I did my best to swallow the lump in my throat. “It’s true.”
I could feel him stop breathing. “You’re sleeping with him,” he said in a whisper.
“No,” I shook my head, slowly. “There’s no sex involved.”
“No sex,” he repeated, “but there is something.”
I paused, forcing myself to hold his stare. “Yes,” I confessed.
I will never forget the disgust on Luca’s face in that moment. He started the car and drove us to my house. He parked in the driveway, pointed outside and said, “Get the fuck out of here.”
When I didn’t move, he left the car instead. I followed him outside, calling his name. Luca ignored me and kept walking, until I managed to grab his arm and make him turn around. I was aware that my family was probably watching us from the kitchen window. Somewhere in my head, I couldn’t help worrying that James could be looking too, from his house.
“What the hell, Rob!” Luca screamed at me. His lips were trembling, and I couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness that I saw in his eyes.
“Stop this,” I told him.
“Stop what?!” he shouted. “I’m trying, okay? I’m trying to make this thing work! And what are you doing? You’ve given up! You’re fucking seeing someone else already!”
Blood pulsed furiously in my temples and I found myself screaming as well, “Don’t make it sound so easy! You have no idea what I’m going through. I’ve been holding back, out of respect for you, but I can’t lie to you and I can’t lie to myself anymore. Maybe I haven’t had sex with him, and I haven’t kissed him, but God, I want to! I’ve been cheating on you, in my head, since the day I met him. And I’m confused, because I don’t know what this is! I don’t know if I’m ready to give you up for this! All of this is happening because… I don’t want to lose you, Luca. You have no idea how important you are to me.” I didn’t think I had those words in me until they came out.
A hysterical, sour laugh left his lips. “You’re a fucking hypocrite. Don’t act like I should be thankful that you held back fucking him until now.”
“That’s not what I–” I nervously scratched my forehead. “I’m not doing this to hurt you or punish you.”
Luca was furious. “Do you even listen to yourself?! Who the hell are you? I don’t recognize you anymore!”
My stomach was burning in frustration. I couldn’t control myself as I screamed, “I don’t recognize myself either, okay? I’ve changed. I know I’m a mess and I spend most of my days having no idea what the hell I’m doing, but Jesus, I have never felt so alive before!”
“You’ve gone crazy!”
“Yes, and the weirdest thing is that I’m fine like this.” It was so hard to get my feelings out and convey them to him. I wasn’t sure I wasn’t making everything worse. “I could never really care about anything, and now everything I feel is just so… powerful, exciting, and so scary…” I lowered my voice, completely exhausted.
“You could never care… What the hell are you trying to tell me, asshole?” he asked. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“I don’t know!”
“You’re not allowed to not know! Did that little bitch completely suck out your brain?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Why?! What else do you call a little shit that plays the nice, sweet boy while he tries to steal your man from you? That kid is a huge, shameless bit–”
“–Don’t you dare call my James that!” A second after I uttered those words, my hand was pressed tightly against my mouth. I couldn’t believe myself; that went way beyond speaking without thinking.
Something shattered behind Luca’s eyes. When he took a step forward and slapped me in the face, I could only stay still and take it. He hadn’t held back. My cheek turned warm and slightly pulsed with pain. I lacked the courage to look back at him, so I let my gaze drop to the ground and closed my eyes.
“You are…” Luca’s voice was now so low it was hard to hear. It was trembling with anger and pain. And I couldn’t fool myself that it wasn’t entirely my fault. “You’re such a disappointment, Rob… I wish one day your James will do to you what you did to me today. You deserve it.”
Still unable to look back at him, I heard Luca walking away from me. He got in the car and drove off, as I stood still in the driveway, looking at the empty street in front of me.
As the knot in my throat grew bigger and my vision blurred, I couldn’t help thinking, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I had just thrown two years of my life into the garbage.
JAMES
I loved watching the sun set into the sea from the main square of the old town. After the heavy rain of the night before, the sky was now clear and painted in blue, pink and orange. And there it was, the sun that I had despised so much, as it got ready to sleep. Sinking slowly into the water on the horizon, it grew darker and warmer, allowing me to look directly at it and admire it in all its beauty. The moon was already floating above it, bright and white like a pearl. A delicate breeze caressed my face and I noted with some pride that, despite what had happened to Mary, I had managed to spend the rest of the day without crying.
I was getting better at the whole “being heartbroken” thing. Whenever I thought about Roberto and his boyfriend my chest hurt with a sharp pain that traveled to my wrists and took all my energy away, but I was getting used to it, to the point it was almost pleasurable. Maybe I was being masochistic, but I couldn’t help thinking that if pain was all I had left of Rob, then I wanted to feel it to its fullest, let it tear me apart and know that, in a selfish, twisted way, I was his. It was probably messed up, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I made a plan to go to all the places we had been together to mentally say goodbye and suffer in silence. That was why I was there; in the place where he had introduced his grandpa to me and for a little while made me feel like I was part of his life. It made perfect sense to be there today, when I had finally said goodbye to him in my heart. I thought I might cry after all. It was a good thing it was dinner time and nobody was around to see my meltdown. I walked to the terrace of the piazza and, for a sheer moment as I looked down, I wondered what it would be like to hop over the rail and just let go.
“Don’t tell me you want to jump again.”
Roberto’s voice was the last thing I was expecting to hear. I turned around, incredulous, thinking that maybe I had gone crazy. But he was there… and he looked terrible. His hair was a mess, he was sort of pale and his eyes were red and a little swollen. He was still the most gorgeous man alive, but by his standards, he was a mess.
“Give me a break at least until tomorrow, okay?” he said, smiling in the most endearing way. I couldn’t work out what was going on. He was alone, and it didn’t make sense.
“Where is your boyfriend?” I asked, trying to keep my voice normal and controlled.
He walked to me and brought his hand to my face, and my brain told me to step back, but my body didn’t move an inch, so I leaned into his touch instead. His thumb delicately brushed my lower lip, and he added, “I thought you heard. But maybe you weren’t home yet.”