Home - Part 2/2
Notes: So, I'm sorry it took me so long to complete this. I guess at this point, the breaks between my writing shouldn't surprise anyone. I'm the worst WIP author in the whole world. Also, this parts has references to Couch Surfing, which is a socializing network, sort of like facebook, or twitter, or whatever, where people from all over the world can can find a place to stay if they're in a foreign country or city.
Non-Warning: you might come across some shameless promotion of my country. I'm sorry about that, but I couldn't help it.
9.
In spite of what his mother might say, Adam thinks Couch Surfing is a very good idea.
It’s a little bit pathetic that he resolved to these kind of things, that he’d do pretty much anything to be around people, but he tries not to think too much about it. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s too scared to be alone because it would give him too much time to think about his screw ups or the fact that he doesn’t quite know how to glue the pieces of his life back together. Instead, he tries to reason with the fact that he spent almost a month with someone like Frank. Meeting another social recluse should be a piece of cake to Adam-a low calorie one because one can never be too careful about their weight.
This is probably why he ends up spending a couple of long hours holed up in a hotel room, drinking limoncello and browsing the net, trying to find the perfect person. In fact, he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, or how ‘perfect’ should look like in terms of Couch Surfing. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. After all, to his mind, Couch Surfing is like an altered version of Russian Roulette-there’s no bullet, but if you can’t get along with the person who’s supposed to be hosting you, you might need one to shoot them in the head.
For some reason, he tries to find someone like Frank. He looks and looks for someone different, who doesn’t want to meet new people and make new friends. It’s kind of pointless and five hours and one bottle of limoncello later, he realizes that there’s no way he’s going to find someone like Frank on a socializing network. The point of Couch surfing is meeting new people and making new friends.
He’s very close to giving up when he stumbles upon Vlad’s profile, a Romanian history student who lives in Bucharest and loves The Beatles and playing guitar. At a first sight, Adam and this guy don’t have anything in common. They’re as different as two people can be, but this is probably the reason why Adam finds him so interesting, why he spends a whole lot of time browsing through his profile, reading comments and blog entries, before deciding to send him a message.
All in all, Adam thinks he made a good decision. This guy seems interesting enough, he has good reviews from other people that visited him in the past, and seems to live in a pretty interesting place.
The fact that Vlad reminds him of Kris is of no importance. Really.
10.
Adam comes to the conclusion that meeting Vlad is a very good idea, and this should surprise him, because they have absolutely nothing in common. They come from different cultures, they have different tastes in music, different views upon life, but even so, or maybe because of this, they get along pretty well. Their conversations, though a little bit stilted at first, are really refreshing to Adam. After spending so much time with Frank, Adam forgot how good it felt to be around people like Vlad, to just laugh at stupid things and not think about all the things that he’s done wrong.
He spends his first night in Romania drinking some kind of Romanian liquor that might be stronger than vodka, and listening to Vlad’s stories about communism and Romanian folklore, about poetry and the Romanians struggles to unify the state back in the 19th and 20th century. He tells Adam that he loves his country, but hates what it has become.
“I love my country, but everything has become such a mess recently. People say that communism was better-they had jobs back then, and a place to live. There wasn’t freedom of expression, and the regime had spies everywhere, but who cares, as long as you had the Government to tell you what to do.”
“Do you remember how it was back then?”
“Not really. I was just a kid, but from what I heard from my parents and grandparents, things were really bad. When the regime collapsed, people thought that things would get better, that they’d be free and happy-or whatever shit people were dreaming about back then. They didn’t understand that they couldn’t magically move from one stage to another-change takes time, man.” He laughs as he says this.
Adam brings his knees to his chest. Although he got used to the European weather, he always feels cold at nights. “People will never be pleased with the status quo.”
Vlad laughs. “I guess you are right. We got used to the privileges other people fought or died for. We take everything for granted. Nowadays, we can do whatever we want and get away with it. Back then, you could get executed for so much as being suspected of plotting against the regime. It’s was all bullshit. They used oppression to make people obey them.”
Adam shrugs. He never really knew what to say in these kind of situations, whether judging another culture is a good idea or not. These kind of subjects are always hard to talk about, even between people who have known each other for a very long time.
“I guess it’s the same with every country…”
“I guess. It just angers me when I hear people complain about the Government, but won’t do anything about it.” He smiles, softly. “I’m sorry, I must be boring you to death with politics and history. As a guy who studies history, I get a little passionate about certain subjects.”
“It’s alright. It’s really interesting actually. I like listening to people’s stories.”
“Yeah, well, I was too young at that time to understand what was going on. All I know is from history books and what I heard from other people. We could go and visit my grandparents one of these days. They have far more interesting stories to tell.”
