The unfortunate time for George to leave Goring soon rolls around; the pair stand together at the platform, savouring the last little bit of one another's company while they still can. It's been a very pleasant afternoon — of course, one that has felt too short for both of the men — but their inevitable absence from one another can only help to build up the fondness they feel for each other.

"Today has been perfect," Levi utters, slipping his arm under George's jacket, to place it around his waist; he uses this as leverage, as he pulls the handsome Greek closer to him, not wanting to draw too much attention to their little public display of affection. "I hope you've enjoyed your time here, too."

"Of course I have." George is unable to control the smile that grows on his face as he responds. "More than I could ever tell you."

"It's going to be hard to let you go back to London this time around," Levi groans; he wouldn't say it aloud, but he is so incredibly desperate to kiss George in this moment. However, he knows he must restrain himself from doing so as not to arouse suspicion from anybody else in the station.

"I'll call you as soon as I get home. Steph is at work until late tonight," George promises, turning to face opposite Levi. "And I'll be sure to read you all the diary entries I've ever written about you. Then you'll know how much you've changed my life."

"I look forward to it." Levi beams at him, before glancing up to spot the train arriving in. "Well, it's time. I miss you already."

"You're so sickly," George chuckles; he doesn't seem to care who is watching, as he coils his arms around Levi's neck, pulling him in, to kiss him deeply in farewell. Upon withdrawing, he gives him a forlorn expression. "I'll talk to you in a couple of hours. I promise."

"I'll be waiting, my darling." Levi tries to dismiss him, not for his own benefit; but rather, for George's. "Now go — you don't want to miss the train."

"Well, actually I do," George comments playfully, slowly backing towards the transport.

"Go on." Levi watches with gentle laughter as George gets on the train; his heart could easily thump out of his ribcage with the level of adoration he holds for the man he's been blessed to meet. With a slightly saddened wave goodbye, the pair gradually leave one another's sights for good; Levi heads back to his car to drive home, while George takes a seat on the train.

"Goodness me," George whispers to himself, once he has settled down; it is only just starting to hit him, what has truly happened today. He lets his back fall against the seat; the state of daydream that he enters is deep enough to remove him from reality a little, but not enough for him to zone out from the fact that the ticket inspector is walking through the carriage. The formally-dressed man eventually reaches George, so George presents his ticket to London.

"Very good. Thank you." The inspector hands him the ticket back after stamping it, before continuing down the train.

Once he's gone, George allows himself to enter the frame of mind he was in prior to the interruption. He cannot help but repeatedly play back the significant moments from the day — from Levi's sudden outburst, to their first kiss; from George confessing his feelings in front of Levi and his mother, to the pair bidding each other farewell only a few minutes back. These same thoughts circle around, until he finds himself back in the capital city; as soon as the train doors open, he is hit with an unwelcome rush of familiarity. This, however, is a much more invited emotion than the immense and heart-wrenching guilt that has suddenly invaded his senses. As he walks home, his mind remains torn between the adrenaline and excitement of what has occurred with Levi; and the extreme remorse of cheating on a woman who has done nothing wrong at all. He eventually arrives home, slinging his jacket on the bannister of the staircase once he's inside. With Stephanie being out of the house, he feels a little more comfortable; he looks down at the telephone on the table.

"You're doing the right thing. Maybe not in the best way, but you're a step closer to being yourself," he tells himself aloud; just this sentence is enough to convince himself that what he is doing is a little more harmless than he first thought. He picks up the phone and dials his favourite number, before holding it to his ear.

It rings only once, as Levi is very fast at answering. "Hey, you."

"I could have been anyone," George laughs. "You didn't know for sure it was me calling."

"I had a feeling," he justifies. "And it's not as if I've been waiting by the phone for the last hour."

"No you haven't," George dares to argue, amused. "There's absolutely no way."

"You do crazy things when you find somebody to do them for," Levi comments matter-of-factly. "Not that you'd know that."

"Who are you then?" George raises a brow, despite knowing Levi can't see this action.

"Don't you raise your eyebrow at me, Mister." The accuracy of Levi's words alarms George a little.

"How did you—?"

"I've watched you talk a lot lately. I observe things." Levi chuckles, perhaps a little embarrassed to have admitted to doing such a thing. "Anyway, you — I want to hear these diary entries. I've been waiting."

"Oh yeah," George scans the hallway, on the off chance that he's left his diary in there. "I think the diary's in my room. I'll have to go and grab it." He places the phone against the table to keep the call going while he runs upstairs; after retrieving the diary, he returns to the phone. "I've got it. Hope you didn't miss me while I was gone."

"I just about made it through the forty seconds," Levi gasps. "Now, read. I need to hear!"

"Alright! Okay!" George can't contain his laughter as he unlocks the book, tossing the padlock onto the table in front of him. "I need to find the first page I mentioned you on." He messily flicks through with one hand, what with his other hand being occupied by the phone. "Ah! Got it. Okay. Thirteenth of August, nineteen-eighty-six." He begins to reel off the words he scribbled down only a couple of months ago. "Dear diary ... Last night was a total write-off. Stephanie went out with some friends, and I was left alone. The phone started ringing, so I assumed it was her. I picked up, and started rambling on about my sexuality, and the truth about it. After I'd done all that, I felt so relieved that I'd finally gotten it off my chest. But the worst part was, it wasn't even her on the phone. It was a total stranger. He sounded so embarrassed, because he had gotten the wrong number. He was meant to call somebody else. I really wish he'd have called the right number, and that I'd never have spoken to him ... because now I wouldn't be feeling quite so silly."

