You’ve reached the voicemail. Leave a message after the acoustic signal.

Beep.

 

“Ni... Nick? It’s me. Again. Why aren’t you answering? Oh, you’ve probably forgotten to charge your phone once again. How many times have I told you to charge it every night? Too many, I know. But you never listen to me, you always start laughing and scolding me because I’m too annoying with these silly things. But if only... If you only have answered now...
I have to tell you something and I can wait for you to be back. You were late, last night. You’re always late, even when you just run to the shops at the end of our road and just to buy two things. So, you were late. And I was waiting for you. I’m always waiting for you, it seems to be the only thing I’ve ever done for all my life. I’ve waited patiently for a sign from you, for a smile only for me. For just one kiss. For just one caress.
I was waiting for you but I wasn’t angry. You didn’t know. You couldn’t know that I was preparing you a surprise. Nothing too special, nothing big. Just a romantic dinner. Suddenly, someone rang at the doorbell. Looking out I realized it was raining. No, not just raining. It was pouring. It was one of those night when you would usually trap me inside your arms and we would stay all day under the blankets, listening to the sound of the rain against the window. Do you remember? I do. I will always do. – The voice was interrupted by a wet breath, letting a moment wander inside the silence. – When I opened the door, there were two policemen. And they told me the stupidest and absolutely wrong of all the stories. There had been an accident on the main road, that intersection we come across to get back home, the one where there are always flowers on both sides. Two cars, one of them didn’t stop and went straight against the other one coming from the opposite side. A pile of scrap metal that it took them hours to retrieve the... the victims. Their bodies. And, gosh, Nick, you wouldn’t believe what they had told me! They said,  gravely and condescending, that you were one of them. That you were dead. Nick, why didn’t you tell me that someone had stolen your license? Or your car? You should have told me, we would have gone to the police and none of this would have happened. I didn’t believe them, of course. Quite the opposite, I was furious. How could they say that lie? Why didn’t they make sure that it wasn’t you. Because... it couldn’t be you, right? But they forced me to go with them to the hospital, though I didn’t understand why. They... they wanted me to sign some papers without giving me a certainty that you... – His voice broke, getting itself trapped in a sob that didn’t want to come out. One, two, three breaths before Brian was sure he could keep on talking. – I’ve never been to a morgue, you know? Guess there is always a first time for everything. Even there, I refused to believe in those words. I kept repeating to myself that it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. It had to be a cruel and horrible prank. So I kept asking, demanding to see you. I needed to see with my eyes, I needed a proof that... that you were gone. I’ve never been someone who easily give up. Stubborn, you’ve always called me. Then... then Kevin arrived. He believed it, you should have seen him. he was pale, deathly white like he didn’t need an evidence for you to be dead. There had been tears in his eyes but he wasn’t crying. And... why I looked at him? I met his eyes and I knew... I knew it was true. I realized that it wasn’t a lie or a prank because Kevin wouldn’t never done something that horrible to me! To us. Why? Why did you have to go? Why are you dead, Nick?”  

Message #2



Beep.





“Eight hours. Eight hours had passed. I’ve counted them, you know? Every little single minute and second. Four hundred and eighty minutes. Twenty eight thousand seconds.

And still I keep waiting for the moment this phone will ring again.

Still I keep waiting to hear your voice on the other side, telling me how stupid I was to believe in such a lie!

Still I keep asking why your phone is disconnected.

Still I sit here, waiting to hear the sound of your car as it approaches the drive way and you park it in front of the door.

Still I wait and ask why the lights aren’t on or why I can’t hear the sound of the door opening and closing behind your back. Or your footsteps on the stairs.

Then... Then I remember. I remember that I’m not at our house, I’m not at home. This where I’m lying isn’t my bed, our bed. They didn’t want to leave all by myself. Everyone was there, everyone wanted to know if it was true. You know that even your family came? All together, it’s such a shame that it took your death to bring them together as you’ve always dreamed. My parents came. Don’t ask me what they’ve said, I don’t remember anything beside lying here and thinking of you. Hoping and still believing that you are coming back to me. Truth is that I didn’t want to understand their words. And neither I wanted to see their faces holding a mask of anguish and torment. Grief. And I know you wouldn’t be surprised that I wanted to console them and tell them that everything was going to be alright. And I believed that Kevin took it as a sign of being in shock and that is the reason why he doesn’t want to leave me alone for even one second. He took me here, at his house, in this room and held my hand until I pretended to fall asleep, broken and exhausted by the emotions of the night. It was our trick and secret, do you remember?

I remember that I started counting the hours because I couldn’t or didn’t want to fall asleep. You know what happens when I do? Do you know that every single time I close my eyes, all that I can see is you? You and what has been left of your car. You loved that car, you took care of that car just as much as you did of me. And now... that car is gone, just like you. Yeah, I saw it. I went where the accident had happened. You wouldn’t have let me. You wouldn’t have let me see that horrible scene, knowing that it would have haunted me in my sleep. They tried. Kevin tried every trick he knew but, in the end, he gave in and took me there. He stood by my side, he held my hand so tight that I think he could have broke my fingers. I didn’t feel anything. There was nothing left inside me to feel. It seemed like someone had entered inside me and had turned off my soul. I saw those wrecks, I saw those rags that once had been clothes around your body and I couldn’t. I couldn’t link those images with the memory of you. Or what I’ve been left with since they didn’t let me see you for one last time.

So I hold on to this tiny, little and totally pointless hope. It says something if they didn’t want me to see you, right? They told me it was about something about you being unrecognizable, about you being in such a bad shape that there was nothing left about those features that I loved so much. And I can’t help to ask myself if it is just a lie. What if is it? what if is it only a plan and you are out there, searching for a way back home? What did you do, Nick? Who did you piss off so bad that you needed to fake your own death? You talked about it one time. You wanted to vanish in the air and become a face like everyone else. And God... Nick, I’m the only one believing it! I can’t. I’m sorry but I can’t imagine being buried in the earth. I can’t. Please, Nick, please. You can’t do this to me! You have to stop this madness. You need to stop this game, you need to do it before it will be too late and they will do something irreparable. Please... Nick... stop being dead...”

The message stopped just like Brian’s voice gave up. But there weren’t tears or sobs. There was only a heavy silence, an absence of sounds and words because, without Nick, nothing existed anymore.

Message #3



Beep.



“It has been a day. Or maybe, it has been longer but it doesn’t seem to me. To me, it seems that time has stopped its curse, frozen in that moment when the doorbell had rang. You know what I want to do with that damned doorbell? I just want to kick it and hit it until it’s shattered in a million pieces so that it can never announce other bad news.
Do you know that those two came again? The policemen, I mean. Apparently their daughters are our fans and they wanted… they... they wanted to bring their... see? I can’t even pronounce those words! I’ve always reveled in being good with words, remember? You used to call me “little wise man”. No, no “little”. Dwarf? No, it wasn’t dwarf. Gnome. That’s it! It wasn’t a way of making fun of me because you’ve always said with that smile that was only for me and with that special light in the eyes that made me feel special too.
And now, do you know what I desire more than everything? You making fun of me. Your jokes. Because it would mean that I would be able to hear your voice once again, listening to vocals and consonants that would caress my ears. And I would see your lips pronouncing them. "

A sigh breathless, hoarse. Forced, like it was enough to stop the pain to arise once again and break the reins that trapped it. Fingers tightened up around the phone. Eyelids blinked quickly once, twice until the eyes beneath them were once again dry.

"I still think that it’s only a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare. I keep saying to myself that all I have to do is wake up and I will see you beside me in bed, sheets tangled up around your body and the fist close to your head on the cushion. And it will take just closing the space between me and you to just put a little kiss on the top of your head. My fingers will start travelling upon your skin, following the lines of your bones and muscles, tracing the ink of your tattoos. At least, I could say goodbye to you. You owe me that, Nick. Just a goodbye, it doesn’t matter how long it will be. I deserve a goodbye. They say... they said me that it hadn’t been your fault. The accident. But I didn’t listen. I don’t need the details because they can’t change the fact that you’re gone. It’s not like they would make you come back miraculously unharmed and without a scratch upon your face."

Brian slid on the floor, his back pressed against the bed and his knees pressed against his chest.

"I still haven’t cried. Everyone is saying that I should react in some ways, screaming, breaking things or crying. Crying has became their favorite word, they make it seem like it would erase this agony or validate the fact that I’m collapsing under this pain. I don’t want to cry. I can’t cry, nor when you aren’t here to kiss those tears away. You were the only who had ever see me cry. You were the only one who knew how to make it go away without even trying. The best part was that you did it in silence, you knew that I never need words of comfort. You just took me in your arms so that I could hide away, so that I could make my pain invisible to the rest of the world. Now... now where can I go to hide? Who will do it? Kevin? Aj? My mother? Who will tell me that everything is going to be alright? That I will be fine? What do they know? What...?"

The first sob escaped silently, breaking down the barrier that Brian had built to defend his soul. Soon, those words of pain had the company of the tears, warm drops trailing down his face before vanish inside every surface they met: clothes, hands. His phone. His fingers, knuckles almost white from the strain of gripping the cold surface, trembled so bad making it hard to keep holding the phone.

"Please, Nick. I’m begging you... don’t be dead. Please... I can’t... I can’t go on… not without you...”

Message #4




“Today there has been your funeral, Nick. It hadn’t rain, even though I wished there would be the rain instead of this sun. It would have been more appropriate, everyone should cry for your loss. Or... maybe it’s better, maybe it was another sign that this is still the worst nightmare I’ve ever had and you’re waiting for me to wake up. Anyway, you know what mom told me when I was little? She used to say that rain was only the angel’s cry and there was no need to be afraid. I didn’t believe it, of course. You’re raised to believe that angels are those mystic creatures who don’t know about pain and suffer or heartache. So, they shouldn’t cry and rain can’t be their tears. Now... oh, only now I understand that there was a hidden truth underneath those words. Angels cry, they do, Nick. Because angels are people who had been ripped out from the ones they loved, ripped out from a world where they had a purpose and where they were happy. So, yes, I wanted the rain today, I needed to feel your tears on my face for this last time. But you never liked to cry. You always made up some excuse, like something got caught in your eyes or that you were allergic to something. I’ve never believed it. And you know, right? Because you never pulled away when I would hug you and told you that it was okay to break down because I got you and I would never let something or someone hurt you. Even yourself.

Maybe the sun was more appropriate. I don’t know. I don’t care. I would only care it this was a bad dream but, maybe, I’m just chasing away from reality.

You would have liked it. The funeral, I mean. It was simple. It was private. It’s the only thing that I’ve fought for, I left the rest of details to your mother and Kevin. No, I chose another thing. The flowers. Your favorite, sunflowers.

They wanted me to say something during the ceremony. They wanted me to talk about you. I’ve tried. I spent all morning thinking over the right words that would bring justice to who you were, the amazing person you were and will always be. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find them. The words, I mean. Because the Nick I’ve fallen in love with, the Nick that still I love with every fiber of my soul, my best friend, my lover and partner, this Nick can’t be define by simple and mere words. You are, were, Nick. My world, my soul and my heart. And now you’ve taken them with you, leaving here with nothing more than a soulless body and you... you can’t ask me to move on like nothing had happened. Like I’ve never met you.
Tell me how I should go on with my life. Tell me. No, better: show me. Get down here and show me how I’m supposed to forget this.

I’m still staying at Kevin’s. Well, I didn’t have any other choice. He forced me to go with him so he can keep me under control. He’s still here, you know? Of course you know, you can see us from that clouds that now is your home up there. He’s keeping himself in distance, leaving me space to say those last words to you. But he’s afraid, he’s scared that I might do something stupid like fall in this grave where you’ve just being buried in. Why should I do something like that? Only because I know that you’re scared to being alone? I wish I could stay here forever, Nick. So, maybe, we’ll never be alone.”

A voice behind Brian called him as a hand came resting upon his shoulder. He closed the phone and put it away in his pocket. His eyes never left the grave still open in front of him. In the other hand, he held a sunflower. He brought it to his lips, kissed it softly before throwing it upon the coffin. “I’m not saying goodbye, Nick. I... I will never say goodbye to you.” He said before turning and walking away.

Message #5


Silence answered to the acoustic signal.

Then a breath, deep and trembling.

After that came a small whisper.

“Nick? Nick, can you... can you please answer me? I don’t know why you’re keeping doing this. I don’t even wanna know why you keep playing this stupid and hurtful game. It’s not funny anymore. It wasn’t at the beginning and it isn’t now. Just... please, Nick. Just answer this phone! – A sob. A cough to clear the voice. – I’m here Nick. Don’t... Just answer.”



Message #6



“I’m not angry. I won’t be angry, Nick. Whatever the reason is, whatever you’ve done, it’s... it’s okay. I don’t care what you did, I don’t care why you need to pretend to be dead. I just care that you... we’ll solve it, okay? Whatever it is, we’re gonna set it straight.

We’ve always done, no? We’re Frick and Frack, you know that you can trust me with everything, Who else you’re gonna trust if not me? Your other half. You’ve always said that I was your better half, now it’s time to prove those words. I won’t judge you. I won’t say anything and I certainly won’t throw things against you, just like one of those characters in soap operas.

I won’t do any of those things so, please, just come back. I need you.”



Message #7


The voicemail started recording the message, though sobs and cries were the only sounds. Each one of them was a drop full of pain and rage that made his voice faltering with its intensity.

“I hate you. Why did you do it? Why? I can’t. Nick, this... I can’t forgive you for this. All... you know that I’ve always forgiven you but... this is too much. This time I can’t and I don’t want to. You could break up with me. It would have been painful but I would understood it. Not like this. Now I just can’t help but hating you. I hate you more than you can imagine, I hate you with every fiber of my soul that only yesterday loved you so much.

I hate you because this silence is unbearable. It’s like an itching, one of those that ends only when you have finished to scratch until you can see the bone beneath the skin.

I hate you because I keep searching for you and I can’t find you.

I hate you because everyone thinks that I’m crazy or broken or both and I don’t have the strength to prove them wrong. And maybe... and maybe they are right, maybe I’m crazy because I keep believing that you’re still alive. And I hate you for this.

And I hate you because you left me with nothing. I’m just... I’m just a web of pain and void.

I hate you.

I hate you because I’m here, crying and screaming against a voicemail that belongs to a dead man. And still I’m begging you to reply. To answer. To come back. Anything, please. Anything except this silence. Even the smallest and softest of the whisper is more than this silence.
Nick... No, Nick.
I won’t beg you anymore.”



Message #8


Leave a message after the acoustic signal.
Leave a message after the acoustic signal.
Leave a message after the acoustic signal.
Beep.

“I miss you.”




Message #9



“A week. A week has gone by and still no words from you. I know I’ve promised I wouldn’t do it anymore and yet here I am. Begging you to come back to me.
I love you.
I love you and I miss you.
I miss your voice. I miss your eyes.
I miss your breathing.
I miss the sound of your heart beating.
I miss...
I miss you, Nick.



Message #10



“You won’t come back, right? You won’t come back, you won’t kiss me again or smile at me once again. You’ve left me, you’ve left me here all alone and I’m so angry. I’m so angry to the fact that you’re dead.
Because that is the truth.
You’re dead.
And you won’t come back to me.

Message #11



His fingers were shaking as he dialed the number. His resolution had lasted barely a day, well, a day and a half. And yet there he was, trying to reach someone who wasn’t there anymore and just talking about what was ranging inside him.
But that was all that he had left with. And he couldn’t even justify himself saying that he didn’t want to forget Nick’s voice. Nick was so forgetful that he hadn’t changed the standard voicemail so a metallic voice met him every time he reached that number.

“You should change it, you know? It’s terrible. It’s annoying dialing your number and be welcomed by someone who doesn’t even exist. And its voice is boring. Here I am still talking to you like you are still here, just maybe too busy somewhere to pick up your phone. Some habits are hard to die and you know it pretty well. Like your habit to chew a gum even during the interviews. Kevin always scolded you but you would just fake to listen to him and then you would chew another one when he wasn’t looking at you anymore. You know, I bet that even he would gladly scold you again for such a silly thing because it would mean that you’re still here. Everyone would do just anything to have you back, not only me.”

Resting his forehead against the window, Brian didn’t even acknowledge that it was cold. Lately, he didn’t feel anything, nor warm nor cold. Just an emptiness that was slowly conquering every inch of him and his soul.

“I know I should stop this madness. Calling the phone of someone dead and talk to him like he was away on holiday. You know what is strange? The only moments when I’m talking to someone are those. Those conversations are the only words I barely speak anymore. Kevin, Aj, Howie... they all want me to talk. They ask me if I’m okay and keep saying that soon things will get better. They keep saying that one day I will wake up and feel normal again. Be normal again. How can they say that? How can they know? It won’t ever be normal again because my normality was you. If you’re not here, how can my life be normal again?
I’m still locked up inside Kevin’s house, like a modern Rapunzel! It doesn’t matter, it’s not like I want to go out or go somewhere. I stay here and hope that I will dream of you when I fall asleep. This is what I do every day. This is all I that can do. I’m tired. I’m tired of crying, I don’t have any energy left to shed more tears.
Even music doesn’t offer comfort anymore. Because music means your voice, means hearing you singing in the shower or while you were trying to clean the house.
Music means standing in a corner and watching you strumming the chords of your guitar while writing lines and notes closed in your head.
Nothing make sense anymore.
I don’t make sense anymore.
So I just sleep. Sleep and hope to meet you somewhere in my dreams. Sleep is where I can be in a word where pain can’t reach me. And you know why it can’t? Because that is the world where me and you can be together once again. Though I’m not that lucky. It only last a few moments and then I’m thrown back into reality, a reality made of broken brakes and flames.
I always wake up screaming. Screaming and crying, turning around to reach for you but... I’m all alone. No one is there to reassure him, no one can tell me that it’s only a dream.
Well, I’m not alone. There is someone beside me but... it’s not you. It isn’t your voice whispering, it isn’t your hand holding mine.
There’s no escape from this hell, you know?
No, of course you don’t know. How can you possible know this? How can you know how much it hurts to just open my eyes and made myself remember that I’m all alone? How can you possible know how much it hurts to know that all that is left are images of what we were and would never be?
I’ve... I’ve always thought that I would spend my whole life with you.
Guess I was wrong.”

Message #12



There was no light in the room. Darkness swallowed every single piece of furniture, drank the colors and ate whatever little hint of life that still had lingered bravely. Once there had been no curtains in that room: big and wide windows had always let the rays of the sun inside, let them mirrored themselves upon the white tilted floor; now those thick barriers had been drawn closed, shutting out the bright and warm sun.
There seemed to be no one inside that bedroom. Empty, that was the first thought coming up to every one’s mind as they first step inside it. And they would just closed the door and went to look in another room, sure that the one they were looking for wasn’t there.
They would had been wrong.
They had only to look a little bit closer, inspected a little deeper, and they would noticed a small lump on the bed, hidden under the fabric of blankets and duvet. And if they listened carefully, they would caught glimpses of soft murmuring and whispering coming from that hiding place.

But they didn’t and so Brian could go on with his conversation, keeping the phone closed to his ear as little drops of tear were falling down his eyes, collecting themselves in a small invisible lake on the mattress.

