pizza gone? We don’t pay you for nothing, do we?”
Two of the other boys giggled at this, but Lovro didn’t really join them—as if he didn’t know if it was the right thing to do. Ivan felt his heart jump at this, but he couldn’t let his guard down, not now, not when he was being made fun of.
“And who’s we? Tina paid me handsomely, I don’t know about you…” Ivan said airily, sticking his hands into his pockets and feeling Lovro’s eyes fall on the fanny pack strapped across his chest. Ivan purposely didn’t look back at Lovro, trying to draw it out just a little longer, bracing for impact.
“Tina actually paid you?” the guy with the buzz cut asked, immediately receiving an elbow in the ribs from the bratty blond one. “Hey, what the fuck, dude!”
“Sorry,” the blond one deadpanned as he took a swig from his beer. “That was an accident.”
The one with the buzz cut looked at him as if to say, I fucking know it wasn’t, but didn’t comment anything he. He, too, took a swig from his beer and let his eyes scan the room. They lingered for a bit where Ivan knew Tina was standing, and he seemed not the first to realize this.
The boy closest to Lovro, with dark brown hair, the one that used to be Lovro’s profile picture—Ivan looked at him with a stab of jealousy, while keeping up an amused expression on the outside—patted Buzz Cut on his shoulder a few times and nudged him toward the couch. “Let’s go, guys. Tomos,” he said, making a gesture as if taking off a hat and saluting Ivan.
Ivan only nodded and let his eyes wander to Lovro, who still hadn’t interacted with him, but who, at that very moment, was staring at Ivan. Lovro’s eyes darted away almost immediately, but not fast enough for Ivan not to have noticed it. Ivan had to do his best not to smile at that very moment.
However, it was clear to him that these boys wouldn’t let Lovro alone anytime soon, and so Ivan retreated and tried to find a way to pass the time until it was ripe for him to approach Lovro and, well—at least talk to him. Ivan was almost entirely sure Lovro had no idea who he was, maybe not even that Ivan was now a student at Vladimir Prelog.
Ivan was determined to change that, at least some of it. If there was one thing in the world that he could change that—well, it wouldn’t have been the first, not after what happened last year, but it would definitely have come close.
Ivan cast a last glance at the couch the boys had moved to and then disappeared through a door, reveling in the feeling that when he’d looked back, Lovro had already been looking once more.
When Ivan returned to the main room a while later, the person he found close to the other side of it was Lovro. There were two girls there, and Lovro was obviously trying to hit on them, feigning confidence but his awkward manners shining through.
Truth is; ever since Ivan first saw Lovro, he’s known, or at least suspected, that girls are just not it for Lovro. And not in the way it is for Ivan, either; not in the way that he likes guys but girls as well. Girls are just not it for Lovro.
And maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it’s just a superficial assumption based on the fact that he dyes his hair crazy colors and posted that friend of his the way that he used to. Maybe it’s all just in Ivan’s head.
But then again, maybe it’s not, and there’s only one way to find out.
Going to the party and attempting to get closer to Lovro was only the first step of Ivan’s plan to achieve this. Well, and he wanted to get to know Lovro in general. Still wants to—he’s only just dropped Lovro off at Mamutica, the massive apartment complex in Zagreb where Lovro lives.
Mamutica is about forty-five minutes away from Tuškanac on the Tomos, but just about anything in the city is far away from where Ivan lives. He’s come to accept it. And anyway, hopefully getting Lovro all the way there from that abandoned place the party was at will bring him into Lovro’s good graces by a little more.
Ivan thinks about Lovro’s hands around his waist just now on the Tomos, and then about the girls back at the party.
The girls laughed at Lovro’s attempts at advances, Ivan brushing past him from behind way closer than he needed to do with the space he had. Lovro, however, hadn’t seemed to notice and went back to his friends, laughing, saying something like, “at least I tried!”
Buzz Cut’s eyes were still on Tina, Blonde’s were still annoyed, and Lovro’s were… on Ivan again, darting into a different direction when Ivan’s fell on the group once more. Ivan felt a little spark of joy in his chest at this fact, because really—third time, if he didn’t count the roof, when all the boys were looking at him?
