Chapter Text
The night the phone rings with the news, Simon has been actively avoiding the device like the plague for the past twelve hours.
Call it intuition, or brotherly instincts — he prides himself on his and Sara’s rekindled bond these days, because they have had to fight fiercely to revive it throughout the last five years. Or maybe siblings with shared familial trauma can actually sense the twists and turns within the other’s life without ever having to vocalise it, a twin-telepathy kind of thing. Stranger things happen to Simon every other day, and he’s already a little bit convinced his elder sister somehow learned to read him like an open book, so why not?
Of course, chances are that Simon had simply been expecting it. The big move. After all, isn’t it the next logical step to take in a stable, established relationship? Simon has experienced it firsthand, he knows it is. Besides, he has had to listen to Sara go on and on about how much she misses her girlfriend, and it’s very clear to both him and their mother she has no intention of moving back home after her contract ends. It just hadn’t occurred to him that it would be his sister, out of the two of them, who would up and leave to the other side of the globe.
Either way, when Sara’s smiley face fills his phone screen at 8:00 PM sharp, Simon can’t say he’s surprised.
Briefly, he wonders if his sister is aware of the date, if she knows how jittery Simon has been all day. Except Sara has a proper job and the world doesn’t revolve around him, so he can’t really see why she would linger on it.
“Babe, are you ignoring Sara?”
Simon startles a little at the sound of the familiar, soothing voice resounding from the doorway. He spins on his heel to watch as his boyfriend toes off his battered sneakers in the tiny hall of his flat, leaving them right where they land. Something that drives Simon insane, because he will, without a doubt, trip on them in the morning. He’s not in the mood to pick a fight with the other boy, though, so he drops the subject.
“She just texted asking if you were okay,” Luca goes on when his question remains unanswered, waving his own phone at Simon.
Returning his attention to the sauce he was previously stirring on the stove while his boyfriend reaches to hang his coat, Simon sighs. “Shit, no. Can you tell her I’ll call her back after dinner? I missed her calls.”
Luca nods easily, tapping away on his phone before padding over to Simon and snaking his arms around his waist. He should probably find it gross, but there’s something comforting about the way his boyfriend feels under his palms after a long day of rehearsals, skin equal parts sticky with sweat to the touch and cold from the late-May winds. He’s grown used to the sour, balsamic smell of rosin powder mixed with his cologne, too, doesn’t recoil from it when Luca leans in to kiss his lips softly.
“Hey, by the way,” he greets belatedly, tearing a weary smile out of Simon.
“Hello. How was your day?” Simon prompts him, pecking his lips one last time before tending to his dinner preparations again.
They set the table as Luca recounts tales of his day in the studio, going into extensive detail about the latest drama between the new choreographer and their stern stage manager. The latter has driven a truly unsettling number of choreographers away, and with the knowledge that opening night is quickly approaching, Luca and his fellow dancers at the Royal Swedish Ballet are growing rightly anxious. Simon listens, grateful for the distraction. He knows all of the protagonists’ names by now, and he would rather die than admit it, but he sort of looks forward to dinner each day, eager to get the new developments.
Usually, that is. Tonight is different. Tonight, Simon is elsewhere, and Luca knows it, but it doesn’t stop him from moving along with his story. Whether it’s because he knows better than to pry when Simon is like this, or because he finds it easier to pretend he doesn’t see it, his boyfriend isn’t sure.
They have fought a lot in the last days and it annoys Simon, how the underlying issue almost escapes Luca several times, but he never says it. He pushes and pushes, yet his boyfriend never lets it slip, constantly catching himself before they get the chance to address it.
Simon knows he should bring it up himself. He’s gone to therapy enough in the last years to be extremely aware of that fact, thank you very much. He’s never claimed to have the healthiest of coping mechanisms.
Nevertheless, he realises it’s unfair on Luca. He’s sweet and caring, and always looking out for Simon. Even in the premises of their relationship, when neither of them had a single clue what they were doing or if it would even work out, he’d shown nothing but utmost patience and trust. He doesn’t hold anything against him, never complains when Simon stays silent or deflects each time he tells him he loves him. They’ve agreed to move at their own pace, and he understands that Simon’s introduction to love and relationships has been, to put it lightly, rocky. It’s never a problem, or something they argue over.