“All of them are worried about me. They don’t express their concern and, even if they do, I guess I don’t listen to them. But I can see it in their eyes, in the way they look at me like I’m a fragile vase ready to shatter if only they raise a little bit their voice or if they tried to force me to do things I don’t want to do. Like eat. Or go out. Or breathe. But they keep coming, stranger faces mixed with the ones I know so well. “How are you”, they keep asking me. Really? Can’t they come up with an original question? It’s funny. It should be funny but it isn’t. Because they pretend to know how I’m feeling, they pretend to know that it is easy to just get up on my feet and start again walking my path.

I don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I don’t know if I still know what is the road we were walking. Together. And now I’m supposed to do it all alone?
I guess... I guess they just expect me to wake up one day and be all smiles once again. Or wake up and suddenly be hit by the realization of what I’m supposed to do when the most important person in your life just vanish in the air.
You were my life, Nick.

Remember? Do you remember what you used to say? You said that you loved sunflowers because you were like them, turning in circle around me, your sun. It... it wasn’t the truth. Truth is that you were the sun and I was just a little flower running around you, making sure that you would always shine. On you depended my life. If you were sad, I was too and I would had done everything just to see you smile. And when you were happy, I was the happiest person alive. I was worried for small things, I had always made sure that you were taking of so that clouds couldn’t be near you.

Now?

Now, what I’m supposed to do? Would it be strange if I would ask you for a sign? Yeah, maybe it would be.”

A shadow of a laughter filled the silence. Still curled up under the blanket, Brian reached over on his side with his hand, fingers that were trying to find someone. Something. But they only met the sheets.

“Last night I dreamed about you. Or it was the other night. I don’t remember. Time seems to be a blurred vision, I don’t even know which day is today. I’m scared and afraid to know how much time had passed since your last day alive.
I dreamed about you. About us, together. As always, as it has always been.
We were out, I don’t know where we were going. Sometimes, we did. We would just take the car and go around to find new places, new sights to see or just a new town to adventure. We always took your car, that car that you loved so much. You know what’s funny? You had never let me drive it. Now... I’ll never have the chance.
You were driving and singing. I don’t remember which song, maybe a Journey’s song since you loved them. I was silent, content to just watch you. Your eyes were bright, shining with that light that always made the blue seem like it was taken directly from the sea. Watching you was one of my favorite thing, you know? Because I realized how such a lucky I was.
My best friend and my partner.
My true love.
Anyway, back to my dream. It was night and it was raining hard. I wanted to warn you, to be prudent and to drive carefully and to not let music distract you. But I couldn’t find the voice. I couldn’t say nothing, just stare at you as a lighting bolted in the distance. And when we were back in the darkness, I wasn’t with you anymore. I wasn’t in the car but outside, in the pouring rain as I watched the other car came crashing into yours.
You... you have to believe me, Nick! You just have to! I’ve tried, I’ve tried to save you but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do nothing more than just watch as flames surrounded your car and took you away from me.
I could just pray. Pray that it was just a nightmare, a bad dream. Pray that someone would let me help you. Or let me die with you.
No one listened me. No one woke me up. I was trapped, forced to listen to your screams full of pain until silence reigned. You know that I still can hear them? Even when I’m awake. It’s a never ending nightmare.
Nick... can you forgive me?”

Message #13



His breathing was itching, wheezing between the tears and the screams full of rage and red emotions that made his nerves vibrate like they were fragile chords of violin. Cars speeded all around him, raising up a wind that was supposed to cool down the temperature but it met a high and strong barrier.
Strangers passed him without giving him a glance, everyone lost inside their worries and problems. He didn’t care, it had been a long time since he stopped caring about something or someone.
It hurt too much.
But that? That had been the last drop of a vase that was already full to the brim.
And that was the reason why he was walking so fast in a city he couldn’t recognize anymore, wearing only a thin jacket even though it was November, almost December, and the cold had started to take control over the air.
He didn’t feel it. He felt only the rush of fury raging inside him and it made him feel alive for the first time.

“I can’t believe he did this, Nick. I knew sometimes he went to the extreme because he cares and I’ve always appreciate him for this but... No, this... this is beyond the normal. This is beyond everything I can understand and brush off as concern. Concern about what? Does he really think that I would be alright and okay after only a month? It’s not like I’ve lost a friend or someone that I barely knew.
I lost you.
And to him, you were only a friend. Yes, a close friend but still he has someone to lean on, someone who can wipe away his tears and just be there for him. Who have I? You were that one for me. You were my entire world so I’m supposed to go back to who I was like nothing? I just can’t do that. That Brian died when you did, Nick. Maybe he had been buried with you. No, leave out the maybe. He had been.
But it’s not that. At least, not at all. That’s not the reason why I’m so mad. Do you remember how I was when I was mad? Of course you do. You were the only one who could calm me down. And you would it now. You would had chased me down, stopped me to go around the city like a mad man and talking to a phone that it’s supposed to be disconnected but still... I don’t know, I keep thinking that it’s only a prank. And maybe that’s why I’m coming back home. Will I find you there?”

Brian stopped at the traffic light, looking up at the black sky and the warning of a storm. Like the one going inside him.

“I’m mad at Kevin, though I know you’ve already figured it out. He... he slipped me sleeping pills because he was worried. And I get, I know I’m being hard to deal with right now but he doesn’t understand what he put me through. Every night, every single night I had to watch you die and listen to wyour agonizing screams without being able to do something or to wake up. I couldn’t escape. I could only stand there and watch those flames. Every single night, every single time I fell asleep.
You know what he told me? He told that he was doing it for my own sake! He said that he was worried of my health and that he didn’t want to lose me too. He said something about me not reacting well. Well, today I reacted. I’ve told him all the things that I thought of him and his need to always try to control other’s lives. My life.
I don’t need his advices. I don’t need his trying to help me. I don’t need to be helped.
I just need you. And there is only one place I need to be to get better.”

Their home still stood in front of him like nothing had happened, like time hadn’t gone by. It was like it was just waiting for its owners to come back and bring it back to life.
But when Brian opened the door, nothing happened.
It still remained empty and dark.
Cold.
But it was still home to Brian. It was still their home and it was enough for him to close the door behind his back.

The house was in the same conditions it had been when Brian left it some weeks before, as if time had decided to stay out of the door and wait patiently for someone's return before starting again to run its curse even within those walls. Everything was silent, except for the windows that kept being slammed by the wind; everything was wrapped up in a grey blanket, the same that had possessed Brian since the day that hell had started. His fingers found themselves again dialling rapidily that number he hoped it could be available again instead than being disconneted.

«I thought... I hoped to find you here, Nick. I know it's stupid, I know it's irrational but I'm hanging out to this illusion just so I won't sink down in the nothing. Just like this house. For a moment, I thought I had mistaken the address because this house, our home, has never been this silent. Or so dark. When we used to go out, you would always leave a light, or the television or the stereo on. And when I tried to tell you something about it, you would just laugh telling me that we could afford to lose some money over things like these. This time... this time isn't like that.»

On his right there was the living room, the dining room was just a few meter ahead, both of them in the same conditions Brian left them.

«The table is still set. There are still the candles, even though they are already burned. There are still the plates. I chose to use the one that you had got me once, even though you couldn't understand why we needed two different sets. But those... those were for the special occasions and that night was supposed to be... was supposed to be special. That was the reason why I asked you to go out, that's why I asked you to go and buy things I didn't even need. It was an excuse, it was just a trick so that I could have only an hour to get everything ready without you wandering around and questioning me about what I was cooking and why. I cooked your favorite meals. I was...»

The realization hit him straight in the chest, bringing him to his kness to try to regain breath and prevent to fall down. But air didn't dare to come, it ran around him like it just wanted to make fun of him.

«... no, no, no... I... why... I shouldn't have asked you that. Why did I do that? If I haven't... If I haven't asked you to go out, you you would be here. Alive. You would be here, pinching me and reminding me that it's just a nightmare. - Brian laid a hand on the floor, falling and resting his back on the hard and cold tiles. - It's all my fault. Nick. It's all my fault. That's why you aren't answering me, that's why there is this emptiness that doesn't want to disappear. It's all my fault and that stupid idea to surprise you. Why did I let you go out? It was raining, it was supposed to be a storm and what did I do? I've let you go out, I'm the one who sent you in that damn accident! You didn't even want to go out. You only did it for me. I'm... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...»

His pleas drifted away from his lips, meeting the tears before they were all dried and kidnapping by that balck hole that had always took his soul.

«Nick, do you remember when we first moved here? We didn't have any bed or couch or anything else. We just took a mattress, placed it in front of the fireplace and that's how we spent that first night in our new home. This time, however, I didn't have the energy to go upstair so I just laid and slept here, on the floor. Slept, what an euphemism! I'm not like Howie, who can actually sleep anywhere and anyway he wants.
I couldn't sleep. My eyes would fall on something, anything and anywhere, and it made me think of you. It reminded me about you. I think... I think I've made a little bit of confusion but I don't believe you would give a damn about it, right?
Yesterday. Yesterday I've lost it. I think I've reached the bottom and as I stood there, in the middle of broken things just like my heart, I've realized that I couldn't go on like that. I can't go on like this. You've always said that one thing you loved more in me was my stregth, how I've always seemed to stand back again after a storm. So I told myself that I couldn't let you down, like I could imagine you up there, sitting on your cloud and looking down at me with a sort of television, all angry at how I was behaving.
At least I've to try, right? That's what I've told myself. I've to try. I owe it to you, Nick. To myself. To Kevin and I'm sure that he really believes that he would find my corpse next time he comes to visit me.
I have to start somehow, right? And that's what I did.
I woke up and the first thing that I did was opening the curtains. Let the light in where there has been darkness. It shouldn't be that hard and difficutl, right? And it hasn't been because today was such a beautiful day for being already November. Sun was shining bright in a unusual light blu sky. And do you know what was the strangest thing? I didn't feel anything. I felt nothing. I didn't feel the sunrays above my face and neither their warmth. Nothing. Not even the cold. I watched the air condensing with every breath but there wasn't any traces of that ice on my hands or on my face. Nothing. Just like I didn't take notice of the pieces of broken glass piercing through my skin. I've only noticed it when I found myself staing at red blood.
What's happening to me, Nick? Why does it seem like I can't exist without you? Nevertheless I'm trying. Slowly. One step at time. But it feels wrong. Move on feels so wrong, like I'm supposed to forget everything that we used to have and everything we wanted for our future. - A hand wiped away the lonely tear that slipped along with those words. - I've cleaned. And I remember how you used to understand my mood based on how much I was cleaning. If I was like a maniac, you knew it was time to break me and put me back again.
Nick. I'm broke now. I'm shattered. I can see fragments all scattered around me, reflections of the person I was thanks to you. But you aren't here to put it back together. And I fear... i fear they're lost forever.»

Leaves were dancing around him in a coreography made of yellow and orange, brown and red. Grey was the colour of the sky, with a timid sun left to bring out a little bit of warmth.

«Autumn. Remember, Nick? It's my favorite season. You've always prefered summer, the season where the sun stays up in a sky whose colour is the same shade of blue of the ocean. You said... you said that autumn was a halfway season, neither too warm or too cold. You didn't know how to define it and it made you sad seeing nature slowly dying before winter came. And I... I tried to explaing to you that that was the beauty of autumn, the fact that trees and flowers decided that it was time to hide in a safe corner before the clod would chose for them.
You... you acted like the autumn. You've decided to go before some storm or snow would have make you weaker or destroyed you. But you've forgotten me. You left me here , in this eternal winter, without even giving me the chance to prepare myself for it. I only have this phone and the hope to be wherever you are right now.
I've tried. I've tried to stand up once again and begin a sort of new life. But it's so damn hard! Once everything was in order and cleaned, once normality was back again in hour home, I realized that it didn't matter how much I'd cleaned, how much I'd let the windows open or the tv on. Your absence is always here, it's a seed that doesn't seems to stop gnawing my ground and it's taking me lower and lower.
There is no solution. I can't stay here but I know I can't, I don't want to go back to Kevin's.
Do you know that I still haven't been in our bedroom? I''ve tried, I've opened the door and put a hand on the jamb: your scent literally puched me. It was there like nothing had happened. Like you never went away. For a moment, I believed it. For a moment, I let myself inside the illusion that you were only in the bathroom on in another room of the house and it would only have taken a shout to see you once again.
And that's what I did.
Stupid and hopeful, I've called your name and the only reply I got back was a stab straight through my heart. Because you aren't here.
I closed that door. I closed it and I hid the key.
I closed that door and I never opened it again. I'm sleeping on the couch lately. It's comfortable and if a nightmare wakes me up, I can immediately turn on the tv and let time slip away. Let it slip like it doesn't really matter anymore.
Nick, if you can't come back, and I know now that you can't, there is only one thing left to do. I've to find you. Wherever you are. It's how it should be, right? Frick and Frack, together. It's all I want. It's all desire. Be at your side, whether it's here on earth or up there in heaven. You know... without you, it's like I'm already dead.»

Brian stopped in front of the wrought - iron railing, a protection for the river down there. In front of him, only the infinite sky.

«Will you wait for me?»

Footsteps echoed with each and every puddle they came in contact with. Rain kept pouring down, faster and thick while wind blew away its drops, dragging behind what was left of leaves and branches. Only a solitary figure dared the forces of nature in that particular moment of the day. That figure was walking very slowly, with only a goal and a destination in his mind.
Once the highest point of the bridge had been reached, the man took a cellphone out from the pocket of the thin jacket he was wearing.

«This is my last message. A few moments, I hope it won't take that much time, and I will be able to see you again and tell you all the things I haven't been able to say in these past weeks. I should be sad, I should feel some kind of remorse and regret for what I'm about to do, for all the people I'm about to leave behind and how much I'm about to hurt them. But this... this is the only solution, the only way I have to escape all this pain and heartache.
Each morning is harder and harder to get up and pretend that nothing had changed: the world is still running, the hours still change along with days and months. I can't. While everything still live, I'm paralized since that night. I have nowhere to turn, there is no thought or sight that doesn't bring me directly or inderectly to you.
Why keep hurting, then?
Why do I have to live a life that has lost its centre?
Frick and Frack.
But how can I be Frick without my Frack? Honestly, Nick, I don't want be. I don't wanna be without you.
I'm not afraid. I'm here, observing the river below me and I don't feel any fear. I was so scared of heights and, yet, I don't have any vertigo. Maybe I'm still hiding inside that cocoon of numbness that held me captive since your death.
I'm not afraid to die. I'm already dead so this... this is only a fall into another life. A life where there is you and everything that we should be.
Us.
Me and you forever.»

The grip around the wrought - iron railing tightened up while the back came to rest against it. A look below and then they eyes raised up, to the sky, where his only hope to survive was looking down on him.

«I left silently. I spoke with everybody, I even call my parents and your mom. Isn't this what people do? Isn't this what people do when they decide that it's time to go? It's even more cruel when you think about it, Nick, 'cause I wasn't given that honour. I don't have any last words to hold on to. Just that quick kiss on the tipnose and the reassurance to come back soon. I think, I believe, it's more than appropriate that I'm the one who has to come to find you. It has always been our fixed point, after all.
I couldn't condemn Kevin and the others to my same and cruel fate. I left a note, a few line that I know won't be able to soothe the pain but I wanted to leave a brief explanation. Even though I fear that kevin capted something. I'm not sure, I don't know what left me think this but... he had that strange look in his eyes like he knew.»

Brian let out a steady breath as he started to unhook his fingers.

«Wait for me. And see you soon, Nick.»

White. There was only white all around him. Shiny, clear and bright. He batted the eyelids, although those seemed to weight more than ever imagined. As a secnd thought came into his mind, his whole body seemed to be heavier and this left him perplexed.
Then, as his mind cleared from the fog that was held around it, Brian remembered shattered fragments about the previous hours. On a instict, his hand went to find and held that object he never let go of it, the one he fought to keep it with him. He made a number and the same and old metallic voice replied.

«Nick? It's me. Again. I guess... - Brian cleared his voice with a cough but it stayed rough, a slight whisper that only a telephone could pick up and hear. - ... I'm still here. I didn't die. And maybe it is a relief for you, right? I didn't know, I didn't realize how bad I'd fallen, how far I'd let the pain and suffering take me and shattered me so bad.
You probably already know what happened, you are probably the one who told Kevin where he could find me. Yes, it has to be this way since no one really knew how much important that park is for me. For us. No one knew that you proposed to me on that very bridge. We were waiting for the new year, we were waiting to have all the time to organize everything before telling everyone. It was our secret. And yes, I've already asked Kevin and he said that he knew where to find me 'cause he had found our diary. But.... but I'd like to think that it was you who sent him in the right path. You were my angel when you were still alive, so, it's right that you're still, even now that you have a whole cloud all for yourself. I should be angry. I should be mad that I failed, that someone prevent me to do what I felt was right. And, maybe, a part of me is actually angry and it's the part of my soul and heart that still long to be whevere you are. That would that still throb and bleed to be by your side.
I still want to be with you. I still want you by my side but... I know you wouldn't want to see me reduced in this state. I'm a shallow shadow of the man you knew and loved and although I know I won't ever be that person again, I can promise that I will try. Now more than ever I want you to look down on me and be proud of who I will become. I don't want you to be worried about me anymore.
I have a lot to work on. The other day, with Kevin, I let out only a slim part about my pain. But now, for the first time, I'm not only seeing clouds and storms. Guess I needed to fall this hard to start seeing a little ray of hope and light and I know now which direction I must take.
I've made a promise. I've promised Kevin that I will start to look after and take care of myself. I've promised him that I will heal some of my wounds, 'cause he knows that some of them will always be part of myself until my last breath. He knows 'cause he's been through it.
And now. Now, with this message, I'm making a promise to you. And you know I've never broken a vow, especially to you. I love you and it's something that I will never stop doing it. But I think it's time to go back to the start and love myself again.»

Opening that door for the second time, Brian finally felt home.
The first time he had came back, he had seen it as a cruel and eternal way of destiny to make fun of him, the infinite remembering of someone who wouldn't be there anymore. He had let the memories turn into sharp knives and he had let himself be the perfect target without even putting up a defense. Now, Brian was treating those images as trustful allies, partners that would have helped him keeping Nick impressed in any moment of his life, making him smile for how much luck he had been in the first place.
Kevin was there with him, occupied cleaning the kitchen and making a list of everything he would have to buy at the supermarket. Brian let him busy with a box of cereals opened for weeks and bottles of water already empty while he took courage and went upstairs, to what had been their bedroom. Everything had been left in its place since the last time he had been there, just like as time stopped and never dared to get in: the bed was still unmade and there were still some clothes where Nick had left them on the floor. What was missing was Nick's perfume. Someone must had opened the window and had let it fly away, disappear just like its owner did.
Brian stood for some moments at the doorstep, one foot already inside the room and one still beloning to the hall. In front of him, images from a distant past begun to show themselves: him and Nick running and chasing one another between clothes and laughters; nights spent inside each other's arms while building their future together or savoring their present.
He had been lucky. He had the rare chance to get and know true love, even though it lasted like a wing's fluttering. Sometimes, that realisation tightened its claws around his heart making it harder to breathe; other times, it was a warm blanket wrapped around his frame, comforting him when Nick's absence was too much difficult to ignore.
A noise behind his back made Brian turning around, meeting Kevin's face while he was holding a white letter.
«Don't ask me why or how but I found this in the kitchen.»
Brian didn't have to take it or to notice the handwriting to know, to be sure, who had been the one writing it.

