Young Writers Society

The train ride from Nice was long. Nine damn hours before he would even set foot in Brussels. And then only God knew how long it would be from there to St Mervyn. How did he even get there? Bus? His directions had been communicated to him by his tired, grieving mother, who understandably wasn't so focused on sorting her adult son's goddamn travel arrangements.

He tried to reassure himself. Belgian people speak French. And, it's kind of my homeland. Although, journey there aside, he wasn't sure how much faith he could put in his father. Would he have a warm bed, hot meals, somewhere to plug in his phone? It had been years since he'd even met the man in person. Since middle school, it was just Clément and his mother. And if not his mother, it was the education system he'd grown accustomed to. Neither of which would be at St Mervyn.

All these thoughts aside, Clément was a master of self-reliance. Upon daybreak, he'd gone to the market and stuffed his rucksack full of snacks for the way there. Dried stuff that wouldn't stink it out, caffeinated drinks in case he got too sleepy. He didn't like sleeping on public transport. That was something he'd learned through years of being dragged here and there. It wasn't safe. He'd even brought the next book in the Song of Ice and Fire series to keep his mind engaged. Or, at the very least, distracted. Why else do people read? George RR Martin, you intelligent bastard.

He leaned his head against the cold glass of the train window. It was always hard for Clément to get comfortable on trains. The vibrations tended to make his head bounce... Knock, knock, knock. Or all the people shuffling up and down the aisle, talking loudly, or the inspector coming around, checking to see if anyone had chanced to board without paying their fare. That aspect always troubled Clem. How did people get through the barriers without one? How did they stay calm? It wasn't so much the ethics of not paying for it he had an issue with. He would pay double just to not have the feelings of anxiety that came with buying a ticket that was subject to being checked at any point on his journey. He panicked how he would respond if he was asked for his ticket, only to realise that he had dropped it somewhere between the barrier and getting on the train.

Although of course, that wasn't the only thing thing that would keep him from getting comfortable when travelling. Normally he would be freaking out about how he was going to settle in his new place, how he was going to keep in touch with old friends, how he would beg his mother to stop moving them about... As with Jaime, many other friends had been lost to his family's nomadic timestream, never to resurface. Of course, his mother's job came with perks - he rarely travelled economy, his accommodation was always pleasant, modern, he could buy whichever clothes he wanted and he was always up-to-date with the latest technology. iPhone, iPad... too bad you couldn't buy iFriends. But he could watch all ten seasons of Friends on Netflix on any of his devices, so he was sort of there. Sort of.

He jumped to attention, realising he had zoned out. The train was passing through some little village station, slowing down but not stopping to let anyone on. There were only a couple of elderly men sat on the benches. Clément couldn't help but think that they probably weren't even going anywhere. When you're that old, what's the point? If he were in his seventies, all he'd want to do is lock himself up on some far-out Pacific island and die in peace. He watched as a little girl, dressed in a yellow mackintosh and pink hair-ties in her long-brown pigtails, ran up to one of the men, shouting something he couldn't hear. The elderly gentleman picked up her up, spun her in the air and plopped her on his lap. They were clearly happy to see eachother. He watched as the girl's guardian looked on from the other end of the station. The woman had a smile on her face, not concerned that this man was playing with his daughter. The train moved past the happy family, fading into little clay figures in the distance.

A happy family experience wasn't one that Clément had growing up. It had always been just him and Mom, him and Mom, him and Mom. Even when his father had technically been in his life, he wasn't always there. Working, whoring, whatever. He'd left when Clem was very young - he couldn't even recall how old he was when it happened. That's how irrelevant he was. The only gift he'd ever offered his family was the French language. And with that came a constant reminder of his origins, every time he said a word to his mother on the subway because he thought the dude beside him looked shifty and he didn't want to be overheard, or when he was volunteered in a high school French class to read because he had the 'perfect accent', or when he was telling his classmates the names of the places in France that he'd be moving to and he wasn't sure when he would be back to see them. That's not to say he didn't carry any other difficult feelings towards him - he for sure did. No financial support, no calls, no explanation. White dads can be deadbeats too.

Clément didn't tell people that his dad was white. In his community in Chicago, it seemed like pointless friction, something that people might take the piss out of him for. Furthermore, he thought it might discredit it him as a real black person. His identity was important to him; he didn't want to have others criticise it unnecessarily. It also wasn't really something you brought up in a normal conversation - Oh yeah, I'm actually only half black. Didn't you know? Sure, his skin was a little paler than his mother's but nobody ever raised any questions - in modern day United States, dads were a sensitive issue for a lot of people.

As were grandfathers. Just as Clément didn't know his dad, his mother didn't know hers. She had been raised in a fairly working class upbringing in Louisiana, not deprived but definitely not privileged. Comfortable. Somehow too comfortable. Only when the man who raised her died during her teenage years did her mother reveal to her who her true father was - a wealthy lawyer, married with his own family, prestigious in the realm of civil rights. Too bad he wasn't as knowledgeable about family relationships as he was about the law. When Annie (Clément's mother), had attempted to make contact with her bio-dad, he refused her. Yet, through a unfortunate turn of events, both of Annie's half-siblings died prematurely, leaving her to be her father's only living offspring. He hired her then as his personal accountant, a way of establishing a relationship with her beyond his wife's prying eyes. Of course, this arrangement left no position for Clément, hence his lack of contact with the man and overall apathy at his death. Yet that bastard dying has fucked up my life for good. Why should Antonio suffer because some man from Louisiana, irrelevant even in Clément's life, had died an ocean away?

It hurt to think about it too much. Their silent goodbye had been rushed, forceful. It was hard to pack as much emotion into a few hours as in the week they were supposed to have. They'd been robbed of it. After Clément received the call, he didn't speak for what felt like hours. Antonio just seemed to understand. They just held each other in the moonlight, as they did in the sea, under the olive tree, in hostel beds... As they had all summer. Antonio was still asleep when Clem woke up. Without saying anything, he grabbed his stuff, and out the door he was. Out the door he was as he always was. It wasn't worth even trying to speak - he wasn't sure that he could. His mouth was impossibly dry. What did you even say in a situation like that? Cheerio. See you soon. Bye. Nothing quite seemed to cut it. It was better just to leave it as it was, because at least then, there was the still the small, hopeful opportunity of continuing things as they were. He took one last look at Antonio's naked figure, peacefully drawn over the bed, dressed only in the white glow of the mystical light falling in from the slanted ceiling's shutters, and then he was off.

The train pulled into the station, and Clément grabbed his bag and dismounted.