by Ana Ashley
“Anyway, as we grew older, Vítor became a bit more withdrawn, and I was so caught up in my own life I didn’t bother to find out what had changed.
“When he was twenty-three, he was seen by someone local kissing another man in a club. They told my parents, and my dad beat him up so badly he was in the hospital for a week.
“Even though I wanted to see my brother, I couldn’t. Your aunt was pregnant at the time, and I was afraid of what would happen if we showed any sign of support.”
“What? You were pregnant?” I asked my aunt.
“I miscarried shortly after, and then was told we couldn’t have any children.” There was a sad smile on her face. I’d known they wanted kids and couldn’t have them, but I didn’t know they’d been close to having one.
My uncle continued. “My dad had said some horrible things about my brother, and to a certain degree, I believed him. I was going to talk to Vítor as soon as he was out of the hospital, but he disappeared before I could.”
“He disappeared?”
“Yes, I don’t know where he went. One day he was just... gone. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Did you look for him?” I asked.
“I did. I tried to find him behind my father’s back, but when we lost the baby, everything was too hard to cope with.
“After a while, I was just so angry with everything. I was angry because we lost the baby. I was angry because Vítor had left, and even angrier because he was gone for being gay.”
He paused for a moment, and it was when I knew he was going to talk about me. It was written in his eyes.
“I saw you and Joel kiss at the beach when you were fourteen. I had a delivery to make to one of the restaurants nearby. I knew you would be there, so I was going to check if you wanted a lift home.
“When I saw you, I was immediately taken back to that time before my brother went missing.
“I was terrified that I’d lose you because you were gay and also angry that you were.”
“We were only kids. Even I didn’t know what it all meant. I guess I realized it then that I liked Joel and maybe I liked boys rather than girls, but it was all so confusing.”
“I know that now. I think I knew it then too. I tried to ignore it, but when I saw you with that boy a few years later, I just lost it.”
I knew he was talking about the time he saw me with Isaac when his parents had kicked him out.
“Did you know all this?” I asked my aunt.
“Not all. I knew a few things, especially about Vítor, but I didn’t know about you.” She touched my face to clean my tear streaks.
“Your uncle is in trouble with me.” She winked. “But we talked about it, and I know his heart. He’s loved you like a son from the day you were born. You should have seen his face when we visited you and your mom in the hospital. I know he’s done and said things that have broken your relationship, but give him a chance.
“I’ve seen you with Joel in the last few weeks. There’s more than just friendship between you, isn’t there?”
“There was. I hurt him, aunt, and I don’t think he’ll ever want to speak to me again.”
“David, if he loves you, he’ll forgive you.”
“I don’t know.” I looked down at where my hands were on my lap. “I just came back from his apartment. He doesn’t want to see me anymore. Tia, I’m scared he’ll go away and never return again.”
“David, tell me. What was it that brought you two together?”
“The journal.” There was no hesitation. The journal had been my way to have some time with him and get to know him again.
“Then use it as your way back to him.” She took out two envelopes from her handbag and put them in my hands. “Start with the journal.”
I couldn’t believe I was talking to my aunt and uncle about this. Never had I dared to hope to have a relationship with them if I came out. It brought fresh tears to my eyes.
“We’re going now. Please look after yourself, and remember we love you no matter what.” She gave me a kiss and a hug.
“We do, son.” My uncle hugged me, too, and whispered in my ear, “I love you, son. I’m so sorry.”
My aunt and uncle left me sitting on my sofa feeling like my world had just shifted, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Suddenly, I felt like everything that had happened in the last week caught up with me, and the only way for my body to recover was to shut down. I forced myself to have another glass of water before I went to bed.
It was already past ten in the evening when I woke up. I felt more rested than I had in years, even when I’d slept with Joel. Sleeping and waking up with Joel gave me some respite from the weight on my shoulders. It was so easy to focus on him because it meant I didn’t have to face my fears, but now that those fears were gone, there was a different kind of weight pulling me down.
I decided to take my aunt’s advice and look in the journal for guidance. I got up, took a shower, and prepared something to eat before I went to the spare room and sat on the love seat facing Joel’s apartment and opened the journal on my lap.
Joel’s balcony door was still closed.
I just hoped that wasn’t the case for his heart.
26
Joel
The last thing Max told me before he went through the departure gate at Lisbon airport was to put all my feelings of hurt aside and listen to David.
“I saw you together, Joel. I saw how he looked at you. There is no doubt that he’s in love with you. What he did was bad, but not unforgivable. After all, we all do things we regret when we’re scared.”
He hugged me tightly before he looked me in the eyes as if to check I really did listen to what he’d said.
“I will talk to him, Dr. Cupid.”
“That’s nurse Cupid if you please. Call me soon. I’ll be at yours trying not to kill your plants.”