«I... I can't believe it. - Those were the first words the answering machine recorded, sentences narrated with a lump that made the voice rough and breaking. - I'd think that you were crazy or that I'm the one becoming crazy, especially if I let myself believe that you could have written these words during the past weeks. But I know it's not like that so... so I'm wondering when did you have the time to write this letter. Especially, I'm beating myself up about not noticing that serious look on your face while you were thinking about dieing and what might happen to me. What haven't you told me? Still... still I can't think that this letter is nothing but a gift. Just when I started to convinced myself that I would never be able to hear your voice again, here you are giving me words that I've never heard. I'm almost afraid to open it, I want to save it forever because I know that, once it's opened, there won't be any other chance to hear you again.
What eles have you hidden from me?»

Vowels and consonants, that composed words and sentences, had became a whole set of blurred black ink on white paper. Even tough that was the fourth, fifth times that Brian had read again that letter.
Everytime he would finish reading those words, he would fold carefully the paper and he would place it under the cushion, that strangely still held its owner's perfume.
The room was wrapped inside the dark of the night, alternated with the bluish light coming from the tv turned on while the pictures filled up the air erasing the sensation of being alone. Happy voices, laughters, shouts and musical notes filled up that emptiness in which Brian had risked to be sucked in.

«You were right. And of course you know it, you've always wanted to be right even when you were wrong. You would keep instinting, your face all red and raising up your voice, using every topic so that your bizzare theory would be proven right.
But you are right on this. Sorry, you were right. Sometimes I still forget that you're not a present tense, you're a past that I don't want to put behind my back. It won't happen. I can swear on this and you know pretty well that I've never ade empty promises.
I'm wearing your sweater. So that's where you left it, do you know I was going mad 'cause I couldn't find it? It was, it is, my favorite. And I know this is the very reason why you put it in the closet. You knew I was going to need it and... damn you, Nick! Why do I keep thinking that you knew what was going to happen? Why have I the feeling that you already know that you were going to die? Something isn't right, you wouldn't write this letter or do all of this if you wouldn't know first.
I sound like crazy, right?
Remember? It was the first thing you've told the first day we met. A lot were shocked that we clicked and became friend so quickly, those five years of difference seemed to place us on two different worlds. But we were similar, both of us felt so out of a place where it seemed that there wasn't space for us: you were the youngest and the other three always excluded you, too busy to dedicate a single minute to you. Me? I was the outsider, the last one. I had to make my way inside a group that was interwined long before Kevin would call me. I was shy, even though not many people would believe it. I was shy and scared of a world so different from the one I used to live. We were alone and, in our solitude, we've recognized the other as best frinde of the universe.
I haven't forgotten about all of this. Those memories were simply hidden under the amazing and wonderful images we've created during these years together. I can't forget that before became lovers, before wanting to share a life together, we were best friends.
Now, more than ever, I miss my best friend.
I miss the Nick I could call in the heart of the night only to comment a football match.
I miss the Nick who would come up to my room with hundreds of pop-corn and sweets in a hand and some movies in the other one. You've never liked being alone and... and I was the same.
I miss you.
I will always miss you.»

«It's hard.
It's hard to wake up and find only sheets wrapped around my fist when I was used to wake up with your fingers interwined with mine.
It's hard to wake up and finding myself lying on a simple cushion when I was used to sleep on your chestand your arms wrapped around my body.
It's hard to wake up with only white as first thing, especially when I was so used to wake up and find my eyes drowing in the blonde of your hair. You were never awake before me or, at least, you used to fake sleeping so I would end being the one cooking the breakfast. Then you would complain about my coffee, you would say thatit was always too strong but you liked it anyway. You loved being cuddled, being taken care of and I loved doing it.
I loved taking care of you.
It's hard, mostly, waking up knowing that it is going to be another day spent inside your absence. There are times when this seems like a huge weight on my chest, ready to crush me and those are the moments when my mind pretend not to know the reason why I can't find you. I panic, nervously and frantically I look for you with my eyes and my hands but I only come up with empty air. And then, then it takes only a glance to Kevin and everything comes back, brightly and lethaly like only a stab can be.
I breath again.
Even if I feel guilty about it, even if I feel like I'm the worst criminal in this world.
So I read your letter again and remind myself that I shouldn't feel this way, that I'm not a bad person for doing that. I remind myself that it's what you wanted me to do so I keep breathing, inhaling and exhaling air like it's the first time my lungs and oxigen came in contact.
Yesterday I've talked about you.
For the first time, I've talked to the outside world about the most amazing man I've been blessed to have by my side for so many years. It was strange, I didn't even want to be there in the first place. All I wanted was to be at home, wrapped inside your sweater and watch again some of your, our, interviews. Do you know what's my favorite? The one where you couldn't say «documentary» right. - The laughter that time, that very first time, escaped naturally like it had never had before. It tickled his throat, he felt it as it went up until it caressed his lips, searching for an escaped that would been granted. Like all of his body was waiting for that moment. The tickle expanded inside all the veins, bringing a new breath of life. - What I love about that day isn't on the camera, 'cause no one was recording in that moment: your pout beccause we were making fun of you; your smile when I started trying to lift you up.
It's strange telling you this now but... I have to thank you.
Thank you for coming into my life.
Thank you for changing it in ways that I still can't understand.
Thank you for loving me.»

«When did time begin to fly so fast, Nick? It seems just like yesterday that... - A long breath, followed by a silence that filled up the emptiness of words that still couldn't be spoken so easily. - ... Do you hear those notes in the background? Yes, you can't be wrong. They're Christmas songs. When did Christmas come so quicly that I didn't even notice it?»

Brian's eyes took hold of everything that was around him in that room, all drowned in the dark except for the dim glare coming from the light left on in the kitchen. A series of boxes were gathered up near the door, still all closed from the previous year.

«I found all of our decoration but I still can't find myself opening them. I thought I was ready, I thought that the worst was over and that I could be strong enough to bear and stand these new memories.
I was a fool.
Tomorrow is Christmas's Eve and... we've never been home on that day. It was our day, it was our tradition: going all over the places, all dressed up so we wouldn't be recognized and we used to spend all those hours between people, tasting the Christmas's air and act like a normal couple. We used to buy a hot chocolate, we used to observe all those people who run to make the last gifts. But there is an image that I will always bring with me and it's about you, of course, when the first snowflakes would start to fall down. You looked so happy, red cheeks and a light in those smile that tell how you could never be more happy than ever.
What is it left for me? Nothing and even your memories can help this time.
Christmas was our festivity, those traditions that we were hoping to share one day with our family. Now I'm all alone, I'm like one of those houses we always looked with a sad smile, all dark and empty of decorations. I know I'm not truly alone and that I don't have to be, especially tomorrow. But you would agree with me when I say that it's not the same. It won't ever be the same. I can spend the festivities with my parents or the other guys but I'll always be the outsider, I will always be the one who would then come home and spend the last hours all by myself. There won't be smiles in the morning, no more exchange of gifts while we're still under the blankets and no, there won't be any more hours spent inside that warmth just because we could, no more wrapped one other in each other's embrace, still trapped in that thin and special line between sleep and wake.
You know that I've never really cared for gifts because, well, you know, we could already have whatever we want in any moment of the year. For us, Christmas wasn't only for the gifts. Gifts weren't the only thing that could hold a meaning. And Christmas wasn't only for the sweets, although you loved them so much. Christmas, for us, was just spending it together. First as a couple and then with all the family. That's why Christmas was so special for me.»

After days and weeks, the first tear took Brian by surprise and unprepared, leaving him with no defences against the wave of pain.

«You. You'd be the one thing I'll ask for.
See you once more.
Touch you once more.
Kiss you and let myself wrapped inside your arms.
Just one last time.
That's all I ask for this Christmas.»

It was the insistent ringing of the doorbell that woke Brian up. After a few moments of confusion, he remembered where and the reason why he was sleeping on the couch. With eyes all swollen and red and a start of a migraine, Brian fought with the instict to curl up and hide inside his small ball and went to open the door, finding himself meeting the worried faces of his family.
«Oh sweetie.» It was all his mother could say before enveloping her son in a hug that only a mother was able to give.

«I should have expected it. You did know it, didn't you Nick? I don't remember if angels have the power of foresight but I'm sure you did see them arriving, their car full of decorations and food like I haven't eaten in centuries. Well, I don't think mom isn't wrong about that...
As always, that woman has taken control over the house. She've sent me upstair to take a shower and she actually threathen to ground me in my room with Harry until I have reached a sort of normal state.
Something happened while I was searching for something to wear that it wasn't my usual payamas. I found our diary. I thought, I really thought that I had gotten rid of it in a rage but... I guess Kevin found it and kept it, waiting for the right moment to give it back to me. Anyway, I started going through it and it hit me how many projects we had, Nick. And one... one was meant to happen this Christmas.
I didn't know where or how I found the courage and the strength to do it, Nick. But I did it. I did what we were supposed to announce together this Christmas, hand in hand while we were going to watch our family getting emotional and see the love drawing lines upon their faces. Our family because mine had become yours, the one you never had and the one you fought so much to be accepted and loved for who you were. Even when you knew it was going to be a failure.
I did it.
We were sitting around the table, just few minutes before starting to have dinner and after dad finished our ritual prayers. I was still holding mom's hand when I started telling them how in August you took me in that same park where I tried to be with you again. I told them how you got on your knees and asked me to give him the chance to spend our life together. I told them that it was our plan, that we had already decided that Christmas Eve, this day, would have been the perfect day to tell everyone. 'Cause this was supposed to be our gift for them.
In a way, it was like that.
In a way, it was like you were hery by my side while telling them. And you were still here when mom and dad started to cry, saying how proud they were for that son that had came into their life and that would keep staying no matter whar. Yes, Nick, they were talking about you. Even Harry teared up, you know? He said that you were already his favorite brother-in-law because you were the only one who got me.
No matter what, tonight has been a good night. The pain was there everytime that my eyes would fall on that empty chair but all the memories and my family's tales soothed it: things I already know and things that you have never told me.
You were there with us. So, Merry Christmas, my love.»

It was night but the living room was still illuminated by the blu light coming from the television. The volume has been turned off to the minimum, so that he could at least decipher what the characters were saying, although half of the plot was already been forgotten because not so much interesting.
The couch was comfortable, his legs and body too small to occupy too much space and a cushion and a blanket make the perfect illusion of a bed. That was one of those nights when he couldn't find strength or courage to sleep inside their room, a place so soffucating for all those memories that sip out from their hiding corners and let themselves see bigger and more powerful than before. He wasn't ready yet to fight those nights, his defenses still so weak and frail that it would take nothing to open a door and hit him straight through his heart. Like a leaf lost and prisoner of the wind, he let himself taking away by those images of a life that has been cut so suddenly from his grasp, without even a warning.
«Still awake?»
Jakie came close to the couch, sitting beside her son: in the half light, those dark circles under his eyes told about how much he aged in so little time. Still, at the same time, wrapped inside the blanket and with hair spiking up in every directions, he looked like that child she had to comfort during childish nightmares.
«One day, not so long ago, imnsonia knocked at my door. I let her in and, since then, she decided to stay with me since she liked so much my company. - Brian replied, putting down his feet so to make space for her mom. - And you? Why are you still up? Don't tell me my insomnia has come to you as well!»
«No, no, no. - Jackie said, smiling at the joke. And feeling a pang of relief seeing a little glimpse of the old Brian, where for so many days and weeks there had been nothing able to penetrate the wall of pain. - I was only going to get a glass of water.»
«You never get up to get water since you always place a glass on the table before going to sleep. Are you checking on me?»
«Am I Kevin?»
That was supposed to be a meaningless joke but a shadow obscured Brian's eyes for a second before a smile would reappear.
«That was Nick's usual reply.»
«Oh.»
«Don't worry. It's okay. I'm used to these little details. They make me feel like he's still here with me. Even if only as a memory. - Brian frowned. - It's not crazy, right?»
«No. Of course not. I would think you're crazy if you told me that you still talk to him like he's here with you. Memories aren't negative, it's the only way to keep people alive. And, when first burning will be over, you're gonna find strength in them.»
«Do you really think?»
«Yes. And I believe even Nick thought it like that.»
Brian's expression became a mist of confusion and curiosity.
«What do you mean?»
Jackie placed her hand on the her son's, gripping it as a sign of comfort.
«The last time you both come home, one day Nick took me and told me a strange speech before giving me this. - With her other hand, Jackie took a letter out of her robe. - He only told me to give it to you on the first Christmas after his death.»
For the longest second, Brian couldn't find any single word with a complete meaning while his fingertips caressed the traces left by Nick's ink on his name. A lot of questions started to go round his mind but the only thing sure was those words that he was going to find inside that letter, the last reflections of that complicated puzzle Nick was and only few people were able to decode.
That was his last chance to hear, again, Nick's voice and that particular thought gripping and thightening its hand around his heart, a grip so strong that was able to let escape a solitary tear, leaving it abandoned on his hand, on that finger that still kept drawing circles and lines over Nick's handwriting.
When the letter was opened, the world dissapeared, sucked in that small but powerful white sheet. Brian didn't hear his mother leaving, didn't feel her caress on the shoulder or her reassurance not to stay up too late.
His eyes, his senses, his mind were all focused on the letter, attracted to it, holding on to the last fragments of himself, not only of Nick.

«Merry Christmas, Bri - bear.
I know, I know. You hate that nickname. You always cast me such glares when I say it and yes, I have to admit that I love teasing you. But you do the same with me, asking me about capitals when you know that they would never exist if it was for me!
But you are. My Bri-bear, you've always been something I had to protect because too delicate, too frail underneath that armor of strenght that you always wear around yourself. Though that armor isn't indestructible, Apparentely, to the stranger's eyes, it seems like that nothing can really touch you. Nothing can really hurt you. But strangers don't know you like I do. And when you look me with those eyes, that light that makes me feel like the most loved man in the entire universe, I can't stop myself asking and wondering who would be there to protect you if I can't be there.
Christmas.
Christmas was your holiday. Christmas always brought you back to be a child and it was impossible to be a Grinch with you around. Remember that time you force all of us to do a concert because we were blocked in the airport for the snow? We had so much fun. That is Christmas for you. Be together and bring joy, even the smallest flame, to those who aren't as lucky as us.
And now I'm here, lying on a bed you used to sleep in when we didn't even know each other, and I try to think about you during my absence. It hurts. It hurts so much because your absence always clash with the lack of oxigen for me. And I... to think that I'll have to spend an eternity without you... I can't. I'm not able to. But still, if something should ever happen to me, we'll need to learn to live without each other.
You, especially.
I know you wouldn't celebrate Christmas, not maybe this first one. And it's okay, Brian. You don't have to feel guilty and I think that everyone will understand if you won't smile. Don't hide away. And, if should ever feel happy even for just one second, don't feel bad about it.
And even if I won't be there, even if I won't get to see your reaction, I wanna give you my last gift.
I know you won't understand this letter. Sincerely, I don't even understand myself what's the locigal thread that link all these words so I'm just scribbling down my thoughts and then, as always, you will be able to put them together as an important life lesson that only you would be able to find.
There are so many things that I want to say to you, some are so clichè that I feel stupid to even think of writing them down. Some hurt because asking you to move on with your life, asking you to leave me in the past instead than bringing me with you in the new year, seems like the worst sentence. In a way, I'm the one who will force you to do this, to make this decision, so I want you to move on. You have so much life inside of you, so much will to live that I can't, and I don't want, to imagine you still and forever trapped inside the pain and heartache.
You have to go on and you have to do it for all that we had and all that we would have. Tell about us, tell about me and how much I was so boring and annoying.
That's my gift. Or, better, a request.
Wear my ring.
It's inside this letter, that's the reason why you couldn't find it. I told you that I had put it somewhere safe and I didn't lie to you. Because I will give this letter to the person that I trust the most, aside you of course. Anyway, I want you to wear that ring. I know we aren't legally wed and who knows when we will be. Maybe, when or if something will happen to me, we would already be married and I won't ever let you read this letter. But if I should die before that day, then I want you to know for me it was like we were already married. We lived together, you took care of me and our life together while I was slowly learning how to take care of you. That's the true meaning of a wedding, right? It's not a piece of paper. It's not a signature or a celebrating party. A wedding is the union of two lives, it's trying to find a balance between who we were and who we were going to be together. Slowly, we were reaching that point. Slowly, we were already there.
I didn't need a piece of paper to know that you were the other half of my soul. But I knew how much marriage was important to you, I knew that getting married and have a family were your dreams and I had promised myself that I would had always tried to make your dreams come true. That's why I proposed to you. And that... that day has been the happiest in my entire life. I will always bring with me the look on your face even before you said «yes». In that moment I knew, I understood, that I would have loved you until forever and that your side was where I was supposed to be.
That's why I want you to have my ring. In a way, it would be like I'm still with you, trying to take care of you even though I won't be able to caress you, cuddle or, simpler, make sure that you won't forget to eat. I'll be there when you will cry, I'll be there when you will finally be back smiling and living again.
Because one day you're gonna do it and, as always, it will be the most wonderful sound in the world.
And, from up above, I wanna try to help you moving on.
There are people, like me, that when they're shattered and on their knees, they hide in their personal world when they can scream, throw tantrum and let others to clean and put the pieces back together. You aren't like this. Even in your worst moments, you keep going on: all you need is a goal and you still can fight your dragons. You end up wounded, you ennd up with bruises and scratches and, sometimes, you can varely stand still. But you survive, without ever lowering your eyes. I've always admired you for that. I've always loved you for that because you pushed me, without knowing, not to ever give up.
My gift for Christmas, my gift for this Christmas, is to give you a goal.
Inside this envelope, along with the ring, there is a key. I know that you know which key I'm talking about so I won't waste ink and time to say it. It was ur project, it was the place we had chose for what was supposed to become our home.
Do it, Brian.
Bring that old house to life and, at the same time, bring yourself to life.
I know you can do it. I have no doubt about it. And when you will have one, or only a little bit of fear, just look at your ring and the up above. I'll be there with you.
Merry Christmas, my love.»

Everything was a blur. Letters, words, dots and lines were all black points as tears streamed down without meeting any obstacle. Trembling fingers, still holding those pages, went to search those two objects. They found the ring, a simple white gold ring.
«You know why the rings have this form? Because a circle is the perfect metaphor for love because it has no beginning and no end. It goes on forever and forever, just like our love.»
His own words, spoken while him and Nick were trying to find the perfect ring, came back to his mind like a hard punch.
«Forever. - He whispered, his voice broken by the tears while he put the ring on his finger. - Forever.» He said once again, leaving a kiss on the cold metal and imaging, for one second, that he was kissing Nick's lips.