"I bet you regret that last sentence now, don't you?" Levi interrogates. "Otherwise we wouldn't be here laughing about it together."

"I guess that's true," George acknowledges. "This is so embarrassing. My head was all over the place when I wrote this."

"It shows growth. It's wonderful," Levi reassures him, his tone softening to suggest his support. "Now keep going, super star."

"Alright." George skim-reads to find where he left off. "He did tell me it had taken me guts to admit to everything though, so I'll take the credit where it's due there at least. He told me his name was Levi, and he asked me for my name too. It's not as if we'll ever meet, but I can't take my mind off it. His voice was so mysterious, but his tone seemed sincere enough."

"I was mysterious to you?" Levi cackles. "That's just my normal speaking voice, I'll have you know."

"I know. But I found it so weird back then," George explains. "I'm used to it now, obviously. So it's just ... your voice."

"You're so random. Insightful, but random. I love it."

"This one is almost done now, anyway. Let me finish it." Once again, he has to search through the text to find where he was before Levi interrupted. "Okay, here we are: I guess the point of me writing this down, was because this stranger is the first person I have ever told about me being gay. So despite it having no impact on his life, it's still a big deal in that sense. Maybe I can use the success of telling somebody in the world, to spur me on and motivate me to tell others. Because maybe, if a stranger accepts me for who I am, then my own family and my friends should too ... right? Anyway, that's all from me, for now. Yog ... with a kiss."

"You haven't explained that nickname to me yet," Levi points out. "Where did that come from?"

"Andrew calls me it. He has done since the day we met," George begins to explain, before elaborating. "We met when we were kids; only eleven years old. He couldn't pronounce Georgios, so he made up the name Yog so that he could address me. It's kind of stuck — even now."

"That's adorable. Can I call you that?" Levi snickers.

"Absolutely not. Andy only. You'll have to find something else to call me."

"How about 'my boyfriend'?" Levi teases, knowing fully well that this question crosses several boundaries; but he evaluates that he is safe in asking anyway.

"Wow. That was to-the-point," George stammers, slightly unsure of how to respond. "B-But anyway — I wanted to skip ahead and read out the one I wrote the day I realised I liked you."

"Nice subject change there," Levi laughs, deciding it's best to go along with it regardless. "Let's hear it."

"Alright. Let me find it." George flips through the pages once more, until he finds the entry. "Okay. October the seventeenth, nineteen-eighty-six. Dear Diary — what a day it's been once again. I went to Goring to see Levi, and it was wonderful. We sat by the river again, and had lunch in the same place we did the first time. And this time around, I didn't spill food down my outfit." George laughs at how silly he sounds. "We spoke a lot, and got to know each other a lot more. But boy, does he have an obsession with Michael Jackson. He could talk about the guy for hours and hours if you let him. But I think it's nice. It's nice having a passion; something to talk about. And I like listening to it. Overall, it's been a perfect day. Or as close as you can possibly get to perfect."

"Is that all of it?" Levi asks.

"No. I stopped writing because I got your voicemail, and I went to go and listen to it. But then when I got back upstairs, all I could think of to write was about how I felt."

"Can I hear it?"

"Of course. It's probably really embarrassing though." He clears his throat, finding the beginning of the heartfelt piece of writing. "Okay. There's a lot of exclamation marks that I won't emphasise, but I wrote: oh goodness me, dear diary. One thing I should add. It's something I shouldn't be adding, but I just cannot help myself. And besides, I trust these pages more than most people. So, here goes. Dear diary — today I did something I thought I'd never do. For the first time in my life, I fell, so hopelessly, so beautifully, and so earth-shatteringly hard. And it is as though everything in my life now has meaning, and everything around me has finally fallen into place. Is this really what love is? If it is, then for years I have denied myself the most breathtaking bliss a man could ever wish to experience—" George pauses, feeling as if he's suddenly sharing too much. "This is very intense, don't you think? Maybe this is one I should have kept to myself."

"Keep going," Levi instructs, no louder than a mutter.

"Fine." George rubs his face with his hand, bashful about his extreme feelings towards the man he's talking to. "—Something so raw and authentic, that I could fall to my knees in tears. What a wonderful world I live in, now that my eyes have been opened to what I have missed all my life. And even if nothing ever happened between us — I finally know what it's like to feel these intense emotions for someone, 100% unconditionally. And it's beautiful. It's all beautiful. A very dizzy, giddy Yog. Two kisses."

"That's beautiful," Levi comments, seemingly at a loss for words otherwise. "You really feel that way?"

"I don't lie about my feelings in my diary. It's the one place I can go to be honest about everything." He heaves a sigh, with the preoccupation of worry in his mind at how fast he has developed this immense set of emotions. "I guess you could say I've fallen."

"That's so sweet." Just by his voice, it's easy to tell Levi is smiling. "I guess I kind of have, too."

The moment between the men would be incredibly heartwarming, but alas, this is not meant to be; George is startled to the point of dropping the phone on the floor when the front door opens abruptly, revealing a very disappointed, angered Stephanie.

"So who is this that you're claiming to be so hopelessly in love with over the phone then, hm?"

•••

Chapter twenty-three! Are things about to get interesting, or will George wriggle out of this somehow? Hope you enjoyed this one. xx