That’s precisely why Simon had been drawn to him, undeniably. Back in his first year at KMH, when Luca was taking freestanding courses there and Simon had been enrolled into a Drum Set Fundamentals class by mistake for one of his electives, he’d noticed him instantly. He had intended to go straight to Student Registry as soon as the class was over to ask and switch to another module, any of them, because he sucked at playing drums, but Luca had caught him in the hallway before he could do so and offered to have lunch together. And with that bright smile of his, the piercing green eyes defined with what Simon now knows to be his signature glittery eyeliner, and the all-around buoyant demeanour he carried himself with, well. Of course he had agreed to it. Making friends at KMH had proven difficult, and Luca had seemed like the perfect — albeit sole — contender in that moment.
Simon had dropped the idea of switching to another elective after their lunch. Still, it would take him months before he finally grasped where exactly their burgeoning friendship was headed.
“You’re not listening, are you?”
Simon shakes himself out of his thoughts. At some point in Luca’s animated retelling he has zoned out, and it takes him a while to blink away the blurred image of his emptied plate so he can focus his gaze on his boyfriend’s face. He doesn’t look particularly upset, Simon even clocks a hint of playfulness in his expression. Inexplicably, it makes something dull, akin to irritation, spark infuriatingly in his lower stomach. He ignores it.
“No, I am, I just… I’m sorry. It’s been a long day,” he says in lieu of apology, knowing it’s not much of an explanation.
Luca, accommodating as ever, only nods with a smile, rising from the sofa where they have a habit of settling for dinner and picking up both of their plates. He plants a kiss on the crown of Simon’s head before he goes to pile the dishes up by the sink in the small kitchenette.
“It’s okay. I need to shower and study for my exam tomorrow anyway, so I’ll give you space to call Sara, yeah?”
It’s a nice gesture, considering the flat — if it can even be called that, and not a human-sized shoebox — is Luca’s, and Simon has simply made himself at home and never really left since the first night he crashed there. As etiquette would have it, he should definitely offer to lock himself into the tiny bedroom so Luca has more room to study in the lounge area, but he’s also aware the other boy doesn’t mind. He likes to read over his lessons in bed, snug under the covers, awful Drum & Bass music soaring from his half-broken headphones.
And Simon really does need the time alone for when Sara inevitably announces what he assumes to be her next life adventure, so he can collect his thoughts and pretend like his heart isn’t breaking one bit.
“Thank you. I’ll do the dishes,” he promises, and smiles when Luca throws him a wink as he slips into the bathroom.
It takes Simon a minute, but eventually, he composes himself. He knows he’s being ridiculous — he hardly ever sees Sara anymore as it is. She had applied to be a volunteer in an equine charity as soon as Studenten was over, and the last time Simon physically hugged his sister was at Christmas, over five months ago. But she’s a three-hour train ride away. Combining their busy schedules is a near-impossible task, but should he really need to see her, it could be arranged. Once she leaves Sweden, things will be different.
With a quick intake of breath, he presses down onto Sara’s name on his screen, slotting the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can turn on the tap. The water is cold and, out of habit, Simon watches as it trickles down the inside of his wrists, closing his eyes against the flashing ghost of a memory. One he has confined to the guarded depths of his mind, to never dig out.
“Finally, the prodigal son returns!” Sara quips on the other end of the line. “If you ever leave me hanging like that again I’ll have no choice but to drive down to Stockholm and murder you in your sleep.”
Despite himself, Simon can’t help but feel his mouth quirk upwards. As a kid, Sara was always quiet. For a long time he had thought she merely didn’t enjoy exchanging pleasantries, that it was something that maybe came with being autistic. She only ever spoke when it was absolutely necessary which, in the midst of their chaotic household, Simon appreciated. When Micke was drunk and they cuddled up to each other in Simon’s room, he liked that they didn’t have to make conversation, that existing in the same space seemed to be enough for a little while.
Now, Simon realises how wrong he was. While partially, yes, some of these traits might have been innate to Sara’s diagnoses, in light of how much more at ease she seems to be with herself dating Felice, he wishes he’d tried a little harder to understand her. He’d listened when she talked about horses, but not in the way he knows Felice does. When she speaks up in a group, something she so rarely did in the past, Felice is always there to smile encouragingly or ease her worries with a gentle hand on the small of her back. The few times they have ended up in a loud crowd as a group, he has watched her girlfriend absently dig through her tote bag for Sara’s earplugs, like it was second-nature to her.
