Chapter Text
Luca sits at the outdoor café table holding his cup tightly, letting the heat from the tea warm his hands against the chill that still lingers in the air. Winter might technically be over but the morning chill still warrants a light sweater until Spring weather properly settles in.
He lifts the cup to his mouth and winces slightly, letting the still-too-hot tea both warm himself up and distract from the feelings of discomfort roiling through his body. He can feel the stress rushing through his body like the waves of an ocean mid-hurricane. His conscious mind chasing each of his tensed muscles down and forcing them into a state of calm, but never fast enough to crest the lead wave.
He had been anxious ever since his girlfriend set up this early morning meet up. Stress is a familiar and unwelcome third-wheel on any of their dates, not because the dates were inherently stressful but due to the simple fact that Luca's body hasn't known a moment free from overthinking and tensed muscles in years. The way in which Julia had planned this rendezvous however suggested it wasn’t exactly a normal date, so an extra layer of stress coats the permanent shell of anxiety that envelops Luca's mind in every waking, and most sleeping, moments. Luca might be far from a dating expert but he knows enough to understand that any conversation that starts with “we should talk”, even when delivered in his girlfriends usual kind and warm manner, wasn’t going to be an easy one.
Luca has both zero idea and a hundred ideas as to what the conversation might be about. There had been no specific incidents recently that would obviously lead to a tough conversation, but as quickly as that reassuring thought came to him it was always immediately swallowed up by the endless doubts born from his inexperience and lack of confidence in his boyfriend abilities.
Maybe he had done something to her that he was too stupid to even realize was wrong. Maybe he had miscalculated by gifting her that drawing for the holidays; perhaps homemade gifts at this stage of dating were equivalent to saying he didn’t care enough about her to spend money on her. She had bought him a video game he’d been talking about for weeks and all he’d done was spent a few hours sketching and colouring the view from the chalet her parents had been kind enough to let her invite him to leading up to the holidays. She probably has hundreds of photos from going there every year so he’d basically given her some worthless paper. Of course his girlfriend wanted to talk to him after she spent her money on something he really wanted and he’d given her trash.
He shakes his head slightly to knock himself loose of the spiral he was quickly winding through before it becomes too fast and steep to get out of. Taking another sip he lets the steaming liquid ground himself as he feels it trace a path through his system. The tea probably tastes nice, he loves this café, but all he can do right now is focus on the near burning sensation as it leaves his mouth and traces a route down his esophagus and into his stomach. The light pain forces all of his doubts and worries from a loud roar into a more manageable murmur at the back of his mind. Luca focuses on that feeling and tries to steady his breathing. He is successful enough that he nearly misses his girlfriend approaching his café table.
“Julia! Hi!” he exclaims, stumbling as he tries to get up fast enough to pull out the chair across from him.
“I’m not the queen Luca” she giggles as they embrace. “You know I can pull up my own chair.”
She slides into the chair Luca had nevertheless rushed to get ready for her.
Luca smiles at her, “You’re more important than the queen anyway.”
Laughing fully now, “You’re way too sweet.” Julia blushes slightly and adds, “and you should be careful, we’re pretty close to campus and you wouldn’t want Mrs. Fischer to overhear that.”
Both teenagers break into laughter thinking about their school’s notorious history teacher who, despite having just as deep family roots in Switzerland as either of them, was somehow a bigger fan of the British royal family than some brits are themselves.
“Even though it’s been years since the last time, I definitely don’t miss writing out the entire royal lineage 10 times.” Luca agreed. “Though I’d stand by my statement, even to her.” He smiled to Julia over the rim of his cup, hoping the extra compliment might buy him some brownie points in the conversation that the compliment also served to delay, if only by a few extra seconds.
Julia smiled warmly and picked up the cup that had been waiting for her while Luca clutched his own and attempted to avoid spiraling.
“This is perfect, did they put milk in it again?” she questions kindly after taking the first sip.
“No. I may have lied and told them you have a serious allergy." Luca chuckles lightly, "Plus I watched them make it so I'm almost certain it is dairy-free.”
“Oh my god Luca, you don’t have to go stressing the baristas out!” she jokes. “Dairy only gives me minor stomach problems, and I bet one spoon in a tea wouldn’t even cause that for me.”
“I know but I still wanted it to be how you prefer it. It’s not like they’re busy this early on a Saturday,” he assures her. “I was the only one in the shop at the time.”
