But there were no other options ... I hadn’t seen him since the party, and there was an anxiety in the pit of my stomach about the whole thing. Did he hate me? Did he hate what we’d done? Did he even care?
I had just wanted to contact him.
Yep, getting his number via Hamish had been awkward.
Of course, Hamish and I had another secret too ... but I never revisited that one. And I knew he would never reveal that one either for a number of reasons. It reflected poorly on me, but it also reflected poorly on him.
Wasn’t that his girlfriend less than fifty metres away?
I wished he would leave.
I wished Hamish Chiel would leave.
I kept my eyes fixed on the glass – a clear signal.
And he received it.
“Okay ... see you later ladies.”
He gave the table the tiniest of pushes as he left. It could have meant nothing, but I wasn’t convinced. It was like some outlet of energy. A fissure.
“What was that about?” Chloe asked, not even looking up.
“I have no idea,” I said with a gentle roll of the eyes.
So well-rehearsed.
By the time Benji rocked up I was sitting in the gutter. Literally. A couple of streets down from where Luca lived. I’d slunk a few blocks away, until I was pretty certain he wouldn’t just head out of his house and find me. Then I’d dropped a pin for Benji, and gone back to sobbing into my jacket.
It was by no means a pretty sight.
I had indeed hit rock bottom.
You see I didn’t regularly demonstrate defeat. Only to myself and the mirror. It only ever happened in my head. But to everyone else I was gaysian Leo. Flamboyant and fabulous. Untouched by the “No Asian” quips, and always ready to make a self-deprecating joke.
Lol. All the time. A regular barrel of laughs.
I tried not to imagine my parents seeing me in this sort of state. They would be shocked, and even worse, they would be sad. So very sad. I might not have been the son they had hoped for, bur they had always been proud of me – I felt like I kept them at an arms-length. Partly to get some space to be my own person, but also, I didn’t want them to know about how deeply unhappy I was. They would think it was their fault. It wasn’t. I would never want them to feel like that.
If they knew what had just transpired, or what had been going on for the last year ... they would have been disappointed. I’d known Luca was a bad guy all along. He had been cheating on his wife. With me. For over twelve months. He’d never come clean to her about his sexuality, or anyone else.
He was a coward, with zero integrity.
And I was too ... but I couldn’t afford to indulge in my insecurities in an IRL forum, they could only exist locked up in my mind.
People like Benji could afford to talk about their anxieties, paranoias and weird-ass phobias. He was allowed to be that person, because he was pristine, white, clever and beautiful. His parents owned a Tesla for Christ’s sake. His biggest concern was the slightest whiff he exuded of toxic masculinity and his level of wokeness. Christ, I hated that word!
But begrudgingly, he was also a nice person. A nice human being. The type of person who wouldn’t cheat on his wife with a dude for a year, and wouldn’t tolerate that casual flippancy in a partner either.
He was better than me.
I couldn’t tell him the truth, because through his eyes, I was a nice guy too. And if I ripped that down ... well then, it would all be gone wouldn’t it?
Then it would all be shameful.
“What happened?” he asked as I got into the car.
“Nothing. Nothing. We just had a fight,” I lied, as I wiped some snot off my face with a sleeve.
“I don’t think Luca and I are a good match,” I said, faking a half smile for him.
“I’m sorry mate. It seemed like you two got along so well,” he responded. Of course, that’s what he would think, because that’s what I had led him to believe.
I nodded a couple of times, because it was tough to say anything further.
And he just left it. He didn’t say another word.
Because he understood, instinctively I guess, that I couldn’t either.
If I was brutally honest, I didn’t keep Benji and Francesca apart just because I thought Francesca was bad news for him.
It was more than that.
Chloe dropped me back to my house that day.
It was late afternoon – almost evening, and the sky was starting to change colours. This was my least favourite part of the day. When day turned the blanket over to reveal night.
As we drove home, down the winding back streets of Woollahra, back to my parents’ place on Jersey road, I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. Again.
There was something difficult about that day. No matter how many times I tried to dislodge the thought, or ignore it, it kept creeping back.
A precursory examination of how I felt indicated nothing. My skin felt hot and tingly from the sun, like it had taken on the energy from that giant ball of heat. My hair felt crispy from the sea and the salt, and my scalp a little itchy. And I felt the slightest bit intoxicated, only the slightest bit. I should have felt mellow, satisfied even, from such a brilliant day. But I didn’t.
I wasn’t even sure if I’d ever felt satisfied or mellow, or if I only thought I had.
Underneath it all, was the tiniest of cracks, from which that uncomfortable feeling surfaced.
I didn’t want to peel it back and peer in, because I knew what lay within. So, I’d tried to ignore it. But it kept resurfacing ...
Yep, there it was. It was the expression in those brown eyes. It was the way he had run his hand over his shorn head, when he’d noticed I was looking at it. It was the way he had pushed the table gently when he had stepped away. It was the way Francesca Moore had looked at me, angrily ... and that hadn’t been about Benji.
