*Like A Prayer* by mamogirl
Prologue by mamogirl
Prologue








Maybe, silence would have been better. Oh, he would have preferred the total absence of any sounds rather than keeping listening to that terrifying and mechanical beep coming from the other side of the bed. He wanted to get up and turn it off, he wanted to silence it so that he could underline how its presence was useless and unnecessary.

Denying, that was what he wanted to do.
Denying, with extreme persistence, that that day even existed, erase that day from the calendar and go back to the day before, when everything had been perfect and there hadn’t been even a small cloud looming over them.
Denying, screaming at the top of his lungs, that he was standing in that place, joined to that hand as if his life depended on that grip. Not only the life of that person lying motionless, pale and silent, in that bed but even his own life. He still could feel his blood on his hands, even though he had washed them, scrubbed scratched them until the skin was red and raw just so that he couldn’t see those red dots anymore.
Denying what had happened, denying those images that kept dancing in front of his eyes, scenes that didn’t belong to a movie and that he could never be able to write and produce.

They said, the doctors, they said that he was out of the woods and that he was getting stronger with each hours gone without any problems. They said that it had been a tricky work but that they had managed to save him within an inch of his life. Wasn’t that a contradiction? He had never been able to understand doctors and that night hadn’t been an exception. So he just held tight to that small hope and promise, though sometimes it seemed to be bigger. Because he had never broken a promise. Even that night, he had promised him to come back and he did, even though he knew that only pain and suffer were waiting for him and his return.

A hand caressed those thin strains of sand blonde hair, taking them away from the eyes and the forehead. Slowly and gently, the index followed the line of the bones, going down from the temple and reaching those cheekbones and jaw that he loved so much: there the hand decided to lay on, startled because of the coldness of the skin. That skin had never been that cold. That skin had always been warm, his source of warmth. He could be cold, he could wear thousand of layers, but his skin had never been cold. Not like this.

“You have to come back.”

Those were the only words that escaped from the boy’s lips, the only ones who had been able to run away from that lump that still was safe and sound inside his throat, a shell were emotions and feelings had decided to hide from that horrible moment. There were no more tears left inside him, he had dried them in that dark alley...

“You have to come back.”

He had promised him, no?
He had promised him to come back and he had always kept his words. He had to come back because he still hadn’t apologized to him; he hadn’t been able to tell him how stupid he had been that day. At least, a small consolation, he had been able to tell and repeat to him how much he loved him.

“You have to come back, Frick. You have to come back to me.” The lips leaned on that hand that still was protected inside his own and then kissed each fingers, staying in the end close to the back of the hand. Then he just waited. He waited with anticipation for something, anything different from the silence. A change. A movement. Even the smallest.

Nothing happened. Only that mechanic beep answered Nick’s prayer.



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