“That would be great.”
Adam stares at Vlad for a couple of moments. He looks pretty young like this, his hair sticks up in every direction, and his eyes, although tired, hide the kind of innocence that only inexperience and young age can have. He talks with regret about things he didn’t experience, and even if Adam can tell that the current situation bothers Vlad, he realizes that this regret is not heartfelt. Vlad didn’t live all these things he’s talking about, thus he can’t know how it was back then.
It suddenly downs on him that maybe this is how his situation must have looked like to his friends, or family. They’ve seen him go down on that slippery slope of fame and uncertainty, and they thought they understood what he was going through, how he was feeling, but they didn’t-they couldn’t have because they weren’t in his shoes. They just saw the surface, the mask he was putting on every day, and that was pretty much it.
And maybe he should have asked for help, quit the fucking bravado act. It shouldn’t have been this hard. After all, he had-has-people who love him, who want what’s best for him, so they would have done everything in their power to help him go through everything. Maybe if he did that, he and Kris would still be together, they would have the happily ever after Adam dreamed of when he was just a naïve little boy. But then again, all the coulda, woulda, shoulda have never been of any help to anyone.
He smiles at Vlad, and makes a mental note to send his mother a text to tell her that he’s alright now, that he’s finally gluing the pieces of his life together. And funnily enough, it feels like it’s the truth.
11.
Of all the countries he’s visited so far, he thinks he likes Romania the best. There’s something so strange about this country that it intrigues him, leaves him breathless, confused, and a little bit awed at how remotely different it is from America.
Romania is a poor country, not exactly glamorous, and not quite suitable for his pretentious self. People, especially the older ones, are simple, confusingly so, but they consider him one of them now. They frown at his passion for makeup, don’t understand the importance of a good pair of shoes, but somehow, they accept him.
He’s been here for three weeks now, and although he knows he should leave soon, he wants to stay a little bit longer, not forever, because, truth be told, he’s more high maintenance than Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian combined. He might not be that much of a gold digger, though. He has values and pride and he’s sure that being someone’s toy wouldn’t be too fun. Plus, he doesn’t know what kind of woman would have such low self-esteem to be in a relationship with him, a gay man who puts more store by appearances than her. He also has enough money to last him for two lives, so yeah, kind of pointless comparison. The thing is, Romania is not for him, it will never be enough for him, but for now, it feels like home and nothing has felt like home in a very long time so leaving wouldn’t make much sense to him.
Any now and then, he thinks of Frank, of his strangeness, of how good it felt to be with someone who was more fucked up than him. It makes him sad that they had to part ways, but he knows deep down, that it was the right thing to do.
The camaraderie between them has always been a temporary thing. He’s too broken to build strong friendships, and Frank-well Frank is just Frank, a loner, a troubled soul with a troubled past.
And besides, being with Frank wouldn’t have done him any help. He would have secluded himself from the world, become what Frank was, and he’s not like that. He needs to be around people, to laugh about frivolities and make small talk about stupid and unimportant things. He needs people’s company to heal his broken heart, and this need is like air to him. Each time he finds himself alone, he feels like he’s suffocating, like the walls are closing in, and all the mistakes he’s done in the past are coming back to haunt him.
And still, the temporary bliss he has found in this country is nothing but a house of cards and it’s almost surprising how he didn’t realize this before it fell apart before his eyes. To anyone else, receiving a text in the middle of the night would be strange, but it wouldn’t make any difference. Life would go on with or without that text, and maybe, if it was from anyone else, Adam would feel the same way, too.
Maybe years from now, he will still be able to remember every single detail of this night; the dirty plate in the sink, the taste of Romanian beer on his tongue, even the way the cold, tiled floor felt against his bare feet.
The electronic clock on the wall shows 11:16 when his phone beeps in his jeans’ pocket. He curses out loud as he tries to pull the phone out from his too tight jeans. He promises yet again that he will try and buy clothes a size or two bigger next time he goes shopping. When he finally pulls his phone out and sees the sender, the house of cards he’s built over the last weeks falls,together with his phone, and naturally, he forgets his passcode. He types the wrong code six times, before remembering his mother’s birth year.
‘I heard Romania is really cold during this time of the year.’
Maybe Kris didn’t mean anything by this message, but reading it, still breaks Adam’s heart. He’s tried so hard to forget. He almost managed to convince himself that he was over Kris, but now it all comes rushing back to him, and he starts feeling something again-what exactly, he can’t tell.
What does Kris want from him? If he doesn’t want Adam back, then why is he so cruel to give Adam false hopes again?