Third time?
Ivan would burn the world to have those eyes on him all the time, would kill just to be able to look back up close, to study Lovro’s every feature and commit it to his mental map of everything he finds beautiful—and everything that scares him.
There’s a thin line there somewhere, one that Lovro teeters on one day and falls off the next. It’s weird and Ivan doesn’t like to think about it, much less try to explain it, not even to himself; so he pretends and he puts on his confident mask, and he is confident—just has to try a little harder sometimes these days.
The boys said something Ivan couldn’t quite catch but then got up en masse, though Lovro not included. From the way Buzz Cut and Blonde started moving, it became clear to Ivan that their plan was to dance—or at least, to attempt to. Ivan wasn’t sure the word dance was so accurate for what was happening out there.
Lovro stayed on the couch and took a sip of his bottle, a big one at that, giving Ivan a bit of time to study the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with his swallowing. My God, Ivan thought. He really doesn’t know how fucking gorgeous he is, does he?
“Take it slow, you,” one of the boys called back to Lovro, still on the couch. “It’s dangerous to smoke and drink so much at once,”
Lovro shrugged. “Okay, mom!” he said, then taking another sip. Ivan could only watch with a sense of glee spreading throughout his body. Lovro was exactly the sort of boy Ivan liked; rebellious and not like the rest, in a way just like Ivan himself. Only maybe with a little less baggage. Hopefully for Lovro.
Ivan tried to be inconspicuous for a while, hanging around a little in the corner, willing Lovro to look at him while also fearing his gaze. Lovro, however, did not look up at all; he only watched the boys and opened his phone once in a while, doing God knows what.
From the way he furrowed his brow and looked about the room every once in a while, Ivan thought he might be texting that girl he’d seen him with a couple times; on the tram yesterday, Ivan’s heart rate elevated as Lovro passed by, not even sparing him a single glance.
But by then, at that party, Lovro had looked at him multiple times and the girl was nowhere to be seen.
Ivan impulsively took a couple steps toward the couch and sat down on the far end from Lovro, who was engrossed in his phone. He seemed to be watching something on TikTok, and though Ivan has an account he barely uses it. Might be time to try and find Lovro on there, though.
Hey, it’s not stalking if he doesn’t actually do anything with it. Besides, isn’t that what social media is for? Networking? New school, and all?
After a while on the couch, Lovro seemed to be dozing off. Ivan had since inched closer centimeter by centimeter, and Lovro hadn’t noticed a thing. Ivan could take a guess as to why; the combination of weed and alcohol hitting him all at once, being fine one second and the opposite the next. He’s been there, done that, seen it all.
Not anymore now, not the weed and not the alcohol. Or he tries, at least. God knows he does try.
Lovro being asleep gave Ivan a great opening to inch a little closer still, draping his arm over the back of the couch with great care. He didn’t really know what he was trying to get at if he’s now honest; a boy asleep on the couch, his friends a few meters away, and Ivan, a stranger trying to get to know him by… sitting?
Either way—Ivan did not particularly get the opportunity to devise the next phase of his plan. The first phases were easy, highly dependent on a low bar; 1) see if Lovro’s there, 2) make him see you, 3) try and get in his vicinity, 4) talk to him.
Step 4 still needed work, but just as Ivan was trying to rack his brain for an opening when Lovro would wake up—if he would wake up—there was a series of loud bounces on the door and a call from outside that the police were there.
Ivan sighed in dismay, everyone on the makeshift dance floor quietening their moves and looking in question at the door. Someone went over to open it, met with a group of stern policemen. Ivan looked sideways to see if Lovro’d noticed anything, but he was still fast asleep and showed no sign of stopping.
It seemed, anyway, that Ivan’s chances for the night were forfeited. This wouldn’t calm down anymore and Lovro would either not wake at all or it’d be in the midst of the chaos caused by the raid—his friends would want to meet up with him and Ivan would be left out in the cold.
Besides, he remembered with a rush of fear through his body, there was some leftover weed in his fanny pack that he really wasn’t supposed to keep there but did anyway, just to not be separated from it, just because removing it entirely felt worse than choosing to abstain, choosing to resist the temptation.
