Page 144 of Boyfriend Material
“Not that. Well, a little bit that. It…it’s…everything.” He gave a sad little sniff. “I’ve behaved terribly today.”
“You weren’t the one telling everyone to go fuck themselves.”
“No…I…I’m grateful you tried to speak up for me. But I should never have put you in that position.”
I reached across the space between us and smoothed back his hair from his sticky eyes. “The whole deal was that you’d come to my work thing, and I’d come to your family thing.”
“And if I’d…if I’d done better, it would have been…better.” He paused. “I knew my mother wouldn’t like this shirt.”
“Fuck the shirt. And, and I acknowledge out of context this sounds really bad, fuck your mother.”
“Please stop saying that. I know today was difficult, but they genuinely want the best for me. And I keep letting them down.”
“Oliver, that is the wrongest thing I’ve ever heard.” I made a somewhat futile attempt to sound calm and rational. “Like, okay, I’m just guessing here, but have you ever gone anywhere with your parents without your mum having some complaint or other about what you’re wearing?”
“She has very high standards.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s—and I’m having trouble putting this in a nonjudgmental way—maybe she’s got into the habit of criticising you and hasn’t paid attention to how much that messes you up.”
His eyes filled with fresh tears. Go me. “She’s not trying to upset me. She’s trying to help.”
“And, you know what? I believe that. But you don’t need that kind of help, and trying to make you think you do is…is…mean. And don’t even get me started on your dad.”
“What’s wrong with my father? I mean, I know he’s a bit unreformed but he’s never been violent, he’s always been there, he’s supported Christopher through medical school and me through the bar.”
“Yeah, none of that gives him the right to call you a screaming bender in front of his friends.”
“He was joking. He’s always been fine with my sexuality.”
“He literally used it as a punch line.”
“Lucien, I feel bad enough about this already.”
“You shouldn’t be the one who’s feeling bad,” I insisted. “You’re a good person.”
“But not a very good son.”
“Only by the standards of the arseholes you’re unfortunate enough to have for parents.”
He hid his face, and I had a horrible feeling he was crying again. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Wow. I sucked at being comforting. I’d love to pretend that I’d strategically made myself the bad guy so Oliver had someone other than himself to be angry at but, firstly, I hadn’t. I’d just fucked up. And, secondly, it wasn’t working anyway. I patted him again because it was the most successful thing I’d done that afternoon.
“Sorry.” I kept patting. “I’m really sorry. And I’m here for you. And, y’know, feel your feelings. However you need to feel them.”
He felt his feelings for…quite a long time.
Eventually he lifted his head. “I wish,” he said, “I could have a bacon sandwich.”
“That”—my enthusiasm here was probably a little bit inappropriate, but I was just so fucking glad I could actually help somehow—“I can do.”
“I meant, except I’m a vegetarian.”
I thought about this a moment. “Okay, but in an ‘industrial farming is bad, think about your carbon footprint’ way?”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Well,” I went on, hoping that I was putting this together right. It felt like something Oliver would say, and I thought he’d appreciate that. “If you’re avoiding meat because you’re trying to reduce the overall negative effect of meat-eating on the world, then what really matters isn’t whatyoueat, it’s what gets eaten. In fact, it doesn’t even matter what gets eaten, it matters what getsbought.”
