As soon as he opened the door, Jimmy went straight to the bathroom.

What had he done? How could he have been so foolish? Why would he kiss Ren in front of all those people? It was disgusting. It wasn’t what he liked. For years he’d been fantasizing about kissing men, but it wasn’t him. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t like Ren. How could Ren like that? Jimmy didn’t like that. He was drunk. Every time they kissed, he’d been drunk.

He jumped in the shower. He needed to rub Ren off him. Ren was a bad influence. Jimmy had always kept to himself. He had never attempted to appease the dirty thoughts with a real life interaction. He’d never succumbed to the sin. The dirty feelings. It was disgusting. What had he done?

He grabbed the loofa and poured a large amount of soap onto it, then scratched his body with it. He had to get Ren off him. He had to get his touches off him. He had to get the way he made Jimmy feel off him. He never wanted to do it again. How could he? Was it worth losing his life over? Was it worth losing his family over a kiss? How could he have thought he was gay all these years when he did not enjoy kissing Ren? He wasn’t. That was it. Simple as that. He might have thought he was, but he wasn’t. Surely you had to like kissing men to be gay, and he didn’t, so how could he be gay?

Still, Jimmy rubbed every inch of his body. He didn’t want Ren anywhere near him. Not his touches and definitely not the remnants of them on his skin. He brushed his teeth. He brushed them until his gums bled and he washed his mouth with all the water. Until it ran clean.

It was cleansing. To see the blood thin in the sink. It was as if the sin was washing away and leaving him renewed. Renewed as a confident, certainly not-gay man. He couldn’t look in the mirror. He avoided it as he patted his body dry with the towel and turned the other way when he was ready to come out of the bathroom.

He got dressed and went to the balcony for a cigarette.

His dad appeared at the window door rubbing his sleep off his eyes.

‘What are you doing up so late? Were you out again?’

‘Yes,’ Jimmy whispered. His voice was hoarse from a rough night out.

‘Come on Dimitri. This is getting ridiculous. How the fuck are we going to get out of debt if you keep wasting your money away like that? Huh, tell me? I thought you picked up extra hours at work. Why weren’t you working?’

Jimmy flicked the ash in the ashtray. ‘I finished early.’

Stavros huffed. ‘Why? It wouldn’t hurt you to work some more?’

Jimmy pursed his lips and sucked in as much smoke as he could. ‘I can’t work twenty-four hours a day, dad. There are other people who work there. What am I going to tell them? Sorry, guys. I’ll work your shifts from now on. Bye?’

‘Don’t mock me,’ he said.

‘I’m not mocking you.’ That was the last thing he was doing. He let the smoke out and took another drag.

‘Whatever. You still haven’t told me how we’re going to pay the instalment this month if you waste your money to tavernas and clubs, heh?’

Jimmy put the cigarette out in the ashtray and took another one out of the packet.

‘I don’t know. It’s not my debt. Why don’t you work more hours?’

‘You think I don’t want to? But I’m getting old. I can’t handle it like I used to,’ Stavros stepped out into the balcony.

The neighbourhood was quiet and serene.

‘Whatever you say,’ Jimmy said.

‘And that debt will be yours one day if we don’t pay it off.’

That fucking debt. Jimmy was sick of hearing about that fucking debt.

‘Well, it’s not my fault you can’t pay twenty thousand off, is it? I will worry about doing my part when it becomes my debt. And thanks for thinking of me when you took that loan, by the way. I’m glad you thought it through.’

His dad smacked his hand on the table. ‘Don’t you dare say that to me. We took that loan with your mother to get you through school and get you educated and to see you have a better life than we did.’

‘And look where that got you. Mom is dead and I’m a waste of space.’ Jimmy got up and left the balcony. He grabbed his keys and his shoes and walked out the door.

‘Come back,’ Stavros shouted at him.

Jimmy was already in the elevator, putting his shoes on.

He went down Diagora Street and walked along Lampraki. The tears rolled as soon as he got into the park. His life was fucked up. Why couldn’t he be normal? And why did he have to take it out on his dad? Apologizing was harder than fighting with him, but he’d have to do it. He loved Stavros too much to let him think he hated him.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

Are you okay? Did I do something? Why did you leave like that?

No. He was not okay. Yes, Ren did do something. He made Jimmy want things. He made him feel things. Things he couldn’t be feeling. Not now, not ever.