When I had gotten back into the apartment after spending the whole day with Lazarus and dragging my groceries back (I’d usually stick the bag into Lazarus’ fridge as we’d chat and then just retrieve it) I was faced with Nathan sitting outside of the bathroom at the end of the apartment.
Earlier a few days ago Julien had a petition that we should kick Nathan out of the house, because he was frankly far too creepy and monopolizing all the door and mail and he would (we presumed under Peter’s control) knock on each of our doors demanding to show our rooms to him and then he’d report to Peter whose was a mess and whose wasn’t and who was stashing plates and whatnot. So we had a sort of inspector on our back as well. Julien knocked on my door, asking to sign until he had noticed my red eyes as I was looking down and just gave my signature, I was the last one and surely everyone else had signed at this point ‘cause frankly nobody liked Nathan. Peter told all of us to fuck off and reminded us just how easily we had thought we’d replace Nathan (since anyone wants an apartment these days or let alone a room) he would replace all of us for this indecent behavior.
Julien was banging on the door asking Nathan to let him out as I had heard when I had entered the apartment. Then Nathan stood up as if nothing had happened when he saw me and unlocked the door for Julien to storm out and start fighting the much older man. I just avoided the fight, probably chanting for Julien to win in my head and went towards my room, exhausted and dragging the groceries with me. Thankfully by the time I decided to emerge and put my stuff in the fridge the fight had settled and both of them were rubbing the carpet from their fighting saliva.
The next morning the day was graced with Julien banging on what I understood to be Nathan’s door as he was screaming the older man’s name but meowing cats were the only reply, all three of them as they had continued meowing even louder with every single knock. What I understood through his screaming was that he had lost his mobile phone and was accusing Nathan of doing so.
The mystery of the mobile phone lasted throughout the day as he kept asking every single one of us in different tones if we had seen it or we had any idea at all who could’ve possibly taken it or in Nathan’s case once the older man was back with pizza (sometimes he would collect it from the restaurant himself with the fact that it would be a pleasing end to his walk).
But soon enough Lazarus had knocked on my door, never allowing himself in, only after I would allow him to and he invited me over to his to show me something. I ended up being too curious and that had ended up being him showing me a mobile phone, which I had seen before, but it was proven to be Julien’s as he unlocked it and threw it at me, as I caught it, a bit confused.
Isn’t that the fellow you have a crush on, at least you always write about him in your notebook, Max, Lazarus had told me and turning back to play Call of Duty which I was too anxious to recognize as I had held the mobile phone. Lazarus had told me that he had just found it under the staircase and possibly it had just fallen and was lucky enough that it didn’t break. He told me not to be a fool, and check the content of the phone for anything interesting as it had no passcode, which seemed odd for a quiet guy like Julien.
He had a few year worths of photos which I guessed where transferred onto his new phone from iCloud or something, as my hands started shaking and I didn’t feel very comfortable from flicking through even if the back of my neck was burning from curiosity. I didn’t know what to do as I held the information and the twist of events even now made me guilty from even holding the notebook and writing all of this down. I ended up going to the photos and even if I didn’t learn the names, I had started to learn a bunch of faces which were in this city, gracing all of the classical touristic spots with smiling women and men, but none of them which seemed to be intimate with Julien.
Then I paused to wonder if this was even honorable in Lazarus’ eyes, but he just kept playing the game, trying to excuse himself from my behaviour which he was fully sponsoring. So I kept flicking through the photos until I saw that it was a different city and there was even a selfie of Julien and his mother, which was smiling brighter than I could imagine her smiling now with her son so far away. I wondered how his mother was and if she would do the same actions my own would, as I still had shards up in my arm which ached every day from my mom’s own words and how she would continue and now try her best to watch the same movies we would previously and she would just make sure that everything was the same, as if nothing ever changed, which was true but I wasn’t sure on how I had felt about it, wondering far too much and feeling tense nearly every day now. It had been hard to get out of bed again, knowing that so much had changed and all the words were rinsing my hair again.
I kept flicking onwards, going through all the photos until I had landed on something which possibly Lazarus had found earlier and that was the reason he had shown it to me.
It was an older man, which I presumed to be the teacher and his arm was around a flushed from the cold Julien and both were in a rather intimate embrace, at least one that I hadn’t wanted anyone to see me in if it was someone who I wasn’t related to. I glanced at Lazarus who was just smiling to himself and quietly playing his game with volume on rather loud so I was flicking through all the content with gun noises and something going on, a plot which I was surely not following. I continued to see more photos of the man and Julien and that’s when I was getting even more rewarded by seeing a photo of Julien kissing the man’s cheek, both of them making out and even one nude of the man which didn’t make me question much of Julien’s desire and no nudes of Julien were to be found, which I presumed was something with the teacher would surely have left on his phone. At least why delete nudes of people who you no longer date when you can even keep them not even as trophies, but reminders of where your lips have once wandered.
I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t figured out Julien as gay, because I had known of his sexuality, not just by radar but he just seemed rather queer to me, so I had left it at that proudly and gladly, but now I had the evidence in my hands to preferably act on even if I had no idea what should I have done now with this information.
I also saw the recent photos which was Julien posing with Le Monde for some unholy reason and I figured that he was most possibly sending it to someone to show that he had bought it.
Dick had told me that once he came out (Dick dyed his nails black for most of the time) his mother after confronting him about him wearing make-up, his mother had told him to do a manicure because his nails were undone and that had fucked him up, because she wasn’t willing to accept him and moaned about his nails, as if that would fix him somehow and he said he had been fucked up for weeks and then eventually left, knowing that they would never accept him and all had been for the best indeed.
That fucked me up, that I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to approach anything and the denial my mother had been doing now. It was terribly messing with my head that I simply couldn’t keep my thoughts straight even on paper when I was managing to write the same story about Julien’s phone, I just couldn’t help and keep continuing about it. I couldn’t help myself.
I was wondering if I should’ve given the phone to Nathan to give it to Julien, which would cause another fight and I wondered if I even wanted those two to fight again. Instead after watching all the photos and even seeing some throwbacks with Julien as a child, I decided to give the phone to Julien. I just left it outside his bedroom, implying that someone had found it and I decided against inviting him on a date now, even if I had known now that he was gay, I decided to let life somehow resolve itself because what if we would bore each other, let us at least do it the way life intends us to.
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I know I've been behind, but I'm trying my best x)
One of the weird moments I still have after I came out was my mom talking about my make-up how I should boost up my game even if I already use a lot of make-up and much more than the average man. So I kind of gave that to Dick.
Also the whole running theme of cleaning and shitty apartments was me trying to see if I could make the worst of them and after I finished writing it I kept thinking other ideas and yeah, I could've made it much worse, but it's already awful.
I hope you enjoyed it and thank you
Please write a comment below x)
<3
Jamie
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