The Italian Word for Kisses

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “That’s why I’m not joining the team, Coach,” Tav said hoarsely. He folded his arms. “Luca’s gonna need me. He’s not—he might not be totally fine, and even if he is, it’s going to be really hard for him to recover all the way. His mam’s gonna coddle him, and his older brother is going to want to just staple him into a wheelchair so he can’t so much as trip up again—he’s going to need me. And sooner rather’n later. So I can’t. I can’t join up, I can’t run for you—I know you want me to, but I can’t. Luca’s—Luca’s my priority. Always was.”

  Coach Evans nodded. She stepped back a little, as though appraising him, those blue eyes glancing over Tav in a flickering manner.

  Then she smiled.

  “You’re a good kid, Tav,” she said. “But you make sure you get some down time, between school and Luca, eh? You keep running—in the team or not. And when Luca’s back on his feet, you know where to find us, eh?”

  Tav swallowed, and jerkily nodded.

  “Go on,” she said. “I won’t tell your mam you left early, eh?”

  Tav twitched his lip up in a half-smile—and left.

  * * * *

  He was later to the hospital than he’d have liked. Leaving earlier meant no lift from Mam or Ian, so Tav had to catch two buses to get up to the Northern General. The hospital itself was getting horribly familiar, and yet—

  The run had done him good, and saying his piece to Coach Evans. He stopped at a vending machine for chocolate in a fit of optimism, and took the stairs up to the ward rather than the lift. Luca might be awake. He napped a lot, but it was only five thirty now so maybe he’d be woken up soon for dinner—or whatever passed for dinner when your hips were probably too mashed up to use the toilet.

  Ew. Tav grimaced at the thought.

  Most of the ward was open, but the curtains were drawn around Luca’s bed, and Tav hesitated, uncertain of how to announce his presence. Was Luca asleep, or was there a doctor, or—

  “Knock it off.”

  Mr. Jensen’s voice was a deep and—for all he didn’t talk much—familiar rumble. Tav relaxed, and tugged on the curtain to find Luca’s bald father sitting with his elbows propped on the mattress by Luca’s knees, and both Tomas and Angelo, dressed in school uniforms, sitting around the other side of the bed, and chattering in full Italian flow.

  Then—like every other time he had come here—he was distracted. By the patient, whose head rolled towards the movement of the curtains in a lolling, dazed fashion. Luca’s smile was still fuzzy at the edges, the look in his eyes distant, but he was wearing a T-shirt from home, and was fractionally elevated from the flat-on-his-back coma-pose he’d been in yesterday.

  “Hey,” Luca mumbled, a hand drifting up, and Tav edged around Mr. Jensen and caught it.

  “Hey,” Tav grinned, squeezing his hand tightly. The benefits of the run were boosted by the feel of those fingers and the bleary dark eyes focusing—just about—on Tav’s face. He was here. He was, mostly, okay. “How you feeling?”

  Luca shook his head and blinked, tugging Tav’s hand lightly to his chest and closing his eyes. “He’s very tired,” Mr. Jensen said, his voice a low rumble, and Tav jumped. He was—unused to Mr. Jensen, especially in such close proximity, and a momentary awkwardness stole over Tav. His face flushed hot, and his fingers twitched in Luca’s, but then Luca stirred and squeezed them.

  “Tav…”

  “S’okay,” Tav murmured automatically. He rubbed at Luca’s knuckles, taking in that pale, drawn face, and bent closer to whisper, “Not going nowhere,” in his ear.

  It was weird being affectionate in front of Mr. Jensen. Luca’s brothers were kind of collateral—you just couldn’t be affectionate in the Jensen house without one of his brothers seeing you—but in front of Luca’s dad…

  Mr. Jensen was…okay, so Luca’s mother was Mamma Alessandra, right? And that was because she’d insisted on Tav calling her Alessandra when he’d started hanging around the Jensen house all the time, but he’d been thirteen and it had felt weird to call his mate’s mam by her first name. So he’d copied the way Luca had said ‘Mamma Laura’ for Tav’s own mother.

