It's not gay (it is) | Kavetham

III | Undeniably depressed

Kaveh's phone buzzes, incessant and continuous, messages no doubt piling up all over again in his notifications. It's all numb to him, his head miles away as Kaveh walks down unfamiliar roads.

He should turn back. He should really be turning back by now.

And yet, Kaveh's legs don't stop moving. Even as his thoughts pick at the sides of his brain, "you're making a mistake, a mistake,". In the same breath, he thinks if his legs stop moving— stop putting one foot in front of the other, his brain will cease all functions.

The familiar pattern of his ringtone pulls him from his mind, stopping him briefly as it breaks through the echo of static.

Against his better judgment, he plucks his phone out of his pocket and the familiar face of his mother greets him from his phone.

The smiling photo of her Kaveh set as her contact judges him from his screen and his gut twists. He finds his thumb hitting accept before he can convince himself not to any more than he'd already started to.

"Hello," Kaveh's voice waves around the word. He's left unsure if it's from awkwardness or from the remains of emotions that linger on his tongue like a bitter aftertaste.

"Kaveh," Slight and quiet, his mother's voice responds back. "How have you been?"

"Uhm," Kaveh, by all intents, is not fine. He knows this and yet his mouth forms a "fine," before he can stop himself.

"Good, you studying hard?" She prattles on without waiting for an answer, instead leaving that sizable pause for her next question. "You meet any cute girls?"

Kaveh's left cringing, if it's from her prying or the horrible timing of her question, he isn't really sure. "Uhm, no not really."

His mother hums back in thought.

"What about that one girl in your writing class— the blue haired one," she trails off, voice lilting in question as if prodding him to fill in the blank.

"Layla?" He questions back after a few moments.

"Layla!"

Kaveh jerks the phone back at the rising octave of her voice and is left sucking in a breath through his teeth. He wasn't exactly sure how he was going to explain what being aromantic was to his aging mother.

"She doesn't date, mom."

"Nonsense, she's a cutie!" As if he'd never spoken, she blathers on about how cute they'd be and she could just picture them together and how cute their babies would be and— yeah, no.

"I'm pretty sure she's got someone else in mind." Guilt twists around in his stomach at the lie.

His mother accepts his words easily with a disheartened, "oh."

She bounces back fast, "c'est la vie, you'll find your match. I'm sure girls will be all over you, you've got your fathers looks," she says, her voice flippant.

The blurred abstract idea of his fathers face that remains unchanged from the few photos he's seen of him fills his mind. Kaveh fights off a sigh as he continues to pray for his mother to either change the subject or end the call.

"You know," she starts in that tone of voice, foregoing all of Kaveh's wishes of this conversation ending.

Her tone remains one Kaveh could pick apart a mile away, through fog and blindfolded he still could. A mixture of nostalgia dampened by the clutches of time with vague undertones of not yet, never will be, processed grief. "I met your father in college."

He knows. She's told every story she can about his father to him 20 times over. And yet, he lets her go on. Kaveh could probably recite it by heart, not that he'd really ever want to. Because the rest of the story lingers on as history, a history that will forever plague the two of them.