Page 67 of Pansies

Alfie tried not to panic. He’d always had rave reviews before, but half a year with Greg probably couldn’t compensate for every experience he hadn’t had. First crush, first love, first mutually hesitant fumbles. Probably he’d missed his prime gay years, and now he was doomed. “I didn’t think I was that bad.”

“I didn’t mean the sex. You were…well…it was the first time I’ve felt anything that wasn’t grief for what seems like forever. But when you look at me, I can see you wanting things.”

“Well, yeah, I want to do you.”

“It’s more than that. You know it is.”

“I don’t get it. Ten minutes ago you were freaking out because you didn’t want to lose me, and now you’re telling me I want too much from you.” He huffed out an impatient breath. “I’m a grown-up, y’know. You don’t have to protect me from stuff. If you wanna go to your room, fuck my brains out, and send me on my way, I’m good with that. If you wanna sit down and figure out summin else, I’m good with that too.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Alfie was pretty sure this was a trap, but he had no idea how to avoid it. “Well, yeah, I would. And, honestly, I think you would too. I know I’m not big on musicals and I really like eating meat, but we get each other, Fen. We’re made the same.”10

“Because we’re queer?”

“Because we’re from the same place.”

“Please.” Fen’s lip curled dismissively. “I’m not some boy-next-door fantasy you can escape to at the weekend.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. If you were, you’d have been way nicer to me and your house would always smell of freshly baked bread.”

For a moment, he thought Fen might laugh, but instead, he made a frustrated noise, his hand clenching convulsively against his knee. “But this isn’t my life. This isn’t who I am. I shouldn’t be here, working in a flower shop in the town that’s always hated me.”

“But youarehere.”

Fen’s head drooped. “I know. But I…don’t know how to do anything else anymore. How to leave. How to stay. How to go back. How to move forward.”

“And I can’t…” Alfie was going to sayhelp, but he managed to catch himself in time. He knew, he already knew, Fen would hate that. “Hang around while you figure it out?”

“With you here, I might not want to. I might just…” But Fen didn’t say what he might just. Instead, he turned away, offeringAlfie only the shadowed outline of his profile. “That was how my mum and dad fell in love, you know. He used to come and visit the shop. Every week on a Tuesday. Except she told me it wasn’t really him she was waiting for. She was waiting for me.”

Alfie was glad for the darkness in the car. It made them a sort of bubble, him and Fen, Fen’s love and grief.

While on some rational level, Alfie recognised that he, too, had probably been planned, decided upon, tried for, he wasn’t sure he’d ever beenwaitedfor. Well, except in the most literal sense. His mam had once told him it had been like carrying a fidgety whale around inside her. Billy, typically, had been no problem at all. Slipping into the world like a seal.

Until he’d had to tell them he was gay, he’d always pretty much taken for granted that his parents loved him. But it was family that held them. A pattern of days spent together. The inevitably of ancestry. It was good, though. Important. A lot more than most people had.

But it wasn’t like this. The sort of love that gave you yourself and changed you with its loss. The sort of love you’d cling to, however you could. Even if it meant coming back to somewhere you’d left long ago. To the place it had lived.

“It would be too easy,” Fen was saying, “to end up waiting for you.”

Alfie was quiet then, thinking, the moments squeezing awkwardly past.

“You really think,” he asked finally, “if you make yourself miserable enough here, deny yourself anything—or anyone—that could make you feel good, it’ll be enough to drive you out of South Shields?”

Fen gave a brittle laugh. “Well, it worked before.”

“It won’t work this time.”

“Oh really.” He couldn’t see, but he imagined Fen doing the sneery thing with his eyebrows. “What makes you so sure, Alfie Bell?”

“Because you came back for your mam. And you can’t beat love with pain.”

“Tell that to Winston Smith.”

“That was a very specific case of rats in the face.” A slight pause. “And don’t stare at me. I’m not completely ignorant, y’know. I might not have heard of mineesis, but I’ve read a book.”

A gleam of light caught at the corner of Fen’s eye, and Alfie wondered if he was crying again. Then he reached up and pulled his glasses down. “I have to go.”

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