Miles learns that his ex-boyfriend isn’t his soulmate when he pretends to be asleep in the back of his car during a car crash.
The initial impact of the crash makes him bump against the smooth road of Basia’s legs, her body spread softly across the backseat. The inside of the car smells like stale sun, sand, and fog, making it easier to fake the slow blinking and tense stretch that comes with being roused from a nap.
The crash isn’t as bad as it feels, just a touch of the bumpers, but still, Ganke and Lennox—Basi’s boyfriend—are mutually freaking out. Miles observes the scene with a sense of detachment, a hand coming up to rub at the sore muscle of his shoulder. Basia leans against him in her olive one-piece, her dark hair thick and pin-straight as she lays her head on his shoulder. She smells of cashmere and lime, the scent the strongest at the top of her head, and her warmth helps keep Miles in the moment.
Across the road from them is the ocean they’ve just been in, a faded American flag waving from the bleached deck of a yacht. They both watch people jump off the boat and into the waves, whoops of joy and shock at the cold water falling over them like rain.
She used to be taller than him, but the times have changed. She jokes that the Italian sun stunts the growth of all the women in her family and he laughs every time, the statement familiar even though his discomfort steadily grows at the thought of his body changing as a result of age.
“Will they just exchange insurance information already? I’m all sticky from the sea,” Basia groans, and Miles smiles.
“They’re just doing all the proper steps, Basi,” he responds, rubbing a hand down her back.
The other driver seems to be gracious, a small woman with a gentle smile and the beginnings of wrinkles at the base of her neck. There’s an exchange of more words and Ganke’s face crumples with brief relief as she turns away and slinks back into the shadowy mouth of her car. They all watch the Volkswagen pull away, the air becoming weighted with an impending realization.
Basia must feel it too because she pushes herself off of Miles’ shoulder, her hair spilling down her back and touching her waist. Anxiously, she tugs at the links of her charm bracelet. The shell charm knocks harshly against the mini mirror, the dying light flashing briefly across it.
“Guys, what’s going on?”
Ganke turns to face them and Lennox does too. Basia gasps as her eyes fall on the harsh cut across her boyfriend’s forehead but Miles is focused on something else. He tilts his head as he looks at Lennox, at the boy looking at his boyfriend with scared eyes as if he didn’t see this coming. To be fair, he probably didn’t. You don’t really know until you almost die anyway.
“Basi,” he says, quietly.
Basia doesn’t hear him, her gaze laser-focused on the blood dripping down the ridge of Lennox’s nose.
“Basi,” he says again, his voice sharper this time.
The tone of it successfully pulls her attention toward him, her lips parted mid-speech. They look at each other for a moment before Miles nods his head toward Ganke. Basia’s confusion is palpable before understanding sinks in, her eyes fluttering closed for a brief second before opening again.
“Well, fuck,” she mutters and Miles gets the wild urge to laugh.
“Basia,” Lennox begins but she turns around, lowering the upper half of her body so she can grab her tote and Miles’ backpack from the car.
“Wanna go back to mine?” she asks Miles and he nods, running a hand through his curls before following her across the road to call a taxi.
At least now he feels a reprieve from the guilt of loving someone else.
❄
In the taxi, they finally talk about it.
“Do we really have to die to figure it out?” Basia asks, her lashes glittering with moisture whenever the lights catch her, the streetlights slowly blinking on.
“No,” Miles answers, his voice gritty with exhaustion. “You just have to get close to it. My mami says she’s had people flatline for ten seconds and then come back and they just know.”
“Come uno zombie, Gesù,” Basia mutters, and Miles nods because he gets the gist.
“Yeah, like a fucking zombie.”
The city smears together through the window, the both of them falling silent. Their phones were blowing up minutes earlier but Basia had huffed and turned off their ringers, throwing them into her beach tote and shoving a cotton towel directly on top to block out the ghostly glow.
Miles wasn’t sure what he was feeling. On one hand, finding out that your now ex-boyfriend of a year and a half was meant to be with someone else was crushing. But on the other hand, Miles knew that part of life, in general, was forging connections with other people even though there was a chance you wouldn't make it. Still, there was a bead of anger and a larger sphere of sadness sitting in the space beneath his ribs and he knew the heaviness wouldn’t go away any time soon.
He thinks of texting his mom to let her know, but somehow that feels more devastating than seeing Ganke looking rapturously in love with someone else.
"It's the principle of it, you know? I'm not mad that Lennox is going to be happy with someone else for the rest of his life. God knows, he probably wishes the same for me. He's a fucking saint but it's just like—" Basia breaks off, her voice suddenly becoming thicker around the edges.
He's known her forever. She's about to cry.
"He's known me forever. When I met him, it was like a movie and he knows so much about me and now I have to hope there's someone else lounging around waiting for me that wants to learn it all again."
"I'm sorry, Basi," Miles says and he feels the taxi slow as they pull up outside of her flat. "If it makes you feel better, at least he wasn't the one who knew initially."