No. There was the thought, coming up to the surface like oil on water. Impossible to hide. It was about Hamish Chiel.
I felt myself blanche.
A vision flashed before my eyes, quick and sharp. My face entwined with Hamish’s.
I snapped the thought away. Like I’d clicked my fingers and made it disappear.
I pushed it away violently. The memories kind of made me feel ill.
They were gross ... and I couldn’t make sense of any of them.
We pulled up outside my parents’ place on Jersey Road, a big sandstone family estate, equipped with gates.
I collected my things.
“Do you want to do anything tonight?” Chloe asked in a semi-bored tone. Rehearsing.
If we’d wanted to do anything, we would have made plans already.
“No, I might stay in. I’m so tired from the beach,” I added.
“Me too.” She pretended to yawn, and then tossed me an insincere smile.
“See you,” I said.
“Text you,” she responded, as I descended from the car.
I fished the keys out from my bag and opened the side gate.
It was dark already, but the path up to the house was well lit. The giant magnolia trees bent down towards me, the leaves so lush and fecund they were almost black.
I noticed the sand sculpture in the driveway. A miniature horse and knight. Mum had the housekeeper make them sometimes on the weekend from elaborate moulds. She thought it was quaint and cute. The locals enjoyed it – she said.
There was a second driveway leading out to the back lane, so it didn’t affect anyone’s exit.
There were lights on in the house, but I knew no one was at home. Mum had mentioned in the morning that she had dinner with a couple of girlfriends and Dad had probably played an extra round of tennis at the club and had gone on for a couple of drinks with his tennis mates.
The house felt incredibly lonely.
An immense tomb of a thing. The idea sent a shiver up my spine.
Like I was dead in here or something.
I climbe
d the stairs up to my room. Inside it now, I closed the door. Like enclosing myself in a smaller space would suddenly make me feel better.
My room was by no means small. It was probably the size of most people’s main living area, and carefully decorated too. The décor was re-done on an annual basis. Mum would have her decorator come in, Imogen Bailey, and the three of us would pour over headboards, and tables, and night stands and lamps for hours, until we came to a compromise.
But it always felt kind of off. More a showroom than a personal space. But that probably described the entire house.
I pulled off my t-shirt and bikini and put it into the wicker basket for dirty laundry, and popped on some sweats.
I knew I was avoiding looking at my phone. Because I was avoiding seeing no new messages. From him. Of course, there would be other messages. But not from him. Not from Benji.
I flung the thought aside, and pulled my phone out.
There were a whole heap of messages crammed onto that tiny screen. The quickest of glances revealed there were none from him.
But there was a missed call ... from Hamish Chiel.
The thought set a tiny wave of panic ricocheting through my entire body.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Why was he calling me? Why even?
The image of our faces locked together surged into my mind. Again, I swallowed hard.
I didn’t want anybody knowing about it. I didn’t even want myself knowing about it. In fact, I never allowed myself to fully revisit the memories.
The evening swayed and shook in front of me in all its magnitude. The loneliness of it all. It yawned ahead of me with its emptiness, like the emptiness inside of me, and with it the thought of Hamish Chiel ...
That was something I couldn’t deal with.
Fuck ...
I hated all of it. I hated this room, I hated this house, I hated the clothes I wore, the person I pretended to be, the words that came out of my mouth, the nothingness within me and worst of all ... the feeling that none of it was ever going to change.
That this was it.
So I texted him, in a moment of weakness, like so many other moments of weakness.
Do you want to come over?
The message was seen ... and then there were the three dots.
Yep — be there in half an hour.
It was Hamish Chiel.
That was our secret.
Less than half an hour later, there was a knock at the front door.
I headed downstairs to open it. All the while mentally pretending that I didn’t know who was on the other side. I did that a lot when this happened. I removed myself from all of the thinking. It was easier that way.
I let Hamish Chiel in.
He looked the same as how he had at the bar earlier on that day. Loud shirt, shorts and Huaraches. I glanced at his shorn head again, and he ran the palm of his hand over it again. The very same action. Like he was conscious he was being assessed, and was somehow embarrassed.
“What happened to your hair?” I asked.
“I had it shaved,” he responded.
A second passed. “Do you like it?” he asked.
“No,” I responded.
I never liked anything about Hamish Chiel. That’s how we operated. And it was the truth, I didn’t like anything about Hamish Chiel. I wasn’t even quite sure why he was here.
He didn’t look hurt or stung by the comment. He never did. I supposed he was used to being disliked or not living up to people’s expectations. It was a comfortable space for him.
“You have a sand sculpture out on your driveway again,” he said instead.
“My mum likes having them.”
“It’s kind of cute,” he continued.
“It’s weird,” I responded. It was the first time I’d thought that. Or maybe I always did. I just wasn’t allowed to let myself think it.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, his brown eyes settling on mine.
There they were, interesting and warm and strange all at the same time.
Why did I feel like I could be myself around Hamish Chiel?
