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“My dad was an even shittier dad,” I countered.
“Yeah. Daddy issues.”
“I don’t have daddy issues!” I shrieked. “Get to the point, arsehole.”
“I love you, babe, even though you just called me an arse.”
“Arsehole,” I corrected him.
Fuck. I was being a dick. Again.
“You and I are who we are, but we both sometimes need parenting. You’ve done that for me more times than I can remember. You put on that big, bad daddy face and tell me to get my shit together. It’s bloody scary sometimes, but you only do it when I actually need to…”
“Get your shit together,” I finished. “So now you’re going full-on daddy on me?”
“Benjamin,” he said sternly.
He never called me Benjamin, and I couldn’t help it. I cringed. Pressed my back into the chair.
“Ben… Babe. When did you first realise you were in love with Hugo?”
If I could have, I would have thrown up because the pain in my chest was overwhelming like he’d just gut-punched me.
“I’m not,” I said stubbornly. I couldn’t look at him.
We sat in silence.
“If you can’t talk about it with me, then who are you going to talk to?”
I said nothing. Because there was nothing to say. The whole foundation of our friendship was that Mark was who he was and I was nothing like him, and there was nothing more terrifying to me in that moment than the thought of rocking that stable friendship. It felt like I was pushing him off a cliff only to stand there and watch him fall.
“I don’t know,” slipped out of my mouth without my permission. “I don’t want… I…I don’t want anything to change. I never…”
“Mate,” he said gently. “There is nothing physically wrong with you. Apart from that you are utterly and bitterly heartbroken and suffering from some kind of extreme queer crisis.”
“Queer crisis,” I muttered, trying to blend into the surface of my kitchen table. It was bland oak. I wanted to be like that. Bland but solid. Right now, I was anything but that.
“I’ve always known how incredibly cool you are. If you think that nobody else in the world has noticed, then you’re just acting stupid because you are NOT stupid. You’re really perceptive and clever, and you have the biggest, wildest heart on this planet, and when you love someone… Do you ever stop and wonder if I would be here if it wasn’t for you?”
“I know,” I mumbled. He told me all the time. I also knew that without him…
I didn’t want to think of what would have happened to me without him.
“So you found someone you crushed on,” he said philosophically. “Hasn’t happened in a long time, but it’s actually lovely to see because you’re not subtle when you fall for someone.”
“Which makes all of this really bloody embarrassing,” I whined.
“Why?” He shuffled his seat closer so he could reach my hands. My stupid, scarred, ugly hands and chewed-off nails that looked all the more obscene next to his with their perfectly manicured nails and smooth, unblemished skin.
“You said it yourself. Everyone could see. And I hate that they did.”
“And then?”
“You know what happened! He just disappeared! Just like that! Not even a word, and everyone’s acting like it’s all okay. He went back to his dickhead boyfriend and is probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Yes, I was shouting, and no, I wasn’t proud of it.
“Babe,” he said calmly, stroking my hands, twisting his fingers with mine. “Let’s break this down. So you admit that you like our Hugo?”
