Miraculously enough, I managed to make it back to the main building of Kierkegaard college in one piece. I haunted the halls in a dazed state for a long time before I realised that my frozen body was trembling all over. With everything that had happened today, I guess I must not have noticed how deep the outside cold had penetrated into my bones. Then again, the delayed shock of witnessing the failure of Isabelle’s confession and her subsequent insinuation that Joey might have feelings for me could also be the reason why my body had decided to shut down.
I collapsed against the first radiator I encountered to let my cold core thaw. Its painful heat surged through my body and left my limbs feeling like they were on fire. As the pain in my body slowly ebbed away, however, mental anguish took its place. A million questions flushed over me like a tidal wave. Why had Isabelle told Joey about her feelings if she was certain he would not reciprocate them? Did Isabelle know that I was in love with Joey? Why had Joey decided to run after Isabelle instead of staying with me? I would rather not guess the answers to these questions.
A sea of Kierkegaard students poured out of their classrooms when the school bell rang. Their obnoxious voices were just as shrill as the sound of the bell that had announced their arrival. Covering my ears and burying myself deep into my winter coat helped block out the noise somewhat, but it did nothing against the curious stares I was getting.
I could not blame them. Poor, privileged, British boy, ghostly white cheeks wet with tears, sobbing his heart out over a boy who would never love him back… God, I must look so pathetic. Except, maybe my crush did like me back and I had simply been too caught up in my own self-pity to entertain that unspoken possibility. Regardless, the act of sharing my true feelings with him was not something I would be able to take back; our relationship would never be the same again, for better or for worse.
The noise around me became insufferable and the heat, unbearable. I needed somewhere quiet, somewhere where I could be alone with my own thoughts for a while. I stood up and feverishly pushed through the crowd, looking for a way out. I was desperate to find a place where I could show the ugliest parts of myself without judgement, a place where I could completely break down and then rebuild myself from the ground up.
I soon lost track of where I was headed as I swiftly rounded corners, stomped down immense hallways and flew through doors. I was a hurricane, nothing and no one could stop me, and yet, unexpectedly… Something did.
I finally slowed down when I entered a quiet corridor that reminded me of the one where I had spent my lunch break with Joey. Like that notorious hallway, (where I had almost confessed my feelings,) this narrow corridor was lined with tall, stained-glass windows. However, rather than being composed of a random amalgamation of various colours, the windows in this part of the building showcased various biblical themes.
This corridor was themed around the garden of Eden with tasteful tableaus featuring Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge and the tempting snake that had convinced Eve to take a bite out of the delicious forbidden fruit. The richly coloured foliage of the tree of knowledge shed the corridor in a serene green light that instantly made me feel more at peace. Its painstaking artistry and beauty were truly breathtaking, but with pain in my heart, I realised that all I could think of was that Joey would have loved to see this.
When I had entered the corridor before, I had believed it to be completely abandoned, but upon further inspection, I noticed that two figures were leaning against the glass window that displayed the creation of Eve. The lighting cloaked their silhouettes in darkness and I struggled to make out what they were doing. With their bodies firmly pressed against each other, the taller of the two ran his hands along the arched back of the smaller individual and when I listened close enough, I could hear a hint of their rapid breathing. The warm sunlight caressed the fluffy hair of the shorter boy, who lovingly weaved his hands through the dark hair of the guy in front of him before softly pressing his lips against his. When it dawned on me what -and especially who- I was looking at I audibly gasped.
The boys quickly broke their passionate kiss and untangled their limbs, scared shitless by the possibility that they had been caught by a student or -even worse- a teacher. After all, Kierkegaard college was not known for its acceptance of same-sex relationships.
Derek’s panic disappeared and then swiftly reappeared when he noticed that I had been the one to walk in on him and Remi. “Simon, what in the hell are you doing here?” He hissed angrily.
“I-I don’t know. I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone,” I answered quietly as I fiddled with the buttons of my coat. I was surprised by how truly sad and broken my own voice sounded, but after crying all day long, I guess I should have expected that.
Unsure if I would ever get another opportunity to apologize to him for what had happened, I then turned to Remi. “I’m sorry if I made you worry, Remi. I just… I could not stay there. I felt so overwhelmed after the volleyball competition and I needed some time to myself. It’s no excuse for running away without an explanation, but I hope you understand that I did not mean to hurt you.”