He sighs, then takes a swig from the beer he opened this evening. He doesn’t like the taste of Romanian beer. It’s too strong for him, and it gives him the worst hangovers. However, he kind of needs something strong right now, just to take his mind off of Kris for a little while, to give him some time to breathe and think right.
The problem with alcohol is that it makes him stupid and reckless, which is probably why his hands type on their own accord a reply to Kris. ‘I’m in luck, then. Fur coats are in trend this year.’
12.
2nd of February finds him on a train to Paris. He’s a walking cliché, an American visiting the city of love and gawking at the tower of Eifel and frowning at the way the French people speak. He can’t speak French to save his life and the French people can’t or don’t want to speak English.
He left Romania two days after receiving Kris’ message. He has no idea whether leaving Bucharest was a good decision or if France was the best destination for him, but then again, nothing feels wrong or right to him anymore. He keeps questioning himself all the time, thinking and over thinking things like he’s some kind of philosopher trying to find the meaning of life. Sometimes his behavior makes him laugh. He’s always considered himself an emotional person, but the way he is right now - well that’s taking things a little bit too far. Some days he thinks he should have written about his experiences in a journal and publish it if his music career doesn’t work out.
On his fourth day in Paris, a fan finds him. She’s a petite blonde girl who seems to be on some sort of drug or high on caffeine. Adam can’t tell for sure, but he thinks it’s impossible for a person to be this small and have this kind of energy.
Her English is very bad and he can barely understand her. He wants to ask her to talk slower because it’s very hard for him to follow what she’s saying, but this task seems impossible. Like most of the French people, she can’t or doesn’t want to understand him.
She stops talking for a couple of seconds and Adam immediately takes the opportunity to ask her about the best clubs in Paris. Her eyes bug out again and starts talking even faster than before if that was possible, this time using her hands to emphasize her words. Adam would like to ask her about what she’s on because he kind of wants to have this energy, too, but he’s afraid that his question might lead to another round of broken English and explanations he can’t really understand.
She tells him about this Chris Allain who sang in this coffee shop, not far from the Louvre, last night. Apparently he’s an American, too, and he sings the most beautiful chansonettes. Adam is not stupid; he can put two and two together and this Chris Allain is a little bit suspicious to him, so he makes a mental note to check this place tonight. Maybe it’s his Kris.
13.
The coffee shop is indeed beautiful. It has this really French, romantic atmosphere that makes his heart swell a little. It doesn’t hurt to be here, doesn’t bring him any painful memories, and this realization surprises him a bit. Maybe he’s on the right track after all. Maybe he’s finally on that clichéd path to self discovery that he’s unconsciously been for the last couple of months.
He smiles dumbly and feels like laughing, because really, how can’t he not be happy that he’s finally becoming himself again. It doesn’t feel like he imagined it would feel; quite the contrary, actually. He still remembers every single thing he did, how his insecurities drove Kris away, how he lost the chance to a really good relationship, how fame turned him into someone he hated. He regrets everything he did, consciously or unconsciously, but he realizes that he wouldn’t change a thing. Everything that happened led him to this point, to this small coffee shop in Paris, and he thinks that although he’s still the same Adam Lambert he’s always been, he’s a different man too, better and wiser.
A waiter leads him to a table in a corner, then brings him a menu. Now, he might not know French to save his life, but he does know wines, so when the waiter comes back to take his order, he manages to order in broken French a Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc. The waiter nods in response, leaving Adam alone again.
He plays with a packet of cigarettes he has from Frank, before taking one out. He turns to the table behind him to ask for a lighter, but changes his mind as he hears a voice he knows far too well.
“Hi, thanks for coming tonight.” That unmistakable southern accent he’s missed so much. He doesn’t know what Kris’ being here means, if he should hope that things will be all right between them, but it still makes him feel-what exactly, he can’t really tell and maybe it doesn’t even matter at this point.
Without even knowing, he starts smiling, the packet of cigarettes forgotten.
Adam remembers this song. It’s a cover of ‘Losing my religion’ by REM. Kris used to play it all the time when they were together, but Adam didn’t understand the meaning of this song until Kris left him. He suddenly thinks of the meaning of this moment. It feels like closure, somehow. No matter how this evening ends, Adam knows that it will help him get closure.
14.
Once the set is over, Adam makes his way to the stage to greet Kris. Considering the circumstances, he feels incredibly calm. His heart beats are almost steady and his palms perfectly dry. It’s strange that he feels this composed. The last time he saw Kris, he was a nervous wreck. This time, however, he feels like he’s meeting an old friend, not someone who’s quite possibly the love of his life.
“I would have never thought you were such a cliché,” He says as loud as he can, trying to cover the sound of European house that started playing in the café.
