The Layover Read online

  Was this how he felt? No, it must have been incomprehensibly worse for Peter. How did I even dare to compare my pathetic struggles to his suffering? I’ve done so much since I left, met so many people and seen so many places. I could complain about it being empty and superficial, but I still had so many reasons to continue. Yes, I felt jaded and lonely. But I wanted to live. I wanted to try again. How hopeless must he have felt and for how long that he simply couldn’t make it another day?

  WHEN I calmed down enough to eat again, I bought a burger and a beer. I spent the day walking through the winter streets of old town Basel, trolling museums, cafés, and restaurants. I watched people.

  Somewhere along my way, sometime during the past seven odd years, I had stopped looking at people. I only noticed figures with my peripheral vision, like stumbling blocks to avoid or crawl over. In my confusion, I watched them today. I stared into their faces until they looked back funny, until I felt like a creep and moved on to the next subject.

  I watched couples huddling together in the nasty Swiss December weather, people with dogs, with kids. I tried to figure out what I felt looking at them. Not hate, not disgust. I felt a little bit of envy. Only a little. And then came the longing, self-pity, sadness. Fear.

  I was afraid.

  I’d thought of fear a lot since I met Jamie. A lot of things about him, about the past few days, made me terrified.

  Sitting in another café, closer to the cathedral, I watched a young gay couple holding hands covertly under the table. I realized I was not nearly disappointed enough to give up on that. I wanted that again. Fear made me pretend I didn’t need it. Jamie made me acknowledge that I didn’t need to be alone anymore. So even if I lose him—when I lose him—at least I’d stop pretending.

  I CAME back to the hotel after ten at night, thankful that Jamie was already asleep. I stripped and took a quick shower. Seeing him like that, tranquil and vulnerable, made me feel helpless. After I had spent the whole day fighting the unreasonable amount of power he had over me, as soon as I saw him curled in a little ball under the covers, I was lost again. In a T-shirt and boxers, I climbed behind him and hugged him to my chest. He stirred briefly, mumbled something incoherent, and then snuggled deeper into my embrace, intertwining our legs and pushing his ass into my lap.

  I was defeated, crushed, and flattened. As I had done for the past few nights, I fell asleep much later with my nose in his hair.

  DAY SIX

  I WOKE up in the middle of the night to the sound of muffled coughing. The bed was empty. I sat up groggily, turned on the bedside lamp, and tried to adjust my eyes to the sudden burst of light. Jamie wasn’t in the room. Then the coughing started again from behind the bathroom door. I got up quickly and pushed the door open.

  Jamie sat on the edge of the tub, wrapped in a thin blanket he’d taken from the sofa. He was doubled over, coughing violently. Fucking hell.

  “Jamie? What are you doing?”

  He shook his head and rubbed at his chest. The coughing finally stopped, and he took a few gasping breaths.

  “I didn’t want to wake you,” he rasped.

  “So you decided that you’d spend the night in the bathroom? What the hell, Jamie?”

  He shrugged.

  “Do riti,” I cursed in Slovak.

  I grabbed him under his arms and dragged him to the bedroom. I deposited him on the edge of the bed while he continued hacking and convulsing. His hands and feet were cold, which fed my anger further. I got him a glass of water, took a pair of turquoise socks from his open bag, and put them on his feet. Then I sat behind him, adjusting his blanket and massaging his shoulders, hopefully getting him warmer. I didn’t force him to lie down immediately because I knew that a change of position could make the coughing worse.

  “What were you thinking? You should be resting and keeping warm and not sitting vigil in the bathroom.”

  “Sorry.” He leaned back into me, laying his head on my shoulder. The coughing had calmed down, and he was breathing heavily.

  I stroked his arms up and down through the blanket.

  “I was worried,” he said hesitantly. “When you were gone. I don’t have your phone number.”

  Shit. My attempt to protect myself by keeping away was a failure, for sure. It didn’t matter. There was no way to make the whole situation bearable.

  “I just walked around in the city for a bit.”