Where Simon had tried to smooth out any bump in the road for Sara, to steer her away from what might hurt her, Felice chooses to stand on the sidelines, ready to catch her were she to ever trip and fall. Simon once told his therapist he wished he’d known to let Sara make her own decisions instead of desperately scrambling to shield her from the world, and the woman nodded, before reminding him that he was Sara’s little brother, after all. Not her caretaker, not even her older sibling. She said he only did his best, that he couldn’t blame himself for caring for Sara in the only way he knew how, and Simon still feels shame to this day for the way it seemed to have alleviated some of the guilt clutching at his chest.
He likes the cheek he hears in her voice when they video chat now, the formerly ever-present frown on her face a thing of the past. She’s quick to poke fun at Simon and laugh heartily at everything Luca says, and it fills her brother with so much joy it hurts a little sometimes.
“Whatever happened to hi, hello, how are you, do you maybe want to get coffee?” Simon says, a weak attempt at concealing the quiver he can tell is sneaking its way into his voice.
Sara chuckles, and he can almost picture the way she shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Hey, Simme. How are you?”
“Well, it doesn’t feel very genuine if I have to tell you to ask, does it?” he teases, squeezing more dish soap onto his sponge. “I’m good. How are you? Sorry I missed your calls, it’s been a long day.”
Not exactly a lie, per se. A half-truth, then.
“That’s okay. I figured.” Simon hates how he can hear that she’s stalling, trying to build up the courage to dive right into the reason why she phoned him. “We went and picked up a new rescue today, near Luleå. My entire body hurts from the drive,” she explains, and her brother winces in sympathy.
“Mamá bought you heat patches when you moved, right? Get those out and maybe pop an Ibuprofen, too, if you’re-“
“I’m fine, Simon,” Sara cuts through his rambling with a laugh. “God, even Mamá didn’t sound this concerned when I rang her earlier.”
Simon swallows thickly. “You called her?”
Something in the atmosphere snaps, he can feel it, even over the phone. Sara clears her throat. “Yeah, I…”
There’s a beat of silence, and Simon doesn’t think he can bear it any longer. He blurts out, quite without meaning to, “You’re moving.”
It’s a little strained, but other than that, Simon decides to give himself a pat on the back for his stellar delivery. Better to rip the plaster off than to drag the whole thing out.
“Yeah. I told one of my managers about Felice a couple of months ago, and she said the organisation we work for has a branch just outside of Auckland, and… I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I mean, I would miss you and Mamá a lot, obviously, but you have Luca and Mamá has Ivan, and I would come home for Christmas, and you could come visit as much as you want, so I feel like it would be okay?”
It absolutely would not be, but Simon isn’t about to tell his sister that. He’s happy for her, and if a part of him is bitter that he is once again the one left behind, he will bring that secret to the grave.
“Of course it would be okay, Sara! This is great, it’s an amazing opportunity too. And I won’t have to listen to you harp on about how much you miss Felice anymore, which is such a relief.”
The effort is obvious, but it makes Sara giggle wetly, so Simon doesn’t care. “I’ll ignore that and just say thank you. I love you, Simme.”
Propping the last of the frying pans on the dish rack, Simon smiles and drags his feet back to the sofa. He plops down onto it as he replies, “Love you too.”
“You’ll have to bear my whining a little longer, though. It’s gonna take a while for me to get my visa and my contract here doesn’t end before December so, you know. I don’t think I’ll be able to move before next year. Gives me plenty of time to keep annoying you until then.”
“I’m good, actually. Are you sure you can’t move there any sooner?” he jokes, eyes landing on the Stockholm traffic just outside the living-room window.
“Ha-ha. Fuck you.”
A snort escapes Simon. He wants to ask Sara where her and Felice are going to live, but the answer scares him, so he doesn’t. In the silence that settles over them, he hears Luca hum approximately to a song Simon is positive he’s heard before as he brushes his teeth. This is his life now, he thinks. He will never be a kid again, trading Pokémon cards with Sara in their childhood home. The house has long since been sold, their mother has moved back to Gothenburg and met her current boyfriend, and Simon’s life is here, in Luca’s small apartment the Royal Swedish Ballet rent for him.
“Actually, Simon, I was wondering…”
He rubs his face with his hand, throat tight with emotion. “Hmmm?”