Basia's head snaps toward him and she raises herself from where she's been slumped against her leather seat. Miles looks at her dead-on, his face so open it's like reading the world's first book. He sees her remember what they've been taught in school: that one of the pair usually knew without having to have a near-death experience, that one of them had to almost exit for the other to also know that they belonged to each other.
"Lennox seemed genuinely shocked and almost upset," Miles continued, popping open the door to the backseat and sliding out into the muggy air. "I think Ganke knew for some time and just was hoping neither of us would figure it out."
Basia has nothing to say, her hands stuck to the baby blue face of her cardholder as she makes to pay. Miles slides the driver cash and a little extra for his tip and lightly steps up onto the sidewalk, watching the canary yellow trunk get further and further. It's fully dark now and the windows of Basi's apartment building glow almost tenderly as the people inside carry on with their lives.
"Come inside?" Basia requests and Miles feels his chest tighten over the space where Ganke had been.
"I think I need to be alone right now," he tells her and he reaches out to squeeze her hand, so she knows it’s not personal.
And he could kiss her for how she nods and pulls way to go upstairs, her key card so small in between her fingers. At the last second, she runs back down and gives him a hug that is so heavy with the depths of her love. Her hair is thick now with the scent of her lime perfume and he thinks of how she must've reapplied in the back of the cab, wrists rubbing together and around her neck. He hugs her back, olive skin against deep brown, and rubs his fingers into the knobs of her spine.
"I'm gonna order takeout from that little Thai place around the corner. Lennox and I were supposed to go, but I need to get used to doing things alone. Cose'é una ragazza da fare, mm?"
She rummages through her tote and emerges with his towel and phone, its sunflower case almost repulsively positive at a moment like this.
"Keep up your Duolingo streak," she says at the look on his face and he can't help but laugh.
There's another hug and then she turns to truly go this time, her body so small in the confines of her bathing suit. Miles sighs and starts the walk home, stopping again when he hears Basia's voice ring through the streets.
"Do you know?" she shouts to him, unafraid in her curiosity and strength to take life in her hands.
The world seems to still as if everyone wants to know, and Miles doesn't give her a verbal answer. But he nods.
Basia purses her lips and shifts her tote onto her hip, nodding her head as if he's proved something right. He sees her phone light up and she accepts the call, holding it between her neck and shoulder while she lifts a hand to wave her key card in farewell.
❄
Miles found his soulmate last summer at two in the morning in the raging heat of Brooklyn, his phone on one percent as he stared at his beautiful face on Instagram. The screen went dark and then three months later they almost met in person in the middle of a simmering Hackney night, their fated love affair sparking only on one end.
Earlier, he had been at an art show, the tickets secured through his university, and the night was almost too warm to be cramped together on the fire escape of the artist's barely there apartment. The crowd was thick despite the lack of space and everyone seemed to have the same feeling of jaded delight that they were there with people they somewhat knew. As he left a girl grabbed his arm and slid something into his palm, her breath warm as she asked him to give it to Gwen to return to Hobie.
I know I can count on you, she'd said as she pulled away. They knew nothing about each other. It was times like these where London felt like New York.
Miles makes Gwen stop the car so he can climb out, his face raised to the billboard that has grabbed his attention. His hair has been pulled tightly back into two neat plaits for the evening, his temples sore with pain. There's a pressure alongside his cheekbones and in the innermost part of his face and it's from this that he deduces that he’s most likely getting sick. His mami will be pissed.
Looking back at him is Hobie’s wide smile, his teeth so white that they could light up the highway on their own. Miles thumbs at the vanilla vape the girl had tasked him with returning, the one he'd told Gwen he wanted to give back himself. In a matter of minutes, he'll meet Hobie for the first and last time. He feels something pump through his heart and web through his stomach.
Before all of this, he was ready to go home and one step closer to leaving without letting Hobie know that they were supposed to be together. Hobie’s band was gaining the critical acclaim it had deserved and the parties were getting bigger, the crowd of groupies even larger. Everything about Hobie's life seemed to crowd Miles out and he was content with flying back home and mourning there shortly before heading off into the thick of it again.
Right now, he's just Gwen's weird best friend from New York who's just tagging along and maybe that's all he'll be in the grand scheme of Hobie's life. As the thought crosses his mind, he feels his eyes prick slightly. The sadness doesn’t crash into him like all the other times. It’s sneakier and therefore more hurtful.
The cut collar of his oversized tee slips down his shoulder and suddenly he feels the cold. It’s begun to snow and Gwen flashes her headlights to let him know that they need to get going before the road begins to ice. Miles looks toward her, tearing his gaze away from Hobie’s looming face, and waves in acknowledgment.
Slipping his frozen fingertips into his pocket, he fingers Hobie’s Juul and thinks of tossing it onto the empty road. Moving quickly, he climbs delicately back into the car and instructs Gwen to start driving him back to the hotel.
“I thought you wanted to come. Are you feeling okay?" She asks and Miles says nothing, humming noncommittally.
He feels worse than ever. He feels exactly like the liquor smeared across the artist's rose bedsheets back in that flat.
Though Miles thinks he's almost made it out of London in time by the skin of his teeth, Hobie does see him.