  “You were gone for thirteen hours.”

  I exhaled. “I needed some time.”

  He tensed in my arms and sat up, turning sideways. I watched his profile in the dim light of the lamp. “I’ve completely monopolized your time for the past few days, and you’ve been great to me. I’m sorry. Of course, you wanted to get out of here.”

  Screw this. No way was I letting him think that I had stayed because of some reluctant charity. I kissed his temple, hugging him back to me. “I wanted to be here with you. But we’re leaving tomorrow,” I whispered.

  He looked at me then, his big glassy eyes glistening. I don’t know what he saw in my face that made him blink with a sudden wave of pity. Did he feel sorry for me or us? My hand shook a bit when I lifted it to stroke his cheek, jaw, and lips. His eyes flicked between mine, and I stopped fighting it when he kissed me.

  We struggled with the blanket for a while before we sank on the bed, tangled together. His grip on my neck was almost painful, his other hand on my lower back, my ass and thigh, pressing me even closer. I dug my fingers into his skin under his T-shirt.

  We were both desperate, too frantic, too hungry. He managed to slip my boxers lower and stroked me while I pushed my hand into his underwear, gripping him tight. Our kisses became angry, biting, loud smacking sounds mingling with moans and puffs of breath. I felt like running away from the pain, far from the crushing weight of reality, from the morning to come. After what seemed only a minute, I was so close to orgasm it was embarrassing.

  Then all of the sudden Jamie released me and interrupted the kiss. Before I could growl in protest, he pressed his forehead against my breastbone and started coughing again.

  Well, fuck.

  I’d behaved like a self-centered prick. Again. I tried to calm down and snap the fuck out of the sexual trance. Jamie was obviously in pain, hacking violently, gasping for breath and murmuring broken syllables that sounded like yet another apology.

  Despite my blue balls that did hurt, I did my best to comfort him, stroking his back, saying meaningless, vaguely placating words. I felt like such an idiot. I gave up on talking and hugged him.

  It took maybe half an hour before he calmed down. Word of advice, when you have pneumonia, any physical exertion is a bad, bad idea. And that includes sex.

  Somewhere in between the desperate clutching of Jamie’s body to mine and his exhausting fit of coughing, I lost control over my emotions completely. I blame the subsequent meltdown on the sexual frustration. Mainly. It was pure luck that Jamie was busy choking on his lungs and didn’t notice my growing desperation.

  When I felt him fall asleep in my arms, completely drained, needing me for the very last time before he’d leave me in the morning, the floodgates opened. I swallowed the two sobs that tried to rock me, and instead I breathed deeply to keep from waking Jamie. The tears couldn’t be controlled.

  I cried like a baby for what seemed like hours, feeling alternately sorry for myself and angry at my weakness. I cried until I was numb and empty and the pillow was wet, and the only thing in the whole world that made a little bit of sense to me was the precious boy sleeping in my embrace.

  In the morning, there would be nothing left.

  I tried to discipline myself. I did. Because what kind of pathetic loser was I to think like that? When did I become so clingy? Since when did I allow so much drama into my life?

  Even after scrambling together all the reason and logic I could find, I still couldn’t help but think that what I felt for Jamie was the only important thing in my life right then. I hadn’t seen my family in
years, and the last time I saw my best friend, Kristina, was at a New Year’s party in Berlin almost two years ago, both of us drunk off our asses and high like stratospheric balloons. I was on my way back to a city where I didn’t want to live, a city that killed my first love. I was hoping to fix things that were unfixable, and find things that didn’t exist. My bleakest thought? I didn’t have a purpose. Nothing. Nada. Nič. There was nothing I thought I could fight for, nothing to invest any energy in, nothing I genuinely craved. Except for Jamie.

  ONCE THE tears had dried, I pushed my nose into its favorite place—Jamie’s dark strands of hair—and I started the most insane plotting session. For the first time, I seriously entertained the thought that was on the edge of my mind for the past two days. I could follow Jamie to Edinburgh. I could make Scotland my finish line, Jamie my prize. There was nothing to stop me. Not really. Except for Jamie himself.

