Chapter 18: Granny knows best!

Lars POV:

I couldn't get out of the house fast enough. Nate was a puzzle piece that used to fit in the picture, but now sprouted more ends. Sharp triangle edges, which didn't fit in the puzzle which I had made for him in my mind.

I could already hear the mocking from my high school bullies. Yet, my feet took me to Granny Agatha's house. A pristine white cottage, kept in good condition, thanks to the embarrassing secrets of more than one person in doubt.

For this meeting, I had already set aside a gold coin. No one wanted to work without pay. Granny Agatha may have found pleasure in listening to people, yet she also needed to survive. If I were lucky, then she would surely give me a cookie or two.

Her cookies were the best in town. No one could argue that point.

As I knocked, I tried to collect my thoughts. How do I start this confession? I was just 15, never had a crush before. Well, there was Mary back in kindergarten, but she was only a dream, even back then. Yes, she existed, but I was chubby even during those days.

I could still remember how my world crashed around my ears, after I gave her a muffin, and she told me that she would never play family with me.

The muffin was tasty, even baked it myself. This rejection hurt like nothing else in my life. 

How could I do this to Nate? I knew he would be hurt. Now he knew that his mother was not who she claimed to be. He couldn't even find closure in her memory.

I didn't want to break his heart, honest. I was just at my wits end.

"Lars! Good morning, dear! The cookies are cooling right now," and I could smell the heavenly aroma. My lips moved out of their own accord. Chocolate, maybe even oranges. Ah, my favorites!

"Good morning, granny Agatha. I... have something I would wish to share with you," as soon as she stepped to the side, and I came inside the cottage, I fished out the gold coin, and bowed my head to her.

I had no idea how the other people did it, but I always did it that way. It was something of a fantasy of mine, that granny Agatha was a special agent. Show her respect, and your secret won't be spread the same day.

I treated her like a mafia boss. Back then I knew next to nothing about the kind old lady, yet in due time, I would find out more about her.

At any rate, my decision to kiss her hand, right after I gave her the gold coin, earned me a chuckle.

"I am here for you," her voice was soft like silk. It was obvious that she had never smoked or damaged her health in any rate during the years. 

"It is about... a boy," I swallowed loudly. The cat was out of the bag. Never before had I spoken with granny Agatha about love problems. She didn't even know about Mary. A heartbreak which I never shared with anyone.

Good thing too, or the kids in my group would have died from laughter.

"Oh, Lars. You poor thing. Are you still getting bullied?" She laid a soft hand over my shoulder. I sighed. Man, how I wished I were really getting bullied.

The bullies were something I was used to. But romance? That made me pale like a ghost.

"No, it is not bullying... it is... he kissed me on the forehead," my gaze was planted firmly on the floor. It was not so, as if homosexuals were persecuted in Lergo. Still, the country had suffered great losses during the war. Everyone was under an immense pressure to produce kids.

And how could we not be? We were more than 100 million people once. Nowadays, we were just about 10 million. A genocide, no one could call the war with any other name.

"That is so nice of him, Lars! Tell me everything!" Ah, first hurdle passed. Now I could pour my heart out. I followed the good granny to the living room. The platter with cookies, which was resting on the small coffee table which I have gifted granny Agatha once, when I needed advice about my blood sugar, called to me.

If it weren't for her kind words back then, I'd be dead now. It took great wisdom to build someone up, instead of letting him quit.

"Lars," she had said back then, as we sat on her old but well-kept couch. "You are a smart boy, but your body is weak and sick. No one will take you seriously, until you take yourself seriously."

Not what I wanted to hear from her, but what I needed to hear. Because of these words, I ended up a healer. Made something of myself.

"We spend the night in the same bed," I knew how this sounded. Granny Agatha's gaze hardened. As soon as I sat down, she laid her hands around my face.

"Did you use a condom?" 

I nearly drowned in my own spit. My eyes were so wide, that they hurt. Did she really think…?

"What?" I managed to get out. As a teenager who had been only to public schools, condoms were just these things that people from the hospital who would lecture us on stuff we would snicker about, handed out.

And we... filled them with water later, and threw them at one another. 

My brain simply couldn't make the connection between sex and condoms. How I had survived up to that point was a complete mystery.

"Condoms, Lars! That thing you put around your penis so that you won't get sick! Did you use one?"

I just started blinking. Yes, the people from the hospital had shown us pictures of people who suffered from such sicknesses, but back then we just thought that the pictures were doctored.

And now I was faced with the reality, that I could die, if I... well, I just knew I would die. I never paid attention to the lectures. Sure, that I will never have sex. What with my fat rolls and all.

Yet, the things were now different...