“Well, it’s not… You don’t have to give me an answer now, you can think about it, but… I’ll need someone to come with me and help me with my stuff, and Mamá hates taking the plane, you know that, plus I think she’d spend the entire time trying to convince me and Felice to move back home. So I was wondering if you might want to tag along? Make a holiday out of it, you could spend a couple of weeks with us, and hopefully it’ll make you want to come visit again?”
Simon wants to decline politely, because he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to leave Sara on another continent without looking back. And, selfishly, he doesn’t want to get a taste of her life there either, all the things she will get to experience while he’s stuck in Sweden. It’s not jealousy, exactly. It’s just that he and Sara had each other’s backs for so long, and it kills him to know he won’t get to be apart of any of her experiences in New Zealand.
Not to mention the one reason he has to actually be reluctant to accompanying Sara.
Except it’s Sara asking, and there’s very little Simon wouldn’t do for his sister. Even more so if she isn’t going to let Linda come with her — the thought of letting her make the journey over alone is a terrifying one.
“Sure. If you want me there, I’d love to come with you.”
She gasps in surprise. “Really? I thought it’d take more convincing. I had a speech prepared and everything.”
“I’d laugh, but I know you’re actually telling the truth. But yeah, I think I’d actually find it reassuring to help you settle in. I’d like that.”
Sara appears to struggle with picking her next words, because she stays quiet for a long minute. In the end, she resolves on a plain, but sincere, “Thank you, Simon.”
The conversation moves onto other topics, Sara enquiring about Simon’s uni work, Luca’s rehearsals, their weekend in Gothenburg so Simon could introduce Luca to their mother. He tells her everything is fine, that his degree is everything he had dreamed of, that Luca is giddy with excitement for opening night, that it was nice to be in Gothenburg with their mother for a couple of nights. She doesn’t need to know he’s as horrible at music theory as he is at playing drums, if not worse. He doesn’t utter a word about the fact that it’s a miracle he hasn’t failed the class yet, because he doesn’t have the heart to pick up his learning where it had been left off, right before his world was tilted on its axis. And Simon would never, knife to his throat, gun to his temple, admit to the way his heart had seized when he’d stumbled upon the picture of his Studenten in his mother’s bedroom. He isn’t proud of the shortness in his tone when he had told her to put it away.
He only tells Sara he can’t wait for the summer holidays, even though they both know he will be working the entire time.
Before he can ask his sister more about their new rescue, he hears the ping of a message notification resounding over the phone.
“Felice just woke up,” Sara informs him. “I have to call her before she leaves for class. I’m sorry, can we video chat in the weekend?”
“Yeah. Go be disgustingly in love with your girlfriend. Tell her I say hi, will you?”
She chuckles. “Will do! And Simon, um…” The pause makes Simon frown, wary of the next words that will come out of her mouth. “Today was… Well, you know. It might be too late but I just wanted to say, like, if you haven’t seen them already, maybe stay away from Felice’s Insta stories?”
Simon loathes the way his stomach sinks. He bends forward to loop his free arm around his legs, letting his head drop to his knees. How many times would he have to fold himself before he was finally allowed to disappear?
“You know this is the best way to make me want to look, right?”
Sara lets out a small, contrite laugh. “Yeah. I just didn’t know how else to put it. If it helps, it’s nothing bad, just… I don’t know.”
“Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”
Simon nods, unable to voice anything without risking his composure. They say their goodbyes, and a handful of seconds later, Simon is left to the unyielding storm of his thoughts.
There isn’t a single hint of sound in the apartment, Luca clearly having resigned himself to studying for his upcoming anatomy exam. Simon considers joining him — he has a research paper to work on, and he’d indisputably benefit from sitting himself down for a much-needed date with his laptop. He should most definitely slip under the covers and forget about Sara’s warning altogether.
He should.
But the discarded phone on the table calls to him, and he can’t deny how much he itches to reach for it. It’s a bad idea, morbid curiosity has never done anyone good for a reason. Realistically, though, how bad could it be?
The flitting question seems to spur his body on, hand moving of its own volition. Before he knows it, Simon is opening Instagram, and his thumb is hovering above Felice’s laughing face. He chastises himself — he’s seen her posts in the last year, and bar the occasional unease in his belly, he’s survived it.
His life doesn’t have to end every 28th of May.
