For a moment, Oliver looked like he was wrestling with something, but at last he said, “I sometimes let myself forget but, in general, I do.”
It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but there was a mild tinkle to it.
“I think,” he went on, “we both said some things that we shouldn’t have, but perhaps they needed saying anyway.”
I couldn’t tell if that was ominous or comforting. “Needed saying?”
He gave a sad little shrug. “This may be just another habit of mind I’ve inherited from my parents, but I tend to believe that the things which feel worst are the things which feel truest. That doesn’t mean they always are. But…I’ve been thinking about what you said and…”
“And?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.
“And”—his face got all blank and exhausted again—“I don’t have any answers.”
“That’s okay,” I said quickly.
“I confess, it bothers me somewhat. But I’m also aware that now is not the best time for me to be interrogating my values for authenticity. I should probably bury my father first.”
I felt beyond bad for him. I mean, we’d had an argument over something that, in retrospect, was completely fucking trivial. So what if I liked rainbows and balloons and he liked podcasts and hanging out with straight people? All that mattered was that we loved each other and his dad was dead, and here was Oliver still steadfastly trying to become a better person because of some bullshit I’d yelled at him a week ago. I gave a kind of can-we-hug-now flail. “I’m really glad you came back.”
“I wasn’t going to live at my mother’s.”
“I meant emotionally, you doink.”
Crossing the room, he pulled me into his arms and we hugged for an embarrassingly long time. “I missed you,” he whispered.
“I missed you too,” I whispered back. “And I’m so sorry things are shit for you.”
He pressed his face against my neck. “I-I can’t think about it anymore. At least not right now.”
“You don’t have to,” I told him. “We can do…whatever.”
“Would it”—his voice wavered—“resurrect your belief that I’m the most boring man in the universe if I said I wanted to go to bed?”
“Well, I had got us tickets to Alton Towers, but I can move them to another day.”
This time he did laugh, although it had an edge of my dad’s still dead to it. So I took his hand and led him through the bedroom.
“Also,” I added. “The advantage of me practically living at your place is that my sheets have barely been slept in.”
He shrugged off his jacket and flopped otherwise fully clothed onto the bed. “At the moment, Lucien, all I care about is being with you.”
Which was convenient because, while there weren’t many things I was confident I could do well, being me was one of them.
I think if I’d let him, Oliver would have passed out where he’d fallen. But because I knew from experience that waking up in your clothes from the night before felt awful, I half coaxed, half bullied him undressed. Then I slid into bed beside him and pulled the duvet over us both.
We lay there for a little while, with me desperately trying to think of something consoling to say that wasn’t just…shit. Like It’ll be okay or Everything happens for a reason or He was a cock anyway. So, finally, I went with “I love you,” because it was true and safe and wouldn’t make him think about the thing he didn’t want to think about. He murmured my name and pressed in close, his face a sharp-angled shadow in the darkness of the room.
Yeah. Definitely not a words situation.
Carefully I pushed back the tousled waves of his hair, letting my fingers move in long strokes through the strands. He gave another little murmur, half-sad, half-soothed, and tilted his head towards me on the pillow.
Very gently, I kissed him. Not a hello-you kiss or a do-me-now kiss. But the sort of kiss that speaks for you. A kiss to draw us together. To show I was there. To promise I always would be, if he’d let me.
And afterwards, Oliver settled into my arms as if he belonged there, and we stayed that way until morning.
IF THERE WAS EVER EVIDENCE that Oliver was in a bad way, it was that not only was he still asleep when I woke up, but he was still asleep when I got bored of lying in bed—which I thought was basically impossible. Easing myself out from under the duvet as quietly as I could so I wouldn’t disturb him, I surreptitiously dressed and sort of, somehow, found myself standing there, looking at him.