  Mr. Jensen wasn’t like that. He wasn’t around much—always working—and when he was, he just…watched. He’d sit in a corner and watch. He had these pale grey eyes that could look right through you, and he would sit so still and silent for hours that it was…really fucking scary, actually. Doing anything at all in front of Mr. Jensen felt weird. But—

  “C’mere,” Luca whispered faintly, and Tav gingerly sat on the very edge of the mattress, shifting his knee up to touch Luca’s upper arm and side. He rested his back against the wall and let go of Luca’s hand to rub his fingers into that curly hair. It was fluffy and damp, and Tav faintly suspected Mr. Jensen had acted as a nurse for a while. “Missed you.”

  “Sap,” Tomas said.

  “Leave your brother alone,” Mr. Jensen said idly, and Tomas squawked in protest. Tav ignored them, stroking Luca’s hair until those drugged eyes slid open again, and smiling when they did.

  “Hey,” he murmured. “Y’okay?”

  “Mm.”

  “What were you all talking about?”

  “Football,” Luca mumbled. “Where’ve you been? You’re not in uniform…”

  “Athletics,” Tav said, stroking a finger hypnotically back and forth across the very top of Luca’s forehead, where his hair met his skin. The scar from the swimming pool was barely visible now, the narrow ridge almost gone. Luca’s brothers were talking in Italian again—to each other or to Luca, Tav wasn’t sure—and Mr. Jensen was just sat back in his chair and watching it all.

  “The police called today.”

  Tav jumped at that deep voice.

  “They haven’t taken Luca’s statement yet,” Mr. Jensen said in that slow, low voice, “but apparently someone’s given them enough to arrest Collins for shoving Luca in front of that car.

  “J’ck. Not Collins.”

  Tav rubbed his thumb along Luca’s forehead at the sleepy mumble, and Mr. Jensen snorted faintly.

  “Wouldn’t say who, of course,” Mr. Jensen said, giving Tav a meaningful look, “but I’m grateful for it. Collins is on bail—but they got conditions for him. Not to come near Luca or the family home. Must’ve been a good witness statement.”

  “Must’ve been,” Tav said, hopefully non-committal enough to slip past Luca.

  “Mm,” Mr. Jensen said. He was staring very intently at Tav, so much so that Tav’s skin began to crawl. He could feel the hairs along his arms standing on end. As Luca’s brothers paused their conversation—still in Italian—and peered at their father curiously, Tav swallowed and tucked his knee a little higher; Luca’s fingers slid over the thigh and into the crook of the joint. And squeezed.

  “What?”

  “Want a hug…”

  Tav’s heart tightened, and he tugged gently on a curl. “I can’t hug you,” he said. “You’re all busted. When you’re a bit better, I’ll hug you. Yeah?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, Luca.”

  “No. That’s not fair.”

  “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have got yourself under a taxi,” Tav said. He heard Angelo snort. “I’m hugging you in my brain.”

  “Shitty substitute…”

  Tav smiled at the outraged words from a too-tired, high-as-a-kite brain, and slid his hand over Luca’s to trap that cool skin and IV port between the denim of Tav’s jeans and his own fingers. This was as close as he could get, Luca’s head resting lightly against his hip, and a bit of hand-holding and hair-pulling. He wanted a hug, too, not that he was going to say it in front of Luca’s younger brothers and scary postman father, but this would have to do for the minute. At least until Luca had both arms working again.

  “Dad?”

  Mr. Jensen hummed, eyeing his younger sons as they chattered. Tav wondered if he actually spoke Italian, or whether he just knew swearwords or something.

  “Go ‘way.”


  Tav blinked, but Mr. Jensen just snorted and smirked, clapping both hands down on his knees. “Alright,” he said. “Your mother’s going to drop by with some food at seven. Try and be awake for her this time.”

  “‘Kay.”

  Tav edged out of the way as Mr. Jensen—to Tav’s surprise—stooped low over the bed and pressed a rough kiss to Luca’s hair.

  “She misses you.”

  Luca’s hand rose to squeeze his father’s arm, but his sleepy, “Sod off, tossers,” in the direction of his brothers was less unexpected, and then the family were gone and the curtain was settling back into place.

  Tav reached for the chair experimentally, and smiled when Luca protested. “I can’t hug you yet.”

  “Stay here, then.”