The key turned inside the keyhole and the metallic click echoed inside a house that was now only empty, silent and cold. To Brian, closing that door was like ending a chapter of his life, the most fulfilling and happiest one that even those years when the fame of the group had been at its highest couldn’t even be compared to. He doubted that he would ever put his foot again inside that place, even when and if his heart one day would be able to heal itself and begin again to beat normally. Despite the inescapable flow of time, that house would always guard every memory, every impression and trace left by Nick and that was the reason why Brian decided not to sell it and just close it as it was. He hadn’t even taken anything with him, just was strictly necessary not to forget our life together while everything else would have waited there, a testimony of something that couldn’t be forgotten but that had been interrupted too soon and abruptly.
It has always been their plan. Take everything and just leave that frenetic life between flights, tourbus and that fragile and thin line between private and public; leave and build their own world, made of a normal life spent in a small town where they would have been known as “Brian and Nick, the couple who lives in the house at the end of the beach” instead than “Brian and Nick, the ones from that famous boyband.”
Now, that project was only Brian’s. And, though with a heavy heart, Brian understood why Nick pushed him towards that solitary adventure. A new life, a new beginning and, maybe, the first step to healing. There, surrounded by what they had been; there, surrounded by friends and family that would always speak and remind him of Nick; there he would never be able to find the strength to move his first steps. But Nick knew him, Nick knew him better than anyone else, even more than Brian himself, and he knew that Brian would end up half living, the surface of the guy he had been but with a dry and deserted soul within.
And what a better day to being a new life if not on New Year’s eve?
It seemed like a too much bizarre coincidence that Brian was almost tempted to believe that there was something strange, something more underneath if he wasn’t convinced that Nick would never had been that cruel.
“Are you really sure to leave today?” Kevin asked while passing him the last of his boxes. A life closed in boxes, few containers that would never be opened again, hidden in a closet until their sight wouldn’t hurt again that wound that was still pulsing.
“Stay at least for the party. – Aj said. – You shouldn’t be alone tonight...”
In some way, Brian found himself smiling a little. It wasn’t his usual one, the one he was famous for, but it wasn’t that mask he had wore when he wanted to fake that everything was okay.
“I really don’t want to celebrate, Alex. I don’t have anything to remember this year and nothing to hope for the new year.”
“None of us wants to celebrate.” It was Howie’s reply, letting the “without Nick” floating between them.
For some seconds, Brian watched his three best friends, reminding himself that he hadn’t been the only one whose life had been crashed by that tragedy. Maybe he was the one paying the highest price but even them, even Howie, Aj and Kevin had been burned by it.
Even them deserved to start over again.
“I know. But Nick would have wanted you to be and celebrate with your families.”
A first hug. Then a second. And, at last, the third, longer and the one Brian hold onto with more intensity. For weeks, he used his cousin as a refuge and crutch. And now it all seemed like many and many years before, when he had said goodbye to his parents before leaving for Orlando. That hug, in a way, smelled like a goodbye.
“Please, Brian. – Kevin whispered in his ear, his voice broken by the emotions. – Take care of yourself. It’s all what Nick would have wanted. And you know.”
Brian could only nod before letting go of that embrace. A last word, a last laugh and then the engine of the car started to roar, taking Brian away from what had been his life until Nick’s accident.
“Goodbye.” Brian murmured in a sob as he watched the house disappearing in the rear-view mirror.




**********





It was already the sunset when Brian finally decided to stop for a little break. He had been driving for hours and hours, the speed of the car gave pulse to his memory and let it free to fly back to all those trips made together, destinations achieved and found out by surprise and places they fell in love with only because they had lived them together.
Like the place where now he stood. He had almost reached his destination, only an hour left of driving, and from that promontory, if he looked down he could make out the first houses of that town they felt attracted to since the very first moment they walked in.
That was one of the stop they would always made every time they would pass by: at the sunset, it seemed like to step in front of a painting outlined by the hand of nature, with that pink, orange and purple that fell directly in the blue of the ocean, where golden rays reminded that the sun warmed those waters not so long before.
For a second, for one and long second, Brian lifted his face and let himself be caressed by the small wind. He knew that someone would have find it stupid but in that wind, in those sunrays and, sometimes, even in the rain, Brian seemed to feel still Nick’s presence.
Yes, it was stupid.
As usual, Brian took out his phone and called that number. A ring and then came up that message that he would have loved to kick.

“One day I’m gonna end all of this, Nick. One day I’ll be able to let one day pass without the urge and the desperate need to call you and talk to you like you’re still alive. Like you’re still here with me. There’s no need for me to tell where I am right now. Not only you are probably watching me from your cloud. Well, you’re probably doing that. But you knew that I would stop here.
Remember the first time?
We were fighting, I was so mad because you wouldn’t listen to me like always. You’ve always wanted to be right even when it was so obvious that you were wrong. You were much more stubborn than me, more stubborn than everyone I have ever met but, if you hadn’t, I don’t think we would have end up being together. That time you stopped the car suddenly, going out slamming the door, knowing perfectly how much I hated it; I followed you, I wanted to keep up our discussion, I wanted so bad to prove how much you were wrong. But I blocked myself as soon as I saw where you were standing. I was already picturing you falling down from what seemed an impossible height. And you… You stepped back because you felt my fear. Remember? It was like looking at that view, even for a second, had been able to calm you. You hold out a hand, trying to get me closer. I still remember how you convinced me and… maybe I shouldn’t believe to your promises anymore, since you have broken the most important one, but I’m here and I’m not afraid because I know you’ll never let me fall.
Here. Here is where we started our plan. Seeing those houses so far away from each others, seeing that calm made of solitary cars and those boats sleeping on the ocean, all of that seemed what we have always wished for. Be normal. Live like everyone else.
I don’t know how much I can live like a normal person. Nick, you were my normality. And it doesn’t matter which shape I will be able to find and create, it will never be like I have always dreamed of. Like we have planned to.
But I’m gonna try. I own it to you.”






**********



Their, well, his house was the last one at the end of a private road. The first time they had seen it was during one of their walking on the beach: it was easy to spot, since it was the only one left abandoned and left alone. Taking advantage from it, they had stumbled inside – it had been Brian’s idea while Nick kept saying how that was the perfect hiding of some criminals – and they had started to imagine how beautiful those rooms must had been once.
Buying that house was the most impulsive decision they had ever made since they started a relationship but they never regretted it.
The only regret Brian now felt was for those small changes him and Nick had started to make. And that was the reason why that place was perfect for healing, mostly because there weren’t memories of Nick ready to haunt him. Still, it scared him, it terrified him thinking that one day he would wake up without needing or feeling Nick’s presence by his side.
From the centre of town, the bells of the old church started to welcome the new year. In the living room, the only room livable in some ways, the only trace of a celebration was a forgotten bottle of champagne.
With a hand, Brian raised up his glass towards the black of the night, stormed with the lights of the fireworks.
“Happy New Year, Nicky.”

Morning came sneaking in between the cracks of the shutters, bringing inside a strong-smelling of sea and that first hint of warmth that Brian still wasn’t accustomed to link with the winter. The first sun rays painted squares of light on the wooden floor, reflecting centimeters of dust, sand and dirt that abandonment had created during the past months. For a long moment he just observed those small circles, wondering if they were that much different from him: the only difference was a beating heart but, just like them and that house, even Brian had been abandoned, left alone for months in a place covered only by darkness before he had been able to see the sun and the light once again. And that was the reason why he had came there; that was the reason why Nick sent him to that place.

To start all over again.

Thus it seemed like cheating. Live again when all he wanted to do was going back under the blankets and let himself be made prisoner of images and memories of a time when he had been happy. Going back to those moments when thinking himself without Nick was only a spasm, a sharp pain that flow away quickly because Nick’s smile, laugh and voice made Brian remember that it was only that, only a cruel and bad thought. Now, instead, pain would arrive when he thought about those fragments of time and did not leave his side. It became less acute, perhaps, but it had became slyer because it didn’t disappear, it just stayed and made himself a companion in all those small gestures that were slowly building a new way of life.

Brian’s hand like always, like used to, reached towards the bedside table, there where he had left his phone the night before. But, for the first time, his fingers returned and lie upon the pillow instead than calling that familiar and yet so painful number. For all those previous weeks calling Nick’s phone had been the veil that hid and protected Brian from that cold world where he had to find a new place for himself; calling Nick’s phone had been his alibi for not facing life and for let it keep going on without having to say or do something to control it.

But not anymore. Brian couldn’t hide anymore.

With still lethargic and sleepy movements Brian got up from the couch, stretching muscles that weren’t used to be confined in such a small space. Back at home, back at the old house, he had been sleeping on a couch, still, but much bigger since it had been impossible using a bed that had never felt so cold and with so much more space than before. Here, instead, there was only an old couch that he and Nick had found in a flea market, on which they never slept because Nick’s legs had been too much long, no matter how romantic it could had been the idea of sleeping all snuggled up together.

Once the windows had been opened, the sun decided to sneak inside while Brian stepped out on the balcony that faced the ocean and the beach. He never thought he could end up loving that scenery so much, for he had seen it only a few times during all of his life. He loved nature, he loved the peace and tranquility brought by a simple walk through the trees or the woods. Maybe he had started to love the sea when he had met Nick, that very first time Nick took him on his boat and Brian had seen him finally free to be himself. And then Brian found himself reaching the beach and walk close to the water without Nick by his side, during all those moments when the desire to him had been too strong to swallow because the boy could be so damn stubborn and impossible to deal with. And yet, impossible was also not loving him despite everything. Then Brian had found himself needing to hear the sounds of the waves crashing on the sand to be able to fall asleep; or needing minutes, stretched to eternity, to just stand there and observe the blue of the ocean mixing and fading into the color of the sky while be painted with red and pink strokes.

He could heal there.

Watching the sun raising up from the water, Brian could admit that to himself for the very first time. He would always going to feel and miss Nick, he would always going to feel like someone had went and crushed a part of his heart, tearing away and making him living without it. But he could learn to live with that scar, he could learn to live without feeling like he was on the verge of not being able to breathe because Nick’s absence was so much suffocating that even his lungs had decided not to work and function.

He could do it.

Although it still seemed like an impossible mission.





****************




Night had already fallen when Brian took the phone into his hands. No one had called, no one had sent a message and Brian didn’t feel disappointed or sad. No, that was an half lie. A part of himself was still waiting for a call that would made him find out that the previous months had been only a nightmare or a bad joke. A part of Brian was still convinced that something in that story didn’t sound right and this idea would grow bigger and stronger every time he’d find a letter or a not from Nick, left around like clues of a plan that still he couldn’t see in its whole.

Brian was proud of himself. He was proud of being able to survive a whole day without reaching for the phone and call Nick every time something, even the smallest and most useless, would happen like having decided the bathroom’s furniture or to take down that wall between the kitchen and the living room so that it could be as brighter as possible. Brian was proud of only had slipped once, frozen by a memory that had came suddenly and had held him prisoner until he had been able to find the courage and strength necessary to take away that image and keep moving on. He was proud because the only time he left himself few of crying had been when he had found those projects that he had drawn himself and on which Nick had left a note. In that very moment Brian hadn’t been able to stop the tears from streaming down while his fingertips followed and traced the sings left by the pen Nick had held inside his hand, as if he could create some kind of invisible link with Nick. And that had been the moment when Brian had taken the phone and dialed the number. Every time Brian was still surprised and shocked that the number was still available. And every time Brian thought that it was maybe the time for disconnecting it but not now, not when he wasn’t still ready to accept Nick’s death and the fact that he would never come back to him.

“Remember when I made those drawings? You were sleeping, sound asleep like always while I couldn’t sleep. I was so damn excited about the fact that we had found our home, our refuge from the world and everything. So I went on the balcony and I started to draw how all of these rooms would had to be. And then, so suddenly, I felt your arms wrapped around my shoulders, a silent hug while you observed how those pencil’s lines came together and created our future home.
I can... you know that I can stay here and tell you about all the things that I’ve done today but you probably already saw them from your cloud. But I can tell you that I went down and met some of the people who live here. And I’ve met our... my neighbor. An old lady, I believe she has already taken me under her wing because she told me that I have to eat her apple pie. Am I that much skinny? Do I really look I haven’t been eaten for months? You know that I’ve always been like this, there are moments when I simply forget how to take care of myself if it means to forget and run away from everything that is raging inside my mind. And then... back then there was you. I’ve never told you but I loved being taken care of by you. And you always did it so silently that maybe you have simply not noticed that I knew what you were doing and how much I was grateful of. Or maybe you knew. Or maybe you know just now.”

Silence became a companion together with the ocean’s waves and the quiet jabber of some animals hidden inside the grass. The beach was empty, the white sand reflected a particular bright moon’s silhouette.

“It’s going to be beautiful. The house, I mean. And I’m already starting to think what to do once this project would be over. Am I going too fast? I don’t know, Kevin and my parents want me to speak with someone but... I’ve never been good and great with talking about my feelings or problems with strangers. With you... it was easy with you. It’s still easy with you. You understood me like no one else and I knew that you would never make fun of me or downplay any of my troubles. That’s why I still keep calling you.”

Brian sat on one of the rock, an arm circled around his knees and the other that still held tight the phone. Without making themselves heard, few tears started to stream down without being stopped because Brian felt strong only when the sun kept him busy. But in those dark moments loneliness became as if it was a physical pain, it hurt to reach out his hand and find that no one was there with him. How did he manage before Nick had been in his life? Brian couldn’t remember that phase of his life, he only saw it as a circle of blurred images, all of them grey and black because color had entered into his world only when he had met Nick. Because Nick had been his best friend even before they fell in love. Nick had been his companion in every adventure, he had been the one person he could spend a whole day just playing basketball without having the need or feeling forced to say something.

And Brian had never felt so utterly alone just like he felt in that moment.

“I miss you. - Brian murmured raising his eyes up to the moon, as if it could be a messanger between him and Nick. Wherever Nick was. – I miss your hugs. I miss walking and knowing that I can reach and I’ll find your hand and fingers to hold. I miss babbling about everything and know that you are there listening to all of my words, even so that you can make fun of me later. I miss having you here and telling me that it isn’t stupid crying over a stupid movie or for a romantic gesture. I miss not having you anymore by my side. I miss you.”

On that very day the first bathroom, the one at the first floor and adjoining the kitchen, had been finished. One last sweep over the light blue tiles and then Brian leaned against the doorframe, observing proudly his hard work. Two days. It had only taken two days to do and finish that room and, in the mean time, even the kitchen was slowly beginning to find its identity. Or maybe Brian should had to admit that slowly wasn’t the right word to describe it but more likely as the speed of light. He turned off the light, making sure that the windows were firmly closed and then he closed the door behind his back. The kitchen seemed like a battlefield with tools left on the floor ready to be used and boxes half closed and half opened, one piled up on the others.

One week.

It had been only a week since Brian had moved in that house and it had been a week since he had started to work on put it back in order. He had been doing every single work on his own, except for those much more complicate like the plumbing and electrical system of the house. For all the rest, he had never stepped down even if it meant to cut the wood for the floor, sweep until every tiles was shining under the light or paint until he reached the tone of color he wanted. He was very meticulous, he had always been and how fun it would had been doing all those works together with Nick, with a span attention so low that he had to do thousands of things at the same time or he would had soon all forget about them. He could imagine, Brian, the two of them standing around the only table in the house, drawings scattered on the surface while they were busy discussing about the furniture and if they should or shouldn’t make space for another window.

“How many windows do you really want? – Nick would had asked him, after bursting into a laughter. – We live by the sea so you would be forced to clean them every day because of the sand and dry salt.”

“So? One needs to be above the sink so I’ll be able to look outside and watch you teaching our son how to swim.”

Arms would had been wrapped around his waist, a chin would had found its place on his shoulder.

“Or I’ll be the one watching you helping our daughter with her homework. Just like you used to do with me.”

Those were the moments when Brian would found himself putting more strength into his work, the times were he would use even the last drop of energy just so that he couldn’t go back being a prisoner of infinite and endless ifs and buts: if Nick would had been there with him; but what he would had done instead. Those were the questions that Brian wanted to silence, those were the answers he didn’t even want to imagine because they hurt. Because they were knives that appeared so suddenly and stroke there where the scar still hadn’t started to develop and where, maybe, there would had been only a frail layer of skin, lighter and much more sensible. So, in those moments when all he wanted was to hide and cuddle inside his blankets and the darkness, Brian just lowered his head and went back to work painting the walls or look over again all the plans to be sure that he hadn’t make any single mistakes. And where there was nothing more left to do, when everything had to wait until the morning after or the sun to be started. Then Brian would just walk. Beach and sea had became his nocturnal friends, silent companions that stood by his side while, step by step, he tried to put together something that had been shattered beyond repair. It had became a cycle, it had became his new routine: only when his muscles would surrender, only when his body would ask and demand to lie down to rest, only then Brian would listen to it and sit on the couch. Because at the moment it would start his second battle, even though not against nightmares, demons from the past and from a future that would never had again the chance to happen, but with the will to get up in the morning. There had been mornings when Brian had been sure he was going to lose that fight; there had been mornings when he had to use every energy just to put his legs over the couch and place his feet on the floor.

“Do you remember that particular conversation we had one day? It had been a few weeks since you were out of rehab and you were always so quiet, always so cautious around me because you were afraid to have disappointed me. And because you were ashamed of being so weak in front of my eyes. – Brian leaned over the rail while his right hand started to play with the ring he now wore as a necklace. – Remember what did you tell me? You said that you envied my strength, you envied the fact that I’ve never left myself fall that down just to escape my problems instead than fight them. You envied the fact that, even if stubborn, in the end I’d always find something to hold onto and stand back again on my feet. You... you thought that you were weak because you had let your family poison you so much that you needed another type to of poison to forget all that they had inflicted you over the years. And I don’t know how much breath and oxygen I’ve used to make you see how wrong you were, that there hasn’t been a stronger or weaker one between us because… well, you were still alive. No matter what, you were still with me and that was the most important proof of your strength: you were alive and you had been able to stand back again.”

A breath of wind raised up from the shore, ruffling bushes of grass and making vibrate the catch-dreams that Brian had put on the window-door. That air caressed him, a simple touch that decided to lie for a second on his arm before flying away. It was maybe his romantic and sentimentalist side speaking but Brian always believed that the breeze was Nick’s new way of touching him. Not that he would had gone and said it around, knowing exactly how people would had looked at him and pitied him even more than before. And though it may be sound dumb, that thought always managed to make him feel better. Less alone. And it made easier for Brian to accept Nick’s absence if he thought that, in reality, Nick wasn’t really gone because a part of him would had always found a way to stay with him, even if only in the air.

“There are moments when I want so much to use your same tricks. There are moments when all I want is something that can erase all the pain and your absence. I want to, Nick. I want so bad to forget. I want to forget you because living like this is too much painful.

And still I can’t force myself to do it.

I’ve came very close to doing it the other day, it would had been so easy to just buy some beers and get so drunk to the point that I won’t be able to remind myself why I had to make all those decisions all by myself. Or why I always end up with much more food that I can eat. But I didn’t do it. Because I know you would hate me if I did it; I know that you would look at me with those eyes that can only say how much I’ve let you down, you that had always admire me so much even if I never understood the reasons why. I... I’ve never been special, Nick. I’m not and I will never be. If I were, it was only because I was loved by you. – The sob didn’t come out that time, it stayed within the throat without a voice, as if it wanted to hug its owner and offer some kind of comfort and support. – I feel like I’m lost, you know? I feel like I’m a pebble that has been thrown in the water and it doesn’t know what it is supposed to do, if it should follow the stream or if it should try to fight it and find its way. I know that one day, someday, I’m gonna find my way. Even if it’s going to be so far away from the one I have chosen together with you.”

Brian closed the call, going back inside the house but leaving the window-door opened a little bit. It wasn’t a cold night, that was one of the many advantages of living in places like that. He didn’t waste much time to change for the night and, without too much thinking, he laid down on the couch and wrapped a blanket around his body.

That blanket was one of the few things that Brian kept from the old house. It was a gift from Nick of some years before, at first a playful reply for his always saying that he preferred staying home and watching old movies at night instead than going out to try the latest and coolest club.

“Is this how we are going to spend our evening once we will be married? An old married couple with a colored blanket on the knees and old black and white movies that you know by heart?”

