Pear

It’s the first night I’ve woken up from the dreams for a long long time. I sit bolt upright, heart pounding and gasping, and it takes me a minute to realise that I’m in the wrong place. This doesn’t smell like my room, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness I realise that it’s not, and that there is a warm body breathing slowly next to me, shrouded in the misty cocoon of sleep.

I quietly peel the doona back and swing my naked legs out and on to the freezing March floorboards. Gathering yesterday’s clothes together, I praise every God I can think of when the ground doesn’t creak under my weight, and I’m pulling my pants up with one hand while scrawling Thank you for everything- had a great time- might see you around- H xx on the back of last night’s bar napkin and my heart is still racing at a million miles an hour and I really just need to get out of here as soon as possible before I-

Stop. Breathe. In, out. In, out. Left, right. In, out. Open door. Close door. Elevator.

I close my eyes and lean my head against the cold metal of the lift doors, catching my breath. It’s OK. It’s going to be OK. I vaguely wonder why the dreams chose last night to return, and quickly realise that it was the first time I’d been intimate since then. I cringe. This is my body’s response mechanism to me getting too close to other people: to remind me, punish me with memory after memory, hitting me like full speed trucks on a quiet highway, over and over until they warp and expand and that one boy’s face is snarling and spitting I hate you I hate you I hate you

until I believe it.

The doors open smooth, like torpedoes, and I realise that this apartment building is a lot more expensive and clean than mine is. This probably means I’m on the wrong side of town, and- a step outside confirms it. It’s at least a forty minute journey by foot back home, a walk of shame that’s going to go on forever. So I check my watch and I cross the street and for 10am it’s very quiet and I cross my fingers that I didn’t have an extra class this morning.

Half an hour and I’m in the centre of town. It’s taken me longer than normal because for some reason, the flowers smelled stronger this morning. Everything is feeling very peaceful and lovely and the footpath is Technicolour and the air is so clear and the sun is leaving a lovely glow on the nape of my neck. On my right is a little café that does a great cooked breakfast and I just think, why not?

I’ve sat and I’ve ordered and they take away my menu and I’m feeling a lot like a stretched out cat this morning, waiting for my bowl of milk, so I pull my arms above my head and feel my joints pop and open my eyes and freeze. My arms are locked above my head and I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

Because that one boy is sitting across from me. Less than five metres away. And he’s had a haircut and he’s wearing a new jacket and he’s got some sort of five o’clock shadow that doesn’t correlate with my memory of soft but it’s him, it’s his same mouth stretched in to his same grin scrunching up his same eyes flexing his same arms moving his same fingers – that are entwined with someone else’s. I’m going to hyperventilate.

You haven’t paid yet my brain hisses get out now so I’m standing quickly and ripping my jacket off the back of my chair when I feel those eyes falling on me and my stomach drops like I’m going to throw up and he says

“Hugo?”

And now he’s standing and I’m frozen in place and I can feel another set of eyes on me. So I turn slowly.

That one boy is grinning at me.

that one boy is grinning at me.

“Hugo! It is you!”

I smile weakly.

“Hi.”

“Come here!” and he’s still grinning, and I could never deny him anything so I do.

He pulls me in to a hug and I want so badly to relax in to it but I just can’t, so I pat him twice on the back and pull away, and I can both feel and hear him sigh in disappointment because it took me a long time to get to that stage with him, and that’s gone now.

“Come eat with us!”

I look down and suddenly remember that he was with someone, a boy. A boy with bronze skin and gold eyes. A boy who looks very confused and a little irritated.

“Oh, I’ve completely forgotten my manners. Hugo, this is Oli. Oli, this is Hugo!”

I hold my hand out and he takes it. Something about him reminds me a little of myself; I wonder if he’s got different scars in the same places. But his face is different. Very bold and innocent. Youth.

“Hello” I say, and it’s quiet.

“Hi” he says, and it’s not.

I pull out a chair and carefully sit down, arranging myself and watching my hands. When I look up, that one boy is grinning at me, warm.

“I forgot how you sit down. You’re like a bird.”

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird” I say, and we both burst out laughing.

Oli frowns slightly and squeezes that one boy’s hand across the table. I remind myself that this isn’t us on my couch a year ago, and I fold back in on myself. It’s not funny anymore.

*

“So what do you think of Oli?”

He’s gone to the bathroom, and left us alone. He wasn’t particularly happy about it, either.

Over breakfast I’d learned a little about them both. Of course I know that one boy like the back of my hand, but the way he acts with Oli is too familiar and it makes me feel very sick. He’s changed a little. He’s less impulsive. He’s grown.

Oli is a high school student. A high school student. He’s in Year Eleven. I’m not sure what to think about it.

“I don’t think he really knows who he is, yet.”

That one boy nods very sagely as if the weight of all the knowledge of the world is on his shoulders, and it’s so arrogant that it makes me squirm and I can feel the familiar naggings of all those little habits that I never used to see until I knew him too well.

“He’s infatuated with you, though.”

He sighs.

“I know. I don’t know what to do about it.”

And it’s in that moment that I realise he hasn’t grown, not at all. He’s still the same seventeen year old boy in a grown-up shell. Because of all the things in the world, of all the things to remind me of, to act as if another person’s feelings are understandably natural and also irritating, of all the conceit. In that moment I am sure he is going to break that poor boy like he broke me, and all I can hope is that Oli is strong enough to rebuild himself again. Stronger than me.

I stand up, and put thirty dollars on the table for the waitress. Jacket on and I’m angry and tired, and I’ve lost the longing now.

“Goodbye, Nicholas.”

It’s cold, and I’m gone.