  Tav bit his lip, then experimentally shuffled down on the mattress so he was laid out beside Luca, one foot resting awkwardly on the chair to support himself. But here, Tav could just about slide his arm under Luca’s neck, and fold the other across himself to squeeze Luca’s fingers. It was a struggle to avoid pulling the IV line, and he didn’t dare turn on his side for fear of jarring the mattress and Luca’s hips too much, but—

  It was almost a hug, and Luca turned his face to press his forehead against Tav’s with a sigh that sounded beautiful and painful all at once.

  “Thank you.”

  Tav squeezed his fingers.

  “How was running?”

  Tav peeked, and Luca’s eyes were closed and his face relaxed. His neck was warm against Tav’s arm. His shoulders were tense, but that was to be expected, and Tav didn’t dare touch his other arm, because he didn’t know where the break was under the plaster. His heart felt tight again.

  “Beat my personal best,” he croaked in a thick voice, and rubbed his thumb over the back of Luca’s hand. “Coach Evans is on at me to join up and try out for the county again this spring. I told her I can’t, ‘cause I need to be here with you and help you through all that physiotherapy and shit you’re going to have to do…”

  “Maybe I shoulda had m’legs cut off, then…”

  “Don’t be daft,” Tav murmured. “You’ll get better.”

  “Maybe…”

  “You will. And see, this is why you’re gonna need me, ‘cause you don’t believe you can yet. So yeah. I told Coach no, said you’d need me more. Get you back on your feet and―”

  Maybe on his feet. Tav still didn’t know what had really happened, and Luca was too drowsy and placid right now to disturb. It would upset him, especially if they hadn’t told Luca either. All Tav knew was there were five miles of plaster and everyone just kept saying Luca was lucky not to have severe neck injuries. They hadn’t said anything about his back.

  And Luca hadn’t said anything about his legs—like, how much he could feel them. Not paralysed didn’t mean…you know, walkable. So maybe Tav could get him back on his feet, and maybe not, but—

  But if he couldn’t, Luca would need him even more. He’d be crushed if swimming was taken away from him. Morning runs and fighting on the sofa and everything from just pissing about at the leisure centre to the summer competitions. If that was all taken away—

  “I’m gonna get you up and running again,” Tav whispered, petting Luca’s temple and upper cheekbone lightly when drugged brown eyes blinked at him and slid closed again. “Promise, ‘kay? I can join a proper club when we’re done with school anyway, s’not the end of the universe if I don’t run for Coach. And…”

  He whispered, and Luca listened, eyes closed and breathing slow and gentle. At some point, a nurse peered through the curtains, gave Tav a smile, and disappeared again without a word. At some point just after that, Luca broke his word to his father and drifted to sleep, but Tav stayed right where he was until he heard Mamma Alessandra’s shoes out in the ward, and the smell of homecooked food drifted through the curtains. He kept talking all the time, right up until she came into the cubicle, like it was some spell to keep Luca under and make him better.

  He didn’t know what he’d been telling Luca, and it didn’t matter.

  Chapter 28: “You’re gonna kill someone, for real, for just being gay.”

  It took six weeks—six whole, miserable, boring weeks—before Luca could really think again. Six weeks of being upset for reasons he couldn’t remember, not being able to tell the difference between his dreams and the real world, and veering between wanting people to go away and leave him alone, and panicking when they did.

  And then, finally, the doctors began to dial the drugs down.

  That was a bad week, too, really, because it was either too low, and everything hurt, or too high, and Luca would go all fuzzy again. But eventually they sorted it out, and left Luca in this comfortable cocoon where his feet were oddly numb, and his broken arm would itch like mad, but the hurt was simply a dull ache separated from his brain by a thin, drug-induced shield.

  The ultimate downside was that it was fucking boring.

  Dad would come after work at two, and Tav would turn up at four, occasionally with David or Aaron in tow, and one by one the other members of Luca’s family would trickle in over the course of about three hours. Then the changing of the IV bag at nine would knock him out for the night, and he wouldn’t wake up until nine the next morning.

  Which left this hole between nine and two where Luca was itching to move. His skin crawled with the need to just fucking wriggle, or turn over, or something! Ever lain flat on your back for five hours with no distraction whatsoever? It’s shit.