He's looking down from that same hotel from a friend's room's balcony, a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
His eyes hone in on the spindly lines of Mile's body, his lovely legs going on for a significant stretch of time. They peek out of his oversized denim shorts, a sketchbook peeking out of one of the massive pockets. His plaits bounce slightly as he laughs at something, a finger extended to point at the baby pink bag swinging from Gwen's fingers.
Gwen says something indistinguishable, a hand tilted downward. Hobie spies the familiar shape of his vape and he feels a surge of love for her. Calling out her name, he jumps up and down waving his hands back and forth. She sees him and shouts back with joy, holding his Juul in the air like an art piece.
Miles whips around and looks at him, mouth falling open just slightly. And Christ he's even more beautiful when he's turned all the way around, the apples of his cheeks prominent and his eyes so big and soft. Hobie stubs out his cigarette and goes to lean over the railing, desperate to know him and crush those lips against him like glass.
His body slides easily over the balcony, gravity mouthing at his limbs like an old lover. He hears Gwen scream and someone shout from inside the room and his life flashes before his eyes. This is it, he thinks, but then he's being caught and lifted.
Pav tugs him with a strength he didn't even know he had and Hobie lands on his ass with a distinct lack of grace.
"Thanks, mate," he says easily and Pav lets out a puff of laughter in disbelief.
He sits up and looks through the bars of the railing and Gwen is looking away from him and directly into the eyes of her friend. She's saying something and Miles is tugging away, his gaze flickering up briefly before he bolts like a deer.
But those seconds are enough. Hobie knows what Miles has probably known for a while now, maybe for his entire life. Behind him, someone puts on 'The Recluse' by that American band. Hobie watches Miles run, his heart speeding up in the coffin of his chest.
Fuck, he loves him. It's immediate, an overdose.
❄
And so Miles is halfway home when someone spins him around with a tug of his towel and amid the motion, he drops his phone.
Someone curses (maybe him) and then they both bend down to grab it. Miles gets there first, his hand closing around the thin rectangle before he looks up. Staring back at him is the only man he's meant to love.
"Hey," Hobie says, his voice low and calm like Miles is easy to spook.
And maybe he's onto something because his body tenses like he's waiting for a gun to go off and start the race. Miles forces himself to stand up and he crosses and recrosses his legs, his hand coming up to tug at the collar of the open-knit long sleeve he's wearing over his red swimming trunks.
"Hi," he breathes out, a boy newly in love and he hates it.
"You are not easy to find, I'll tell you that," Hobie says with a wry smile and Miles realizes he's nervous. "I called Gwen and was running around New York with no sense of direction. Was trying to catch you before the tour and I—"
"You're going on tour?" Miles cuts in and Hobie nods, those dark eyes lighting up.
"Yeah, the Americas! I'm aiming for a world tour eventually, like an actual one. Asia, Africa, all that. They always leave 'em out. Fucking pricks," Hobie responds and Miles laughs.
"Yeah, they do. Brooklyn too."
"Oh, come off it. Brooklyn is always hit at least once."
"Not when I'm there," Miles says, laughing at how petulant he sounds.
"Yeah," Hobie says and they fall silent again.
Miles studies him in the silence, eyes tracing over his freeforms and the piercings dotting his mouth and nose. Slivers of his chest come into view through the unbuttoned shirt he's wearing, his jeans dark denim, and patchwork at the knees. Hobie watches him try to figure them out, his rings glistening as he flexes his fingers.
"You can touch me. If you want."
The statement makes Miles' mouth separate in surprise, his tongue wetting his bottom lip.
"I gotta get back to Mami. We're on holiday. I was with a friend."
"Is there any way I could see you before you're gone?" Hobie asks, his voice strained with desire. "I just—I don't want to let this go without seeing if we can make it work."
Miles looks down at his phone, and types in the passcode. He glances at the man across from him and opens his messages, his finger brushing across the screen hurriedly to find the thread that belongs to his mom.
um, this sounds fake but it's not.
Mijo, what trouble have you gotten into now? Is Basi with you?
no, we're fine. i'm fine. but i may have found my soulmate or he found me and he wants to talk but i'm supposed to be home soon.
It's fine, baby. Take him to eat. Love is stored in the kitchen.
Keep your location on.
"Do you like sushi?" Miles asks and he feels lame when the question settles between them.
"I love it," Hobie says and Miles nods, ducking his head down to smile privately.
"Vamos," he says and turns around, Hobie falling in step. "Let's get takeout."
He feels a little sick as they get closer to Basia's takeout place, but he knows it's just the fear mixing with the love. He felt like this at thirteen, and he feels like this now.
He swallows it down.
As they walk, Miles thinks of asking for an extra pair of chopsticks so that he can properly cradle the blood-slick fish of his heart as he settles it into the skin of Hobie's hands. It's too raw and yet, Hobie will still place it on the plateau of his tongue.
There's a taste like vanilla.
‘can i say something. you and i are gonna live forever’ — @foreverandeveramen on tumblr.
source? i felt it in my heart – @tunisian on tumblr.