The Childhood That Was Taken – Chapter XVI

The Kiss

Queer Fiction 🔞
I went back to the small house three days after the funeral.
The key turned in the lock with the same sound it always made. That small, metallic click. I pushed the door open, and the smell hit me first. Stale air. Dust. The faint, sweetish scent of something that had been left too long in the fridge.
And beneath it all, the absence. The absence of Tibor.
I stood in the doorway for a long time. The house looked exactly as it had on that morning when I found him. The bathroom doorway was shrouded in shadow. The kitchen chair where he used to sit so often. The coffee table with the empty glass. The TV remote on the armrest, as if he had just put it down and would come back any moment.
But he wouldn't come back.
I closed the door behind me and locked it. I didn't unlock it for three days.
The first day, I didn't do anything. I sat on the couch, staring toward the bathroom where he had died. I stared at the wall. I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I just sat there, waiting for something that never came.
The memories came instead.
Tibor laughing in the kitchen, making terrible jokes. Tibor sitting in that chair, reading, looking up at me with those kind eyes. Tibor's hand on my shoulder. Tibor's voice saying, "You're going to be okay, kid."
And then Tibor in there, on the bathroom floor. Tibor, cold and gray. Tibor, gone.
I didn't cry. I couldn't. The tears were there, somewhere deep inside, but they wouldn't come. They were stuck behind a wall of something harder than grief. Something like stone.
On the second day, I went to the store. I bought bread, canned food, milk, and two cases of beer. The cashier knew me. She smiled. I didn't smile back.
I went home, opened a beer, and drank it standing in the kitchen. Then another. Then another.
By the fourth beer, the edges of the world began to soften. The memories weren't as sharp. The pain wasn't as loud. The stone inside me began to crack, just a little, and I could breathe.
I drank until I couldn't stand. Then I crawled to the couch and passed out.
That became my routine.
Wake up. The room spinning. The taste of stale beer in my mouth. The nausea rising in my throat. Stumble to the bathroom—to the very place where my entire world had collapsed. Kneel in front of the toilet. Vomit until there was nothing left but bile.
Brush my teeth. Splash water on my face. Look in the mirror at the man I didn't recognize anymore.
Then open the fridge. Not for food. For beer.
The first beer of the day was always the hardest. My stomach clenched, my hand shook. But I forced it down. And by the second, the shaking stopped. By the third, I could think. By the fourth, I didn't want to think anymore.
Eight to ten beers a day. Sometimes more. I lost count.
The days blurred together. Monday became Tuesday became Saturday became nothing. The only marker was the empty bottles lining up on the kitchen counter. A row of green soldiers. My only companions.
I stopped answering the phone. I stopped checking messages. The world outside the small house ceased to exist. There was only the couch, the fridge, the toilet, and the endless, merciful fog of alcohol.
I was better when I was drunk. That was the truth. The sober moments were unbearable. In the sober moments, I felt everything. The loss. The loneliness. The fear. The shame.
The shame of being what I was. A faggot. A lonely, hiding chameleon who couldn't show his true colors. A man who was afraid of the world, afraid of the looks, the whispers, the judgment. Afraid of being seen.
So I drank to not be seen. Even by myself.
Months passed. I don't know how many. Three. Four. Maybe five.
The winter came and went. I didn't notice. The spring arrived. I didn't care. I went to work, did my job, came home, and drank. That was my life. A loop. A cycle. A slow, deliberate drowning.
One evening, I was sitting on the couch, a half-empty beer in my hand, staring at nothing. The TV was on, but I wasn't watching. The sound was just noise to fill the silence.
Then I heard a knock.
I didn't move. People didn't visit. No one came to this house anymore.
The knock came again. Harder. More insistent.
"Tomi? Are you in there?"
Réka's voice. Sharp. Worried.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My voice didn't work anymore. It had rusted from disuse.
The knocking stopped. Then I heard the key in the lock.
I had given her a key months ago. Before Tibor died. Before everything fell apart. I had forgotten she still had it.
The door opened. Réka stepped inside. She stopped in the doorway, and I saw her face change. The worry turned to shock. The shock turned to something deeper. Something like fear.
The house was a mess. Empty bottles everywhere. Dirty dishes in the sink. The curtains drawn. The air thick and sour.
And me. Sitting on the couch. Unshaven. Unwashed. A ghost in my own body.
"Tomi…" she whispered.
I looked at her. And then, for the first time in months, something broke inside me.
I don't remember standing up. I don't remember crossing the room. I only remember falling into her arms. My knees gave out, and I collapsed against her, my face buried in her shoulder. And the tears came.
Not gentle tears. Not quiet tears. Ugly, heaving, convulsive sobs that tore out of me like something alive. I cried like a child. Like the child I had never been allowed to be.
Réka didn't say anything. She just held me. Her arms wrapped around me, strong and warm. One hand cradled the back of my head. The other pressed against my back, rubbing slow, steady circles.
She held me while I shook. She held me while I soaked her shirt with tears and snot and years of pain. She held me like she had all the time in the world.
And slowly, the sobs subsided. The shaking stopped. I was left empty, drained, light-headed. But still alive. Still here.
Réka pulled back just enough to look at me. Her hands cupped my face, tilting it up. Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. A small, sad, beautiful smile.
"Tomi," she said, her voice soft but steady. "You are a lovable, valuable person. Don't you ever forget that."
I looked at her. Really looked at her. The way the light from the hallway fell on her face. The kindness in her eyes. The warmth of her hands on my cheeks.
And something shifted inside me. Something I didn't understand. Something I had never felt before.
I leaned forward and kissed her.
It wasn't planned. It wasn't thought out. It was just… there. My lips on hers. Soft. Tentative. Terrified.
I had never kissed a woman before. In my whole life, I had never kissed a woman. I had kissed men. I had hidden from women. I had built walls around myself so high that no one could reach me.
But Réka had climbed over them.
And she didn't pull away.
For a moment, neither of us moved. Then her lips softened against mine. Her hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, pulling me closer. Gently. Tenderly. As if I were something fragile that might break.
When we finally broke apart, we stood there, foreheads touching, breathing the same air.
"I don't understand," I whispered. "I'm… I'm not…"
"I know," she said quietly. "I know who you are, Tomi. I've always known. And it doesn't matter."
"But…"
"Nothing has to happen," she said. "Nothing has to mean anything. But if it meant something… that would be okay too."
I looked into her eyes. And for the first time in months, I didn't feel alone.
That night, I didn't drink.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Réka was asleep on the couch in the living room. I had offered her the bed, but she refused. "You need your space," she had said. "But I'll be here in the morning."
I listened to the silence. The house was still the same. The memories were still there. The grief was still there, a heavy stone in my chest.
But something had changed.
I had kissed a woman. And the world hadn't ended.
I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know if it meant anything at all. Maybe it was just loneliness. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was the beginning of something I couldn't name.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid to find out.
I closed my eyes. And I slept.

– End of Chapter XVI –