Brian remembered the laugh painted on Nick’s face while he was making fun of him, the blue in the eyes a little bit brighter and those angles curved in a smile difficult to hide. Brian remembered the sound of the laugh born immediately after, when he opened his gift and found himself with the warmest and most soft blanket he had ever possessed, wrapped around a box of dvd.

That was the reason why Brian brought that blanket with him. Not only because it was his favorite. Not only because he knew that it would be perfect on that couch he had already seen in a little shop and that he would placed it in front of the fireplace, for those cold nights that might happen even at the beach. But because, when he wrapped it around his shoulder, the faint aroma that still lingered inside those lines rocked him within the illusion that it was still Nick and his arms offering him a refuge.

28th January









That morning when he opened the door, Brian hadn’t been shocked or surprised to see Kevin standing there. Honestly, he would had been surprised if the opposite had happened, as if Kevin would had been able to leave him all alone on that very day. It had been that thought, estimated and infallible in its prevision, that had pushed Brian to get up and act as if he hadn’t dreaded that particular day coming. There was no need to speak up, there was no need to give voice to how he would had really wanted to spend it: enveloped inside the blankets, far away from the sun and cuddled by the memories, deceiving himself for a few hours in the idea that he was only and simply waiting for Nick’s coming back so that he would had been able to surprise him.

Twenty-seven. If he had been still alive, Nick would had been only twenty-seven years old. And since the day he met him he had never, never, missed any birthday. Nick probably wouldn’t had never admitted it, neither now that he couldn’t even reply to his own thoughts, but he valued so much celebrating his birthday. Even if it was only the two of them or, better, he preferred it that way rather than all those birthdays celebrated with thousand and more people. Before they started that adventure that being in the group had been, all the birthdays Nick had celebrated and remembered with joy could been counted on the fingers of a hand. There had always been something coming in the way, always some kind of alibis or justifications that still weren’t able to explain why there hadn’t never been even a small cupcake to celebrate that day. Sometimes, his parents just forgot completely about it, too worried about carrying on their works and a family between money’s problems and silent hate that twisted between them. And that had been the reason why everyone, not only Brian, had always tried to find a way to celebrate Nick’s birthdays even when they were all scattered around the world and when organize and coordinated everyone and everything had seemed an impossible mission. But every effort, every single curse and reproach had always vanished in front of the joyful and happily expression that brighten up Nick’s face, those tears of emotion into discovering and realizing that he wasn’t that invisible and so little important like his family had always made him feel like.

It was strange. It had been strange that year.

It had been strange because Brian hadn’t to rack his brain to find something that he hadn’t already get to Nick; it had been strange not to think about a new way to surprise Nick without him finding out what he was plotting behind his back. It had been strange spending day and days just observing the calendar losing a day without repeating himself that he had to start baking the cake and hide it before Nick could find and eat it. It had been strange finding himself in his new kitchen and baking that cake with tears in his eyes, knowing that he was making it only to honor Nick’s memory and no one was going to eat it.

“I know you would come.”

“And I’m not alone.”

Behind Kevin, in fact, Aj and Howie came up.

“None of us wanted to spend this day alone.” Howie said.

“Or didn’t want to let you spend it alone.” Aj added.

Brian just let them inside, accepting their hugs and offering a small smile. At least, the cake would had not be wasted.







*_*_*_*_*_*









“Bri?”

Brian raised up his eye, stopping himself while he was finishing to cut the last slice of cake. His eyes laid immediately upon the letter that his cousin was holding between his hands.

“Tell me that it’s not from him.”

A mixture of embarrassment and sadness came forward both in Kevin’s eyes and voice.

“He came to me some months before his death. He gave me this letter and asked me to give it to you on the first birthday in the case... well, in the case he was gone.”

A hug of silence wrapped Brian around itself while he turned around the letter between his fingers, biting his lips to decide if he would open it there in front of Kevin.

Or if he should open it at all.

Since that horrible day when his life had been turned upside down and for all that time, all Brian had wanted had been to just hear Nick’s voice once again. He had watched every video and interview over and over again; he had listen to all those stupid messages that Nick had left him every time he had been bored or hadn’t had nothing to do. But they had never been enough because it wasn’t the voice itself that Brian was missing but his words, those sentences that would go from a simple “good morning” to those “I love you” that, even with all the years spent together, still made his heart beat a little bit faster and wrapped him inside a warm bubble of love. Accepting that fact, accepting that he wouldn’t ever be able to hear Nick’s voice again, hadn’t been easy and, maybe, there were still days when Brian felt a throb of pure pain thinking that his voice was gone forever.

Brian couldn’t wait to open that letter. He couldn’t wait to read what Nick had thought for that very moment and day, knowing how much comfort he would need. But, on the other side, Brian didn’t want to open and read it. He wanted to keep it hidden, protecting it because those were, perhaps, Nick’s last words and he didn’t want to waste them away, he didn’t want them to be ruined and consumed by time.

“Haven’t you thought that... – Brian raised up his face, crossing Kevin’s stare. He smacked his lips, moistening them before keeping up speaking. - ... haven’t you thought that all of this was strange? Or that, maybe, there is something else going on?”

That was a doubt that hadn’t really left its house inside him. Every time Brian had thought about all Nick had planned, every time that a letter like that would pop up, he couldn’t not think that it couldn’t be a coincidence. What had really pushed Nick into doing all of that? Because that couldn’t had been an idea that had came in a day and organized and acted out in a few hours. With irony, with a mocking irony, that had been the only project Nick had been able to organize in every small detail; that had been the idea that hadn’t ended up among the ones what were always left abandoned by themselves.

A shadow crossed over Kevin’s face but Brian wasn’t able to detect it, more worried about the ones that were trying to push him back in that place from where he was slowly and hardly coming out.

“It is strange. But you know how Nick was...”

“Exactly! – Brian exclaimed, turned abruptly around and leaning with his elbow on the sink. – I knew him like no one else and that is precisely the reason why this story is leaving a bitter taste in the mouth.”

“Brian, Nick loved you. You were his family, you were the most important person in his life. And he knew that his feeling were corresponded equally. He knew how you were going to react in the case he would die. Is it really strange that he had wanted to take care of you even if he couldn’t do it personally?”

Brian lowered his gaze, a deep breath while he tried to put the tears behind the security line.

“No. I would have done the same exact thing.”

“And even he would have asked if there was something strange... – Another step and Brian saw Kevin’s reflection coming closer. – Brian...”

“No. Please, just don’t.” Brian interrupted Kevin, lowing exactly what he was about to say. And he didn’t really wanted to hear once again that Nick was dead. He knew it, he was sure of it but, as if it was another side of that truth, a part of himself would had keep hoping to see him appearing at the doorstep.

Kevin hesitated for a second before nodding and staying silent. He just made a gesture, he reached and picked up the letter from the counter and holding it out for Brian, waiting patiently for his answer. And, without saying nothing more, Brian took it before going out on the balcony and then disappearing on the beach.



Happy birthday!

I don’t know how many years I’d been if I were there with you but I’m hoping I’m old enough. If it’s not that case... for the first time I don’t know what to say to you, Bri. For the first time, I’m here observing this blank page and I don’t have any idea about what to say to make you feel better. I like to think that you are going to celebrate it, even if I’m not there. I like to think that you are going to bake that cake that I love so much and I like to think that you are going to blow off the candles and make a wish.

In the end, my birthday is yours. A little bit.

No, don’t look me with that expression. You know very well which I’m talking about. That expression you always used every time I said something stupid and you didn’t want to tell me so you just watched me without interrupting me just so to see where I would end up.

But, really, it’s not really something stupid. Even if, at first, I didn’t believe it was true. How many times does it happen? I thought that it had been already a miracle meeting you, having you in my life as a partner. And it was like a gift from destiny knowing that I was the centre of your universe and love. But things like these... I don’t know, it sounds like something that could happen in a movie or in a tv-show.

And yet, it’s true.

I have never told you this and it’s maybe the only secret that I’ve always kept from you. Don’t get mad with your mother, I’m the one who begged her not to tell you anything. I know, now you’re worried, I can see those lines appearing on your forehead, the ones that always made their appearance when you’re worried over something. But it’s nothing bad, I swear. It’s just another proof that we were meant to be together. That we were soul mates.

It was a fan that had told me this, that was the reason why I couldn’t believe it at first. You know that a lot of them loved our relationship and you know that some of them had foreseen what we could have been. One of them, one day, told me that she loved and found amazing that the day I was born was the same say when you were supposed to die. I know that there scientific and medical explanation on how you survived and, miraculously without any serious consequences. But... okay, think that I’m a fool but I don’t think it was just a coincidence. I don’t believe that it’s a coincidence that my other half of my heart didn’t go away before I could find and meet it. And I like to think that there is a reason behind all of this; I like to think that you decided to stay here, on this earth, because you were the only one who could take care of me, protect me and love me. And you have always done it. You were my angel even though you weren’t invisible, up in the sky. You were my living and breathing guardian angel.

Think it like this, then. Think that my death was something like this. Think that now I’m your guardian angel, a breathe of a invisible wind but still always by your side. Because I know I would never be able to protect you like you always did if I was still alive. Because... Bri, you don’t know how it feels to be the centre of your every little attention. You feel like the luckiest man in the world, you feel loved and protected like you’ve never been in your life before. And I took advantage of it, before. I know. But I didn’t know how to change it, I didn’t know how to prove to you that I was worthy, that you could lean on me. Now I will be able to do it. Though I don’t know how it can be an advantage because I won’t be able to hug you. Touch you. Kiss you.

If I could ask for only one gift... this. I would desire just one thing, I’d ask only to touch you one last time. But I can’t, right? I’m dead. And it makes me so angry.

But I have something to ask you one last gift. I know you and I know that you still haven’t still sang even the smallest note until today. I’m not asking you to go up on a stage again, I’m not asking you to do a whole concert only for me. I know how much impossible it is, I’ve been through it remember? When you had your surgery, when Howie had to sing your parts, I couldn’t stop thinking about how wrong it was: being up there without you didn’t have much sense and I know that it’s the same for you. And maybe, fr you, it’s even worse. So no, I’m not asking you this.

Just sing one note. Just sing one song.

Call me selfish. Call me whatever you want but I can’t think and imagine a world without your voice. I can’t imagine not being able to hear it, even though I’m not physically there to listen to you. Can you just do this little thing as a gift? Sing about us if it would make you feel better. Sing about everything you want, even the stupidest song ever. But sing, Brian. Don’t let the pain kill one of the most beautiful and amazing gift that I had received since the day I was born: your voice.”



For the first time, after reading those words, Nick’s words, Brian didn’t cry. For the first time Brian felt the anger starting to grow in the pit of his stomach, a monster that was trying to come up leaning on its claws. For the first time, Brian was furious and knew that how much irrational his anger was but, even knowing, he wasn’t able to control it. For the first time Brian was angry at those words. Brian was angry, furious, with Nick for not only being gone but for daring to tell him how he was supposed to live his live without him.

Then it came the moment when anger was much bigger and stronger than logic, able to escape and finding a way towards the throat and conquering the vocal chords: through them, in fact, anger offered every word that Brian had kept hidden and nurtured for those long and difficult months. There was no one there listening to him, only the sky and the ocean that was trying to come closer but crashed against rocks, splashing drops of water as if they were tears linked all together with that internal storm.

“You’re a bastard, Nick. You’re a jerk and a bastard! You’re still the selfish and egocentric bastard Nick that I knew and everything has to be about you, no? What you would want, what you would like to hear... but what about me? What am I supposed to say? Of course, Nick, of course I’m going back to sing for my dead fiancé that can’t even hear me! What about what I really want? What about my wishes? They don’t care at all? I want to hear your voice again too, stupid idiot! I want you here too. Hug you. Kiss you. But I can’t! I can’t because you got killed in a stupid and senseless accident! You went away and you left me all alone! So excuse me if I’m trying to survive the best that I can. Excuse me if I don’t follow your orders and your wishes because... you know, what? They suck! Redecorate a house, going back to sing... do you really believe that there are the things that I really need?”

The anger diminished away after the first scream, choosing to fight a battle of trembles and tears that now were streaming down without even making their presence noticed. Completely emptied, Brian let himself fall down on one of the rocks, hugging himself like he did wanted to hide away. Or hide all of his pain that still, and maybe more than before, throbbed like a wound that still had to turn into a scar.

“I just need to see you one last time. . Those words, differently from the first spoken before, got out in a soft whisper, broken by a desperation that Brian was so sure he had been able to put it behind his back. He had believed that he had been able to stand back once again on his feet and to have found a sense of normality, even though it had been frail. He had deceived himself once again. Like always. – I just need you. This is all that I need. And I can keep wishing it, I can keep praying for it but no one is going to bring you back.”



*_*_*_*_*_*



Everyone had left. Howie, Aj and, even if he didn’t want it, Kevin. All it took was just a glance, the eyes that still tasted of tears and an emotion painful just if taken between the fingertips, and the party had died down like someone had turned off the lights. Recommendations had been left in the air, hugs lasted longer than what was needed and required and promises of calls and keeping in touch had been made with a shake of the hands. Words, nevertheless, had came in a daze and emptied of their meaning for Brian felt like he was living in a box left empty of everything it once held inside. In the kitchen, the cake was melting; in the living room, the candles were slowly burning out but Brian didn’t care about nothing. What was the goal? He had only fooled himself for months and now he was at the beginning again, his heart shattered while a black hole was getting bigger and larger and was trying to swallow him whole. Screaming hadn’t help because no one had listened to him; crying had only served into making his eyes swollen and red and it had given him the first burning of an headache that soon was going to turn into a migraine. And, among that sea of emotions, there was only the awareness that he had once again lost the reins of control: wasn’t he supposed to already get over that part? Wasn’t it supposed to already have used all of his tears and anger?

Still, somewhere inside him, something was starting to grow as a new nourishment. Maybe he had needed that breakdown to understand and comprehend what he was doing wrong because for all of this time what he had really done was just living for Nick. He had done everything that Nick had said like had been there. He had done everything only because he wanted to make Nick happy.

And that had been his mistake. Even though realizing it had been the hardest thing he had ever done.

He couldn’t keep living to make happy someone that was already gone. He had to live for himself and in that way, only in that way, he would have been sure that Nick, somewhere in the sky, was happy and proud of him.

That day Brian didn’t make any call. He felt guilty partly, just as he felt guilty for never going to the cemetery. Illusion, that was where he had lived until that day. For the remaining hours of the day, Brian went to retrieve the box of things he had taken from the house, including his guitar case.

He hated to admit it, especially after his scene at the beach, but Nick was right.. He missed the music. Maybe he would never go again on a stage but music has never been only that for him, it has never been only a mere work. Singing was part of himself just like breathing or being alive; singing and writing have been his escape during those moments when he didn’t know what to do or where to go because there was so much confusion inside his mind. And maybe that was the reason why he never played during those last months: those chord would only give birth to notes full of pain, melancholy and regret for all that had been ripped off from him. Though he had never dared to think about it, one day that pain would leave place to hope.

His case was all covered up in dust. Brian used his hand for now and didn’t clean too much, only the biggest white balls. Once opened, the small light of the room reflected itself on the wood of the guitar. Brian took it in his hands, trying to find out if the chords were tuned or not. And there, with an half eye, Brian realized that his case hadn’t only kept his guitar but even a small packet.

“Nicky.” Brian whispered, a small smile while his fingers clutched the corners of the box. How he had known it, Brian couldn’t even imagine it. But that was what always managed to make those surprises so amazing, breathtaking and frustrating.

Once opened the packet revealed inside a white paper and a picture.

“I was an idiot. Sorry, Brian. Those words... only when I had them already written down, only when I had thought about them, I realized how wrong they were. I know that you’re angry. I’d been too if I were in your place. You don’t have to... damn, I’ve never been good with this kind of things, have I? I’ve never been good in apologizing to you. But you never needed many explanations, as if you already knew why I was asking forgiveness. You read it in my eyes. But now you can’t do it so I have to explain myself.

I know that you’re hating me. Whatever was the reason why I’m dead, natural or because of an accident, I know that a part of you is hating me for leaving you. Partly, that’s the reason why I’ve planned all of these letters: to apologize , to try to put together something that, intentionally or not, I had broken. But I’m not the one that has to do that, Brian. It can’t be letters or advices on what I want for you. Only you can fix yourself, Brian. I know you will do it, even if now it seems that it’s so impossible even to imagine it.

I don’t take back what I wrote before. I still want to hear your voice. I still want to hear you sing again and I wish there was a way for me to meet you one last time. But if you had to sing again, if you had to do anything at all, you have to do it for yourself. That’s all that I want. I want you to be happy.”



The gift was a picture of them, an old photo where Brian was trying to teach to a very young Nick how to play the guitar. If music had been able to make them whole once, if music had been able to make them meet and then tell them that they were meant to be together, then maybe music would been able to do it all over again.

The first notes were shaky, only sketched and as if there was still fear in letting the fingers go and leaving to them all the control on what should be told and what not; then they became more determined, sure and started to create melodies and harmonies that narrated about a love born, kept and healed and that even the bitter point of death could let it vanish. And then, even if Brian wasn’t sure how it happened, even the voice started to follow those frail and delicate music wind. At first it was rough and still prisoner of the tiredness after being abused and never let free among the streets of the singing. At first, meaningless words were the ones chosen to go with the guitar’s flow. Only when the sun was starting to make its way through the clouds, verses and melody intertwined within a sad and melancholic song.

I could hold you for a million times
to make you feel my love.

I’ve know it from the moment that we me
No doubt that in my mind where you belong
I could make you happy
Make your dream come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the end of the earth for you
To make you feel my love

- Make you feel my love, Lea Michele’s cover. -

Red hearts, of every dimensions and shape, had climbed on the walls of shops and pubs; some had decided to get away from their brothers and sisters and had decided to wrap themselves around the chandeliers so to have much more chances to be seen. Couples of stuffed animals, from dogs to pigs in the middle of cows and kittens, had their eyes locked together or had signs with red writings and small hearts all around the letters. S. Valentine’s day had full exploded and it had done it even in that small town where the local restaurant had promoted a special dinner for that night only; the florist gave a small rose to every customer and even the baker had baked heart-shaped bread and biscuits.

They had never been lucky with that festivity, him and Nick. Something had always happened, as if every star and constellation agreed to obstacle their night: missed flights; getting lost in the woods to get to a cabin that revealed to be almost bare with only the basic needs fulfilled as in a bed and a bathroom; gifts gotten lost o misplaced by the cashiers. None of those, still, couldn’t win over what had happened the last year, when Nick had decided to cook from scratch, since it had always been Brian the one caring and making the meals for everyday. Oh, Brian had loved that thought, he had treasured that wanting to do something that usually Nick wouldn’t ever done it.

But.

There was a but and that was the reason why he had never let Nick around or near the kitchen, allowing him only to make pancakes and tea, which were the only things that couldn’t risk burning down the house. And the year before it hadn’t been a fire to ruin S. Valentine’s day but the small detail that Nick seemed to have forgotten while he was making the dessert: his allergy to walnut. So they hadn’t spent the day lingering on the balcony, with that pale moonlight to witness their dinner but they had been first in the waiting room for hours and then in a hospital room until the next morning. And between the waiting and the apologies, they had decided that they wouldn’t celebrate S. Valentine’s day the next year. No, definitely not. They would have spent the day doing things normally, ignoring the fact that the whole world had been turned into red hearts from evening to morning. But life had decided for Brian that year. Crudely, it had taken away the chance to forget all about that promise and make another one, silent and invisible until that day, and that was to surprise Nick and prepare a little and romantic dinner.

