When he asked me to be put on speakers to say hi to Mom and Dad, I wished I could punch him in the face.
“Do you think he’s doing it on purpose?” I asked Francesco at dinner.
Like any other respectable Millennial from Milan, Francesco would actually go into withdrawal after two weeks without sushi. Luckily for him, the local chino-japanese restaurant was famous for both the great quality of the ingredients and the prices. The place was cozy and clean, decorated with simple bamboo elements, and I could tell it was one of the few places in the small town where my cousin felt comfortable enough to let his guard down.
I kept distractingly plunging my sushi into the soy sauce and the more the rice sucked on the dark liquid, the less I felt like eating it. I already had four discarded cucumber maki rolls lying sadly on one side of my plate.
Francesco shot me a disgusted look. “I think he doesn’t want to get his ass dumped after investing in this relationship for two years just because of your quarter-life crisis.”
I raised my brows. “Is that a thing?”
“Certainly looks like it.”
I passed my hands through my hair and scratched my head. “It’s like we are some retired couple already. We used to have fun together, and now it’s all TV, bills and work, work, work, work. All the fucking time.”
Francesco chewed slowly on his salmon nigiri and only when he was finished, he said, “Rob, that’s what most relationships are like between two adults who have a steady job. You can’t expect it to always be all-night-long sex or romantic trips. I know things aren’t as exciting as they were before, but that’s normal.”
I took one more maki roll with my chopsticks and said, “I don’t think we have ever done any of those things.”
I was about to dip the sushi into the soy sauce when my cousin froze me with a murderous glare. “You’ll eat that thing now or I’ll personally end you.”
I rolled my eyes and took a bite. “Seriously though, the sex is barely okay. And we don’t even want to spend time together anymore. There’s no passion, no rush, nothing. He didn’t even want to come here, but now that I’m thinking about breaking it off, he’s the one who thinks he has the right to be freaking out.”
If there was anyone in the world who could get me, or at least help me understand what the hell was going on with me, I knew that would be Francesco. We literally had known everything about each other since we were twelve and I had been outed to our family during Christmas dinner, when he came into my room to tell me that he was gay as well and he was terrified to tell his parents. We had been each other’s first kiss, before deciding that kissing a cousin was disgusting after all and we would never do it again. And I witnessed all the stages of the most passionate, dramatic, intense love story in the world when he met and then broke up with Eric, the love of his life.
He took a deep breath and said, “Rob, as always, you want too much.”
Again. It was time for him to explain. “How the hell do I want too much?”
“Have you ever wondered why all your relationships end with you getting dumped and not even giving a shit? You don’t put any effort in your relationships because you don’t really care.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I remarked. Even though that was what most people told me when breaking up with me.
“Rob, I think you’re looking for something that’s really hard to get. I think that behind your cool guy bullshit, you’re actually a stupid romantic and you dream of love at first sight and passionate lovemaking under the moon. You imagine all that stuff when you meet someone new, and you’re disappointed when your partner can’t give it to you. That’s how you get bored.”
This time, I couldn’t reply with anything. Maybe Francesco was right. I remembered the long days spent with him in Milan when he came back from London after his story with Eric ended. He was a wreck, but at the same time… I envied him. I had always envied that kind of love. I had wanted people who wanted me back, I always had a healthy sex life and I had had fun, but nothing quite like that. Nothing that would make me burst out crying while listening to a song or laugh like my heart was coming out of my chest. I could never love like that. Probably, I could never love at all.
Francesco held my stare and kept saying, “I have to be honest with you: there’s nothing wrong with your relationship with Luca. So what if it’s mild? Mild is good. It’s safe play.”
I kept stabbing my nigiri with my chopstick as I released a deep breath. I had to get it off my chest. “What if I didn’t want to play it safe? What if I met someone else?”
Francesco’s eyes widened. “I knew it,” he said. “It’s James, isn’t it? God, are you that stupid?”
“Why?”
“That’s not ‘meeting someone!’ That kid is here on vacation, Rob! He’s going back to the other side of the world in what? Two weeks?”
“Three weeks,” I exhaled.
He kicked me from under the table. “Did you sleep with him?”
“No, I didn’t…”
“Good. Leave him alone. Let him go out with kids his age. You don’t want to fuck up a two-year relationship just because you can’t keep it in your pants. And we already know how it would end anyway. You’d just get bored of him after a little while.”
The taste of my sushi turned disgusting. I just stared blankly at the plate and thought that, rationally, Francesco was right. Luca was waiting for me back in Milan. We’d go grocery shopping, out for dinner with our friends, and he’d be by my side when I was sick, making me pastina and watching a stupid romcom on TV with me. We were friends before lovers, and at least that never changed. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was something.
And what was James to me?
When I first saw him, I thought he was an angel. I saw his beautiful face, his flawless skin and his soft curls, and that figure penetrated through my flesh and bones, painting the image of him in my head. Then I saw him smile and I heard his laughter, and that image came alive, and since that moment, it grew with every word he said and with every small touch. I was helplessly drawn to all the things I still didn’t know about him, that he kept hidden from everybody. I knew there was something more to him; something I could barely feel or see on his face when his gaze was lost in the distance. I didn’t know him, but I wanted to. I felt the danger, the tension, the attraction. And it was true that he was going to leave and I’d never see him again, but even though my brain knew, something inside me kept hoping that maybe he was different from all my past relationships. Maybe, James was what I had been looking for all my life.
“Rob, I know you,” Francesco said dryly. “You would get bored.”
I was really tempted to tell him to go fuck himself. But Francesco probably knew me better than I knew myself. Maybe he was right, and I didn’t really want James. Maybe I was just projecting on him the misguided expectations of a relationship I never managed to have.
◆◆◆
It was late. It had been a while since we last hung out together, so Francesco and I stopped at the bar on our way home to get a few drinks and catch up. It was almost 3 a.m. when Mom texted me that Marco hadn’t come back yet. I didn’t think there was any need to worry: I figured he was probably just having fun and didn’t feel the time pass. The club he went to with his friends was within walking distance and none of his friends had a driver’s license yet, so even if – and I was positive that happened – somebody got drunk, they should be fine.