Kris just raises his hands in defense with a smile. He looks different now. Older, maybe, or wiser. Adam can’t tell for sure what has changed, but he kind of likes the change. Somehow it’s more Kris.
“Yeah, well, I saw this chick flick once about a girl who met a guy in Paris. Thought I should give it a try, too.”
“Yeah? And did you meet anyone yet?”
“Might have.” Kris smiles that crooked smile that still takes Adam’s breath away. And suddenly his hands start sweating, and his heart starts picking up speed. Damn Kris Allen and his way of making Adam go weak in his knees.
“Hmm, and here I thought that French men are too fancy for your taste.”
Kris waves his hand in the air, like he’s trying emphasize words or maybe to gain some time and give Adam a proper reply. “Yeah, well, they have great tastes in food and clothes. I’m not here for the French men, though. I like American boys.”
“I’m sure American boys like you, too.” He grins, but doesn’t dare to walk closer, to close the distance between them. Regardless of how much he’d like to, he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to.
15.
“I kept comparing Rob with you. I didn’t like his shoes because they weren’t fancy enough, I hated the fact that he didn’t use thousands of hair products or that he didn’t watch Gossip Girl.”
“You don’t even like Gossip girl.”
They both laugh, and it all feels so good and so normal. It’s almost as if nothing has changed between them. It’s like they’re the friends they used to be when they first met. It’s all a well-built illusion. What he doesn’t know is whose illusion this is; his or Kris’.
“I don’t, and I don’t like expensive restaurants and having my face plastered on every trashy magazine. But none of these really mattered when I was with you.”
“So what does this mean?”
Kris shrugs, and starts playing with the hem of his shirt nervously. “I don’t know, honestly. I’ve been thinking about that day when we last saw each other. You told me you loved me, but I was too scared to believe it.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for that. I’ve been a jerk to you.” Adam says, bitterly. He wishes there would be a way to undo everything that he’s done to Kris.
“It was my fault, too. I shouldn’t have insisted to be with you when I knew full well that you loved Brad.” He smiles, but it all feels too fake, too rehearsed to be real. Adam suddenly realizes that the air has changed between them, that reality has set in, and that they need to talk about what happened between them. And still, he doesn’t know how to start. It feels like no matter what words he uses, nothing will change between them, and everything will be in vain.
“We both screwed up.” These are the best words he manages to come up with. At least they are true.
“I guess we did. It took me months to realize that you told me the truth that day, that you did love me, but by the time I realized that, it was already too late. You had already left to Europe and it took me weeks before I learned your itinerary. You were in Romania, so I took the first plane to Bucharest, and started looking for you at the most luxurious hotels. Never in a million years would I have guessed that you were sharing an apartment with a history student.”
“Hey, I’m not that high maintenance.” Except that he kind of is. A platinum album and a sold-out world tour will do that to you.
Kris looks at him indulgently, like he’s just humoring him, before starting again. “I didn’t know what to tell you. And it’s stupid. I came all the way to Europe to find you and talk to you, but I didn’t know what I should tell you. So I decided to wait for the perfect moment, you know?”
“And the perfect moment was in Paris, the city of love and all that shit. Damn, Allen, you really don’t do anything half-assed.”
Kris laughs, staring at Adam in a strange and yet so familiar way. Adam thinks he remembers this look, but he can’t tell for sure at this point. He’s spent such a long time trying to block Kris out of his head that all the memories feel like a dream.
“Do you-“ He starts, but he gets scared of the meaning of the question and he stops, trying to figure out what he should say to make his words sound as neutral as possible. Sadly enough, his brain seems to have short-circuited-damn it. “Do you think we should start over again?”
“Yes,” And his voice is trembling, almost like he can’t actually believe that this is actually happening. “I want that. Do you?”
“Yes.” His reply doesn’t seem as convincing as he would have wanted to. Well, screw words, they’ve always been a vicious thing, they’ve always left room for doubt. He closes the distance between them. As he kisses Kris, all the broken pieces seem to fall into place.
When they pull apart, Kris is smiling at him, and Adam remembers this look. It’s how Kris always looked at him after they kissed.
“Are you ready to go home?” Kris asks.
Adam laughs. He now understands what Frank meant. They’re in an impersonal hotel room and miles away from what he calls home, but he realizes that it doesn’t matter anymore, because home is where Kris is-it’s not something material, or tangible, it’s the feeling you get when you’re with someone you love.
“Or we could spend some time in Europe. I saw this awesome music shop in Wien.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
He takes Kris in his arms and smiles contentedly. There’s a certain peace within him that he’s always associated to the one a soldier feels when coming back from war. The bombs and explosions are but a distant memory, but even so, the scars are still there, quiet reminders of his mistakes, and it will take time to finally admit to himself that he can be happy. After all, maybe the biggest wars are not fought between armies, but with ourselves and the fight is a constant in our lives, just like the need for peace or of a place that you can call home.
