The Truth Untold

49

"Damn it, Kathie. I don't know what to wear," Leo shouted desperately and jumped up in front of me from one leg to the other.

I sat on his bed and watched Leo try to find a suitable outfit for today. His first suggestion was a suit he had already put out, but I had started laughing and shaking my head.

"If you show up with a suit, my family won't be able to take you seriously anymore," I had said and Leo's face turned into pure horror.

"Put on a T-shirt. Just something," I explained from his bed and looked at him amused.

"I can't step in front of your family in a T-shirt! They should have a good impression of me", Leo explained, his eyebrows pinched together desperately.

"They will have a good impression of you even when you get there in sweatpants," I said upliftingly, but my words didn't seem to calm him at all.

"They'll think I'm an unemployed bum selling drugs to afford sweatpants," he said hopelessly.

With a resigned, loud groan I let myself fall onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"You are unemployed," I remarked and could feel Leo's glowing gaze right on me.

"And yet I can afford a suit," he explained tensely.

I thought for a moment and then said: "Put on a Shirt".

"I can only put on the shirt in combination with a suit pant," he said, and I heard him ripping around on the spot again.

"Put on a pair of jeans. Why does it have to be a suit pant," I said confused and stared at the bright lamp on the ceiling.

"I have to put my shirt in my pants or they think I can't get dressed properly. But if I stuff the shirt into my jeans I look like your uncle who likes to look too deep into the glass. That's why the shirt only works with suit trousers," he explained, and I moaned again.

I sat up again and briefly saw stars because I had looked too long into the lamp.

"All right, no shirt, no suit trousers. Then I'll find something for you," I said resolutely, hopped from the bed and ran towards his wardrobe.

After a few minutes of rummaging through the closet, I finally pressed a black pair of jeans into his hand, a white V-neck T-shirt and a black jacket.

"Put this on along with your black Timberlands," I said and didn't tolerate any repetitions.

Leo looked at the things I had pressed into his hand, then at me and then at the clothes again.

"Kathie, I ... I am nervous," he confessed and looked at me from his big eyes.

"I notice that," I said amused and yet loving. "It is only my family. Please stop making so much stress on yourself".

"This is not only your family. Babe, I swear to you, this is worse than the university exams," he said with so much seriousness in his voice that I couldn't help but find him cute.

"Relax a little", I said calmly, took a step towards him and laid my hands on his cheeks. "I promise you, I will not leave you alone. You will survive this.

Leo took a deep breath and snorted out again, leaving his shoulders hanging.

"What if they don't like me," he asked seriously worried. I couldn't put into words how much love I felt for him at that moment, for his childlike nature and his serious concern that my family didn't like him.

"Then that is so. But it doesn't matter and it doesn't change anything that I like you. Besides, they will love you, I am convinced of that," I said encouragingly and Leo gave me a little smile.