Brian had never really loved S. Valentine’s day. Or, better saying, he had never loved that commercial factor that every year seemed to increase and get bigger and bigger, diminishing the real and true meaning of that celebration. Because, in the end, that was what Brian really loved about that day: having a day to dedicate completely and totally to the loved one and be able to say once again that there was no need any more to search for their soul mate ‘cause they’ve already found it in each others.

And now Brian didn’t have that chance any more.

But the curse of S. Valentine’s day seemed not to have received that message because, precise and on time like a Swiss watch, it had knocked on the door and had sneaked inside even if it hadn’t been allowed until it had been too late to shut it out. Partially, Brian had waited for that curse: the day before there had been a storm and he had been caught in the middle of it while he was busy fixing and repairing a broken window at Mrs. Hudson’s house, his neighbor. Once he had managed to sneak inside, the damage had been already done since the storm had blown up the electricity for some hours and he had been able to take a hot shower only towards the evening. So it hadn’t been a surprise or a shock waking up that morning with the feeling that someone had taken and put him in the washing machine, a spin cycle included and then throw him in bed like he had been a wrinkled shirt.

There was no one that Brian could call for help, thanks for his decision to be away from everything and everyone. Not that he would have done it anyway. His pride had always had a too bitter and hard taste to swallow and only Nick had managed to soften that angle, sneaking inside in ways that couldn’t be untied even during his absence.

As always, with an instinct that even the fever and the shivers couldn’t defeat, his fingers found the phone and the buttons that made up Nick’s number. Few rings and then that click that, on that day, echoed more painful in his mind; echoes that soon were replaced by the metallic voice and, lastly, by a beep.



"Nick... I don’t even know what to say to you... what more can I say after all of these months? What can I say to you in this very moment? In reality, I don’t want to talk to you because I can barely let air out of my lips without being in pain. Remember? Do you remember how you used to take care of me? You would sigh, you would lie and fake complaining because it would be you the one cleaning but then you would come closer, sit next to me and bringing all my favorite movies. And you would end up watching them even if I would sleep all the time and you were bored. I’ve always worried you. Even the smallest cold was enough to worry. And now you might be up there worried but not able to do nothing. I’m sorry.”



The fingers let the phone fall down and, insulted by the way it was being treated; it decided to roll over the sheets and to fall then on the floor. Blurred images started to dance before Brian’s eyes until the dark decided to take control and wrap its blanket all around his body.





§_§_§_§_§_§_§_§_§



It was the scent that woke Brian up. It was a mystery how he had been able to smell it, considering that his nose was all stuffed up but it was an aroma he had always been afraid to forget about it easily. That thought was enough to make him open widely his eyes while a pale ray of light was sufficient to disturb and wake his headache, along with all the other symptoms: shivers, sweat, heat and then cold again. The smell didn’t vanish when Brian woke up, it lingered in the air while he took noticed of small details that, at least when he had fallen asleep, hadn’t been in the room: bottles of water where on the bedside table along with medicine and cough syrup and, when he looked a little bit over the bed, Brian noticed a basin full of water and wet towels on the floor. He couldn’t have been the one taking and bringing them with him because he didn’t even remember doing it, especially because he would never left something wet on the new parquet.

Feeling much weaker than what he thought, Brian tried to sit up or, at least, to lean on his elbows so he stayed like that, in that half position, when he realized what else wasn’t right in the room: the television was turned on, though the audio had been muted. No, it wasn’t only the television. It was also the human figure kneeling in front and working over the dvd reader.

His breath got caught in the throat while the only sound that he was able to hear was his own beating, running wild and angry. No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be something that was really happening. Brian blinked more than once, rubbing his eyes but nothing seemed to change: he still could see all blurred but that figure hadn’t vanished as he had hoped if that had been a dream.

But it was impossible.

He tried opening his mouth. He tried to pronounce that name but his voice stayed blocked inside his throat and then, when it finally escaped, it was a rough whisper.

“N... Nick?”

If it had been one of his dream, that shadow would have disappear or vanished into the air as soon as he spoke that name. But, instead, it got up and turned around, making physically impossible to deny that it wasn’t Nick, even though the blonde of the hair had left place to a dark brown. But all the rest, starting from the blue eyes to the features of the face and that first hint of beard, that always had made him look older and that Brian never liked on Nick because the boy always loved to itch against his forehead with the excuse of a caress. That shadow was Nick indeed, without a doubt. But there was no doubt that it couldn’t be Nick.

“You... you can’t be here. You should be dead.”

“You’re right. On both things, actually. I’m dead and I shouldn’t be here.”

The voice hadn’t changed. Brian had been convinced to have forgotten about it, to have lost every little detail that had made Nick’s voice so unique, especially because they were always directed to him and not everyone else. Instead it was exactly how he remembered it and that was enough to make him tear up.

“But you are here. What are you then?”

Nick came close to the bed and sat on the board, keeping himself a little bit distant from Brian.

“I don’t know exactly. Most probably I’m a hallucination, considering how high your fever is.” He reached out with his hand, placing it on Brian’s forehead first and then resting it on the cheek. There Brian placed his fingers upon Nick’s while trying to save in every way possible and imaginable the most of that caress. Oh, how he missed them! How he missed being touched by Nick, even if it had been a brush of fingers or a soft kiss on the skin.

“Why did you go away?”

“I didn’t want to. – Nick murmured, leaning his lips on Brian’s head. – Believe me, leaving you was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

“I don’t believe it. I can’t believe that you’re dead, not with all those letters...”

“I am, Brian. I am dead. And you’ve to accept it. Do you really believe that I can lie to you? That I can lie to you about something like that?”

“We were so good with keeping things secret.” Brian replied with a smile.

“Yes, we are. But with world. I’ve never been able to lie to you, even when I wanted it so badly.”

“And the letters?”

“I’ve wrote them a long time ago, Brian.”

“Why? If it had been an accident, how can you...” Brian shook his head, finding himself with the world spinning dangerously around him and with black dots that were rapidly taking place over shape and colors. Nick made him lie down again, whispering to close his eyes right when Brian was starting to open them again. So, not being able to count on his sight, Brian kept holding Nick’s hand, just to reassure himself that he was still here with him. Even if he was a ghost or a hallucination. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t important: his biggest wish had been to have Nick back again by his side and that was enough, even if it was only in his imagination. A fresh sensation made its way through those thoughts, bringing a brief relief and a break from the heat that was burning him like a fire.

“Why?”

Nick kept wetting Brian’s head for a few moments, silent, before leaving the towel on the skin and lying down next to him.

“You know that sometimes I have strange thoughts. I can’t remember exactly what brought it up but I knew that I had to reassure that you would be able to move on if I would have died before you. I knew this would shatter you because... Bri, you basically built all your life around mine. But now the right thing to do is to move. It’s okay. You have to live your life.”

A small gesture of denial, fingers that tightened up a little bit more around Nick’s hand.

“How? All I’m doing is turning around and around only to find out that nothing is working.”

“You’ll find a way, Brian. You have always done it and that is one of the thing that I love about you. Don’t let this thing bring you down, okay? You’ll keep on living, you will find new ways and, one day, you’ll be happy again. And I’ll be happy for you.”

“But I want to be happy with you. – The last syllable was blocked in a tear, the first free that led the others out from the reins. Brian found himself surrounded by a Nick that couldn’t bring anything back but, at least, could offer the last hug of comfort. – Why? Why can’t I be happy with you? What the hell did I do wrong to lose you like that?”

“It’s not your fault. It will never be your fault, Bri... – Even Nick’s voice broke, though tears and followers weren’t able to escape from the control Nick was holding onto. – There are things that happen in life without a meaning...”

“Please, save it! – Brian interrupted Nick immediately. – Did they give you some kind of pamphlet in heaven?”

“Am I really a bad actor?”

“Something like that.”

“One day, Brian, I promise that one day we will be together again. And we will be the happiest couple of angels. But now you have to think about yourself. That’s the meaning of all these letters, that’s what I’m trying to make you understand. And I’ll be happier up there if I know that you’re not shattered because of him, that you still brighten up the world with your smile. You can do million things, Brian. You can still love so much, don’t close off because of the pain.”

Brian chose not to reply at that last request of love. How could Nick have the nerve to ask him something like that? How could he dare do ask him to love someone else when all his love had already been poured on the best man he would ever be able to meet? But anger couldn’t escape anymore, every energy had been used for staying awake, even if he knew that sleep was the best medicine for his body. But he couldn’t sleep. Not when that was the only and the last chance he would ever had to speak with Nick. To be just with him.

“There are going to be others? I mean, other letters?”

The index took a few curls away from the wet forehead. “If you want, yes.”

“What do you mean? It’s not like you can make them magically disappear.”

“Don’t underestimate my power of angel.”

The laughter flew away just for a few second but it was the first time it felt real. Alive. It was surreal that situation, it was the most unreal thing that ever happened to him, not including Nick’s death. It was surreal because, for the first time, Brian felt like he had finally come out from those months of hell, finally alive and aware of his emotions and feelings.

“Sleep Brian.”

No, no, no. It couldn’t end so soon. A faint and weak complaint but every muscle and bone had already been defeat in that battle.

“No. – Brian still kept on resisting. – If I fell asleep, you won’t be there when I wake up.”

“I’ll always be here, Brian.”

The last memory, before leaving his body to the dreams, was the feeling of lips upon his, locked in a kiss with a bitter taste. The last word, though, was his whisper.

“I love you, Nick.”



§_§_§_§_§_§_§_§_§



It was already late morning when Brian woke up again. Suddenly, with his heart beating like crazy because it couldn’t have been only a dream. Definitely no. But the room was empty, the television was off and there weren’t around the dvds that Nick, the ghost slash spirit of Nick, had been trying to make them work only the previous day; gone were also all the medicines, syrup and wet towels on the bedside table.

Still, the scent of Nick lingered in the air.

He couldn’t have gone completely crazy, he couldn’t have been so weak and feverish to have imagined Nick by his side.

“I’m dead, Brian. And you have to accept it.”

It seemed like that it had been his conscience to speak, as if it had to take shape and substance to be finally heard and understood. But still Brian couldn’t, or wouldn’t, accept those words, not when there was still that perfume flying in the air as a proof that it couldn’t have been a dream, though so vivid and real.

No, he hadn’t gone crazy.

With energies he didn’t even know he had, Brian got up and started to put on his clothes. From the closet he took the sweater that Nick had left him and, without caring about being light-headed or about the shivers till running through his body, Brian flew out from the house. Closed the door behind his back, he went to his neighbor’s house: surely she had seen something if someone had been there.

“Mrs. Hudson! Mrs. Hudson!” The sound of his fists hitting the door was much louder than his voice but Brian knew that the old lady would be able to hear him still. And after a few minutes the door was opened, letting the woman appear on the doorstep, a tiny lady almost sixty-years old with a smile and warmth that didn’t differ from someone she had always knew and someone, like Brian, she had just met a few weeks before.

“Brian, what’s wrong? – The woman asked, observing carefully the man. – Are you feeling okay? You look a little bit too pale but it isn’t something that one of my herbal teas can’t cure. Come in.”

“No, no, I’m okay. I mean, I have a cold but...”

“Ah! I’ve told you to wear something a little bit warmer!”

“Yes, Mrs. Hudson. – Brian answered with a sigh. – You’ve said it. But I need to ask you something.”

“Why don’t you come inside? Young man, you don’t look good.”

Brian ignored the advice, cause that was he had always done when someone would point out how he wasn’t doing okay: close his eyes, smile and a joke ready to hide the truth. Only Nick never believed me, only Nick took time to discover and untie his mask.

“Have you seen someone getting inside my house yesterday? Tall, blonde, not much thin. – Brian tried to remember what Nick was wearing but everything was a blur because of the high fever. – Jeans. He wore a pair of jean.”

“You mean if I saw your Nick?” Mrs. Hudson asked, a compliant note inside her tone. She knew who Nick was, they had talked about it one of the first times that Brian had been there to fix something for her.

“Yes.”

“Brian...”

“I’m not crazy, Mrs. Hudson.”

“I wasn’t saying that. Do you know how many times I’ve seen my poor Tom? But it wasn’t real and you know that.”

“So you haven’t seen any one?”

“No, no one. You know how much time I spend in front of the window since I’m all alone.”

Tears returned to sting but Brian didn’t let them appeared, biting down his lip until a sharp pain started to take attention. The small hope had vanished, it didn’t have any reason to exist if the only person that could confirm it hadn’t seen anything strange. Or no one. So there was only one conclusion but it was the hardest to admit. Even to himself.

“It’s okay. – Brian murmured with a faint smile. – Must have been the fever. I’m sorry for the disturb.” He then started to turn around, read to hide away once again and use that second plan, that plan he never wanted to use because he thought that he could count on his own energy. But it seemed that he had been wrong.

“Brian, wait! Just come inside...”

“It’s okay Mrs. Hudson. I won’t be here for a couple of days but you can call me in case you need something, okay?” He didn’t give her the time for replying; in a breath of wind he had already crossed that small patch of beach that separated the two houses. He needed only a few things, just the necessary to go inside a duffel bag and then he was out from the house once again and inside his car.

Brian didn’t think about anything during the car driving but focused all of his energies to try to avoid any car accident. How he managed Brian didn’t know, no matter how many miles or how many hours he spent driving. It was night, the sky had already turned owner of the dark while the stars were just starting to light on and shine.

For a few moments, Brian stayed inside his car. He had promised himself to reach that place only if he really needed it; he had promised himself to ask for help only when he would realize that he couldn’t do on his own. He had promised it and, unlike someone else, he didn’t break his words.

“Just promise it, Brian. Promise me that if you ever feel like that you will come to me instead that even thinking about doing something that extreme.”

“Okay.”

It wasn’t really like that, he wasn’t in the state where taking his like seemed to be the perfect solution. But he wasn’t okay, and not only because he had just driven with a fever. One thing was to still call a number and leave a message because he wasn’t ready to cut all the ropes with his past; another thing was to imagine his dead boyfriend and have a normal conversation with him. So that was the reason why he was there, that was the reason why he needed to be around people, real and living people. He couldn’t go on like that, although he still hadn’t a clue about how to find his new direction. For now, that had to be Kevin’s house.

The door was opened almost immediately, as if Kevin had seen him from the window and he had waited for him to go out and knock instead than walking outside like a hero.

“Sorry for coming like this. But... but you have said that I could come if...” Brian couldn’t finish the sentence, his pride too strong to let him pronounce those words in the same way it forced him to lower his gaze for the shame and the embarrassment.

Two arms wrapped him inside a hug and, for a moment, Brian felt himself brought back to the other night when another one had hugged him.

“I’m going crazy, Kevin. – He whispered, hiding his face in Kevin’s shoulder. – I thought I was doing better but... I’m going crazy. And Nick is dead. For real. There are no more doubts, there is no more hope. I don’t know what to do.”

“You have a fever.” Kevin just stated, knowing that Brian didn’t need words full of comfort or confirmation.

“Yes. And I’ve imagined that Nick was taking care of me. The worst is that it felt so real.”

“Okay. You know that you can stay here as long as you like, right? And you aren’t crazy.”

Brian just nodded, letting Kevin walking him towards the room that had always been his when he had been visiting or those rare times when he had a bad fight with Nick.

Kevin stayed some minutes just observing the cousin, wondering when that nightmare would be finally over. And the last gesture, before closing the door and letting Brian sleeping, was to raise his eyes up and curse Nick: it was irrational, or maybe it wasn’t, but he had never been mad like he was now with Nick.

Leave a message after the beep.
Leave a message after the beep.
Leave a message after the beep.

The phone would still ring, the answering machine would take over after the empty ringing and, without fail, Brian would close the calling after some seconds of static silence.
For the first time since everything had happened he didn’t have a clue about what to say to Nick.
For the first time since he had started that routine, Brian realized how much ridiculous that behavior had been, especially ‘cause it had always been tied with the belief that once, an unexpected time, someone would had picked up the phone and answer his calling. The hope, wishing and believe that Nick would answered him and end that nightmare and agony.

With a sigh, Brian closed the phone and put it away in his pocket, hugging the jacket closer to his neck so to bring more shelter from the cold wind that was rustling and whispering silently and undisturbed. He didn’t want to be sick again, he already wasted so much time and Brian wasn’t thinking only about that week spent in bed victim and prisoner of the fever. That had been his last seatback, metaphorically speaking. It had been perhaps the most painful one, maybe because for the first time he came to face Nick’s death as a full blown, without having corners where to hide from.
For the first time, so, Brian felt utterly lost.
Oh, he had already felt that feeling! But never had he felt it this suffocating, The previous months, the previous getting back on his feet after being hit by the wind had always been softened by the hope that it was all fleeting. He just had to wait, he just had to hold on and, maybe, Nick would come back and fixed all the broken pieces left behind his missing. The letters, all the plans Nick made for him, were only little ways for not letting him sway but, in the end, they were palliative treatments: Brian never put them in practice for his sake, even though most of the times he had repeated it like a mantra; no, Brian used them while he kept around himself that illusion that now a fever had been able to break so neatly.
Lost.
Brian was back at square one but it wasn’t like all those months had been erased and brushed over. There wasn’t the desperation and the agony of the first days anymore but, this time, there was only a cold and sad resignation and acceptance. He was alone, he had been left alone and keep crying over it wasn’t going to help him or bring Nick back from the death.
But he didn’t have a direction anymore. He had lost his compass, he had built his entire world around a cornerstone that now was lost and he hadn’t had any real plans for the future. For someone who had faced death, for someone who had always considered the future something like a chimera out of reach, the present had always been what mattered the most. That was the reason why Brian never made many plans, following Nick’s lead. It had always been Nick the one who got so many ideas running through his head, it had always been Nick the one drawing the outlines of how their future should have been and Brian had always letting him doing it because it didn’t matter if they would end up in a forgotten small town or all around the world: all it mattered to him was being together and building, day after day, their life.
Not anymore.
Day bay day. That was how he was going to live his life from now on. His life after Nick. His life where Nick’s absence still weighted and, at the same time, strengthened and pushed him to find a way to be happy again. He owed it to Nick, yes, but most he owed to himself and to all the people affected by that death and that were still cheering for him.
Day by day but, still, with a sense of where he should be going.

“You are always so good at adapting yourself to the situation. – Nick had said once to him. – We took you away from your home, from your quiet normality and threw you in something bigger and different and, yet, you didn’t even blink. You adapted perfectly, like it was all normal.”
“It was.”
“See? That is what I’m saying. You... you take everything as if it’s perfectly normal and that’s why you’ve never had many problems…”
“Nick, you know that it’s a false truth. I had my share of problems with fame. You know how much close I was to quit...”
“But you didn’t. After awhile, you found a way to keep going.”

Get used to. Yes, Nick had been right. He knew how to get used and adapt. And, apparently, it seemed something so natural and simple. But it wasn’t, especially when the world kept turning around, people kept leaving him alone and he found himself to change once again, even though when all he wanted was to stay exactly where he was.

“If we are really doing this, if we are really going to quit the group and leave, what would you love to do?”
Brian snuggled inside Nick’s embrace, tickling the skin of the neck with his nose before answering him. “I don’t know! – He said with a laughter. – And what’s the point talking about it right now? Wait, you already know what are you going to do?”
A kiss was placed on his shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to live by the ocean. Fix boats, selling them. It seems perfect, no?”
“Mh... I can actually picture you all dressed up as a sailor.”
“Don’t make fun of me! I’m being serious!”
“Serious and Nick are two things that never get along well, you know?”
A slap on the shoulder took the place of those lips and kiss. “Idiot! Seriously, what would you love to do?”
“I don’t know, Nick. Maybe I can start right where I left everything when I got called in Orlando.”
“College, you mean?”
“Maybe not as a choir director. Or maybe yes, I don’t know. Nick, I really don’t know. And I don’t see the need to worry about it when we have five minutes before going on stage.”

