Excerpt 1:
After about half an hour, I’m standing outside the cafeteria, peering through the window to make sure he’s really inside, waiting for me. But when I see him, sitting at one of the tables, intent on reading the newspaper, the urge to turn around and run away almost gets the better of the strange, inexplicable desire to sit at that table with him.
He lifts his head from the newspaper and scans the room. Then his eyes land on me, watching him from the other side of the glass, as if he suddenly realises someone is there.
I wave at him like an idiot, take a deep breath, walk to the cafeteria door, pluck up courage, and push it open. I cross the space between us with his eyes still on me, and join him at the table. He folds the newspaper and sets it aside the moment my hand touches the back of the chair in front of him.
“You didn’t get anything.”
“I was waiting for you.”
I grip the back of the chair without thinking.
“Do you want to…?” He points to the same chair.
I’d like to, yes. To sit here with you. To talk, maybe even smile at you, to understand who you are and why you keep appearing in my life when I least expect anything to happen. And I wish I didn’t feel guilty towards those who are no longer here, just for thinking and wanting all these things.
“Everything okay?” he asks, after realising I’ve been standing in front of him, just staring.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“And do you maybe want to find out?”
“I don’t know that either.”
He nods slowly, as if turning my words over in his mind.
“All I know is that I want to sit down.”
He sketches a half smile.
“With you.” I don’t know if I’m still breathing as I say it. “I want to sit here with you.”

Excerpt 2:
“Here we are.”
Lost in thought, I didn’t realise we had already arrived at his place.
“I think I can now consider myself safe and sound.”
“We said all the way to the door.”
“Did we say that?”
“I’m saying it now.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“It costs me nothing.”
“If you insist…”
I point to the flight of stairs behind him, and he silently precedes me to his landing.
“I’m not used to being escorted to the front door,” he laughs nervously before pulling his keys out of his jeans pocket. 
“There is a first time for everything.”
He nods slowly, the keys still in his fingers, the faint light coming from the streetlamp illuminating his face.
“You should put in a light bulb.”
“Mmm?”
“It’s not safe to go home alone in the dark.”
“But you are with me.”
He says it so naturally and softly that I go quiet, letting his words sink in.
“I can do it, though,” he says then. “Even on my own.”
“I prefer making sure you’re okay.”
He sighs heavily, his arms now at his sides and his gaze resigned and sad.
“I’m not.
“I know.”
“And sometimes I’m not sure I want to be anymore.”
“I know that too.”
“You always seem to know everything.”
“I wish it were true, believe me.”
“And what would you like to know now that you don’t?”
I would like to know if you, too, can no longer remember his smell because you have another one in your head.
“I’m not sure you would like to know.”
He wrinkles his forehead. “Is it something about me?”
I nod. My heart rebels against my own will, beating madly in my chest.
Levi steps closer, his hand brushing my chest, and the feel of his touch is enough to make me realise that he and I will never happen.
His breath smells like alcohol and a big, irreversible mistake.
I take a step back before I am no longer able to avoid catastrophe.
“You’ve been drinking. You don’t want this.”
He steps back and leans against the door. “You’re sure about that too,” he says bitterly, not even looking at me anymore.
“I am sure you would hate yourself tomorrow for doing it.”
And I’ll spend the rest of my life hating myself for not doing it, but that’s just how things are.
You can’t always have what you want, and what you want is not always the answer to all your questions.
He stands up straight and turns his back to me, puts the key in the lock, and barely turns his profile in my direction.
“Levi…”
“Good night, and thanks for walking me home.”
Before I can say anything or find a reason to keep him here, Levi has already closed the door. He shuts me out, along with my one chance and the small hope that, just this once, I could have what I want.

Excerpt 3:
“I don’t mind meeting you, and please don’t see anything strange in it… It’s just… I feel like I know you. There’s something familiar about you, something… reassuring, in a way. It sounds stupid, I know, and I’m going to look like an idiot.”
“Not at all.”
“And I hope your friend won’t be upset about that.”
I furrow my brow, confused.
“What friend are you talking about?”
“Well, Nate,” he says, his voice dropping. “You two are very… You two are very close.”
My eyes fly open, and his face burns red.
“Oh my God, don’t tell me that…” He brings a hand to his mouth. “Please forgive me. Forget what I said. In fact, forget I even existed.”
I wish I could, believe me, but it’s becoming more difficult than I imagined.
“He came to the hospital. He was agitated and worried. He was your only contact. You live together. You work together. You’re even part of the same charity. God, how did I think you two…”
“What? That we were a couple?”
“I’m sorry, I thought you were… t-that y-you…” he stammers, the pain spreading through my stomach and chest, stealing even the air from my lungs.
“That I liked men?”
“I’m mortified.”
And I’m fucked. In every possible way.
“We’ve been friends for years. I don’t live with him; I stay in the granny flat on his property. We have separate entrances.”
I’m saying too much. I’m justifying my relationship with Nate when I shouldn’t even be standing here talking to him.
“And yes,” I manage to breathe, “I like men.”
At my last words, something in his eyes shifts. They grow darker, wider. My fingers tighten around the mug.
“We’re not a couple. We never were.”
I keep telling him things he should never know, and somehow I keep wanting to tell him more.
“I don’t even know what I’m saying. Please, can you just forget everything I said? It’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassing.”
“No. You’re not. Not at all.”
You are spontaneous, and you are honest, and you are polite, and you are sensitive. You are broken, and you are lost. And you care — about others, about the feelings of the person in front of you.
And you are alone. Like me. Maybe even more so.
You are someone I never expected to have to hate.