‘OK,’ he says. Neither his voice nor his expression gives away any emotion.
‘Your mum called, looking for you. She sounded upset.’
A flash of guilt crosses his face. ‘She hates the fog. She’s scared of it.’
‘I find it kind of soothing. Almost like snow. Everything is muffled.’
Silence unfolds. We stay frozen for so long that I begin to wonder if time has simply stopped, until Simo speaks up again.
‘You say that, but . . . the day Hamza died, he was riding his bike home from a friend. It was only a few doors down. He was wearing a helmet, and his lights were on. But in the fog the car still caught him. He didn’t stand a chance.’
My knees buckle beneath me. I glide into the sand, and though I want to reach out, I stop myself.
‘I had no idea. I shouldn’t have said.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s not like I ever told you.’
I pull out my phone and frantically type out a message.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
‘Texting your mum that I found you. And that we’re back at mine, so she stops worrying.’
‘So you’re lying.’
‘Yes, I’m lying,’ I challenge him. ‘Sometimes, when the truth is too explosive, you have to lie.’
Simo snorts. ‘You and I both know that’s bullshit.’
‘Oh, so let me ask you this: in all the years we’ve known each other, you’ve never pretended? Never acted against your feelings? Never kept the truth far away from yourself because admitting it would’ve hurt too much?’ He stares at me with cool disdain. ‘Fine, just me then.’
The vein on his forehead pulses, ‘No, not just you,’ headmits, ‘but, Luca, there’s a difference between not acting on your feelings and lying about your actions.’
I know he’s right, and I have too much respect for him to point out that I never said I didn’t do it. Omissions are lies in a different coat. ‘That was the worst part. That I thought we were on the same page, when all this time you were putting on an act.’
I shake my head. ‘It was never an act, Simo. When I realised what I’d done, I was so damn scared. I was angry at myself. I was ashamed. I just couldn’t say that out loud. Like so many things.’ The truth is that I’m still angry, still ashamed. A little less scared though, because the worst has come to pass.
‘So why did you?’ he asks.
‘Huh?’
‘What made you do it? Something must have changed.’
I think back to the morning when I typed out the message on my phone and submitted it to the council webpage. ‘We’d both just turned seventeen. You were asleep next to me, and watching you like that made me feel happy. And safe. In that moment, I let myself feel how I’d secretly always felt about you. It was such a strong impulse that I couldn’t keep it to myself.’
‘I was right there. You could’ve told me.’
‘That’s easy to say, now that I’ve missed the chance. And who knows – if I had woken you up, I might still not have been able to tell you. So I chose a more anonymous way.’
‘You didn’t think to, I don’t know, write a letter instead? Set up a fake profile and send me a DM?’
‘It needed to be something drastic that I couldn’t takeback. Something to force us into action.’
‘It sure did.’
‘I regret pressuring you. Pushing you so far out of your comfort zone that it hurt.’
He tilts his head, as if he’s considering my words. ‘I don’t regret it.’ I stare at him, confused. ‘I hated the attention, don’t get me wrong. But you’re right, it forced me out of my comfort zone. It woke me up.’ He meets my gaze and holds it. ‘You woke me up.’
