Page 53 of White Room Virgin

“Guys, that’s enough. I know you can’t stand each other … for whatever reason …” Martin said, “but what’s so bad about having dinner together?”

Lucien ran his hands over his face, then through his hair. He made no move to say anything.

“It’s all right,” I mumbled.

“Lu, please eat!” Martin said, looking at Lucien’s full plate.

But he simply took a drag on his cigarette, put it out, and stared at Martin with an angry glint in his eyes. I was surprised that I wasn’t the one receiving that furious look, and when I saw the worried expression on Martin’s face, I didn’t understand anything.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me…” Lucien said with a heavy tongue.

Martin remained calm. “I mean well.”

Lucien rose abruptly, but his movement faltered almost instantly. “No!” he said in a trembling voice and leaned on the table. It took him a moment to collect himself. “You could have done that here any damn night. But not today!” He sounded angry but also desperate and sad. He clumsily grabbed the beer bottle and staggered out of the kitchen.

As his bedroom door slammed behind him, Martin sighed. “I’m sorry.”

A stone should have fallen from my heart when I realized this wasn’t about me at all, but it didn’t. “What was that about?”

Martin forced himself to smile sadly and moved Lucien’s plate closer. “Do you want half of it? You seem hungry.”

I didn’t respond. “What was this all about?”

“About an anniversary that is today. He’s never in a good mood.”

“Anniversary? What anniversary?”

“Nothing to do with you,” he replied curtly, scooping half of Lucien’s spaghetti onto my plate.

How can you be so sure?

24

–––––

Jonah

I ought to have been relieved that Lucien paid me no attention whatsoever. This way, there was no chance of succumbing to temptation. Crossing the line had done more damage to me than I wanted to admit, and as busy as I was with damage control, the sight of Lucien during our meal lingered in my mind. He didn’t need to articulate it; I could discern it not only in his eyes but in his entire demeanor. His body language screamed at me that I had deeply wounded him.

It may well be that his condition that evening, as Martin insisted, had nothing to do with me, but from my point of view, I was still a coward who hadn’t managed to apologize to Lucien. So I felt lucky to be ignored because a beating would have been well deserved.

To my surprise, the weekend passed quietly. I went to Mass on Sunday, but my thoughts weren’t even there. Since we had that meal together, the apartment has felt eerily deserted, as if I was living alone in the shared house.

Martin spent his time in hospital, while Lucien was likely in his studio. The apartment became my tiny microcosm where I felt more and more comfortable. The night sweats gradually subsided and I stopped listening at the door before leaving my room. Over the course of the week, the absence of my roommates had become so commonplace that I was starting to worry. I stared at Lucien’s empty seat and wondered where he was hanging out, where he was showering. Whether he was all right so far. All these thoughts made me tired. I didn’t even have the energy to run and spent most of my time at home doing nothing.

But my peace wasn’t to last a week. When Martin found me in the kitchen on Friday morning, he snapped. “That’s disgusting!” he shouted, pointing at the dirty dishes I’d been piling up in the sink for five days. “I live here too, and my busy schedule doesn't excuse you from neglecting everything here!”

I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in my hand and faced him. “I can’t sleep,” I grumbled.

“What?” Martin’s voice cracked and he frowned in disbelief. “I don’t give a shit! You’d better clean up!” He snatched his bag from the floor and left the apartment in a huff.

That hit the mark. But for the sake of peace and quiet, I tidied up and cleaned. It was my first time running a household. With Christmas approaching, exams looming, and chaos in my head, a little support wouldn’t have hurt. Plus, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was brewing. Despite Martin and Lu’s absence during the week, the tension in our apartment seemed to increase exponentially.

***

“I’m going for a drink with Oliver and Thomas today,” Simon said during the lunch break. “Are you coming?”

It was as if God had answered my prayers. There was no one at home, and I desperately needed to distract myself. The only thing that prevented me from agreeing straight away was the question of whether I was allowed to have fun at all.

---