Suite d'Existence - 6. Da Capo al Fine

On the ride back to the hotel, neither of them had spoken. The first tourists were hiking towards the beach at this moment; time hadn’t halted during the early event and it was half past eight now. The elderly couples, dressed like they were to climb Mount Everest, greeted the two cyclists on their way up. Both men looked like they needed some sleep.

“Ernest! Good morning! Oh, hi Tristan. Everything okay?” Upon arrival they were greeted by Ids, one of the well-dressed lecturers in Dutch, who apparently just bought the morning paper. Sylvia was strolling not far behind him, carrying a bottle of shampoo and some magazine. She immediately noticed the presence of her friends.

“Hi guys, did something happen?”

“Nah, we’re fine now. We just needed an empty beach to kill each other off.” Ernest winked.

“You’ve already seen the sea? It’s barely nine o’clock!” Ids said with unbelief. Sylvia shot him an annoyed look before moving her eyes towards the entrance. He understood her hint, excused himself and went inside.

“You sure you’re all right? Tristan?”

Tristan still hadn’t said a word. He didn’t know what to say; the only thing he wanted to do was lock himself inside his room and stay there ‘till Monday morning.

“We’re fine. He’s…He’s fine. Tristan was going to let me listen to some opera I hadn’t heard of yet. We’re okay, Syl”, Ernest stated calmly. The woman didn’t seem to buy his statement completely, but she accepted it anyway.

“Right…Okay, be nice, yeah?” she whispered to them, still a bit suspicious of the sudden friendliness between her friends. Ernest nodded.

“De Witte! Don’t let Tristan lock you in his room!”

Tristan looked up in horror. What the hell had Ids meant by that, and why was he even eavesdropping?

“He tried to get me hooked unto that baroque-stuff once, he really wouldn’t stop talking about it!” his colleague continued from behind the doors.

“Don’t worry, I can defend myself if I want to.” Ernest smiled a cheeky smile. “Come on dude, I want to hear that Ouverture”, he said as he practically dragged Tristan inside, leaving a bewildered friend and an amused Ids behind.

Once arrived at their rooms, Ernest halted and turned around. “Is it okay if I put on some dry clothes? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Tristan nodded in response, still trying to come to terms with the confession he’d just made, in front of a relative stranger. Before trapping himself into a web of spiraling negative thoughts, he felt a warm and strong hand on his shoulder.

“Sure? The clothes can wait, if you—“

“No, it’s fine. I… I’ll wait.”

He felt Ernest’s grip tighten briefly, before releasing his shoulder altogether.

“Okay, see you in a minute.”

A minute it was; he’d kept his promise. Tristan, in the meanwhile, had taken seat on one side of the bed. When he heard the door opening slowly, he therefore wasn’t facing whoever came in to help.

He wasn’t even sure if he wanted anymore help. The easiest way to end it all, was to escape once again. Not literally, of course, that would be silly. No, just to forget everything that had happened and start over. Except he wasn’t so sure it’d work this time.

There was always the choice, however, to not give in to the feelings. Even that seemed ridiculous now, though. It was too late to confess now, even though the mental crime had been committed. To fall in love again with…to do this again, after all these years… It just wouldn’t work out as well this time.

“Can I come in?” a friendly voice asked.

“Yeah…”, Tristan answered, still not sure of what he was doing. The slow footsteps made it clear that, whatever decision he’d make, there was no chance of turning back.

When a silhouette appeared in front of him, blocking the light from the window, he wasn’t confident he wanted to travel this road at all. No, this would only cause trouble for him and his family. It were for the best he ended this farce now.

“Hey, are you feeling a bit better?”

The plan to stop driving and turn around had quickly been thrown out of the window upon hearing the concerned voice. Tristan didn’t dare to look up, which caused the silhouette to squat down to face him.

“I don’t bite, you know.”

“I’m feeling…nothing really actually”, Tristan managed to mumble, still avoiding to look at Ernest’s face. His beautiful blue eyes.

The latter got up and took seat at the other end of the bedside. He’d changed into a pair of khaki shorts and a navy t-shirt that was a bit too large, Tristan noticed.

I shouldn’t notice that. Please, just try a bit harder to transform your thoughts back to normal. Try it for your wife, for Sara and Daan. They couldn’t possibly live with the truth. They shouldn’t have to.

Oh god, I should never have accepted the job. Maybe I wouldn’t have met him then. Yes, he’s unbelievably smart, well-mannered, kind, handsome, but… Fuck. No ‘but’.

