Friday, November 28th 2014

Jack sat hunched over his notebook, twirling a pen between his fingers, eyes fixed on the words scrawled across the page.

'The unreliable narrator—one who distorts, omits, or misinterprets the truth. A storyteller who cannot be trusted.'

The words stared back at him from the whiteboard at the front of the room, and Jack felt them settle in his chest like a weight. His tutor, a lanky man with a half-buttoned flannel and permanent dark circles under his eyes, was pacing as he spoke, arms gesturing wildly.

'Think about it,' he said, voice animated. 'What happens when the person telling the story isn't even aware of their own deception? When they've convinced themselves of a truth that isn't real?'

Jack shifted in his seat, rolling his pen between his knuckles. He could still feel the ghost of yesterday evening clinging to his skin—Rob's hand on his jaw, the air thick with expectation, the cold slap of reality when Jack had pulled away. The sheer relief of getting out of there.

But was it relief?

Or was that just the version of the story he was telling himself?

He had spent his whole life constructing a narrative, one where he was like everyone else, where he could blend in, where there was nothing different about him. But the cracks were showing. His own brain was betraying him. What if this whole time, he wasn't an observer but the unreliable narrator?

The tutor carried on, but Jack barely heard him.

The room was small, stuffy, with twelve or so students gathered around a rectangular table cluttered with open notebooks, coffee cups, and water bottles. Jack felt a presence beside him before he even looked up. Savannah. She slid into the empty seat next to him, leaning back casually.

'You alright?' she asked, voice low. Jack nodded, scratching at his page with his pen, pretending to be engrossed in whatever bullshit he'd half-written before class started. She didn't push, but she was looking at him in that way that made him feel like he was being examined under a microscope. She hesitated, then said, 'Millie told me you had a fight.'

Jack's shoulders tensed. He swallowed hard, trying to keep his face blank.

'Nothing major,' he muttered.

Savannah didn't call him on the lie, but her lips pressed into a thin line. 'Well, I hope you're alright.'

Jack didn't answer, just nodded again.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The tutor rattled on about Nabokov and how Lolita is a masterclass in deception, but Jack wasn't listening. He was still trapped in his own head, still hearing the echoes of Millie's voice, of Ciarán's quiet disappointment, of the way Rob had looked at him and seen something in him he wasn't ready to see in himself.

He tapped his pen against the edge of the table.

'I haven't seen Paul since Halloween,' he said suddenly, surprising even himself.

Savannah raised an eyebrow, but if she was surprised, she didn't show it. 'Maybe you should text him.'

Jack let out a small, humorless laugh. 'Why?'

'Because he likes you,' she said simply, 'and he's probably confused about what happened on Halloween?'

Jack glanced at her, she seemed to know as much as he did about his life.

'He is confused,' she corrected herself.

It had flopped with Rob the night before, but that had been reckless; a mistake, something he had done just to prove a point to himself. But Paul was different. Paul wasn't some faceless stranger on an app. He wasn't an experiment. Jack knew him, if only a little. He liked him, if he was being honest. Maybe this was the better option.

The real option.

If he was going to figure this out, maybe it shouldn't be in some stranger's apartment, forcing himself through the motions. Maybe it should be with someone familiar. Someone who might actually give a shit. But then what? What if Paul thought he was taking the piss? Jack had told him that he was straight after all. What if he didn't take him seriously? Worse—what if he did? The thought sent a jolt of panic through him. Because that was the real fear, wasn't it? Not rejection. But the possibility that this was real. That maybe, just maybe, he actually wanted this.

Jack frowned, looking down at the scribbled words in his notebook. The unreliable narrator. 'Just message him, Jack. Worst case, he doesn't reply. Best case... well.'

Jack exhaled slowly, staring at the half-finished sentence on his page.

'A storyteller who cannot be trusted.'

So maybe it was time he stopped believing his own lies.