Julia’s warm gaze drifts back to Luca, their eyes making contact. “Like I said already, you’re too sweet.”
Feeling the blush rising in his cheeks that he is sure were already be pink from the chill morning air, Luca smiles back and tries to hold the eye contact for as long as he can. He knows he shouldn’t have trouble maintaining such a chaste level of intimacy with his own girlfriend. Maybe it’s the anxiety of the impending conversation making it harder, but he knows that can’t be the whole explanation since he always finds it difficult to express any sort of intimacy with Julia, especially in public.
Before he finishes his internal debate over whether he had kept the eye contact long enough, he sees the shift in her body language before the words leave her mouth.
Oh god, here we go.
“Luca how are you doing?” Julia asks without removing her eyes from his. Her tone is soft, but also surprisingly serious.
Luca had already been near breaking and has to look away before he can begin to formulate a response.
What could her question mean? Why is that how the conversation is starting?
He innocently replies, “I’m a bit chilly but with all the time I’m spending at the rink I think I’ve gotten more used to it.” He feels bad dodging the question but maybe this cagey response will steer the conversation away from whatever bad news he knows must be coming.
“Luca.” Julia says with a more serious tone. “I know you’re not that dense.”
Not for the first time, Luca wishes that wasn’t true. He sighs “I know you didn’t mean right now.” He drops his gaze and kicks at a pebble near his feet to stall, hoping she might speak more if he stayed quiet. The pebbles within kicking distance run out before Julia’s patience does however.
"I don’t know what you are asking about though." He manages to say.
And he isn’t really lying. The few sentences they exchanged since she sat down haven’t given him any help narrowing down from the endless possibilities his brain had fed him in the days leading up to this conversation.
“I’m good really.” Luca maintains, seeing the look on Julia’s face shift further into doubt. “I don’t feel any worse than usual.” He exhales shakily.
Julia’s expression stays serious, but he thinks more of her typical kindness is mixed back in with it.
“Okay. Then maybe,” she starts before trailing off.
Luca’s eyes track back up to her face and sees that she is concentrating more than earlier.
“Maybe the problem is,” she begins again after a pause. “this is your normal.”
Luca’s heart is hammering against his chest because he knows this definitely isn’t a good thing to hear from your girlfriend. Even worse, she is still being impossibly vague. If anything she’s making him believe the problem is bigger than he imagined. He thought he had done something wrong over the holidays, with all the unclear expectations for a young couple for important milestones.
Now it seemed like she had been noticing problems the entire time they’ve been dating. Going over almost an entire years worth of possible fuck ups to find what he needed to apologize for was too much.
Wait. Maybe it went back even further than the past year. They’ve known each other for about six years at this point and maybe it’s just once they started dating that she started to realize something awful about him.
“Luca!” Julia’s voice slices through the panic that was building up and almost gotten away from him. Not wanting to add bad listener to the list of things to make up for he quickly takes a huge gulp of his tea. Again he follows the path that the heat takes down from his head, through his neck and into his abdomen, doing his best to ground himself and come up with something better than the gibberish filling his mind.
“I’m sorry, I think I didn’t sleep well.” Again not a lie, but he also never sleeps well and knows that isn’t why he lost focus.
Julia stiffens and puts her own cup down. “Stop it Luca.” she says sharply.
Not expecting her tone Luca winces. He’s only rarely heard her be short with anyone, and definitely has never had it directed at himself.
Continuing in the same tone, “You're not good.” Her eyes soften a bit and she clarifies, “No, I mean, you are good of course. Very good. But you’re too good.”
Luca is still lost but he remains anchored in reality thanks to her voice as she goes on.
“You’re trying to be so good at everything but that’s the problem. That isn't good. It isn't good for you and it isn't good for a relationship. I don’t want a boyfriend that is perfect Luca, because perfect isn’t real.”
She pauses briefly and her face softens fully back to its usual warmth.
“I felt like I knew you better before we started dating. At first I worried you were realizing you didn’t actually have feelings for me and were too scared to break up with me.”
Luca sputters at this, trying to interject to let her know just how much he cares for her.
Julia holds up her hand, “I know Luca,” she says softly. “I quickly realized it’s the opposite.”
Laughing lightly, she presses on. “I doubt it’s possible for you to care more about me than you do. Or maybe even for anyone to care for me as much as you do.” She stops to drink and looks around, seeming to gather her thoughts.