  On top of the boredom was the ignorance. He didn’t know what was going on with the police. They’d come twice to speak to him: once the doctor had thrown a fit and said he wasn’t well enough to be interviewed yet, and the second time Luca had feigned being higher than he actually was to wriggle out of it. He could remember everything up to being shoved into the road. He could remember falling off the curb—and then everything sort of skipped a bit, and that nice woman, Dr. Pradesh, was asking him to squeeze her hand.

  And he could remember Jack.

  But he didn’t know what had happened since. It had been six weeks, and yet Luca was clueless. Were the cops waiting for him, or had Aaron and David told them enough, and it was already done? What had happened to Jack? He couldn’t be going to school still, or Tav would have been expelled for just outright murdering him in a corridor or assembly or something, but…

  But Luca didn’t know.

  Until the seventh week, when Paolo brought him his phone. “I asked the nurses,” he said. “You can use it in here, but you have to switch it off if they take you out of the ward, ‘cause intensive care is around here somewhere.”

  “Gimme,” was Luca’s greedy reply, and he listened to the next chapter of Backwards with half an ear as he cleared his Facebook notifications. He left a status, which created a suspiciously fast storm of attention—meaning the geography lesson was as interesting as ever, he figured—and then…

  Well, Paolo wasn’t watching. So Luca went wandering, and left a message.

  Think u and me need to talk, jack.

  “You’re not even listening.”

  “‘Course I am,” Luca said quickly. “Kryten just murdered that dude with the pickaxe by accident. Though he should’ve worked it out sooner.”

  “Well, yeah,” Paolo said, and continued to read. Luca wouldn’t admit it, but he kind of liked Paolo’s nerdy books. They were easier to listen to, though, and he could remember a lot of Paolo reading when he’d still been drugged up to his eyeballs. He kind of wanted to watch the series now, though.

  “Can I have a laptop or something? I want telly.”

  “I’ll get Antonio to bring Katie’s spare.”

  “Can’t I have your spare?”

  “You’ll break it.”

  “I won’t! How’m I going to break it, I can’t even sit up!”

  “You’ll drop it off the bed.”

  “How? By waving my broken arm around?”

  His phone beeped; Paolo swatted him
with the book and continued to read as Luca slid open the reply.

  O rite yeah n brake the restraining order. im not that dum.

  You kind of are, Luca replied. I haven’t spoke to the cops yet. So you can come here and we can strike a deal, or I can press charges. I could still refuse to uphold the complaint, you know.

  Y the fuck wud u?

  Fair question. Luca stroked the buttons, and took a shallow breath. His ribs twinged. Because I used to hate myself for being gay, and I changed. And you don’t hate me for being gay, you hate me because you’ve got gay and pervert all tangled up in your head. You need a therapist, not juvie. And I’m willing to strike a deal to make you get that help. Or I can send you to juvie. Your choice. 11am tomorrow, Northern General, I don’t actually know the ward number so you’ll have to ask at reception.

  Luca knew full well everyone thought he was mad. And he kind of admitted it, too. This, he decided, would have to be it. He felt sorry for Jack. Luca didn’t think he’d seen the taxi, and he was obviously seriously screwed up in the head from whatever whoever had done to him. But it was time for Luca to push him away proper, so this would be the last time. Either they struck a deal and Jack kept to it, or…

  Or he didn’t. And at least then, Jack just totally binning his life and becoming nothing better than a shitty person with a shitty history…at least that would be on him. He’d have kind of picked it, because he’d rejected every chance Luca gave him to get some help.

  “You’re zoning again. Are you hurting or something?”

  “No,” Luca said, sliding the phone shut. “Kind of hungry, though. You brought proper food, right?”

  Paolo laughed, and bent to rummage in his bag. “She spent all morning making shortbread, so…”

  Luca’s phone beeped, but he ignored it.

  * * * *

  Luca was woken by the rattle of the curtains. “Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eh, Luca, you’ve got a visitor!” the nurse—a little Asian lady called Peggy Li who was Luca’s favourite because she snuck him chocolate from vending machines after the meagre offering this hospital called breakfast—trilled at him.