It’s embarrassing enough that he woke up with his stomach wrapped in tight, immovable knots. That he’d spent days wondering if he should send a text, if a birthday warranted burying the hatchet for a moment, or if that was laughably disingenuous. It’s also pathetic that he wasn’t able to focus on any of what his lecturers have been saying today.
With newfound resolve to put an end to this madness and a pounding heart, Simon finally clicks on Felice’s profile picture framed in a light green circle.
The first photograph is one he’s seen before — two small kids playing in a garden, one with dark, brushed-out curls, and the other a mess of strawberry blond locks. In the next one, both children are wearing prestigious pre-school uniforms, and the girl has her arms around the boy’s shoulders, their lips touching in a chaste kiss under the proud gaze of the girl’s mother.
The third one, captioned with an affectionate happy birthday to my worst half!!!!!!, Simon knows like the back of his hand, for he was the one to take it. They’re in Seville, perched on a bridge on the Plaza de España, and Felice is leaning in to kiss Sara, blissfully unaware of her looming best friend who’s seconds away from wedging himself right between the two of them. Simon remembers the commotion that followed, the girls threatening to throw him into the dirty water below them for ruining a perfectly-timed picture. He’d felt deliriously happy then, watching the people he loved most in the world bicker playfully.
Tapping along to Felice’s sentimental trip down memory lane, Simon freezes when the girl moves onto a video recorded in the present day — birthday celebrations in a sophisticated restaurant, a blushing boy burying his face in his hands when a cake ornamented with sparkler candles is placed in front of him as his friends break into song. It’s lovely, really, but nothing to write home about. Simon has accepted that this is how things are now — odd glimpses into a life he no longer is a part of.
It’s a little strange, admittedly, knowing everything about a person, from the reason behind the tiny crescent-shaped scars on their palms — anxiety, the answer always seems to be anxiety — to the exact shade of their favourite colour, and only getting sporadic updates through their best friend’s social media. Simon should feel like a prying observer, surreptitiously watching from his wretched hideout as life goes on around him. He would have, were it not for the fact that he could navigate, blinded and deaf, every high street and back alley of this mind he knew better than his own, so he doesn’t think his brazen stalking is anything to be concerned about.
He’s just about convinced himself Sara was being uncharacteristically dramatic when the slideshow cuts to the last picture uploaded by Felice. She’s the one he clocks initially, the faux irritation on her face played up as she sits in a bar with an expensive-looking cocktail in hand. His eyes skim over the attached caption — not me fucking third-wheeling!!! someone fly my girlfriend over asap — before the breath catches in his throat.
As fate would have it, it’s Wille his eyes flick up to then, because Simon can’t have anything good in his life, ever. His hair is longer than it was when he last saw him, bordering on ginger in the low-lit room. It’s held back by a pair of fashionable sunnies — when did Wille become fashionable ? —, which aren’t doing much to tame the stubborn strands tickling his forehead. Simon swears he’s trying not to stare, but it’s impossible not to notice the way his black tank top defines vast constellations of freckles on sun-stained skin, the inviting arch of his neck wreathed in layers of silvery chains, or the broad, ring-adorned hand holding his lemonade.
The old early-morning musings he had spent years perfecting come rushing back through him — if there ever was an embodiment of the Moon to walk the Earth, Wille is it. Light pours onto his face and he lets it consume him, casting an argentine halo onto those surrounding him.
No one had warned Simon moonlight was as unforgiving as the cruel summer sun.
Even more difficult to ignore is the look on the boy’s face. He’s turned halfway in a girl’s direction, and his gaze is unequivocally fixed on her glossy lips. Her hand is on him, and though Simon can’t see it, gesture hidden under the tabletop, it takes little to no imagination to compute it — it’s resting high on his thigh.
A wave of nausea rises in him, and he pushes down on the X in the top-left corner of his screen, forcefully. It makes no sense at all. Wille and he broke up over a year ago, and he hasn’t seen him once since then. They don’t owe each other anything. He has no right to feel any sort of way about who his ex is or isn’t kissing, even less so when his own boyfriend is waiting for him in the next room.
It’s a temporary lapse in judgement, he argues with the voice in his head. He wasn’t expecting to see the expression he’d memorised as being intrinsically tied to him on Wille’s face, now addressed to someone else. That’s all. Promptly, Simon tosses his phone onto the coffee table and gets up. He can’t think about it any longer, because none of it matters.