Luca is flashing back and forth between relieved and terrified. She knows he cares, but she still started this with saying there’s a problem. He can feel the bad news creeping closer and closer. It’s curling around him. Suffocating him. He can’t think clearly enough to figure out what he’s done wrong. He can barely think about anything at all.
He is freed from his panic by the soft touch of Julia’s hand on his forearm. He takes a shaky breath, not realizing the mental suffocation had been translating to a very real physical one as well.
Julia looks at him sternly, her hand still resting on his arm. She moves her thumb in a slow, soothing motion, grazing the soft skin on the underside of his wrist. The sensation is even more calming than his past attempts to ground himself with the tea. He closes his eyes and forces a few calming breaths out.
After a few heartbeats, once he doesn’t hear them so loudly in his own ears any longer, Luca allows his eyes to open again.
“Oh, Luca” Julia soothes, still rubbing her thumb over his wrist.
“Julia” he manages to breathe out in response. “I- I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I know. Who does though?”
Luca doesn’t know how to interpret that.
“You do! At least you do so much more than me. And I know maybe with others I don’t know them as much as I know you but everyone seems to have a better plan than me.”
“I know I have the hockey camps — and I DO love playing — but there’s still tons of time where I wonder if I’d be happier doing my art.” Sighing, he presses on before losing his confidence.
“And its not like either of those are reliable career options, so I still think I should just pick a real career path most days. I can’t even be sure about what path to take after school when all our friends settled on that years ago, so of course I’m not sure how to be your boyfriend.” The explanation rushes out of him almost before he knows what he’s saying.
“You do know how to be my boyfriend because it shouldn’t be any different than being my friend Luca.” Her thumb still tracing loose loops across his skin, helping him stay focused enough to stay with the conversation.
“But there’s so many things I should know about being a proper boyfriend and I can’t keep up.”
“Luca come on. I’m dating you, not some made-up theoretical boyfriend. This isn’t a movie. I knew you for half a decade when we started dating I think I knew what I was getting into and that’s exactly who I wanted to be with.”
Luca could hear the words, he knew what Julia was saying but there was still something that stopped it from really settling in to him. He was still reaching for some sort of apology when Julia continued.
“I can’t think of a way to say it other than I liked being your friend more than being your girlfriend.” She rushes onwards, “And I know that there’s no way to do this without making you sad and it makes me really sad too because the last thing I want to do is hurt you. But we have to be honest Luca. I know you love me, but I can’t feel it anymore. I felt your love more as a friend, and I miss that. I worry if we keep trying to make this work it’ll only end with both of us resenting each other, or worse.”
Her words are coming slower now, having got the hardest part out. Not that it makes a difference because Luca wouldn’t have had any words if she gave him all day to come up with some. While his anxiety always whispered about possibilities of being dumped he didn’t actually start this conversation thinking it would be that worse case scenario.
“I don’t want you to keep trying this hard to be a better boyfriend when you’re already more than enough for me Luca. But I know that isn’t something you can just switch off. I don’t know where that anxiety comes from, and maybe you don’t know yet either but it won’t get any better if we keep going at this the same.”
Switching to her usual, lighter tone, “Especially since you’ll be the youngest ever to be called to the MLH from Europe any day now.” She winks.
“Stop it.” Luca huffs, feeling comfortable with the familiar joke. “You can’t break up with me and compliment my hockey skills in the next breath.” he says as his smile returns.
“Who says I can’t?” Julia huffs. “And let’s not think of this as a break up. We were always best friends and we are just going back to that. I’m definitely not calling you my ex. That’s for shitty people you don’t want to think about anymore, which couldn’t be further from how I feel about you. You’re one of the best people I know.”
Luca was finding his breath easier to control and his heart wasn’t running away from him as much now.
“You know I think you’re the best person in the world Julia.” he says with all the kindness he has in him. Trying to return some of the levity and kindness Julia was showing him, he smirks a bit before quipping, “Even if you just dumped me right after the holidays ended.” The least Luca can do after she let him down so kindly is assure her he isn’t going to have a breakdown — that can wait until he gets home.
Julia laughs, “Well yeah that was the plan all along. I obviously was waiting to get a drawing from you to cut you loose since it'll be worth millions one day. Now I’ve just got a few more years until I can cash in.”
They laughed together and spent a few minutes quietly, simply enjoying each other’s company as they made their way to the bottom of their cups.
After the first few sips Luca was pleasantly surprised at how calm he feels, at least compared to only a few minutes prior. The worries that had been escalating and causing him to spiral over and over had subsided to their usual levels, occupying just the edges of his mind where he could more easily ignore them.