Why Hamish Chiel and no one else?
“It’s sort of deranged,” I added.
A second passed and then he nodded.
“You’re right,” he muttered.
We ended up having sex in the kitchen.
It was quick and not unpleasant. And maybe momentarily it made me feel less like nothing. Sometimes when we finished, I wanted to hold onto Hamish. He had broad and tanned shoulders, and I liked the feel of them. Sometimes I just wanted to wrap my arms around him. But I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. Not at all.
Instead, I just jumped off the bench and pulled my sweat-pants up.
And he looked away, kind of embarrassed, like he had earlier on today at the table.
I didn’t know what that expression meant.
And I didn’t want to find out.
We were quiet for a second, while he re-adjusted.
Then he pulled a bag out of his pocket and handed it to me.
This was the exchange.
This was another one of our secrets.
He didn’t meet my eyes, and I didn’t meet his. The best of secrets.
The ones that you know will always be kept.
Then he marched away from me towards the front door. Like he always did.
He loitered there for a second.
And it was a second too long ... usually he just left.
It was that second that broke my resolve. Only a single second.
“Hey,” I said.
He turned back, and I crossed that path quickly between us.
Was it that extra second, or something about that day, or even our joint understanding of that sand sculpture in the driveway?
I had the immense sensation that I should act out and do something different.
And. I. Never. Had. That.
“Here,” I said and handed him back the bag. “I usually flush it anyway.”
Like, let’s not pretend it’s about that. Just not tonight.
His face split into a strange grin, which shook at the edges, like he wasn’t sure if it was the right one, or if he should be wearing one at all.
Like he was trying it on for size.
“You do?” Surprised.
“Yeah.”
Our eyes were locked. And it was a nice moment. Maybe even an epic one. But it needed to end.
“You should go,” I said to him.
And he nodded.
“Yeah.”
I closed the door behind him, and headed upstairs.
I bit the bottom of my lip.
Sometimes things were even more complex than you let yourself imagine.
Maddison’s and Francesca Moore’s houses were incredibly close together. Not even a kilometre apart. I didn’t think they really understood the proximity of their locations. They couldn’t have been more different people. Maddison lived in her parents’ statuesque, old money, home. I couldn’t guess how much that thing was worth, probably somewhere between the 5 to 10 million mark. It was grandiose to say the least. Huge. I’d only really ever seen the lounge room and the kitchen. One time I’d seen the downstairs bathroom, just because I’d told her I needed to use it. But I didn’t. I just wanted a glimpse of something else that belonged to her. One more thing. Because she didn’t let me see anything else. So, sure I’d even take the bathroom.
That’s how much I wanted to be near her. I consciously sought out the place in her house where people showered, crapped, shaved, brushed their teeth and did their make-up.
Just so I could get the tiniest insight. Maybe the shampoo she used, or the perfume she wore ... or I don’t know. It was kind of creepy and desperate.
But I was a creepy and desperate person. I was under no false pretences about it.
I turned the corner into Francesca Moore’s terrace. A two-bedroom, semi-dilapidated edifice from 1896. She rented it with Leo Teoh.
I banged on the door. While I waited I examined the Mezuzah fixed on the side of the door gathering dust. Inside it was the word of God. It didn’t belong on the front of that house.
Francesca Moore answered. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her make-up was a little smudged. She was one of those girls who could be exceptionally beautiful one day, and grungy and gross on another. You never really knew who you were going to get. Clearly, this evening it was grungy and gross.
She frowned at me like she was annoyed by my appearance. She was still wearing the kaftan from earlier on in the day, and it hung on her emaciated figure like from a coat hanger. It always surprised me that such a small person could generate so much power.
And she was strangely powerful.
“Can I come in?” I asked her with a raised eyebrow.
“Sure,” she said, be my guest style (ironically). I headed into the small living room.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Sleeping,” she responded.
“It’s 8 o’clock. What are you? A senior citizen?”
She cracked the tiniest of smiles.
“I was tired, okay?” she responded.
Francesca Moore was always tired. It was because she didn’t eat anything, and she was kind of depressed. Her outward appearance of fun, anger and volatility, was juxtaposed to home-Francesca ... where she just slept and watched television, and that’s about it. But nobody knew that. Only Leo and I. That was it. Leo could keep a secret. So could I.
“Were you with Maddison?” she asked.
“Yep.”
The thought of Maddison, made me smile slightly ... at what had happened. It made me feel ... I don’t know, something. At the very least, it made me feel less shit about myself.
I passed my hand over my shaved head again self-consciously.
“Do you want a drink?” she asked me, as she headed to the kitchen.
“Sure,” I responded, taking a seat on their slack leather lounge.
I could hear her rustling about in the kitchen, finding glasses and a bottle. She reefed open the freezer. I knew it was vodka. Low cal, and it did the job fast. Francesca Moore was so predictable.
She brought out the two glasses. As expected. A hefty slug of straight vodka.
The Overthinkers Page 14