A smile curved Brian’s lips as that memory slipped away from his mind. There wasn’t bitterness anymore in recalling the past, there wasn’t anymore that tip of pain to shadow all those moments lived together, good and bad indiscriminately. Brian couldn’t say when that change had started but those images, those memories, weren’t something to be afraid of and hate; on the contrary, they were small caresses and cuddles that left him with a little bit of warmth and reminded him that Nick would never be out or erased from his life.
There was still so much he could do. There was still so much he could give and, maybe, one day he would might find someone to fill that emptiness inside his heart and life. For the first time that thought didn’t came as a sharp knife right through his heart, poisoned with betrayal: for the first time it seemed more like a something to achieve, perhaps because Brian knew that it was something that Nick wanted for him.
Be happy.
Day by day, that was Brian repeated to himself. Step by step, without feeling the rush to accelerate or trying to get faster to the destination. He owed to himself, he owed to that part that he had hidden when he met Nick. It was time to discover it once again, it was time to dust old habits and interests off and tie them with the man he had become thanks to Nick and find, then, a new identity. And there wasn’t another place to start that journey than there, where everything had been born and where he had closed a door behind himself not only two months ago.
Their old house.
Most of all, maybe, that building was the symbol of everything because it represented Brian, the ghost of Nick and their story: dark, abandoned and lifeless, waiting for someone to tell it what would have been of its destiny. Boxes chipped along the hall, white sheets covered the furniture and the curtains had been closed so tight not to let any light inside. And to forbid that anyone, jackals and fans, would try to look inside and find something interesting or shocking about Nick. Even if they would find a way to get into, they would end up disappointed because they wouldn’t be able to find nothing worth: the most precious things were safe with him, in a closet back at his new home; other stuff had been given to the others and something had been sent to Nick’s family, although Brian already knew that that stuff met an unfortunate destiny.
Careful not to trip and fall over, Brian went upstairs and into their bedroom. How long had it been since he last stepped inside? Since Nick had been gone, he really went into a few times and only the time necessary to take or close a box. Leaning against the doorframe, Brian observed that room with sadness and nostalgia: before his eyes, black and white images went through all the happiest moments lived inside that room: that morning when Nick didn’t want to wake up and he tried everything to get him out of the bed; all those nights spent reading while Nick was watching one of his shows about aliens, only to welcome him inside his arms when he would start with one of his horror movies. He didn’t have any more anger or hate inside. He couldn’t be mad any more at what he had lost because now every fiber of his being vibrated knowing how much lucky he had been to have all of that. With eyes wet from a tear of nostalgia, Brian picked up the last two boxes he had left inside the wardrobe because too painful at that time.
He turned on the light but, of course, there was no electricity. He stayed like that for a few seconds, wondering what he could do, when he remembered about the flashlight he had hidden inside the closet.

“Why are you putting a flashlight inside the wardrobe? Are we going to Narnia?”
“No but it’s your entire fault!”
“Mine? What the hell did I do now? Why must it always be me the one to blame?”
“Who is the one who always force me to watch those horror movies even if I’m afraid?”
“Okay. It’s my fault. But why?”
“Why are you making me watching them? I don’t know, I ask myself the same thing every time.”
“No, why are you putting a flashlight inside the closet?”
“Because if I hear a weird sound, I can hide here and close myself inside. I just have to put a mini fridge somewhere and some food and then I can probably hide here for a long time.”
Instead of replying or laughing, Nick just lowering himself and placed a kiss on the top of Brian’s head. “I just love you, you know?”

There it was, among old clothes that should have been given to charity. It still worked, and that was literally a miracle itself. So Brian made himself comfortable, using some of those clothes as cushions, and with the flashlight in one hand he opened the first box. Nick had called it the “black box”, like the one that could be find on boats or planes: in the same exact way, that container of cardboard guarded all the signs of what had been the darkest phase of not only Nick’s life but even of their love story. Brochures of rehab centers, business cards of therapist and psychologist, medical charts, notes with resolutions erased by tears. And, at the end of the box, a bottle of vodka still full. Brian still remembered what it represented and why Nick had placed in the bottom, as if he wanted to remember himself how that had been his lowest moment, where he had been to get up on his feet and start all over again. He had been strong, Nick. He had been stronger than what he had always believed, stronger than what he had been always imagined.
If Nick had been able to do that, why couldn’t Brian do the same thing?
He placed the bottle back again and then closed the box, passing on the second one. There were had been held lighter memories, old pictures from childhood and all the music sheets that Nick had used when he was doing all those music competition.

“I know it hadn’t been a normal childhood. I know that a lot of my problems had been born in that period but... I thank everyday for having those teachers who made me fall in love with music. If I didn’t have it, Bri, I don’t where I would be now. Maybe I would have never met you.”

The idea popped up suddenly but it was the very first wave of energy that Brian felt running inside his veins. Finally there weren’t only clouds in front of him: there were images, plans that were starting to grow and almost pushed each others to become even bigger. A spark was all that it needed, a first flame to finally burn a light in the midst of all that darkness. Brian didn’t know if it could work, he didn’t even know if he could do it but, at least, it was a beginning.
Closed the second box too, Brian got up and took it along with him, closing the closet behind his back. A last glance. A last breath of that air that already smelled as old.
“Thank you, Nick. For everything.” He just whispered, closing the door behind himself and going downstairs and out of the house.




*******



Kevin had always seemed to find things difficult when it came to Brian because, if something were to lack in the cousin, it wasn’t certainly being unpredictable: you were waiting for a reaction and he would surprise you with the total opposite.
Like in those days.
Like that morning.
For all week Brian had barely spoke, partially because of the fever but, for the rest, it was mostly because that was how he was and Kevin learned time ago to leave the guy alone with his thoughts until he felt ready to share them with someone else. He had got used to see a shadow walking inside that boy, a pale ghost of the man who smiled and laughed at every joke and everyone, himself included, had resigned themselves to live with that Brian.
Not that morning.
That morning, entering in the kitchen had been like stepping inside another dimensions, one where music was coming from the laptop left turned on and Brian’s voice sang along while he was busy preparing the coffee. Something that Brian seemed to have drunk for long hours, judging by the fact that the whole table was covered with pages.

“Good morning.”

“Oh, morning. – Brian replied, turning towards Kevin and smiling, before going back to the coffee. – Did I wake you up?”

“Well, I still think I’m sleeping.” It was Kevin’s joke, wrapped around a genuine irony.

“I know. You were still expecting the ghost, right?”

“In a sense…”

Brian turned off the music and stood in silence until the whistle of the coffee maker announced that the transformation from water to coffee had been a success. Still in silence, he poured some into two cups and took one to Kevin, sitting then down on the chair near the window and the laptop.

“I can’t say that I’m a total different person now, Kevin. And I can’t even tell you that I’ll always be like this but, for the first time, I know how to move on. And I’m not afraid.”

“So that was what blocked you? You were afraid of forgetting Nick?”

“Yes. Foolishly I thought that he would come back so there was no reason to start all over again. I just had to wait and survive somehow. I... I felt like I was betraying him if I started to move on.”

“No one is forcing you to...”

“I know. But you know that I’m not the type of guy who just sits in a corner and cries over his problems. And I’m not the only one who has lost Nick.”

It was true, Kevin said to himself. It hadn’t been only Brian the one losing a friend or a brother and everyone, himself included, still found hard to comprehend that they couldn’t just pick up the phone and ask Nick to just come back anymore. But it was different. They had their own family, they had their own life that was still going on even without Nick’s presence and, especially, they all had someone by their side that could take care of them when things got tougher, when it took only a simple object to being back bittersweet memories from the past.

“What are all those pages?” Kevin decided to ask instead.

“I hope my future,”

“It seems interesting. – Kevin commented, reading here and there on the pages. – Are you sure about this?”

“I don’t think I can go back on a stage anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I love music and I love to sing but being famous has never been my dream. And it will be strange and weird being up there without him. At least for now. It’s an adventure.”

“Oh, that’s for sure!”

A mild and soft laughter flown away before being silenced by a sip of coffee. “Yep. I’m starting in September and then... who knows. I’ve decided to live day by day but, at least, I know how to get back to living. And I know that, somehow, I have Nick’s approval.”

A smile appeared on Kevin’s face. “Nick had always said that, among all of us, you were the one who would never have a problem going back and live a normal life. And is there something more normal than this?” Kevin ended his question holding the last page that still needed Brian’s signature.

“Well, it’s what I was supposed to do if you hadn’t called me. And I know I can make a difference.”

“And what are you going to do until September?”

“Finish the house. I’ll help Mrs. Hudson with her thousand and endless duties. And I was thinking about bringing back my charity. I know I’ve abandoned it but it’s something that I still care for so… I was thinking about visiting some hospitals, creating new programs. I don’t know but I’ll keep myself busy.”

“Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t burn yourself only not to think too much.”

“Easier said than done. But I promise I’ll try my best.”

“I’m okay with your word. You’ve never broken one.”

“There’s something else.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows worried. “How much sleep did you get?”

“I slept all week. Though it feels like I’ve been sleeping for months... . Words left hanging there; still it was painful to admit it out loud. – Anyway, Nick wanted to make a difference too. He was always saying that, when we would finally have a break from the group, he would have loved to create a charity too. He knew he was luck and blessed, no matter what. And he knew that there were so many people less lucky than him in the world, people who would never have a second family that would always been there for them. So he wanted to create this sort of charity, a group that could offer help and support for whoever needed it.”

“Let me guess. You want to do it using his name?”

“Yes. Though I was thinking that it could be something that we can do as a group. Actually, I wanted to ask if you are willing to take it up. I know you’ve already done for all those charity Nick was part of. Even if he remembered half of them.”

“Yep, his memory wasn’t the best. But he had and wanted to give back much so I didn’t mind. And I don’t even now, Brian. It’s an honor for me.”

From the chair next to him, Brian took and handled to Kevin other pages. “These are the last music Nick was working on. There are only ten songs already finished; others just need or the melody or the lyrics.”

“You want to make an album?”

“The fans deserve a goodbye. And what a best way to say goodbye using Nick’s voice?”

“Do you feel up to?”

“Not really but it will a sort of goodbye for me too. I prefer letting the world know how much talent Nick had inside him than never have the courage to hear his voice again because it hurts too much.”

“Okay. Well... we can use the money of the album for the charity.”

“That is what I was thinking too.”

“Let me call Aj and Howie…”

“No. – Brian objected. – I want to call them if you don’t mind. I’ve been too locked up in those months.”
For the first time Kevin wasn’t worried about Brian’s future. The change within him wasn’t only for the excitement and the thrill for that new adventure but, finally, it seemed like there was a fire burning again inside Brian’s eyes. Seeing that blue finally shining, and not only being victim and prisoner of the darkness that Nick’s death brought along, was already the biggest relief of that week.

There wasn’t any doubt that Brian was going to make it. Whatever had happened the day before seemed like the last bouquet of flowers laid upon the grave of that life Brian had lived while Nick was still alive.
Yes, Brian was going to make it. And he was going to do it for Nick.


*******


The ocean breeze started to welcome him back as soon as Brian put a foot on the golden sand. It had been Nick’s plan at first but there wasn’t a doubt that now he was totally in love with that place and how it took only a few minutes to feel like he was back home.
The phone was waiting to be used in his hands. He had waited that moment for making the call and, yet, there was a pang of guilty that still surprised him every time he didn’t call. He was ready to start this new life, with that mist of enthusiasm and fear that always walked along important decision like the one he made; at the same time, he didn’t want to end so abruptly that last tie with Nick. Now it was different, now he didn’t call him because he was afraid to forget him or because he didn’t want to let Nick think that he had changed page so quick and easy. Now calling him was like calling an old friend and telling him what was happening in his life. Nick was still his best friend, no matter what; Nick was the person that listened all his thoughts and never missed anything, sometimes just because he loved just to hear his voice.
And a lot of thing had happened during that week that Brian didn’t want not to tell him about.

“So much has happened Nick. And I know that you’re proud of me, wherever you are.
Maybe this time is the good one. Finally I’m realizing that there won’t be a happy ending but neither one of those ending that leave the viewer bitter and the desire to have his money back. There will be an ending, the most normal ever, but maybe this is what I ever needed.
There is so much that still needs to be done. I want to finish the house but without that void that I’ve always thought in case you were about to come back. It’s not our home, it was only one of those plans we made and now it’s mine. And this means that I have to do something all over again but... you know? It doesn’t matter. There’s no rush and I’m so sure that Mrs Hudson will be thrilled to let me sleep and live in her house for a couple of weeks. Then I’m going back to my parent, I haven’t seen them since Christmas and I know that they’re still worried about me. I’ll work again for my charity, I’ve already contacted some people and I’m waiting to be called back with some interesting plans.
And then there is your charity. I know how much it meant to you and everyone is so helpful and willing. Still, it’ll be a way to keep your memory alive: what you have been through, all your problem, had shaped you in that amazing person you were and that is how I want the world to remember you. And you already know how some people are gonna end if they make me angry because there is one thing able to transform me in a Hulk and that’s if they only touch my family.
But I think that the most important news is that... you’re actually talking with a future college student. Oh God, what I was thinking? But I thought about all our conversations, I thought about the boy I was before meeting you and what was supposed be my future: music has always been there, it would had been there even if I hadn’t meet you. And... who knows how many children and boys are in need of someone who just believe in them and let them understand that music isn’t only notes and words. Music is something more, it’s a way for letting out everything that you are bottling inside.
You already understand this, no?
I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, I’ve always loved to be in a group of children and see and make them smile. And being in college, I’m going to be a normal guy like everyone else. Okay, maybe a little bit older but there isn’t going to be an arrow upon my head saying that I’m the poor singer who lost his lover so tragically.
I will never forget you Nick, if it’s this what you are afraid of. I will never forget you and our love. But I can’t live in the past. It’s not fair. And you were right. Or, your hallucination was right: I need to be happy. Even if it’s without you.”

Strange had been how time had passed so quickly, days following each others at the speed of the light in between all the things that needed to be done daily. Slowly the house was starting to take its own identity, going from a hybrid between past and future and what it really should had been: Brian’s home, without any other owners or inhabitants. Sure, there were still moments when he’d found himself choosing a color or something upon what Nick would had preferred; it still happened to be caught buying Nick’s favorite food or drink when he’d gone to do the groceries, without having then the courage and strength to throw them away. And there were still evening o lunches when he’d set the table for two people, having then to admit to himself that no one would join him to eat. But all those moments would happen very rarely now and without that hint of agony that Brian had gotten used to in the previous months. It was perhaps because he had changed his whole attitude and outlook so those small missteps helped him to remember Nick and his past with funny tenderness, though those memories were left out from that new life that slowly and barely was starting to build the firsts walls that would last in time.
And, with a slight hint of sweet bitterness, Brian had to admit that he was starting to accept and love his new identity. Alone with himself, alone with only his mind and conscience as friends, he was starting to find out those features that he had, and wanted, to lose when him and Nick first got together: it had been a play of compromising, it had been that being able to adapt himself at any situations that Nick had praised and loved. It had been, and still was, normal to adapt at living on his own, considered that few had changed from the time when he hadn’t been the only one living inside the same four walls: oh, he loved Nick but he was totally clueless when it came to cleaning or how to do laundry! Eerily, each single piece of clothes ended up colored in pink or, even more mysteriously, they would ended up with shirts so small that only newborns would had been able to wear.

Now he woke up early, Brian. Although he could sleep until later in the morning, an inner alarm would woke him up when the first rays of sun plunged themselves into the ocean, playing hide and seek with the window fixtures. Oh, it happened that once in awhile he would sleep longer but, usually, at the time when all other people would start to get up, he was already coming back from his morning run on the beach, ready for a stop at coffee cart that bake the most delicious brioches he had ever fallen in love with. And so that was how his mornings started every day, between all the works that the house needed to be done, his duties for the charity that finally was returning to be operative and all those errands that Mrs. Hudson asked him to do for her. He was really fond of that woman. In many ways she reminded him of his mom and it wasn’t a big step when he would say that it was like having a second maternal figure taking care of him. Oh, she was so nosey! She never left him alone for more than a couple of hours, thus he knew that partly was because she was another victim of loneliness , being a widow for years and without any sons or daughters that could visit her. In Brian, Mrs. Hudson had found someone to finally pour every inch of love she had kept inside for years and years, when only a few lucky cats had been honored to receive from time to time. Among everyone, still, the old lady was the only one who could really comprehend what Brian was feeling and she had been the only one Brian felt he could talk about how still, no matter what, Nick’s absence still weighted so much. She was the only one who really understood and never had she judged him all those times she found him with the phone between his hands and talking to a person that would never listen or hear those words.

They were more rare and rare. The phone calls. There were days when Brian didn’t even have almost the time to breathe, least to talk to Nick. And when he did remember about it, when finally there was peace and tranquility around him, Brian felt again that sense of guilty keeping him prisoner, an invisible voice who would whisper him evilly that he was forgetting that person that, only a few weeks before, had swore that could never live without.

“Do you know what is that I love more about you?”
“My being absolutely beautiful and sexy?”
“Oh, you mean your being absolutely beautiful short? – An elbow hit perfectly a rib. – Ahia!”
“You were saying...”
“That you’ve hurt me!”
A second blow hit the same exact point of before. “No, what were you saying before it.”
“And then fans wondered what I must do to end up with so many bruises. – Nick busted out, shifting so not to get hit by a third blown. – I don’t know if I love you anymore.”
“Nick!”
“Okay. Okay. Perhaps it’s not really what I love most about you, considering that half of the time I want to hit you for that very behavior... it’s that your masochist.”
Brian’s eyebrows rose up in confusion. “This should be a compliment?”
“Yep. You’re a good person. But you know what you want too and you always try not to hurt other people’s feelings. And when this happens, because even you can’t predict the repercussion of your actions on others, you feel guilty about it and you keep thinking about all the things you should have done or what you could have done more. Not for yourself. But for the others.”

Brian knew that his guilt would never abandon him. It would have been always there, its voice more whispered, less strong and less intense but never absent. Maybe because Nick’s memory would become more and more obfuscated as time would pass and Brian’s feelings for him would just became in the sweetest memory of what true and real love would be.

That was the moment when someone knocked at the door, erasing those thoughts from Brian’s mind. Brian wondered who might be: it couldn’t be Mrs. Hudson since she had now taken up the habit to use the kitchen’s door and without knock or notify her arrival. So Brian walked through the living room and up to the front door. Once opened it, he couldn’t be more surprised and shocked by who he found standing there.

“Now that’s a surprise.”

“I was in the neighborhood…”

“Yep, your neighborhood is like six hours away from your house.”

A shrug of the shoulders was the first reply Brian got while he let Aj inside. “It’s all relative. And I had to give you these papers for the charity. I don’t know for what but Howie said that you already know.”

“You do know that I have a fax machine, right?”

“You do? Man and here I thought that you would use flying birds to send messages in this forgotten village.”

“Ah, ah. That’s funny. Not only I have a fax machine but, oh, even internet!”

“Wow! Welcome back to the modern era!”

