There was a weekend in Novemeber when Peter was meant to go home. It was the one night Elio could actually bring someone back to his own dorm instead of having to ask to go to their place. There had only been two girls thus far in the year, and Albert was the first guy he'd taken an interest in. They'd moved to Elio's bed without turning the light on in the room, Albert being the first to notice the lump in the opposite bed.
'Peter?' Elio asked, hoping that something like luck was on his side and his roommate was in a deep sleep.
'What?' he asked.
'Why aren't you at home?' Elio asked, exasperatated and mortified in equal measures.
'I changed my mind,' he replied.
Elio looked at his would-be lover who looked fit to burst with the laughter he was holding in. He escorted him out of the room and apologised profusely many times before Albert went on his way, saying they would try again another time.
Elio climbed into his own bed, both furious and humiliated, wanting to strangle Peter for his constant presense. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, wishing to sink into the matress and be swallowed whole.
'Are you like, gay?' Peter's voice came out of the ether to ask.
Are you fucking kidding me? Elio thought to himself.
'Do you have a problem with that?' he replied.
'No, no of course not, I just didn't know. I mean it's cool if you are, I don't care I-'
'I'm not exclusively,' he replied, as much to cut off this painfully rambling sentence as much as anything else.
'Oh, right.' Peter replied.
There was silence between them.
'Why didn't you go home?' Elio asked, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice and failing.
'I couldn't. Mom's there.'
'What's up with you and your Mom?'
Peter said nothing for a long time; he shouldn't have asked, he'd known that beforehand, but yet he did it anyway.
'We just bring out the worst in each other.'
Elio was surprised by his sudden openess. He half wondered how far he could push it. 'Why?'
'I don't know. Always have. She liked Charlie better.'
'What happened to her?' Elio asked, knowing if any question was to hit the trip wire to make Peter shut down again, it would be this one.
Elio got the feeling he wasn't going to say anymore. He sat up in his bed, looked across at his roomate who was starting ahead at the ceiling. He said nothing, allowing Peter to speak in his own time; or not at all. The more time that passed, the more the latter seemed most likely. Elio became a little worried by his roommate's ongoing silence.
'Peter?' he asked, turning the bedside lamp on, to find that the other boy's eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
'Shit man, sorry, I didn't meant to-' Elio began as the other boy covered his face, crying silently.
Elio worked on pure instinct as he got out of his own bed and went to comfort the other boy. He knelt beside his bed and gently touched his shoulder, Peter melted into his touch, allowing himself to be pulled into a hug. Elio moved from this awkward position and sat against the head of Peter's bed, his roomate crying into his shoulder uncontrollably, scaring him a little.
'It's ok,' he said gently, every now and then, stroking his back they way his mother would him when he was upset.
Eventually Peter pulled back, getting a hold of himself, he wiped his eyes, Elio grabbed a tissue from the beside table and passed it to him.
Peter blew his nose and stared ahead.
'I don't know how to be normal,' he said queitly, in a defeated voice after a moment.
'There is no such thing,' Elio replied.
Peter turned to him with a look Elio recognised; it was the same one he gave Marcia when she told him she loved him after he'd just said goodbye to Oliver for the last time. It's a look reserved for those who couldn't possibly comprehend just how out of touch and meaningless their words are.
'I was driving. I just went home because I didn't know what else to do and I couldn't tell them. Mom found her, found her body in the back of the car the next morning.'
Elio blinked, finding it almost difficult to breathe.
'How do you come back from that? What am I supposed to do now?'
He watched Peter, suddenly feeling ashmed of every ill thought he'd ever had about him.
'I'm so sorry. That's horrifying.'
Peter blinked, then turned away. 'I wanna go to sleep.'
Elio got out of the bed and went back to his own, laying down and turning over. He wasn't able to get to sleep for over an hour. He got the feeling Peter lay there gazing at the ceiling until morning.