  What would he think of me if I tried to come there? How could I invite myself? I, the jobless, friendless fuckup, the university dropout with the East-European accent and nihilistic morals, the uniformed clown who’d earned all his money by serving stale coffee in plastic cups. How could I even tell Jamie? I tried to imagine his reaction, his surprise and the second of hesitation, a forced smile maybe, his blue eyes flitting to the left and then to the right, thinking of what to say.

  I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t make myself face that kind of rejection.

  I was jumping from one idea to another, hitting a wall of fear or denial or restraint at every attempt to cling to this dream. I made the whole circle in my head, through shivering hope, blooming love and insanity, denial, dejection, and despair, only to end up where I came from, where my perseverance lay. Survival.

  To survive, to come out of this relatively unscathed, I imagined the worst. Do that next time you feel like you’re going to hit bottom. Imagine how it would feel if you did hit it. Imagine yourself down there. But be specific, go into the most excruciating detail and plan it all out, every single thing. Would you be able to sleep? Would you bother with pajamas or just collapse on the floor facedown? Would you have coffee in the morning? How hot would it feel in your hands? Could you eat or would your stomach protest? Would you stay in bed for the whole day? Go out maybe, run until you’d puke? Punch a bag, weep for a bit, and then have a drink or five? What would you do the next day? The next week, a month later? Try to imagine tangible things, real activities, picture yourself doing those things. Until you realize that you’d survive. You’d have to.

  I GOT up shortly after six. The early morning was dark and confusing. I gave sleeping Jamie a chaste kiss on his forehead without qualms or hesitation. The fight had left me during the night that I’d spent mostly awake, so there wasn’t anything to think about twice.

  I was a little drunk with sleep deprivation, and my stomach felt queasy. I stumbled around the studio and let myself into the bathroom. I sat on the lid of the toilet and toyed with my phone. I should book a ticket to Vienna, write yet another message to Kristina, maybe even call my mother. Instead, I stared at the phone and thumbed the messaging app open and closed, again and again.

  After a while, I placed the phone on the counter and took a shower. My brain hiccupped and started to buzz ever so carefully. The heat of the shower helped my aching neck and shoulders; the stiffness eased.

  I toweled off, brushed my teeth, and shaved. Then I packed my bathroom kit and realized that I didn’t know if I was leaving today, so there had been no point in packing it. I swore and avoided my reflection in the mirror as I stepped out of the bathroom. I was naked, kneeling in front of my suitcase, looking for my last pair of clean boxer briefs when I heard Jamie stir.

  I dressed while he stretched on the bed.

  “Hi,” I said lamely.

  “What time is it?”

  “A little after seven.”

  “Okay,” he said and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I should call a cab for nine.”

  “Nine thirty is enough,” I said. I pretended to fold random clothing pieces into the suitcase. “You’d only wait there too long. You feel up for the trip?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I just hope I won’t have a coughing fit on the plane. People hate that. More than puking in public, apparently. They look at you like you’re a ticking biological weapon when you’re coughing and sneezing on a plane.”

  He was right. People do hate that. I usually hate that.

  “You can finally try the benproperine.” Jamie had gotten a prescription for cough-stilling medicine that he should take when the cough was dry and insistent. But he didn’t want it. He claimed that cough medicine made him “loopy.” Even now, he only grunted in response and dragged himself into the bathroom.

  After a while, he reemerged and looked more awake than I felt. “Have you booked a flight for today or tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I haven’t booked anything yet. I’ll do it after breakfast. I need coffee.”

  I was resigned, numb, and calm. It made what happened in the next few minutes very unexpected.

  Jamie looked a bit nervous and probably wanted to say something more. I waited him out with my T-shirts in my arms.

  “I want to thank you for everything,” he said slowly. I dropped the clothes back into my bag. I so didn’t need to have that talk. “You’ve been amazing to me.”