Non-Warning: you might come across some shameless promotion of my country. I'm sorry about that, but I couldn't help it.
9.
In spite of what his mother might say, Adam thinks Couch Surfing is a very good idea.
It’s a little bit pathetic that he resolved to these kind of things, that he’d do pretty much anything to be around people, but he tries not to think too much about it. He doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s too scared to be alone because it would give him too much time to think about his screw ups or the fact that he doesn’t quite know how to glue the pieces of his life back together. Instead, he tries to reason with the fact that he spent almost a month with someone like Frank. Meeting another social recluse should be a piece of cake to Adam-a low calorie one because one can never be too careful about their weight.
This is probably why he ends up spending a couple of long hours holed up in a hotel room, drinking limoncello and browsing the net, trying to find the perfect person. In fact, he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for, or how ‘perfect’ should look like in terms of Couch Surfing. Maybe it doesn’t really matter. After all, to his mind, Couch Surfing is like an altered version of Russian Roulette-there’s no bullet, but if you can’t get along with the person who’s supposed to be hosting you, you might need one to shoot them in the head.
For some reason, he tries to find someone like Frank. He looks and looks for someone different, who doesn’t want to meet new people and make new friends. It’s kind of pointless and five hours and one bottle of limoncello later, he realizes that there’s no way he’s going to find someone like Frank on a socializing network. The point of Couch surfing is meeting new people and making new friends.
He’s very close to giving up when he stumbles upon Vlad’s profile, a Romanian history student who lives in Bucharest and loves The Beatles and playing guitar. At a first sight, Adam and this guy don’t have anything in common. They’re as different as two people can be, but this is probably the reason why Adam finds him so interesting, why he spends a whole lot of time browsing through his profile, reading comments and blog entries, before deciding to send him a message.
All in all, Adam thinks he made a good decision. This guy seems interesting enough, he has good reviews from other people that visited him in the past, and seems to live in a pretty interesting place.
The fact that Vlad reminds him of Kris is of no importance. Really.
10.
Adam comes to the conclusion that meeting Vlad is a very good idea, and this should surprise him, because they have absolutely nothing in common. They come from different cultures, they have different tastes in music, different views upon life, but even so, or maybe because of this, they get along pretty well. Their conversations, though a little bit stilted at first, are really refreshing to Adam. After spending so much time with Frank, Adam forgot how good it felt to be around people like Vlad, to just laugh at stupid things and not think about all the things that he’s done wrong.
He spends his first night in Romania drinking some kind of Romanian liquor that might be stronger than vodka, and listening to Vlad’s stories about communism and Romanian folklore, about poetry and the Romanians struggles to unify the state back in the 19th and 20th century. He tells Adam that he loves his country, but hates what it has become.
“I love my country, but everything has become such a mess recently. People say that communism was better-they had jobs back then, and a place to live. There wasn’t freedom of expression, and the regime had spies everywhere, but who cares, as long as you had the Government to tell you what to do.”
“Do you remember how it was back then?”
“Not really. I was just a kid, but from what I heard from my parents and grandparents, things were really bad. When the regime collapsed, people thought that things would get better, that they’d be free and happy-or whatever shit people were dreaming about back then. They didn’t understand that they couldn’t magically move from one stage to another-change takes time, man.” He laughs as he says this.
Adam brings his knees to his chest. Although he got used to the European weather, he always feels cold at nights. “People will never be pleased with the status quo.”
Vlad laughs. “I guess you are right. We got used to the privileges other people fought or died for. We take everything for granted. Nowadays, we can do whatever we want and get away with it. Back then, you could get executed for so much as being suspected of plotting against the regime. It’s was all bullshit. They used oppression to make people obey them.”
Adam shrugs. He never really knew what to say in these kind of situations, whether judging another culture is a good idea or not. These kind of subjects are always hard to talk about, even between people who have known each other for a very long time.
“I guess it’s the same with every country…”
“I guess. It just angers me when I hear people complain about the Government, but won’t do anything about it.” He smiles, softly. “I’m sorry, I must be boring you to death with politics and history. As a guy who studies history, I get a little passionate about certain subjects.”
“It’s alright. It’s really interesting actually. I like listening to people’s stories.”
“Yeah, well, I was too young at that time to understand what was going on. All I know is from history books and what I heard from other people. We could go and visit my grandparents one of these days. They have far more interesting stories to tell.”
“That would be great.”
