A look of recognition dawned upon her boyfriend’s face. “Oh, yeah?”
Micah played dumb. “What gay guy?”
“The one who plays for the Dockers. But he comes from here. Sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Oh, him?” Micah asked. “I get that a lot. I’m not him.”
“You didn’t say his name,” she pointed out suspiciously.
“Yeah, nah, I know the guy you mean. The gay guy.” Yeah, nah? Oh gods, he was becoming a true Perthite.
The girl nodded, but neither she nor her boyfriend looked convinced.
They left him alone, to sink into the mire of obscurity and he pulled his iPod out again and retreated back into his music. Better to shut the world out than be mistaken for “that guy.”
His phone buzzed again, sending volts into his skin and deadening his heart; Micah didn’t even look at it this time.
“YOU’RE BACK early!” his mother greeted him as he walked in the front door. She peered around him expectantly. “Is Kyle not coming in? I didn’t even hear the car.”
“No,” Micah said shortly. “Kyle is most definitely not coming in.”
Joanne led him to the lounge and sat him down as if he were incapable of doing it himself. “What happened?”
“What you probably thought was going to happen.” He knew he was throwing it back at her, even though it wasn’t her fault. But he hated that her suspicions were correct. Micah had been practically skipping out of the house like he was on a date, when it actually was just two exes trying to have a friendly coffee before the bomb dropped.
What bullshit. It was probably better for exes to just stay away from each other and pretend it had never happened. There was always going to be one more wounded than the other. They had thought they were grownups in breaking up amicably, but Micah was still as immature as he ever was, hoping it was all a temporary setback.
Kyle had moved on; he was now having the relationship he should have had with Micah. And what did Micah have? Some Grindr hookups. And not even ones he had enjoyed after the fact.
Not that he could tell his mother any of this. She would be horrified.
His mother rubbed his shoulder. “Did you think you would be able to pick up where you left things?”
He didn’t want to talk about it.
“Micah, talk to me.”
“Do I have to?”
“It might make you feel better.”
“I doubt it.”
“It can’t be any worse than keeping it all in. Don’t you remember how that made you feel last year?”
He didn’t need that thrown in his face either. Especially when it would be another thing she was a hundred percent correct about. So he counted to three in his head before answering. Exploding was the old Micah’s way. “Yep.”
“Okay, one word. Progress.”
“Is it wrong to have hoped maybe we could?” Micah broke his three-word-maximum responses, and immediately hated the way he sounded—his voice cracking, reeking of desperation and loneliness.
“Not at all,” Joanne said. “It’s just probably unrealistic. You both made a very mature decision last year in an effort to avoid prolonging the pain.”
“And he did it very easily.” Micah chose to ignore that he had been doing the same, just on a less emotional and more physical level.
“What, did you want him to be miserable and single for the rest of his life?”
“Is that too much to ask for?” He couldn’t help but grin a little. But he couldn’t feel any warmth behind it.
His mother, however, seemed relieved that he was slipping back into his usual form. “Well, I think he should have been unable to live without you as well. But I’m your mother, so I’m biased.” She paused, and asked hesitantly, “Is there not anybody in Perth that you’re maybe interested in?”
“Mum!”
“I’m just asking.”
“There’s no one. I’m either surrounded by straight guys with their WAGs, or they’re single and shagging every weekend. It’s either shagging or long-term commitments and marriage and babies. It’s all so… straight.”
“I’ll try not to be offended by that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Maybe there’s like, I don’t know, a gay book club or something you can join?”
Micah had to really hold in the bellow of laughter threatening to erupt.
She read him anyway. “Okay, laugh at your poor mother.”
“I’m sorry, Mum, but a gay book club?”
Shaking her head, she looked a little defensive. “I’m sure there must be one somewhere.”
“Maybe here. But not in Perth.”
“What? You’re saying Perth people don’t read?”
“I’m sure they do,” Micah agreed, feeling that he should defend Perth people a little bit at least, seeing he was now considered one of them. “But the gay scene there is small enough without hoping for a book club to be part of it.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
He repressed telling her that it was an impossible task at the moment. He didn’t want her to worry, which he knew she did anyway. Three thousand kilometres between them only made it worse. It was kind of ironic to think that he was incapable of running away to Lorne last year, and that was in the same state—and now he was three thousand kilometres away without even trying. And being paid for it.
“I know you do,” he said. “And I will be.”
He hoped it would come true.
“Okay,” Joanne said. “I choose to believe you.”
So maybe he wasn’t hiding it as well as he thought he was. He knew his mother probably felt just as helpless as he did—after all, what could she do about it? Put a call in to the AFL CEO, requesting a special transfer for her baby boy? When he was just having to do something heaps of boys his age did every year across Australia, and thousands more would kill to be one of the privileged to do so?
“Believe me,” he lied.
MICAH STRETCHED out on his bed and checked his phone. Kyle had stopped trying to call him; there were no more missed calls from his number. Part of him was disappointed, even though he knew he shouldn’t be. What right did he have to expect Kyle to keep chasing after him?