I briefly put my throbbing head in my hands. “Is this relationship drama or a deposition?”
“I’m not totally convinced you know what a deposition is.”
Fair.
“But,” he went on, “I’m trying to make this as clear as I can.
Because I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings or for either of us to make any mistakes.”
“You’re not a mistake,” I told him, less affectionately than the words suggested. “But I’m starting to wonder if you think I am.”
“That’s not in question. I just want to talk to you about…about how I’m feeling, I suppose.”
I sat up and stabbed resentfully at my rotolo. “How you’re feeling about rainbow balloon arches?”
“In essence, yes.” He gave an anxious little sigh. “Because, in a way, you’re correct. I will never truly know if the reason if I am discomforted by the trappings of mainstream LGBTQ culture is because I was raised in an environment where they were viewed negatively. Or because I simply don’t feel included by them. Or, indeed, because I have legitimate concerns about their origins and increasing commercialisation. And, honestly, I don’t think there’s any way to disentangle those things.”
This was turning into very much the opposite of the romantic meal I’d envisioned. “Okay? That’s good for you, I guess?”
“I just want you to…understand.”
He was looking at me kind of the way he had when he first told me he worked in criminal defence. And it made me feel…weird.
Mostly good weird. Like, even after three years with Oliver, it still did strange things to my head and my heart that someone could care that much about what I thought. I put my fork down. Because, suddenly, I really did want to y’know… “Understand what?” I asked.
“That I’ll never be…that I’ll never express my identity in the way you express your identity. And while”—his mouth turned up wryly —“that doesn’t come from a wholly uncomplicated place, it isn’t a flaw in who I am. It’ s just who I am.”
I thought I did understand that. But then again I’d clearly given Oliver the impression I didn’t, and Oliver was way smarter than me.
“I–I do get that,” I tried. “It’s just sometimes hard to get my brain around.”
“That’s the problem. I’m not sure I want to be something that’s hard to get your brain around.”
This felt like it was teetering on the edge of a serious place. A potentially relationship-ending, marriage-breaking serious place. So I gambled. “Okay, but I think that ship has already sailed.”
“How reassuring.” He was giving me an arch look, but he seemed to be listening.
“Not like that. I just… You know you think about things differently from me. About life, about the law. Hell”—I speared a piece of rotolo and waved it at him—“even about food. I don’t want to be in a relationship with somebody I always agree with.”
“I’m not sure that being vegan is the same as processing my identity in a way you can’t access.”
“Isn’t it, though?” I asked, hoping my double or nothing was going to come down double, not nothing. “It’s not like being gay— being the kind of gay where you don’t wear rainbows or go on marches—”
“I go on marches, Lucien. It’s parties I have trouble with, not protests.”
“Okay, but I mean, I don’t think being gay is more important to you than…” I waved my hands in a tight little circle “…all the rest of it. Like, you actually care about shit. Way more shit than I care about.
And that doesn’t mean you’re letting the other side down or anything.
It makes you like…like a thousand-piece Moomin jigsaw with a wolf in a wig.”
Oliver stared blankly at me. Which I probably deserved.
“Sorry. My mum’s randomly got into jigsaws and maybe the Moomins? I should have just said you’re complicated, but all the bits make a nice picture.”
He thought about this for a long time. Then gave up. “Thank you.
I think?”
“Oliver, I’m sorry.” I tried again. “I never meant to make you feel that I thought you were, you know, doing gay wrong. Or that you had to be like me. Any more than you think I have to be like you.” I paused. “At least, I hope you don’t. Because if you do, you’re fucked.”