Adam stares at Vlad for a couple of moments. He looks pretty young like this, his hair sticks up in every direction, and his eyes, although tired, hide the kind of innocence that only inexperience and young age can have. He talks with regret about things he didn’t experience, and even if Adam can tell that the current situation bothers Vlad, he realizes that this regret is not heartfelt. Vlad didn’t live all these things he’s talking about, thus he can’t know how it was back then.
It suddenly downs on him that maybe this is how his situation must have looked like to his friends, or family. They’ve seen him go down on that slippery slope of fame and uncertainty, and they thought they understood what he was going through, how he was feeling, but they didn’t-they couldn’t have because they weren’t in his shoes. They just saw the surface, the mask he was putting on every day, and that was pretty much it.
And maybe he should have asked for help, quit the fucking bravado act. It shouldn’t have been this hard. After all, he had-has-people who love him, who want what’s best for him, so they would have done everything in their power to help him go through everything. Maybe if he did that, he and Kris would still be together, they would have the happily ever after Adam dreamed of when he was just a naïve little boy. But then again, all the coulda, woulda, shoulda have never been of any help to anyone.
He smiles at Vlad, and makes a mental note to send his mother a text to tell her that he’s alright now, that he’s finally gluing the pieces of his life together. And funnily enough, it feels like it’s the truth.
11.
Of all the countries he’s visited so far, he thinks he likes Romania the best. There’s something so strange about this country that it intrigues him, leaves him breathless, confused, and a little bit awed at how remotely different it is from America.
Romania is a poor country, not exactly glamorous, and not quite suitable for his pretentious self. People, especially the older ones, are simple, confusingly so, but they consider him one of them now. They frown at his passion for makeup, don’t understand the importance of a good pair of shoes, but somehow, they accept him.
He’s been here for three weeks now, and although he knows he should leave soon, he wants to stay a little bit longer, not forever, because, truth be told, he’s more high maintenance than Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian combined. He might not be that much of a gold digger, though. He has values and pride and he’s sure that being someone’s toy wouldn’t be too fun. Plus, he doesn’t know what kind of woman would have such low self-esteem to be in a relationship with him, a gay man who puts more store by appearances than her. He also has enough money to last him for two lives, so yeah, kind of pointless comparison. The thing is, Romania is not for him, it will never be enough for him, but for now, it feels like home and nothing has felt like home in a very long time so leaving wouldn’t make much sense to him.
Any now and then, he thinks of Frank, of his strangeness, of how good it felt to be with someone who was more fucked up than him. It makes him sad that they had to part ways, but he knows deep down, that it was the right thing to do.
The camaraderie between them has always been a temporary thing. He’s too broken to build strong friendships, and Frank-well Frank is just Frank, a loner, a troubled soul with a troubled past.
And besides, being with Frank wouldn’t have done him any help. He would have secluded himself from the world, become what Frank was, and he’s not like that. He needs to be around people, to laugh about frivolities and make small talk about stupid and unimportant things. He needs people’s company to heal his broken heart, and this need is like air to him. Each time he finds himself alone, he feels like he’s suffocating, like the walls are closing in, and all the mistakes he’s done in the past are coming back to haunt him.
And still, the temporary bliss he has found in this country is nothing but a house of cards and it’s almost surprising how he didn’t realize this before it fell apart before his eyes. To anyone else, receiving a text in the middle of the night would be strange, but it wouldn’t make any difference. Life would go on with or without that text, and maybe, if it was from anyone else, Adam would feel the same way, too.
Maybe years from now, he will still be able to remember every single detail of this night; the dirty plate in the sink, the taste of Romanian beer on his tongue, even the way the cold, tiled floor felt against his bare feet.
The electronic clock on the wall shows 11:16 when his phone beeps in his jeans’ pocket. He curses out loud as he tries to pull the phone out from his too tight jeans. He promises yet again that he will try and buy clothes a size or two bigger next time he goes shopping. When he finally pulls his phone out and sees the sender, the house of cards he’s built over the last weeks falls,together with his phone, and naturally, he forgets his passcode. He types the wrong code six times, before remembering his mother’s birth year.
‘I heard Romania is really cold during this time of the year.’
Maybe Kris didn’t mean anything by this message, but reading it, still breaks Adam’s heart. He’s tried so hard to forget. He almost managed to convince himself that he was over Kris, but now it all comes rushing back to him, and he starts feeling something again-what exactly, he can’t tell.
What does Kris want from him? If he doesn’t want Adam back, then why is he so cruel to give Adam false hopes again?
He sighs, then takes a swig from the beer he opened this evening. He doesn’t like the taste of Romanian beer. It’s too strong for him, and it gives him the worst hangovers. However, he kind of needs something strong right now, just to take his mind off of Kris for a little while, to give him some time to breathe and think right.
