Page 134 of Hamartia

When I pull back, he looks dizzy. His mouth is kissed red and his cheeks pink and he’s never looked more beautiful. So I tell him that. And when he smiles that shy smile at me, I decide that I’ll tell him that every fucking day.

“You don’t need to promise me all of that, baby.” I pull him against me to kiss his hair. “You don’t need to do anything except let me make you happy. Just…let me love you and make you happy. That’s enough. You’re enough.” I press a kiss to his forehead, then the tip of his cold nose and he sinks against me. “This is gonna be great, you know.”

He lifts his head to smile at me. “It is?”

I nod. “I’m gonna write so many love songs about you. You’re going to be tired of hearing them. Every Christmas, birthday, Chuseok, Seollal.”

He laughs, happy tears shining in his eyes. “You have been reading yourLearn Korean, Fast!book.”

I nod, proudly and he buries his head into my chest and giggles. My arms wrapped around him he turns his head to look out at the Pacific.

“We are really going to do this,” he says, soberly.

“We already are.” I kiss his hair again.

“I do not want to hide anymore, Raphael. I am tired of hiding.”

“You don’t have to hide. But neither do we have to do anything different to how we’ve been doing it. We do this however you want to do it, baby.”

I get to be with him. That’s my prize. Without lifting his head from my chest, he reaches into the pocket of his coat to pull out his phone, lifting it at an angle that puts us both in the picture. His head half buried in my chest and my face half buried in his hair, the lights of downtown LA behind us.

He takes three and asks me to choose my favorite.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his finger hovering over the Instagram post button.

I don’t have to think about it long. Any reservations I have aren’t about him or about us, it’s about what the world might do to this perfect thing we have. This thing that’s existed between just us for so long.

But then I think about how it became stronger when I told my mom, how I became more sure of it when I told Cam, how badly I wanted it back when the stranger with the camera showed me what I’d lost.

“Yeah, baby, I’m sure.”

I press a kiss to his cheek as he presses ‘post’ on the picture he’s taken of us and tagged me in.

@ljh:

Two and a half years later

Lottie reaches across to switch off the recording on her phone and lets out a huge sigh. I’m hoping she’s not been holding her breath the entire interview. Not that it felt like an interview. More like a therapy session.

I certainly feel as light and clear-headed as I do after a session. Though in there we don’t really talk about Jae as a subject matter. He’s more of a constant point of reference before Jae, after Jae.

“Thanks for being so candid, Raphael. I really appreciate it.”

I shrug. “I’m an open book. I’m fucking exhausted now though.”

She smiles, nodding in understanding. “Cathartic?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You’re still happy to talk about your dad on Friday? It’s no trouble if you’ve changed your mind.” She sounds genuine, but I know it’s important to her to square the circle with Finn, since she already did the podcast on him.

“I’ll be fine.”

Then we’re standing and I’m walking her out. The light is fading a little, though the traffic noise outside is louder. A glance at the clock tells me it’s just after 5 p.m. He lands in two hours. The thought of it is enough to melt away a little more of the knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach.

“Where are you staying?” I ask, to make some conversation.

“I’m in Sorbonne, just near the Latin Quarter.”