The police, however, would not give a single shit about this explanation and he’d be arrested either way, especially if they were already in a bad mood—which they were, because they had to level with a bunch of drunk teens and the only real adult—a tall, brown haired guy who kept hanging around the couple who came back and their friends—was even drunker than anyone else.
Ivan watched for a while as he tried to come up with another plan to remove himself from the situation as fast as possible but also without raising suspicion, and just when he was about to leave, Lovro woke up.
Immediately Lovro reached for a bowl that housed the last crumbs of potato chips and salty residue, and in a reflex Ivan jumped away from it a little. See, that friend of his had been right, that it wasn’t smart to mix alcohol and pot to the degree Lovro had apparently been doing.
Ivan couldn’t judge, though—what you know to be smart is often not what you want most, the repercussions of what you know to be stupid often not strong enough to stop you from doing it.
Ivan had stood up in reaction to Lovro vomiting his guts out and was about to leave anyway when Lovro suddenly spoke. “Bro, what’s going on?”
“There’s a raid,” Ivan said, seeing the change in Lovro’s face at his comment and realizing that he must have weed on him as well. Or maybe he didn’t, but one of his friends did; in any case, Ivan suddenly felt more unmotivated than before and decided to just make a break for it now while he still could, fanny pack snug to his chest.
When the cold evening air hit Ivan’s face and the noise from inside died down a little, he could think a little clearer. About tonight, about how he’d failed but how he also hadn’t; Lovro had seen him, Lovro had looked at him; Lovro was there, to begin with.
Still. The sight of the two helmets on Ivan’s Tomos reminded him of the foolish plan he’d had, of the just-in-case that he knew was never going to happen anyway.
Ivan stared at the vehicle with the two helmets on it for a little before approaching, patting his pockets for the keys. He found them swiftly and went to unlock the thing, and just when he was about to put his helmet on, someone rushed outside.
That someone was Lovro. He looked a little hurried and jittery, looking over his shoulder once more before seeing Ivan. “Hey,” Lovro called. “Could you give me a ride?”
Ivan was… well, perplexed. Perplexed but amused, amused that it could end up this way after all. He managed to pick it up where he left off in his mind, his first real conversation with Lovro, even if it was just a few words.
A few words is a conversation just like the first flowers are the signal of spring. Of the Earth spinning far enough again for the sun to embrace it, of the birds laying their eggs and of the rebirth that would soon come.
“Yeah,” Ivan said, grabbing one of the helmets and nudging Lovro toward the second. “Just wear that, because of them.”
Lovro obeyed and grabbed the second helmet, placing it on his head as Ivan climbed onto the Tomos. “Wait,” Lovro said, as if Ivan would drive away any second, leaving him there with Ivan’s own helmet.
Then Lovro climbed on and Ivan felt the center of gravity shift, just like his own did the first time he had seen Lovro; everything had felt a little lighter, a little less balanced; yet also a little more so, like there were things falling into place that had always felt like they’d been missing.
Like it was the early beginnings of an earthquake, the first vibrations, slow, steady, only there if you’re so sick of nothing happening that any small shift feels like a huge happening.
Lovro placed his hands on Ivan’s waist and Ivan smiled at the touch, a reflex he could hardly try and suppress. Just a few minutes ago he was on the couch, even shorter ago here, outside, disheartened that his plans hadn’t gone how he’d wanted them to.
And then he was suddenly there, on his Tomos with this Lovro in the back seat, this boy that Ivan yearned to know more about; that he yearned to know about everything there was to know.
As they drove away, Lovro called from behind Ivan. “I’m Lovro, by the way.”
The last words he said in accented English, Ivan’s heart jumping a little at the way his tongue curled around the words, at the way his lips formed them, even if he could only barely see it in the mirror on his scooter.
Oh, I know.
“I’m Ivan,” he said, as he drove them off the property with the abandoned house. Behind them they left a singular flower, lonely but beautiful nevertheless. Loneliness and beauty; it made the world bloom. Ivan could only think it made him and Lovro a good pair.
The beauty and the lonesome. The good and the wicked. Yin and yang.
A sun started shining inside of Ivan’s heart, and warmed him all the way from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.