He doesn’t think about it when he ventures into the bedroom and Luca smiles up at him, hair still damp from the shower and reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t think about it when he climbs onto the other boy’s lap, nor does he think about it when Luca sets his notes aside to kiss him. He will never think about it again, is the promise he makes to anyone willing to hear it.
Why would he? He has exactly what he wished for. Luca’s hands on him are resolute, because they’ve done this enough times that it’s all effortless by force of habit, now. He doesn’t cling to Simon like he’s a man dying of thirst and Simon is running water he’s trying to capture within cupped palms. He doesn’t watch the way pleasure bleeds out in a heated blush over Simon’s cheeks and neck, doesn’t press his nose into his curls. He doesn’t whisper sweet nothings into his ear, isn’t quick to worship every inch of his skin, exploring and mapping out unknown lands with open-mouthed kisses.
And Simon doesn’t think about it.
Save for when Luca’s leg catches into the crook of his elbow, his body arching into Simon’s as he beckons him closer, and the shorter boy can’t help but wonder if the girl from the picture knows to trace Wille’s upper lip with the tip of her tongue or to tug on his hair, how he likes when you’re a bit rough with it. Luca sucks a bruise right under his jaw, and-- does she kiss the birthmark on his collarbone, erasing any record of Simon charting the path before her? He shuts his eyes and burrows into the hollow of his boyfriend’s throat, fights the cold bite of disappointment when the scent he finds there isn’t a heady combination of laundry soap and honeysuckle and something else entirely indescribable.
Simon tries to dig his heels in, to reverse the spiral of his thoughts — this is wrong, in so many ways. Luca is an incredible boyfriend; he doesn’t deserve anything but utter adoration and devotion. And he’s perfect for Simon, making up for everything he’s lacking in a way Wille never could. What good is a magnetic pull if all it does is drag him back down to the bottom every single time? Luca is a safe haven in the aftermath of Wille’s forest fire, a guiding light in the inky gloom. Trading in self-destructive tendencies, sleepless nights and pointless fights for a chance at a stable relationship was the best thing he could have done for himself. If the price to pay was the sound of Wille’s laughter, the way he held him like he was a cherished sculpture carved into an inestimable alloy of glass and porcelain, and the spine-tingling infatuation in his eyes, then so be it.
“Simon, do you want to stop?” Luca suggests out of the blue, running a soothing hand over Simon’s bare shoulder.
The question makes the other boy frown. “Why?”
“Because it doesn’t seem like this is doing anything for you?” Luca chuckles, and Simon can’t tell if he should be thankful or lash out at his boyfriend to stop being so nonchalant. He doesn’t know what it says about him that he wishes Luca would get riled up over the correlation between their aborted attempt at making love and Wille’s birthday.
With a defeated sigh, he rolls over gracelessly to land on the bed, back sticking unpleasantly to the duvet.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters.
Luca places a soft kiss on his temple. “It’s okay. Let’s cuddle instead, I’m exhausted.”
They do just that, and soon enough, Simon is wrapped in his boyfriend, eyes squeezed shut so he doesn’t get a chance to meet his gaze. He isn’t sure he won’t burst into tears if Luca tries to study his face for a hint at his inner turmoil.
“How’s Sara?” the boy asks sleepily after a while.
“She’s moving to Auckland.” The words sound weirdly detached to Simon’s own ears, and he cringes internally.
For a wild, whimsical moment, it almost feels like Luca might get it. His sister is moving to New Zealand — surely, the other boy can imagine how harrowing the prospect is for Simon. Although the concept of emotions and feelings is a little lost on Luca most of the time, he should be able to understand the bond between Simon and Sara. They had connected over the unconditional nature of love in their latin upbringings after all, and Luca has a little brother who comes over every other week specifically because he understands the importance of family ties.
It goes right over his head regardless.
“You knew it was coming. It’ll be fine,” Luca says in a tone Simon knows is meant to be reassuring, but only serves to add fuel to the flourishing fire coursing through his veins.
He doesn’t bother to acknowledge the reply, and Luca is fast asleep in no time all the same. Seizing the opportunity to untangle himself from the boy, Simon moves to the other side of the bed and curls up into a ball, his back turned to his boyfriend.
And here, under the cloak provided by the surrounding darkness, for the first time in what has to be an eternity, Simon finally lets himself cry.