And with that, he left to go back to New York.
The truth is that what Max had said wasn’t too far from what I’d already been thinking. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still hurting, but I was starting to think about the situation differently.
Maybe Max was right, and David did love me. There would be no future for us that way, but we could still be friends. I couldn’t expect him to be open about his sexuality if he wasn’t ready for it or didn’t want to, but we could be friends.
It was with that mantra in my mind that I decided I would go straight to David’s apartment from the airport. There was no reason to delay the conversation, and I missed him so much.
I knocked on David’s door and waited. No answer. Daylight coming from under the door told me he had to be home because when he wasn’t, he would pull the shutters down to keep the apartment cool. After a minute and another knock, I realized that maybe he wasn’t home after all, so I decided to come back later.
As I was coming down the stairs to the front entrance of the building, I saw David coming out of my building. He was carrying something under his arm and looking down at the ground as he walked across the street, almost like he didn’t want to engage with the rest of the world.
He stopped, frozen in place when he opened the door of his building and saw me standing by the bottom step.
“Joel,” he said. “Um... hi.”
From this distance, I could see how tired he looked. He’d lost some weight, his eyes had dark circles under them, and there was no shine to them, no life.
“Hi, David, I came to your apartment hoping we could talk, but you weren’t there.”
He choked out a laugh. “I went to your apartment, and you weren’t there, either.”
“Looks like neither of us is where we are supposed to be.”
A fraction of a smile appeared on his lips, and it made a world of difference to his face.
“Would you like to come upstairs?” he asked. “I know I haven’t got the right to ask you for anything, but I’d like to tell you something.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I followed him up the stairs. The way he was holding himself was so tense. I really wanted to reach out and pull him into my arms, but I had to hear him out first. I couldn’t afford to give myself so readily this time around, even if it was just my friendship.
“Take a seat.” He pointed to the sofa. “Would you like a drink?”
“A glass of water, thanks. What happened to the love seat?” I asked as he walked to the kitchen area.
“It’s in my old room.” He came back with two glasses of water and put them on the coffee table. “I’ve...um, been staying there a lot.”
I looked at him, so vulnerable. It broke my heart, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I was hurt, and I—”
“No,” he interrupted but then put his hands on mine and took a deep breath. “Don’t apologize. Please hear me out first.”
“Okay.”
“Joel, I can’t undo what I did at the club. Lucas is a jackass who’s been flirting with me since he moved here a few years ago. I shut him down. Not just because I didn’t want him to out me, but because there is nothing about him that interests me.
“I admit that at the club, my first instinct was self-preservation, but then I didn’t want him to know about you. He didn’t deserve to know how amazing you are and how important you are to me.”
I reached out to touch his face. I didn’t know how many tears he’d shed this week, but his eyes told me they’d been more than he deserved.
“It’s okay, David. I understand. And I’m sorry, too, for not listening to you that night. I came to your apartment because Max told me to hear you out, and he was right. I’m glad I did.”
He took a deep breath and then got up. It was like he was going to say something he didn’t want to.
“I meant what I said before, Joel. Please keep coming back to your grandparents. I’d really like it if we could still be friends, but I would be happier if I knew you were still coming back to them. Please, Joel.” It was almost a cry.
He wanted to be friends, but I wanted to be much more. The conflict inside me was tearing me apart. I loved this man, and I wanted to be with him. How could we make it work if he didn’t want to come out to his family?
“David, come with me to New York.” I got up from the sofa and stood right in front of him. “I love you. I love you so much I’m not even sure how all the particles of my body remain in one piece when you’re not around. Come with me to New York. We can be together there. No one would know. It would be just us, but you wouldn’t have to lose your family.”
My voice was full of desperation and determination. When the thought that David could come to New York crossed my mind suddenly, it all became clear. His aunt and uncle managed the café quite well on their own, and David could do his culinary studies or open his own business. The important thing was that we could be together.
“No.”
The one-word answer was like a shot to my heart. I’d opened myself to him again, declared my love, but he said no. His words made my skin crawl. Embarrassment coursed through my veins. I had to get out of there.
I made a move to leave, but David caught my arm and turned me back around. He put his hands on either side of my face and cleaned the tears that were running down my face with his thumbs.
“No,” he repeated. “I don’t want to go to New York.” He paused. “I mean, if that’s what you want, then I’ll go, but if you just want me to go so we can hide, then I don’t want to go. We don’t need to hide anymore.”
“Wha—”
His mouth landed on mine with the force of a man deprived of physical contact. I couldn’t make sense of what David was saying, and now that he was kissing me with so much passion, tenderness, and love, I didn’t care.
I held on to him, scared that if I’d let him go, this moment would stop. I hadn’t touched David for a week, and my lips and tongue wanted to get reacquainted. Fuck, he tasted so good.
