Jean has perfected the art of forgetting. Things, people, old bruises on his heart that’s always been too loyal and good until the day he brought someone home, and their laced up fingers had his father take his half-empty bottle of booze and throw it against his head along with the word “fag”. It’s been lonely and cold since then. Scholarship, study of medicine. Honorable doctor. What a talented young man, his colleagues say. His bed’s only for him, has been ever since the laceration on his forehead healed.
It’s 3 am and a gurney is shoved into his emergency room; several bruises and slashes on a young scared face, tears in dark fearful eyes and a sky full of freckles scattered over warm cheeks. Broken arm. Jean stitches what he has to, holds a calloused hand when the man who’s almost still a boy cries all night. He hears his story, and he knows that he’ll be lost and spiralling down an abyss that he’s barely just crawled out. “Fag”, the boy sobs, he’s been called. It echoes in Jean’s head, booms and roars and fucking sings.
His shift ends, and it doesn’t. He spends nights by his side. His name’s Marco. He’s beautiful and so heartbreakingly good that Jean curses the world, and it’s weeks after Marco’s out of hospital and on his couch “for just some time” when Jean comes home at 5 am, greeted by bright eyes with hope rising in them, and he wraps his arms around Marco, lips finding his, finally, and a little whisper between gasped breaths – “stay”.
Moami 