“So…” he ventures, feeling a bit braver. “What now?”
“Well I know we are basically just back from the holiday but it’s gonna be exams before we know it. And I know how you get during exams so I doubt we’d have much time to see each other anyway.”
Luca shrugged but couldn’t exactly argue. “I’m sorry I’m not okay just coasting like you.” he says, hoping to keep the light mood they’d returned to going.
She laughs, “Ah yes, coasting with my 82 point average.”
“You mean 12 points lower than me.” Luca smugly points out.
Julia kicks him lightly under the table. “Oh shut up. What good all that extra homework is gonna do for you when you’re a big hockey star is beyond me.”
Luca chuckles to avoid acknowledging his hockey skills. It bothers him the least when it comes from Julia, but he always feels uncomfortable when people talk about his hockey skills like he’s destined to be the next Shane Hollander.
“Pro hockey guys are so aggressive you’ll probably end up with a concussion and forget basic addition by the time you’re 30, let alone the derivations you love to remind me you’re so fast at.”
“I’m still not 100% sure I’ll try to go pro. I still think about art school, you know that.” Luca mumbles over the chewed up rim of his empty cup that he began gnawing at when Julia brought up his hockey career.
Julia scoffs, “Right, I forgot how important calculus is for painters.”
“And be real Luca. You have a real shot to be at the top of the MLH and you’d rather be a starving artist?”
“I don’t know what I want, I think we just went over that.” Luca replies, a little too quickly to hide his anxiety that is creeping back to the forefront of his consciousness.
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just saying you can always go back to drawing after you win fifty Stanley Cups. Why be a broke artist if you can be a rich and famous one?”
Luca deflates a bit, breathing out “You make it sound so simple.”
Julia smiles warmly at him again, “If you take it one decision at a time, it can at least be more simple. Don’t try and plan the rest of your life today Luca.”
She hesitates before finishing, “I don’t say this to be mean at all, but I think you need to hear it and I care about you. If you were able to be present here today - well not today today but you know. Present in the moment, instead of always being so worried about tomorrow or next month or year maybe I wouldn’t have needed to bring this conversation up today.”
Julia had been staring off into the distance but brings her eyes to meet Luca’s now she finished speaking.
Somewhere deep down Luca knows she’s giving him advice he needs to hear, Luca tries to meet her gaze. He manages to hold it for a second before the feelings of inadequacy and anxieties that are much closer to the surface become too much.
“I’m really sorry Julia.” he mumbles downwards into his own chest, unable to express his remorse with more clarity.
Julia grabs his hand firmly, “I know Luca. I know. I told you this isn’t me dumping you. I’m not your girlfriend anymore and you’re not my boyfriend but that’s just a formality. We’re recalibrating. I love you and I know you love me. But we need different things right now so we can’t date. We were friends before and we’ll be friends again now. It’s alright.” She squeezes his hand.
Luca smiles and raises his head enough so she can see it. “You’re the best friend anyone could ask for, I don’t deserve you.”
“Oh shut up, yes you do.”
She stands up and holds out her hand, “Now c’mon let’s go home. That cup may be paper but it’s treated with way too many chemicals to be healthy to eat as much of the rim as you have.”
Luca blushes and looks down at the mouth-shaped hole he has created in the edge of his cup. Grunting he stands up with Julia’s help and throws the cup into the trash next to their table.
“We don’t live in the same direction though.” He reminds her.
“Sure but now that we aren’t dating you can’t pull the boyfriend card and always be the one who walks me home.”
Luca laughs, “Oh so now I can’t be a gentleman?” and nudges Julia with his elbow.
She shoves him back playfully, “Oh does this gentleman think women can’t take the lead?”
Luca immediately feels his face get warm, “No! Women are great. Better even. Or, I mean — you’re equal of course. I wouldn’t — Men aren’t, uh. I’m sure you could win in a fight—“
“Whoa whoa Luca.” Julia laughs, breaking his sputtering attempt to recover. “I’m joking relax. Also don’t be stupid, if I ever expect a fight I’m absolutely calling my big strong jock best friend to save me.”
Luca gasps, “Why have I never met this jock best friend? I know it isn’t me because I’ve told you to never call me a jock.”
Julia pulls Luca down the street towards his home, “Shut up and let me walk you home, jock.”
Muttering his objections, Luca lets himself be dragged down the street by his best friend.