The problem with alcohol is that it makes him stupid and reckless, which is probably why his hands type on their own accord a reply to Kris. ‘I’m in luck, then. Fur coats are in trend this year.’
12.
2nd of February finds him on a train to Paris. He’s a walking cliché, an American visiting the city of love and gawking at the tower of Eifel and frowning at the way the French people speak. He can’t speak French to save his life and the French people can’t or don’t want to speak English.
He left Romania two days after receiving Kris’ message. He has no idea whether leaving Bucharest was a good decision or if France was the best destination for him, but then again, nothing feels wrong or right to him anymore. He keeps questioning himself all the time, thinking and over thinking things like he’s some kind of philosopher trying to find the meaning of life. Sometimes his behavior makes him laugh. He’s always considered himself an emotional person, but the way he is right now - well that’s taking things a little bit too far. Some days he thinks he should have written about his experiences in a journal and publish it if his music career doesn’t work out.
On his fourth day in Paris, a fan finds him. She’s a petite blonde girl who seems to be on some sort of drug or high on caffeine. Adam can’t tell for sure, but he thinks it’s impossible for a person to be this small and have this kind of energy.
Her English is very bad and he can barely understand her. He wants to ask her to talk slower because it’s very hard for him to follow what she’s saying, but this task seems impossible. Like most of the French people, she can’t or doesn’t want to understand him.
She stops talking for a couple of seconds and Adam immediately takes the opportunity to ask her about the best clubs in Paris. Her eyes bug out again and starts talking even faster than before if that was possible, this time using her hands to emphasize her words. Adam would like to ask her about what she’s on because he kind of wants to have this energy, too, but he’s afraid that his question might lead to another round of broken English and explanations he can’t really understand.
She tells him about this Chris Allain who sang in this coffee shop, not far from the Louvre, last night. Apparently he’s an American, too, and he sings the most beautiful chansonettes. Adam is not stupid; he can put two and two together and this Chris Allain is a little bit suspicious to him, so he makes a mental note to check this place tonight. Maybe it’s his Kris.
13.
The coffee shop is indeed beautiful. It has this really French, romantic atmosphere that makes his heart swell a little. It doesn’t hurt to be here, doesn’t bring him any painful memories, and this realization surprises him a bit. Maybe he’s on the right track after all. Maybe he’s finally on that clichéd path to self discovery that he’s unconsciously been for the last couple of months.
He smiles dumbly and feels like laughing, because really, how can’t he not be happy that he’s finally becoming himself again. It doesn’t feel like he imagined it would feel; quite the contrary, actually. He still remembers every single thing he did, how his insecurities drove Kris away, how he lost the chance to a really good relationship, how fame turned him into someone he hated. He regrets everything he did, consciously or unconsciously, but he realizes that he wouldn’t change a thing. Everything that happened led him to this point, to this small coffee shop in Paris, and he thinks that although he’s still the same Adam Lambert he’s always been, he’s a different man too, better and wiser.
A waiter leads him to a table in a corner, then brings him a menu. Now, he might not know French to save his life, but he does know wines, so when the waiter comes back to take his order, he manages to order in broken French a Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc. The waiter nods in response, leaving Adam alone again.
He plays with a packet of cigarettes he has from Frank, before taking one out. He turns to the table behind him to ask for a lighter, but changes his mind as he hears a voice he knows far too well.
“Hi, thanks for coming tonight.” That unmistakable southern accent he’s missed so much. He doesn’t know what Kris’ being here means, if he should hope that things will be all right between them, but it still makes him feel-what exactly, he can’t really tell and maybe it doesn’t even matter at this point.
Without even knowing, he starts smiling, the packet of cigarettes forgotten.
Adam remembers this song. It’s a cover of ‘Losing my religion’ by REM. Kris used to play it all the time when they were together, but Adam didn’t understand the meaning of this song until Kris left him. He suddenly thinks of the meaning of this moment. It feels like closure, somehow. No matter how this evening ends, Adam knows that it will help him get closure.
14.
Once the set is over, Adam makes his way to the stage to greet Kris. Considering the circumstances, he feels incredibly calm. His heart beats are almost steady and his palms perfectly dry. It’s strange that he feels this composed. The last time he saw Kris, he was a nervous wreck. This time, however, he feels like he’s meeting an old friend, not someone who’s quite possibly the love of his life.
“I would have never thought you were such a cliché,” He says as loud as he can, trying to cover the sound of European house that started playing in the café.
Kris just raises his hands in defense with a smile. He looks different now. Older, maybe, or wiser. Adam can’t tell for sure what has changed, but he kind of likes the change. Somehow it’s more Kris.
“Yeah, well, I saw this chick flick once about a girl who met a guy in Paris. Thought I should give it a try, too.”
