Page 25 of Drink Up, Darling
Dariel closed his eyes, forcing bravado into his voice and shoving all the whirring thoughts down as deep as he could.Don’t stop. You can’t stop now.
“When she died, I thought I’d never speak to another human again. I thought I would be going behind her back, keeping secrets from her. Anything I did without her felt like I was lying to her. I suffered with my own mind for years. In a way, these thoughts may never leave… but after a while, I thought about what she would think if she saw me being the way I was. Unhappy. Miserable. Forcibly alone.” Dariel finally looked up, locking eyes with Athens, whose own eyes were glistening.
“I started to experiment with fashion. Started raiding charity shops and putting together outfits I felt good in. I had this confidence rise in me for the first time in years. I mean, at first Iwas too embarrassed to leave the house in them, afraid of what people might think, and it took me a while to get out of that mindset, but over time I told myself there was no more use in hiding. I will admit, being in the public eye has given me a lot more protection than many other people like me, so I will not say it’s easy, but it’s not us who must change, it’s other people.”
Athens slowly nodded; Godwin didn’t move.
“I have been with both men and women in my lifetime. I heard the whispers, I endured the pain, but they never stopped me from being who I was. How could they? There is nothing wrong with me.”
‘There is nothing wrong with you at all, Dariel Hale. You are a marvel.’
“My family disowned me after I came out,” Athens started. “They thought I carried the devil in me, and the only way to rid their household of evil was to banish their own flesh and blood onto the streets. My own little sister began making up disgusting rumours about me and essentially cast me out of the entire village. Love thy neighbour and all, what a load of bollocks.”
‘I’m so sorry, Athens.’
‘Don’t be. It was their loss.’
“I moved away and stayed in and out of my friend’s flat for over a decade. I got jobs here and there, did what I could, and found my own apartment, but then I had a bunch of medical expenses. I kind of needed someone with me through the various processes, so she insisted I stayed with her until I could live alone again. She encouraged me to start my own business, the dream she knew I’d had all my life. So I did. I worked and worked, and eventually I started my own company. Everything fell into place. Everything happens for a reason, right? Well my life couldn’t have gone any better. I didn’t have to do any of the hard work of leaving, my family did that for me. You could say Ifound it quite easy to be myself, but others might not see it the same way.”
Dariel accidentally placed his wine glass atop a spoon and made a clattering sound.
“Was that what you meant, Godwin?” Athens asked softly, undistracted.
They both watched Godwin’s throat bob, his eyes darting between the pair of them.
“Oh dear. I…” He fidgeted with his hands on the table, uneasy.
“I suppose that might have been a bit much,” Dariel said.
Godwin shook his head. “Oh no. I am grateful you shared your stories. I can only apologise for encouraging you to share if you were perhaps not expecting to.” He kept looking at them both as if observing a tennis match.
“Are you…” Dariel started, but Godwin broke him off.
“I am a gay man. Yes. I’m... Wow. I…”
“It’s okay, whatever you wish to say will stay in this room, right Dariel?” Athens said.
Dariel nodded. “Of course. We wouldn’t have shared such personal stories with a stranger if we did not feel comfortable in your presence.”
More than comfortable. How did this happen so fast?
“I have not forgiven myself for what I did. I never will. I…”
“Again, we cannot really judge, after all, we all only met for the first time this evening. If you wish to get something off your chest, you have the best company to do so with. You’re sitting in a room with two people like yourself.”
Godwin nodded his head towards Athens.
‘He’s crying.’
‘What? Really?’
‘Almost.’
Dariel scratched his head.
‘Quite an evening this is turning out to be, hey?’
“I was born into wealth. It is all I’ve ever known. Summers in one home, winters in another. My only obligation in life was to carry on the family name and make my parents proud.” Godwin straightened his back. “I have both brothers and sisters, older and younger, so I never believed the expectations put upon me would ever be truly enacted. I knew from my teens I did not like women, not in the way my brothers did. I thought perhaps it was just a temporary issue with my brain, a delayed response, but as I grew older, I found the feeling was not going away. I wanted to sleep with men, I wanted them in my bed, but I never wished to marry or to become romantically involved with anyone… it made no sense to me. I thought perhaps I was wired wrong.”