Stop thinking about this! Just stop and continue to live your life. Don’t forget to keep the ‘f’ in that word. Nobody has to know the truth. It’s all for the best. Breathe in…one…two…three…

It worked out fine so far, right? The house was nice, Mara was really great, she’d fit the plans quite perfectly. Breathe out…one…two…three…

No, how can I even think something like that? I lóve her. She’s pretty, and wise, and it had taken some work but they were good together. Should something like that take work? Shit. Breathe in…one…two… Breathe out…one… Breathe in…Breathe out…

“Tristan? Tristan, calm down.”

Well, that was just great. A second trip into self-suffocating was just what this situation had needed. His friend had moved quickly towards him when he’d noticed him hyperventilating. Tristan felt a strong hand he’d felt before stroking his back. Out of the blue, he grabbed Ernest’s other hand while trying to stop his panic attack.

“Fuck…I’m…sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be. Just relax, try to breathe slowly.”

And so they sat for around five minutes, both breathing slowly, one more aware of the situation than the other. It wasn’t until Tristan noticed the position of his hand that the silence was broken. He quickly released the hand of his colleague and moved away a bit. Ernest didn’t seem to be offended.

“Hey, are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, thanks. I don’t know why that happened all of a sudden. It really hasn’t happened a lot since…It didn’t happen often lately, and now twice in a day…”

Though Tristan had so far seemed the most confident of the two, it was Ernest who played the role of hero this time. His shyness had been replaced by a reassuring way of talking, without sounding like a know-it-all.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Uh…I don’t…No. Not yet.”

Now he wanted to face the hero even less. He wasn’t used to being this vulnerable, at least not while having taken the medication. Tristan already regretted adding the word ‘yet’; it implied he would tell about his background in the future.

That was a thought he didn’t want his brain to be occupied with at the moment. It was hard enough as it was. The warm hand on his shoulder, again, forced him to look at his colleague, though.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t…”

“It’s fine, miller, I still owe you a bit of my background too.”

The nickname caused Tristan to smile a little.

“Miller? Seriously?” he grinned.

“Yep,” Ernest said while smiling that beautiful smile of his, “seriously. And I want you to keep looking like that.”

“Like what?”

“No, don’t let that smile drop. I want you to smile, it’s nicer when you look happy. Being happy would be even more great, of course.” The hand stroked his upper arm briefly, before being drawn back to the other body. Now it was ‘the hero’ who apologized.

“Sorry, I don’t want you to think—“

“No, it’s fine. We just need to talk a lot about some things…soon.”

“Indeed. You deserve to know about…Well, about—“

The somewhat awkward conversation was disturbed by a series of loud knocks and an enthusiastic voice.

“Are you guys still alive in there?” Ids called from his position in the hallway. “We’re going to go for a swim, would you like to join us? I think some of the biologists are going bird-spotting, but I figured you’d probably not fancy that. Hello? Are you still in there?”

During the short monologue, neither of the friends had spoken a word. Ernest got up to decline Ids’ offer, but Tristan was quicker.

“Sure, Koster, one can never swim too much, can he?” he called, still sitting on the edge of the double bed. His coworker shot him a surprised and concerned look.

“Are you sure?” he whispered. “I don’t want to sound overly concerned, but you just—“

“I need to get out of here. It’s… I just need some distraction, okay?”

He received an agreeing nod from Ernest and both of them walked to the door before opening it simultaneously. The sudden movement had startled Ids, which caused him to stumble backwards, almost hitting the wall behind him.

“Jesus! You could have at least warned me! I could have—“

“Do you want to go for a swim, or not”, Tristan interrupted him, a lot more eloquent than an hour ago.

Ernest liked seeing his colleague functioning like his normal self. Though he wasn’t completely sure if he really was, it was great to see him smile and act like this.

-

It was way too cold for this time of year. While the sun had encouragingly dried the grass earlier this morning, now it had been replaced with a mostly grey sky and a not so comfortable outside temperature. Even for the Netherlands 12 °C was cold on the 22^nd of June. The north sea hadn’t had time to warm up either. It didn’t keep the group from plunging around in the water, though.

While trying to push a few of his male colleagues over, Tristan noticed Ernest’s absence. He had gone into the sea with them; together they’d swum a few laps not too long ago. Now he was nowhere to be seen. A little bit worried, he nudged Sylvia, who was still recovering from the last time she’d been tackled by a coworker.

“Hey, did you see Ernest leave? He was here a minute ago, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, I think he went to dry himself off. Anyway, he went towards the dunes on the right of the path, where we’ve left our stuff. Tristan, are you sure everything’s all right?”

“It’s fine Syl, let’s not ruin the trip because of me acting stupid, okay?”

“Fine”, she answered hesitantly.

“Thanks by the way, I’ll see if I can get him to join us again. You’d expect him to be able to handle a bit of cold water, right?” He grinned.