  He looked a little sad. Other than that, he seemed collected, and that made the mess I’d been during the night even messier in my memory. I had cried, for fuck’s sake! It would become one of those embarrassing things that would haunt me at inappropriate times and make my fingers curl into my palm for years to come.

  I just nodded, not wanting to respond. I had nothing to say to that.

  “I guess I wish we’d met under different circumstances,” he continued hesitantly. His blue eyes seemed oddly expectant.

  “Yeah,” I managed in a half whisper and bent to fold those damned T-shirts. Let’s be honest, under different circumstances he wouldn’t even talk to me.

  “Yeah,” he repeated and gave an audible sigh. There was a tiny hitch in his breath that made my head snap up, and I let my eyes lock back on his elfin face. Those tense, painful brackets around his mouth reappeared, confusing me.

  Jamie gave me a forced lopsided smile and rocked on his heels, staring at his crazy socks. They were bright green with dark blue stripes.

  “I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” he mumbled.

  At that moment, the air in the room got instantly thicker. I felt my neck grow hot and my hands tremble. I reached my limit. I’d managed for a long time, bottling everything, hiding, and getting ready to let the rest out after we went our separate ways. But what he said, that made me burst. I would have kept it together if he hadn’t said that. It was what my mother used to say. “Everything always turns out as it’s meant to be.” It used to make me livid—the helplessness in the face of God’s mysterious ways. It was that kind of spineless, cowardly nonsense that used to make me slam the door shut as a teenager and sulk for hours. Now I was beside myself.

  So I lost it. Again.

  “That is bullshit, Jamie! You’re the scientist! You’re the smart one here. Do not feed me this crap! There is no fucking ‘meant to be,’ no fate and deeper meaning to the stuff that happens. There are just choices, coincidence, and consequences. Superstition is for people who can’t handle the reality. I can handle it, though. So be respectful enough and say how it is. If you can’t, just let it go.” My anger was draining, replaced by hurt.

  The pain was physical, a cramp right beneath my ribcage, radiating from the very center of my body, from the seemingly empty space between my heart and my stomach. I struggled to breathe through it.

  Jamie stared at me. I shook with angst and frustration. He was pale, taken aback, frozen at first. I didn’t dare to move either. He looked at his feet again then toward the window. He blinked slowly, taking a deep breath, and he ground his teeth together and exhaled, running his hand over his mouth. Whatever he w
as struggling with in his head, I could see it in slow motion reflected in his features. Jamie was getting ready to tell me the truth. I knew that the past few days meant much less to him than to me. Still, to hear him say it…. There were maybe two meters of space between us, and the distance was crushing me. I felt the impending loss like a mass of tasteless black matter filling my insides until I was choking on it, until it was pouring out of every orifice. Remember the pictures of dead pelicans on an oil-soaked beach? I was like one of those birds. Drowning in a black, sticky, toxic mess.

  I needed to turn away before I started crying in front of Jamie. I didn’t need another painfully humiliating memory on top of the ever-growing pile.

  Right then, Jamie whispered, and I barely heard him. “You’re right. You would….” He swallowed and sighed. Then came a short spasm of hysterical laughter. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this.”

  He dragged his palms over his face and looked back at me. With determination and fear. I knew that look. It was the same one he’d given me when he came to my room that first night. It felt like weeks ago.

  “What if we make the choice and deal with the consequences?” he blurted.

  I sucked in a startled breath. What did he…?

  And then it happened. Jamie said the words.

  “Come with me to Edinburgh. We don’t have to decide anything. Just come with me, for a few days, maybe a few weeks. You could just treat it as a vacation. Or you could look for a job. Nothing steady, just a temporary gig, if you like. Just…. Shit, I’m babbling. I just… I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to lose this when we haven’t even tried. And I want to try, I mean, if you want to. I haven’t even asked if you want to. I’m sorry. I…. Oh God.” He covered his face with both hands and laughed again.

  There was a pause. I don’t remember how long it was.