Page 51 of Two Marlboros

His shocked face was almost funny.

“Uh-oh. Nathan’s secret number one: his friends don’t know he’s gay.”

I enjoyed that taste of sweet revenge, but my smile died on seeing his expression. He looked wounded, hit and sunk. At that moment, fear crossed his gaze, because what I had said had all the appearance of being an uncomfortable truth.

He sank his eyes into the drink and was dumbfounded for a many seconds.

I had been wrong in believing that I would not feel guilty about what I had said to Steve, because it all came back to me atonce, accompanied by heartburn. How would he react when he found out what I had done?

...But really, wasn’t it so much simpler?

We no longer had any reason to meet: he had no more information as a witness, nor was there any other pretext for seeing each other. That wounded face should have been the last thing on my mind, but instead...

Instead, my head spun again, and I staggered a little. Maybe not as little as I thought, as Nathan grabbed me by the shoulders. I felt myself suddenly on fire, and the drinking table had tilted. Doubled. Shifted.

“Are you alright?”

I nodded, but Nathan’s face no longer seemed so...fixed. His eyes occasionally shifted. I was sure I had seen them superimposed on his nose. I squinted and they returned to normal.

Nathan smiled. “You’ve been drinking, I knew it.”

I rested my bottom on the edge of the table: at least I wouldn’t fall over.

“I’m just fine, you know? So, you can go back to purring to your Harvey.”

He giggled in disbelief. He still flashed those innocent eyes, as if he was really surprised, and had his lips arched in a half-smile. He was actually the only one who didn’t notice anything. About Harvey and how he was looking at him. Of how much he wanted him.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say you’re jealous.”

I laughed and blew a raspberry. He had behaved deplorably and was trying to turn the tables on me. Steve was right: asserting my rights as a fake boyfriend had been a good thing. I was not going to be treated like an old shoe, and I wanted to make that clear.

“Of course, I’m interested in someone like you. You have nothing of my ideal boyfriend, who has to be studious, educated, serious and, above all, a nonsmoker.”

He crossed his arms. Or maybe only my eyes crossed.

“What a drag a guy like that is. Just right for you.”

Just right for me, yes. Like that guy I could see across the street, in the crowd. Dark and mature-looking, repeating the effects of viper venom to the other guests. I reached out a hand toward him, but could not reach him. The guy had time to throw me a sweet smile before disappearing like a hologram.

I blinked again, but Oliver was gone. Among all those people, I could no longer find his black head. He had never been there.

What was I doing at that stupid party? What was I doing next to that idiot kid? I was wasting my time, which I could have spent with Oliver, telling him about my day, as I always did...

But what would have changed, if I had told him about it? I was so stupid. There was no one in the house. I was always alone, sitting at that table too long for one person, cooking dishes too large for one; and I simply ate a double portion, not Oliver’s as I wanted to believe, because the only one sitting at that table was me; me and no one else.

Oliver was no longer there.

Without him there was no consolation for me either. I felt my heart ripped out of that dark, black chasm I already knew, and into which I was in danger to sink again. This time, however, there was no one to support me, no one to pull me out of it, to give meaning to that existence of mine that had no more depth, no more color. The gash was getting wider and wider, and I was falling into it. There was no more din, no more party, no more life worth living.

And that was the last memory I had of that evening.

11

Innocent Escapes

(?Enya - Only time)

I want to die.

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