“Yeah? And did you meet anyone yet?”
“Might have.” Kris smiles that crooked smile that still takes Adam’s breath away. And suddenly his hands start sweating, and his heart starts picking up speed. Damn Kris Allen and his way of making Adam go weak in his knees.
“Hmm, and here I thought that French men are too fancy for your taste.”
Kris waves his hand in the air, like he’s trying emphasize words or maybe to gain some time and give Adam a proper reply. “Yeah, well, they have great tastes in food and clothes. I’m not here for the French men, though. I like American boys.”
“I’m sure American boys like you, too.” He grins, but doesn’t dare to walk closer, to close the distance between them. Regardless of how much he’d like to, he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to.
15.
“I kept comparing Rob with you. I didn’t like his shoes because they weren’t fancy enough, I hated the fact that he didn’t use thousands of hair products or that he didn’t watch Gossip Girl.”
“You don’t even like Gossip girl.”
They both laugh, and it all feels so good and so normal. It’s almost as if nothing has changed between them. It’s like they’re the friends they used to be when they first met. It’s all a well-built illusion. What he doesn’t know is whose illusion this is; his or Kris’.
“I don’t, and I don’t like expensive restaurants and having my face plastered on every trashy magazine. But none of these really mattered when I was with you.”
“So what does this mean?”
Kris shrugs, and starts playing with the hem of his shirt nervously. “I don’t know, honestly. I’ve been thinking about that day when we last saw each other. You told me you loved me, but I was too scared to believe it.”
“I guess I can’t blame you for that. I’ve been a jerk to you.” Adam says, bitterly. He wishes there would be a way to undo everything that he’s done to Kris.
“It was my fault, too. I shouldn’t have insisted to be with you when I knew full well that you loved Brad.” He smiles, but it all feels too fake, too rehearsed to be real. Adam suddenly realizes that the air has changed between them, that reality has set in, and that they need to talk about what happened between them. And still, he doesn’t know how to start. It feels like no matter what words he uses, nothing will change between them, and everything will be in vain.
“We both screwed up.” These are the best words he manages to come up with. At least they are true.
“I guess we did. It took me months to realize that you told me the truth that day, that you did love me, but by the time I realized that, it was already too late. You had already left to Europe and it took me weeks before I learned your itinerary. You were in Romania, so I took the first plane to Bucharest, and started looking for you at the most luxurious hotels. Never in a million years would I have guessed that you were sharing an apartment with a history student.”
“Hey, I’m not that high maintenance.” Except that he kind of is. A platinum album and a sold-out world tour will do that to you.
Kris looks at him indulgently, like he’s just humoring him, before starting again. “I didn’t know what to tell you. And it’s stupid. I came all the way to Europe to find you and talk to you, but I didn’t know what I should tell you. So I decided to wait for the perfect moment, you know?”
“And the perfect moment was in Paris, the city of love and all that shit. Damn, Allen, you really don’t do anything half-assed.”
Kris laughs, staring at Adam in a strange and yet so familiar way. Adam thinks he remembers this look, but he can’t tell for sure at this point. He’s spent such a long time trying to block Kris out of his head that all the memories feel like a dream.
“Do you-“ He starts, but he gets scared of the meaning of the question and he stops, trying to figure out what he should say to make his words sound as neutral as possible. Sadly enough, his brain seems to have short-circuited-damn it. “Do you think we should start over again?”
“Yes,” And his voice is trembling, almost like he can’t actually believe that this is actually happening. “I want that. Do you?”
“Yes.” His reply doesn’t seem as convincing as he would have wanted to. Well, screw words, they’ve always been a vicious thing, they’ve always left room for doubt. He closes the distance between them. As he kisses Kris, all the broken pieces seem to fall into place.
When they pull apart, Kris is smiling at him, and Adam remembers this look. It’s how Kris always looked at him after they kissed.
“Are you ready to go home?” Kris asks.
Adam laughs. He now understands what Frank meant. They’re in an impersonal hotel room and miles away from what he calls home, but he realizes that it doesn’t matter anymore, because home is where Kris is-it’s not something material, or tangible, it’s the feeling you get when you’re with someone you love.
“Or we could spend some time in Europe. I saw this awesome music shop in Wien.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
He takes Kris in his arms and smiles contentedly. There’s a certain peace within him that he’s always associated to the one a soldier feels when coming back from war. The bombs and explosions are but a distant memory, but even so, the scars are still there, quiet reminders of his mistakes, and it will take time to finally admit to himself that he can be happy. After all, maybe the biggest wars are not fought between armies, but with ourselves and the fight is a constant in our lives, just like the need for peace or of a place that you can call home.