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Matteusz shakes himself from his long hazy bliss, and props his back up against the headboard. Doing so, he sees that the handsome boy with whom he was sharing that bliss - Charlie Smith - was now sitting at the end of the bed in his nightgown and staring out of the window. He was surprised at how well Charlie recovered from the exhausting but liberating work.
Sitting there, he lets Charlie sit at peace in his own world for a moment, before he reaches for his underwear and starts to put it back on. He considers the lack of anything but the sound of him slowly slipping them on, and thinks that perhaps he ought to say something. But it's Charlie who speaks and disrupts the almost silence. Disrupts his train of thought. Asking one question. So well-spoken, so calm... And yet Matteusz detects just a glimmer of something else. Three years worth of intently reading books and listening to YouTube videos when the money could be spared in Poland had not given him a complete grasp of English, but it had given a great understanding of what people meant when they spoke. And in his experience, knowing what people meant was a greater advantage than technical knowledge. Where he might occasionally make a mistake that some picky student might laugh at, he could tell with little difficulty what that same student would hide behind their laughed insults.
And what Charlie says to him - "Do you know the feeling of dread?" - hides little from him. He processes this carefully. It's no idle remark, no random joke. But of course, it isn't. The strange yet fascinating boy before Matteusz was caught in something deeper. Matteusz finishes slipping his underwear on and mulls what to say. Even having expected something of this type, there was still something unclear to him - a rare occurrence for him - in the words of Charlie. The way he had half-sighed the word. Dread? Dread of...
Charlie speaks again, giving him little time to do much else except listen. Charlie's words making another question - as he stares at Charlie, and Charlie stares out at the moon.
"That just beyond what you see, just beyond what you know... There's something out there, waiting for you?"
He's still unsure of the meaning. Of Charlie's intent. But his mind wanders in those words. Matteusz usually tried not to let his mind run to conclusions before hearing out something, but there was a fragment of himself. A tiny shard that couldn't help but run away on those words. The shard runs away from Shoreditch with them, and with his strange boy, to somewhere far away. Only in his imagination, of course, but still... Matteusz mulls further - there was a part of him that felt this was different.
Charlie was by no means his first. His first had been the previous year - not long after his sixteenth birthday - on the quiet corner of a beach in Warsaw with a bright brunette exchange student called Marcus. And there had been a few others - Wiktor, Aleksander, Szymon, Rowan... But none were Charlie.
This was only their second 'encounter', but even that was a new thing. To have a second time with the same person? New. All sorts of new. The others had barely looked at him during, and uttered even fewer words afterwards. But Charlie - the boy was interested during. Nervous, of course. A familiar nervousness that Matteusz could recall of himself with Marcus.
But that fascination. It sticks in mind. In a way that Matteusz's grasp of English did not allow for. Though, he suspects that his inability to articulate it in Polish too meant that this was a common problem for people. And if Matteusz didn't know better, he'd have said that Charlie was just as fascinated by him as he was of Charlie. The shard of himself that dreams comes hurtling back when Charlie speaks again - "Things that wait to harm you?"
Oh, thinks Matteusz. Oh. Because Oh is all he can immediately muster to think in English. His brain quickly follows up with a muddle of thoughts in English and Polish. Did Charlie feel the something different? Was there something in this? But above all those rising hopes of - love, was it? - bubbled the word 'harm'. And above his own hopes, Matteusz would always care about others. Was Charlie
afraid? Was Charlie worried that what they had - whatever it was - would end badly?
It occurs to Matteusz that a part of him was a little scared too. This was new territory for him, and for the even less experienced boy in front of him... How much scarier that must be. He wishes for words to console Charlie with. Again, Charlie gives the misfortune of speaking once more before Matteusz could - "Things that wait to kill you?"
The word 'kill' catches in Matteusz's heart. He could remember in Poland the fear of his grandmother. His all-knowing grandmother. She knew the truth even before he had told her. And when he had said it, she had told him - through tears and a slightly cracking voice - that he should stay away for his own sake. That she loved him, and always would. That she wanted him to live his truth. But that she also did not want him to end up like Piotr from two streets down. The poor man had been dragged from his house and battered to near-death. The Policja did not consider it an act of hate, for the Government did not class it as one. But what else was it, if not hate, that had made them scream slurs at Piotr as they knocked his teeth out?