Now that his entire school career was no longer on the line, Remi relaxed a little. He calmly responded with an uplifting smile: “That’s okay, Simon. I don’t blame you in the slightest after what’s happened to you today. Are you okay?”
“I…” As much as I wanted to pretend everything was alright, I could no longer keep up a front. I was so tired. Too tired to start crying again, but I could not help myself. Pathetic. Truly pathetic. “I don’t think I am… I-I followed Isabelle and Joey, but then he rejected her a-and now I think Joey might like me after all,” I sobbed incoherently.
Derek let go of Remi and stepped towards me, gently closing his arms around me to bridge the gap between us. “Oh, you poor thing…” He hushed me while slowly rubbing my back. “It’s okay, let it all out. Will you tell me what happened?” I could not stop crying and Derek gracefully let me ruin his sweater while I desperately tried to get a hold of myself.
Once I had calmed down a little, my eyes shot back and forth between Remi and Derek. It was not my intention to break them up, but I could really use a friend right now and that meant I needed to speak with Derek and Derek alone. “Can we go somewhere quiet?” I muttered with a raspy voice.
“Of course, darling!” Derek immediately responded. He apologetically turned to Remi who looked rather displeased about the situation. “I’m so sorry, love, but this is a friendship emergency. Do you mind if I take Simon somewhere else so I can talk to him one on one? I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Remi smiled weakly and answered: “Yeah, no problem. You can call me when you’re done.”
Derek guided me to a small office on the second floor that was easy to overlook and sat down on a cosy, red couch that took up half of the space in the otherwise neutrally coloured environment. “This is the clubroom of Kierkegaard’s hockey team. Remi showed it to me during the lunch break,” Derek explained before I could ask him where in the fuck he had taken me. “Each club with a certain membership number gets their own room on campus.”
I curiously looked around the room in an attempt to avoid meeting Derek’s concerned gaze. After a moment of silence, he continued: “So, if I understood correctly, you followed Joey and Isabelle during the scavenger hunt and when Isabelle confessed to him, he turned her down? Remind me how that leads you to believe Joey has feelings for you?”
In spite of being on the brink of a mental breakdown, I managed to string together a vaguely coherent response. “Izzy -I mean Isabelle- believes that the reason Joey could not possibly be in love with her, is because he’s in love with me,” I carefully explained. “Joey did not confirm that theory, but he did not explicitly deny it either. With everything that has happened in the last few days, I’m starting to believe Isabelle is right. I think Joey likes me.”
Derek snickered to lighten the mood a bit. “Yeah, duh, I think all of us saw that coming from miles away. How are you feeling?”
“Mostly overwhelmed, but relieved, I suppose?” I sighed, keeping my eyes on the ground. “In all honesty, I don’t really know how to feel. Like, I should be happy, right? This is what I’ve wanted for years! But not like this. It’s all too much.”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. I curled up into a ball of anxiety on the couch and wrapped my arms around my legs, balancing my chin on my knees. “Joey saw me after Isabelle ran off, so there’s no way I can deny that I had been following them. I have no idea how I can talk myself out of this situation, but I can’t possibly ignore Joey either. Now now we’ve finally become closer again after so many years.”
Derek listened patiently as I continued. “I’m so sorry about taking you away from Remi. I absolutely ruined your moment. If you’d like to get back to him now, I understand. I won’t get in your way.”
His gaze softened and he smiled: “Nah, it’s okay, my romantic antics can wait. Currently, it’s more important to me to help a friend out. You deserve to be happy, Simon. As fun as it is to fool around with Remi, what you and Joey have is special. You have a real connection and it would be a shame if that were to go to waste.”
I reciprocated his smile and kept my head down. “Thank you, Derek, that means the world to me.” Deep in thought, I anxiously bit my lower lip. “I still don’t know if Joey’s actually gay, or bi, or… something else, I suppose. I doubt whether he has figured that out for himself yet and I don’t want to assume. How did you know Remi likes guys?”
Derek hesitated for a moment and then responded: “Well, I didn’t at first but I took a gamble and it paid off. Thanks to you, I managed to collect enough information to make that gamble worth it.” He tousled my already messy hair. “Now it’s my turn to help you out, friend. There are a lot of hints that Joey might be into guys, but it’s up to you to take that final gamble. If I were you, I would talk things through with him tonight. Go take a chance on him.”
“Thank you for everything, Derek,” I smiled nervously. “I guess I’ll have to take a leap of fate.”
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