It was with reluctance I stopped the kiss, but I was still confused. We didn’t need to hide anymore? Why?
“Dav... mmm, David.” I tried to speak between his nibbling on my lips. “What do... you mean?”
David stopped the kiss, leaving me drunk with lust, and took us to the spare room, his old room, now his office. The love seat was right in front of the balcony, facing my apartment.
He sat and brought me down with him. We cuddled up together with his arms around me and his hands stroking my hair.
“I told my aunt and uncle I’m gay.”
“Oh, David.” I thought I’d see sadness or regret in his expression, but he was smiling. No, he was grinning.
“They were okay with it, Joel. No, they were more than okay. They love me.” The emotion in his voice was palpable. Whatever had happened between David and his aunt and uncle was significant and had changed everything for him.
He was free to be himself around his family now, and it meant he could be in a relationship with another man. Not me. He’d kissed me, but he didn’t say he loved me.
“Of course they love you. But how about your uncle? What made him change?”
“It’s a long story. He’s really sorry about the way he’s treated me all these years. I also know who Vítor is now.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s Uncle Mário’s brother. I will tell you the story later, but there’s something I have to show you.”
I hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed the package he’d been holding earlier when we came into the room. When he put it on his lap, I realized it was the journal.
“There is something I want to tell you, but first I need to show you this.”
I was intrigued. I knew we hadn’t finished reading the journal, but I couldn’t imagine what would be in it that was so important.
David opened the journal to the last page and passed it to me.
My heart almost stopped beating when I recognized the handwriting on the page. My mom’s handwriting. Not the one she used for regular stuff, but what she used when she left me messages. There were very subtle differences, but I could tell.
She’d written a message addressed to David. I looked at him, and he gave me a small kiss on the lips and smiled, giving me permission to read.
Dear David,
It may be a long time until you read this, but I know you will. I am leaving the journal somewhere you will find when you are ready.
I know you are hurting a lot at the moment. I am too. We have both lost someone who can never be replaced no matter how many people we meet in our lifetime. Paula was special, and not just because she was your mom and my heart sister.
She was relentless in the way she worked, joked, cared, loved... it’s an endless list.
Before she died, your mom wrote you a letter. Her wish was that you found her letter when you were ready to read it. I don’t know when that will be so I am writing this message, trusting that somehow the journal will find its way into your hands.
Teresa has the letter waiting for you.
David, please know that you are not alone. I love you like you were my own son. It breaks my heart to know you are so far away from us.
I could take you with me to New York. I know you would like it there, and you would have Joel with you, but your aunt and uncle need you here. Please forgive us for making that decision for you. We hope it was the right one.
With love,
Sílvia
So many emotions were going through me, and I couldn’t decipher them all. I just held on to David. There were no tears, just a deep appreciation for the love our moms had for each other. I wanted to know how David felt when he read the message, but I wanted to know something else more.
“Do you have the letter? Your mom’s letter?”
“Aunt Teresa gave it to me earlier.”
He passed me an envelope. I had expected the paper to be yellow with age, maybe a few stains or marks, but it was pristine. Teresa had looked after it like it was a precious treasure. David t
old me to read the letter.
To my beautiful son,
David, I love you more than I can express in words. I hope that in the short almost fifteen years we’ve had together, I was able to demonstrate just how much with my actions.
From the moment you were born and even before you could make conscious decisions, you behaved like you wanted to make everything perfect for us. You never fussed over anything; you didn’t cry unless it was warranted, and you were the happiest little boy.
I am so sorry I am not going to see you grow up into the amazing man I have no doubt you will be. I don’t know what awaits me on the other side, but trust me when I say that if there’s a way for me to watch over you, I will. Forever and always.
If there is just a small piece of advice I can give you, it is to be brave and trust in love. Follow your heart and everything else will fall into place.
With all my love,
Mom
There was nothing I could say after reading Paula’s letter. My eyes remained on the words she wrote to her fourteen-year-old son. They were the best legacy she could have left him.
“Joel,” David whispered in my ear. I’d ended up leaning with my back against his front.
Maybe I shouldn’t give in to the comfort of being in his arms, but I couldn’t bear not to allow myself this contact. Even if it was just for today while we were making amends.
I shifted so I could face him. His eyes were roaming my face as though he was trying to see all the detail he hadn’t before.
“For a very long time,” he said, “I was afraid to do anything different. I’d lost my mom, and then you hadn’t come back. I didn’t realize it until now, but I wasn’t living because I was afraid that anything I did would make the only good things I had in my life disappear.
“Then you came along, with your blond hair and shiny blue eyes, your smile and your big open heart, and you saw me.”
I couldn’t stop my tears now. How could I?
“Don’t cry, sweetheart. I’m getting to the best part.”
