Have You Ever Met A Girl Called September?

April 4.1

April 4.1

This is not how I wanted April to end. I didn’t get a date with anyone, let alone an April, and I haven’t yet come to a compromise with my publisher over the ending of my latest book. Karl is currently in the bathroom, slumped in the tub, muffled hiccups emerging from under the door. Kat has just left, having spent three hours comforting Karl and trying to remove his parents from my apartment in the politest way possible. Now I have to deal with the aftermath of the day’s events, which include my housemate sobbing in the bathroom pretending he isn’t and a sister so pissed off with how she spent her Sunday evening that she says she won’t be helping me out any time soon.

“Karl? Can I come in?”

I’ve made Karl a big mug of coffee and cut him a slice of cake. I don’t really know how to deal with the situation. Once, a few years back, Karl’s parents came for a spontaneous visit and it ended with Karl punching a dent in the wall and swearing he wouldn’t let them visit again. That’s a promise he hasn’t kept. They’d wanted him to quit his city job and come back to work with them in their business, but he’d refused. The argument had turned verbally vicious, with both parties involved threatening to disown the other (it didn’t come to anything in the end). Today’s fight had ended even worse.

“Mmphf.”

I can’t hear through the wall that the door, the radio and running water present.

“Sorry, mate, but could you turn the music down?” I shout, hoping he can hear me.

I hear the pressure on the bath water lowering and the sound on the radio being turned down a few notches.

“Uh, Sander? Do you mind if you just leave me? I don’t really want the company right now.”

“Oh.” I know it’s not his fault, but he did let my sister in. And I’m the one who knows him better.

“We can talk tomorrow,” Karl pauses, exhales, “but tonight, I just want to be alone.”

“There’s coffee and cake outside the door if you want it.”

A few hours later, I’m lying in bed, curtains drawn close, laptop shut, mobile set to charge. It’s late and I want to sleep but the things Karl’s mum said to him keep running through my mind. Because that was the problem: his mum. His dad didn’t seem that surprised to be honest about Karl’s announcement. Not a bit upset. I reckon that if his mum hadn’t been there, his dad would’ve talked to Karl and have been as every bit as supportive as he should be.

Karl’s mum, on the other hand, wasn’t in any way supportive. I don’t know what it is; whether she’s homophobic, or shocked, or angry for whatever reason, but either way I do know one thing: to leave her son crying when he needs her is no way near good enough.

I  do have a feeling that there’s something more to the story, however. When Karl’s mum was leaving (or, being ejected by Kat in a way that can only be described as forceful) she gave me this look that’s impossible to put into words. I guess the three that come nearest are blame, guilt and anger.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to have done, but I think Kat might know. She spent all that time with Karl, and when she came out to say goodbye to me she spoke a little different than usual. Quieter, softer, warier. She said, “take care of Karl, Sander, and when he’s ready, listen. Really listen.”

At the time I’d assumed she’d been talking about understanding, but now I have the time to think about it, I think there must be something more going on.

The next morning, when my alarm goes off, I sit up in bed and blink, temporarily disoriented. As the events of the previous day come rushing back to me, I half climb, half fall out of bed and put on my glasses. I rub my eye and sit on the edge of the bed, my vision blurring as I scramble on my bedside table for a paracetamol. I have the most killer headache.