Matteusz understands all too well the worry. He'd never told her, or anyone for that matter, that for all he was proud - he was also scared. But sometimes pride required courage, he feels. And courage is a matter of being scared and doing something that needs to be done - being true to what and who you are - anyway. If Charlie felt scared that whatever they had - simple attraction or otherwise - could put him in danger, then he would have to reassure him. At last, Matteusz gets his chance. His opening to speak. He reaches forward and puts a hand on Charlie's bare shoulder.
"Charlie, you are not speaking of... this?"
He looks back for a moment at the bed behind them, and their clothes still strewn about it from hasty removal.
"Because this, I do not dread. This is a good thing. This might be the only good thing."
Charlie turns his head to him, and Matteusz immediately sees the fear and the sorrow.
"I'm talking about what's coming. What's on its way.", Charlie says.
Matteusz nods his head slightly, "The future."
Charlie begins to button up his dressing gown. "A possible one. A probable one."
And for Matteusz, the response is obvious; "No future is probable. All are unexpected. Like Beyonce albums."
Charlie looks at him blankly. He speaks again, for clarification, "Beyonce?"
Charlie continues to look at him blankly, as he stands having slid on his own trousers. He decides to demonstrate, doing a small section of the Single Ladies dance. He can't imagine that it's the greatest sight but it worth a try. Charlie still doesn't react. Not even to the mere act of the dance. Matteusz couldn't help but laugh a little.
Here was Charlie before him. Charlie - with whom he could remember the first shared glance, the first mutual exchanged smiles, the first conversation between classes, the first kiss, their first time - and now, he was adding his first Single Ladies dance to that.
Nothing had ever been like that with the boys before. They were all vaguer memories of sweat, heat and moans, where Charlie was like a vivid imprint in his mind.
Vivid, handsome and so fascinating. Charlie had told him that he was from Sheffield... Was it possible that in Sheffield, English people didn't listen to Beyonce? He didn't know. Regardless, he takes Charlie's face in his hands, and speaks again; "You are not like other English people. I am glad you've come to the school, though. Was hard being only new kid."
And that was the truth of it. The first week had been a daunting experience. Few people had given him time - like that bright Tanya - but then Charlie dropped into Coal Hill in the second week. Practically out of nowhere, as a late arrival, and yet he had immediately felt like a kindred soul.
Furrowed brow from Charlie; "Why?"
He laughs. Charlie questioning, because Charlie always did. He wasn't sure if it was the playful act of a boy who was just as scared as he was, or if Charlie really didn't know. Didn't see the relief that he was brought by Charlie. Charlie walks with him to the bedroom door, as he pulls on his jacket. Part of him - that shard that wants to run away with Charlie - wishes that he could stay the night. That he could sleep in Charlie's bed, both of them intertwined. But he cannot.
Matteusz has not met Charlie's family, and Charlie has not met his. All Charlie had let on was that someone would be coming home very late, and that they wouldn't take well to Matteusz. Charlie didn't need to elaborate for him to know that there was something wrong somewhere, but he did not wish to intrude on Charlie's privacy. And he could relate all to well - for with his own parents... If he was not home until the morning, they would question. Very loudly and accusatory. They did not understand. Unlike his grandmother, there were too caught in their beliefs to see who he was.
And so here they were. Two boys caught in something different, yet set apart by those around them.
He opens the bedroom door, and turns back to Charlie. Charlie sighs, and says; "I hope you're right about the future. I really do."
Matteusz hopes so too. He hopes that whatever the future is, that it will be kind to them both. Ready to go, he leans forward towards the shorter Charlie and he kisses him on the head. Pulling back from Charlie after a moment, he says; "You are very strange. But you have a nice face." And he flashes Charlie a small smile. It doesn't convey the amazement in Matteusz's head. The amazement of this boy and everything about him from his odd sentences, to his silly obliviousness, to his delightful cheekbones and his bright tender eyes.
With that, the two nodded their farewells. He quickly moved down the stairs and round to the still unlocked door of the house. He quickly sneaks out of it, shutting it behind himself and only allowing himself - just - a brief moment to look up at the balcony of Charlie's room before heading off in the direction of his house.
Little did Matteusz know that as he headed back to his parents and away from Charlie, that it was the end and the beginning. The end of the last normal night of his life. And the beginning of something completely new.
For in one night, normal might die... But something amazing could live in the light of all that came next.