Later
“Later”
This word, this voice, this attitude.
I would never thought, that someone could say their goodbyes with the word: “Later”. That sharp and short, said with such carelessness of person, that don’t care if you ever see or talk with eachother ever again.
It is the first thing that comes to my mind while thinking of him. “Later”.
I hear this word, and I'm again on the countyside of France so many years go. Looking through the window, seeing him getting out of the taxi. He wore red button up shirt, few of the buttons unbuttoned, sunglasses, and a hat. Skin everywhere. Then i go upstairs and i feel his hand touching mine and he introduces himself. James. Then he gives me his backpack. He takes his bags out, and asks if my fathers home.
Maybe that happened in that moment: the unbuttoned shirt, his hand touching mine, his eyes looking into mine, his voice. His body...
While we walk together inside he asks: “Where’s the beach?”
He was just another one of the boring visitors.
They come one go, they always do. But before they go i need to handle their existence for six weeks.
I could imagine him saying his “Later”, then he would be gone.
Even if soon enough I would begin to like him, from the top of his head through his face, chest, hips, legs, to the heels of his feet. And then, after few days, I would hate him.
Durning the summer, my father invited young students to out home, and every summer, i had to leave my bedroom and move to the smaller one next door. None of them paid my father, they just helped him with some paperwork.
In the house you never were alone. No family breakfasts, dinners, no evenings just us alone. People were always welcome to join us no matter if they were close friends or someone you never talked to. Our neighbours were welcome to use our swimming pool, teenagers came to play on our volleyball pitch, people driving through, that heard about the old villa and wanted to see it themselves, were welcome to stay for dinner, or even the night. Professors, lawyers, doctors, and many more stayed for dinner too. We were never alone.
My parents were too nice.
Maybe it happened soon after his arrival, during one of the long dinners, while he sat beside me, while he flattered everyone by his words. Then I realized that the inside of his palm has the same tone as the tone of the skin under his knees, under his elbows and u the skin of his soles. Almost as smooth as the one babies have. And then I register that his feet aren’t as hard from walking barefoot as everyone else’s I know. That way I found out many things, I wasn’t brave enough to ever ask.
Maybe it happened during those after-dinner hours, while everyone layed down outside in swimming suits. And anywhere you tried to step, you needed to be careful not to fall on someone. And everyone there loved James, there were even more people there because of him, the teenagers that came, more often than usual, to play volleyball, hoping that James will play with them, the professors were amazed by the way he talked and the knowledge he had at such young age.
Maybe it happened on the beach, maybe on the tennis court, maybe during out first biking trip, maybe when i showed him around the house, or maybe when i first layed my eyes on him.
“Was there ever a train station somewhere here?” he asked.
“No, the train always stopped on demand here.” i answered. At first, he looked interested. “Do you wanna see it?”
“Later”
Later. That cruel word that he used so effortlessly, but everytime he did, it hurt even more.
It probably hurt so much because I knew he used it instead of ‘no’. But that’s how he was. He never minded anything. He didn’t bother himself with the fact that something he said may hurt someone, especially me. But why did that attract everyone to him even more?”
Everytime i spoke to him, it seemed like he only spoke back, because i was the son of the owner of the house he stayed in, and didn’t want my father to think that he was rude to me. He, was after all grateful that he could stay here for free.
But it still hurt.
He said that he would like to open and account in one of the banks in the town and then see the translator that was supposed to translate his upcoming book to French. I decided to take him there biking.
It was easier to talk to him during the bike rides.
We decided to stop after a while to get something to drink. In the bar that we stopped, there was a complete silence, you could only hear the owner, who polished the dishes. We got some bottled water, and quickly got outside.
I took a big sip from the bottle and gave it to James.
“What do you all do here?”
“Nothing. We wait for the summer to end.”
“Then what do you do here during winter?”
I smiled while thinking of the answer, that I didn’t have to say because he did it befrore me.
“Let me guess, wait for summer to come?”
I liked when someone said what I was already thinking about. I liked when someone read my mind.
“Durning the winter it gets really cold and foggy here. We only come for Christmas time. Otherwise the town is empty. Everyone who are able to, leave for the winter.”
He asked what I do: play tennis, swim in the river, run. go out at night, read books.”
He said he runs too, early in the mornings, then asked where do you run here. Mostly on the promenade. I told him i could show him where.
“ Later. Maybe.”
And again, he threw it like a knife into me. How did he did it so casually?
I choose to say about reading as the last part, because that’s usually the part people pay most attention to. Like when the teacher asks you to repeat what they said after you zoned out, you always just repeat the last part of their sentence. I thought that, as he just finished writing a book, he’ll think we have similar values and reading probably is very significant part of his life. And I had to make him understand, that we have similar interests. Then i realized, that maybe I'm trying too much to get his attention and to make him like me. What if he’ll understand what I'm trying to do, and think I'm some kind of weirdo for doing that, because, after all, I was just a teenage boy.
When I offered him to go running together and sight-seeing with him, I didn’t prepare myself for one of the possible anwsers, that he might give me.
“Later”