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Now I really did want to cry, but I also didn’t want to because there was something incredibly heavy in my chest that I didn’t know how to cope with, and yet…
“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” I shouted, the wine in my glass sploshing around. I was going to spill on his bloody sofa any minute now.
“You’ll find a way, babe, because you love me. And because I love you. But you’re allowed to love someone else. You’re allowed to love them even more than you love me. And you deserve that. Someone who will always be your number one. The one who will be your boyfriend, and then…”
I snorted. This was all too heavy for my fragile head. “Then I’ll have sex?” I asked sarcastically.
“Then you’ll have a boyfriend.”
That made him punch me in the shoulder.
“One you can have sex with.”
“WHY A BOYFRIEND? God, Mark! I need a cigarette.”
“See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. We’re boyfriends who don’t have sex. We have one intense discussion and you need a smoke. We might as well be shagging.”
He didn’t mean that. Not really. He was just saying it to lift the mood. A mood that was doing my head in.
“And anyway, Hugo threw out your cigarettes, remember?” Mark laughed. “I like that he did that. Good job, Hugo.”
“I have a spare pack here.” I had several actually. By the back door. In the kitchen cupboard. Under their bed.
“Sothat’swhy you came over.”
I glared at him.
“Ben. Bisexuality is a thing, if that’s the label you choose. You know this as much as I do. You don’t have to choose anything or you can choose something completely different. You don’t have to tell people. You don’t have to wear glitter in your hair or wave flags all over the place. All you need to do is let your heart do its thing. You were standing by the coffee machine in the canteen yesterday, and you were looking over at Hugo. I was watching you. Your whole face changed, like you suddenly went all soft and fragile and concerned, and then you smiled and I wanted to cry because you looked so bloody beautiful.”
“Shut up,” I whispered.
“You love him. It will take a load of time to figure everything out, but you will love him and look after him, and even if you never end up being what you want it to be, he’ll fall in love with you right back. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“You’re crazy. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Says the guy who’s spent most of his life being in love with a bloke.” He nudged me with his shoulder.
“SHUT UP!” I nudged him back, spilling his wine.
“See?” he whinged, smiling at me. “I speak the truth.”
“Bullshit.” I grinned.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You love me.”
“I do.”
And just like that, we got all serious again. Weird. Uncomfortable.
“We have to let go,” he said. “Not completely. But you have to let Finn figure out how to deal with me. And I have to let you fall in love with someone else, right under my nose, and it bloody hurts, Ben. It hurts like hell, but we have to do it or we’ll destroy everything around us. You and I will never make each other happy like this. We’ll end up bitter and twisted in some seaside apartment where the seagulls will shit on our balcony and I will blame you for ruining my life and you will call me a bitter old queen and then—”
“Mark,” I said sternly.
“You’ll hate me. Just like in that film.”
“What film?”