Brian looked over the friend and the duffel bag he was still holding. “I presume you’re staying for the night.”

“Six hours of driving, remember?”

Brian laughed, taking the duffel bag from Aj’s hands.

“Since you’re the very first guest of the house, you’ve just won a touristic trip of the house.”

“You’ve already finished it?”

“No, not yet. As a matter of fact the guest bedroom is still half done so, if you don’t mind, you’ll have to use the bathroom downstairs ‘cause I’m still working on...”

“Ehm... do you know who you’re talking with? Aj. Not Howie!”

“I’ve warned you, as any good host would do.”

Originally the house had been planned to be on one only floor but, since Brian had the means and the money, he then decided to add a second floor, even though the upstairs was going to have small rooms but a large terrace that could allow to enjoy the ocean view all around the house. The day section didn’t have many walls but kitchen, living and dining rooms were all a wide open space with tall windows to let in all the most possible sun light and, some of them were more like doors that would open on a small terrace that had access to the beach itself. It was the kitchen the room that Brian loved the most. That had been the first room he designed without thinking about what Nick would had wanted or not, mostly because that was the one place the boy never gave much input about. Even in the kitchen wide and tall windows decorated the walls colored with a pale shade of white cream, giving the impression to be able to enter directly in the ocean and beach. A contrast wasn’t created by the color of the furniture, since they had the same white shade of the walls, but from the light blue of the ceramic tiles and of all the others details and tools. A window-door, now slight open and letting in the salty and sandy air, gave access to a small porch, decorated as a gazebo, where a small table and a comfortable couch offered refuge both for a relaxing day or a quiet evening spent reading a book. That was where Brian stayed when Mrs. Hudson would come and visit him, the old lady all wired about how the beach was totally prisoner of the nature and how it was impossible to build other houses in the neighborhood.

“Can I offer you something to drink? I think I still have some ice tea left, otherwise I can always make some coffee.”

“Coffee. Magic word.”

“And to think that Nick didn’t even like it at first. – Brian found himself saying while he was trying to reach for the coffee already minced. – And then, some years later, he would became a beast if I didn’t have it already made when he got up.”

Aj was taken aback for a few seconds, having prepared him not to mention Nick’s name not to cause any pain and remembering all those times it took only a slight mention to observe the friend’s face screwing up with lines of heartache. Not this time because Brian’s expression was of nostalgia and melancholy but there was a smile shining through them, as if Brian wasn’t afraid anymore of memories.

“The first time he drank it, he spat it out of the window.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Remember when we were doing that tour around all those high schools? We’re practically unknown...”

“... we slept at dirty motels with only two beds...”

“Yeah. Good times, right?”

“In a way.”

Brian returned to work on the coffee, succeeding into finding some cookies Mrs. Hudson had helped him baking. And that was how he would spend some of his free hours, taking up cooking lesson from his neighbor. And he had to admit that it wasn’t wasted time, given the almost good results.

So, with biscuits and coffee, Brian sat down in front of Aj.

“Seriously, Alex, you aren’t really here only for a few papers. Why are you here?”

“Nick was the one person who I would turn to when I was struggling with my old habits. He was the only one who would really understand the reason why it happened. At least partially.“ Said Aj while playing mindless with the lace of his sweater.

“So that’s the reason behind all those phone calls.”

“Did he tell you about it?”

“Not really. He always said that it was a friend needing him and that he had to go and help him. I never really asked because I knew it was something that needed to be kept between him and whoever was that person.”

“So you trusted him?”

Brian didn’t reply immediately, sensing that there was a precise reason why Aj was asking that particular question.

“If I didn’t trust Nick, I don’t think we would have been able to move on and resolve everything. There had been moments when I wondered if Nick was the one needing help and, yeah, I felt hurt that he didn’t come to me but... But I know that, at least for that problem, I couldn’t be his confident. Not for something that I couldn’t never understand. And it was okay, since he would always come back to me, he would always come back with a tired smile on his face.”

“I envied Nick so much, you know? I envied him that he had found a way to take his life and turned it completely around, making his problems so small that it would only took a quick jump to resolve them. I kept asking him for advice, I kept begging him to tell him how he managed because I could do it, no? And you know what his reply was?”

Brian shook his head, giving Aj the implied agreement to go on speaking.

“He would always say that I needed to really want to change. It fucking pissed me off, as if he was trying to imply that I didn’t want to get better and win my addiction. But Nick was right and that was why I was so fucking angry. Every time my good intentions went down with the first sip of alcohol.”

“And now?” Brian asked, mentally beating himself up because he had never been worried about how the others were facing that situation. Egoistically he only thought about what Nick’s death had brought inside his life; he had only thought about running away from the waves of pain. He never stopped, realistically and for more than a few seconds, to wonder about how the others, people who knew and loved Nick, were trying to react and move on. And Aj was like him, in a way: he had lost the person he looked up to try and win over his problem of alcoholism.

“There had been moments when all I wanted to be just drink myself to oblivion. I hid myself behind the alibi that everyone was so worried about you that no one would ever cared about me or if I had taken up drinking again. And when it happened, when I realized how fucked up I was... well, that was my wake up call. Even if it didn’t quite work for long.”

“But something has changed. – Brian observed. He had realized it almost immediately, when he had taken notice of the absence of those sunglasses that always had hidden Aj’s eyes and the signs of his problems. And himself. And after what Brian had gone through with Nick, it was easier to take notice of the slightest details. – You’re sober.”

“For some months. Since the day you called for Nick’s charity.”

“I don’t see the connection.” Brian murmured with a confused voice and expression.

“You had every right to destroy yourself, Brian. And, still, here you are. Still fighting with tooth and claws and getting up after every seatback. And that is where I was always wrong: every time I had a seatback, every time I would fall back in that hole, I would only hate myself more for being so weak and stupid, for not being strong enough to say no and stay away from the bottle.”

At those words, Brian got up from the couch and disappeared for some seconds into the studio, returning then with that bottle of vodka that Brian and Nick had kept for all those years.

“Is this some sort of test?” Aj asked, forehead frowned in confusion and a slight pang of trepidation, like he really felt like all of that was just a test.

“Oh, I would never dare anyone to open it. Unless you want to visit the local hospital.”

“So, what’s all about?”

“I presume Nick never told you what his real epiphany was.”

“Wasn’t the night when you ended up in hospital?”

“That was the public, modified and edited version. That night we... we fought. I was so ready to break up with him because I couldn’t stand anymore seeing Nick destroying himself or letting him destroying me and our relationship. So I gave him an ultimatum: me or that bottle of vodka.”

“You aren’t really serious. You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I’m never been this serious. Me or that bottle. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

The fingers started to tremble around their grip around the neck of the bottle.

“I’m not an alcoholic. I don’t have any problems at all. I don’t have to make a decision.”

“No, of course not. So you shouldn’t have any problems at all with letting go of that bottle and breaking it. Am I right?”

Instinct and desire seemed to be chains that kept Nick tied tight with that bottle. Lips, mind and logic kept suggesting that there weren’t any doubt on what was the right decision to be made but those chains made him close into himself while demons kept suggesting that they wouldn’t hurt him if he let them stay with him. A part of him couldn’t understand what the problem was and why Brian couldn’t accept that harmless habit of drinking a glass or two; another, instead, knew that it wasn’t really harmless as his parents always made him believe and taught.

“Bri...”

Brian shook his head, defeated and yield in front of that impasse. “As I suspected.”

Leaving Nick standing still with the bottle safe in his hand, Brian started to run down the stairs as his heart beat furiously and painfully against his chest.

“He never did it because of me or for me. He didn’t do it because I left him that night. He did it because that was the day when he saw and realized what kind of person he had become and how much he hated himself for all the hurt and pain he had inflicted himself for all those years.”

“I don’t wanna be that person either. I... I know I didn’t...”

“Ehi, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter. During those days I could barely recognize who was there with me. I don’t know how many times I’ve insulted or told Kevin to fuck off.”

A laugh escaped Aj’s lips, breaking that air full of tension between them.

“I wish I had been there.”

“The most important thing is that you are here now. You know, that is something that I’ve always noticed: people literally battle to be there and show themselves off. It’s when everything passes, when it’s not really news anymore and everything comes back to normal, that you realize who your real friends are. They’re the ones who keep sticking around.”

“There’s a girl. I’ve met her one day where I usually go and do my tattoos. Do you believe that she didn’t really have a clue about who I was?”

“Man, that must have been a hard hit for your ego!”

“Nah, I think it was best this way. I had to be myself, something that it hadn’t happen for a long time. – Aj placed down the cup and stared seriously back at the friend. – I don’t wanna play games with her. I want what you and Nick had, what Kevin and Kristin have. But I know that I won’t ever have something even close to this if... if I don’t put my demons to rest. I want to be a better man for her. And, who knows, maybe someday for my kids.”

Brian got up and, bypassing the table, came next to Aj, kneeling down in front of him.

“This is your moment. Alex, you can do it. As long as you remember that it’s not a sprint but a marathon: you are allowed to fall down; you are allowed to have moments when all you want to do is tell everyone to fuck off. But just remember to rise up your chin and don’t ever be ashamed to admit that you’re weak.”

“Nick would be proud.”

Brian’s eye went to one of the pictures that were still around the house. “Yes, he would be.” He said, looking up to the sky.




**************



It was one of those nights when sleep didn’t come easily, like one of those train that had to wait for hours in front of a crossover for his turn to arrive. It was one of those nights when the melancholy slipped silently inside the blankets, wrapping itself around his bones and muscles as if it wanted to warm him up instead of wool and sheets. It was one of those nights when Brian would close his eyes and memories would run behind each others as images in black and white, mute and silent because voices weren’t needed to remember laughter and kisses.

“I miss you. I miss lying down beside you and tell you about my day, I miss hearing you while you tell me about the last script you are trying to write or how you have managed to blow both the washing machine and the oven up at the same time. And you know what the worst thing is? It’s that I’m not the only one missing you. Everyone misses you. Do you know how many times I find an empty calls coming from Howie or Kevin? And let’s not talk about the tons of mails that I still receive from the fans. Everyone misses you and it’s not fair. It’s not fair because there was still so much that you could give, there are still so many people that find themselves without their main support... And tough I can be strong; I’m still not ready to an example for others. I barely know what I’m doing and I still don’t know if it’s going to work.”

Brian hid his face under the blanket, ending up in a sort of nest where darkness protected him and it made him feel less ashamed to let some tears fall down. A hand was holding the cell phone while the other, instead, was gripping the necklace where Brian had put those two rings that should, and still nevertheless, have symbolized his and Nick’s relationship.

“There are moments when I still hate you, do you know? You should be here, with me, and yet you aren’t. And it might seem strange but there are mornings when I wake up and I don’t find you sleeping here by my side. And I get so angry. I’m angry and pissed because you haven’t even left a single note to tell me that you would leave early. And then... then I remember and it’s like a punch in the gut. And I hate you for this.
Tomorrow I’m going to visit the college and the campus. Aj offered to go with me and why I already know that he’s going to make me look like an idiot? Though... though today he said something that I didn’t want to comment. I wish he hadn’t said it but I can’t. It was meant to be a joke, something about how I was going to be a heartbreaker once the lessons would begin and... and I think that something might had slipped past because he understood that I didn’t get his joke and just said that, one day, I would fall in love with someone else. And that was what you would have wanted for me. But it’s not the truth, you and I know this. I mean, I know that you want me to be happy but I know you. Nick. You were so damn jealous. You were so damn jealous even of a simple stare that lasted a little too long for your liking and I know that the thought of me with someone who isn’t you would drive you mad even up there in heaven. And honestly? Honestly, Nick, I don’t think it will ever be a problem. The mere thought of someone else other than you by my side is enough for giving me a panic attack. I’ve already had what everyone is searching. I had you. Who else would ever be like you? And I’m not talking about the physical features, especially cause basically everyone will always be taller than me... – A laugh escaped out from the sheets, bringing away with it some tears and gifting the air and the wind. – I can’t, Nick. Even if you had given me a sort of approval, I can’t and I will never be able to love someone like I loved you. And I’m okay with it. It’s alright.
And I miss you.”

Message #33

In a flash, October knocked at the door and brought with itself brushes soaked up with brown, red and orange shades to turn trees and leaves in its favorite canvas. Paths and sidewalks were pulled aside by piles of dry leaves, flashes of color with a shade of green that was slowly weakening and was only waiting for the moment when, in a few months, it would be back shining so brightly. As if it was a perfect metaphor life itself had flown away just like a butterfly, sometimes making forgetting what the previous autumn had brought as unwanted gift. But that was the lesson that Kevin had learned on his own skin: the world would always kept turning, ignoring about hurt feelings or hearts that were still finding those pieces that had been lost among the storm. Life had to go on again, as if that was the only way to heal the wounds.

And that was what had happened. Although there were still moments when Nick’s thought would surface again with an image or with a memory and the blown, dull, still hurt. It had been unfair, in that twisted way that destiny had to pay the dues and, sometimes, it would chose the wrong person to be the one who had to pay for the mistakes. Not only Nick, gone when he was finally starting over a new life and with so many infinite chances to fly higher than before, but even and mostly Brian. And only thanks to how the ties had been untied since the year before, it was now with relief that Kevin could answer Brian’s phone calls without the shattering fear that something terrible had happened again.

“College man, shouldn’t you be in class?”

The laughter coming through the phone was finally that happy one that, for a long time, everyone had been so sure that it would live again. Brian was finally happy, that happiness that was born from being conscious that it was far from being perfect but, at the same time, it was more that he could ever imagine to be after that earthquake like Nick’s absence.

“I had only one class in the morning.”

“Interesting?”

“Yeah. But that isn’t the reason why I’m calling you.”

Kevin’s forehead frowned first with a line of confusion and, then, with a tip of worry. Had he exulted too soon?

“Something happened? Are... are you okay?”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m okay. – Immediately came Brian’s reassurance, joined by that laugh of neutral joke for that more than justified concern. – I’m just calling for an advice.”

“Oh, okay. – Kevin replied with a sigh of relief. – Though I’m not so informed about the college life.”

“It has nothing to do with it. Or... in a way... But... I think... I think I have a date. Sort of. Maybe.”

“You think or is it really a date?”

“I don’t know!”

Kevin perceived a pang of panic inside Brian’s voice. Though Brian would always seemed so sure and confident, in reality that confidence was only an illusion, a masquerade created so perfectly so that it would be easier to hide inside him all those doubts and uncertainties that every decisions, even the smallest one, would bring. And the one about going out or not with someone new seemed to be harder that reaching the highest mountain in the whole world.

“Ehi, cousin, it’s only a date. It’s not the end of the world.”

Only silence came from the other side: a moment that Kevin could recreate inside his mind, picturing Brian biting down his lips and twisting the hand that wasn’t holding up the cell phone.

“It hasn’t been a year.”

Kevin knew that those words would come as first. He was waiting for them and he was ready to beat them down, throwing them away out of the window and free Brian.

“There isn’t a right time to wait, Brian. Only because it had been twelve months it doesn’t mean that you still have to pause your life. No one is going to accuse you only because you decided to take another step forward and keep on living. Meeting and going out with other people are part of this process.”

“I’m not afraid of meeting new people. That’s the whole reason why I had chosen to start this life. Here... here no one really knows me and it’s so easy to silence those who still remember my old life. But... but I don’t think I’m ready for this part of the life. I’m not ready to have someone else in my life. Someone who would take Nick’s place.”

“Nick would have wanted this and you know it. He would have wanted someone by your side and take care of you just like he used to.”

Brian sighed in frustration at that sentence and image. Those words made him mad because they were so far from the truth, although Nick’s ghost slash hallucination had sustained the contrary.

“Why do you keep telling this stupid thing? Nick... – Brian found himself raising his eyes towards the ceiling as a wet laughter full of nostalgia stole the attention for a moment. – Nick was jealous. Possessive. He had that burning look towards whoever dares to only look at me. So no, he wouldn’t be happy if someone else would make me laugh and smile like he did.”

“Bri, listen. You have to stop thinking and act like he is still here. He isn’t. No one wants you to forget about Nick or being kept prisoner in something only because it’s what people want and expect from you.”

Silence arrived once again after those words and, for a second, Kevin thought about taking them back, at least a part of them because he knew that he had stepped inside a territory that was still slippery and tedious. Unknown, still, was Brian’s reaction at those facts and, given the past experiences, it was still so hard to predict if certain words would be welcomed with open arms, considered simply as an advice, or with knives as Brian would retrieve inside those high walls he built in defenses.

“I don’t want to forget him. I don’t want that the world forget how much important Nick was for me” Brian’s reply came in a whisper, a middle way between those two reactions Kevin had balanced inside his mind.

“It won’t happen. Brian, you won’t even be able to forget Nick and no one won’t ever forget what kept you together. A love like yours isn’t easily erased just because one of you suddenly disappears. That love will always be with you, keeping you company along with something new. You can’t... you can’t close yourself inside the pain.”

“So I have to accept that date?”

“You have to do what you feel is right.”

“That’s not an advice, Kevin.”

“Do you want my blessing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had these kind of problems. Everything was so simple with Nick, the only anxiety only knew if my feelings were returned or if it was only my imagination. Now... here it’s all much more complicated.” Brian murmured in the end, leaning his head against the wall.

“It’s not that complicated. Go out, have fun and laugh with someone. You don’t have necessarily seen it as a date.”

“What if he wants something more out of it?”

“Talk to him. Clarify since the beginning, then.”

“Okay. – Brian answered after a long moment of silenced waiting. – Okay. Just a dinner.”

“At least you’re going to eat something.”

“Can we stop this nonsense? I do eat, thank you for the concern.”

“I remember Nick following you with peanut butter and jam sandwiches.”

“It’s not true!”

“You’re lucky he understood immediately that he wasn’t really good with cooking…”

Brian grumbled amused, finally free from that anxiety and apprehension that had made him nervous during the whole conversation.

“After the one time I got food poisoning, he was literally scared about cooking something for me... – Brian replied, without that pan of bitter nostalgia everything he remembered something from his old life with Nick. – Thanks cousin.”

“Are you more relaxed now?”

“Well, Ryan would never be worse than some of those psychopathic fans we had to deal with, right?”

“Oh, so his name is Ryan...”

“No, stop here. Don’t start with the interrogation, okay?”

“I just want to know his name. And how old he is. So I can check if he has any…”

“Tell me you’re joking...”

“Only the last part.”

“I guess I have a thing of man younger than me. Ryan is the same age of Nick.”

“Tell me he’s not blonde…”

Brian sensed what Kevin was trying to imply with that comment, totally legit but left him feeling a little bit annoyed.

“No. He’s the total opposite of Nick, and not only physically.”

“Well, he’s studying at college...”

“Nick was a genius. In his own way. And really unappreciated.”

“He was Nick.”

“Yes. – Brian replied in a whispered voice, his eyes locked on that picture he would never be able to hide or throw away. – He was Nick.”

*********

“Are you sure?”

The moonlight slipped between the two of them, lighting up those faces so close to each others.

Brian got on his tiptoes, brushing his nose against Nick’s.

“Yep. – He answered in a determinate tone, pulling away a lock of hair still too much blonde. – Next time try not to dye your hair on your own.”

Nick took Brian’s hand with his, although unable to intertwine their fingers together.

“I’m serious. This... this is going to change everything.”

“I’ve never been so sure in my entire life, Nick.”

And, even before Nick could say and find another objection, Brian’s lips rested on his while that twine of hands went and shift upon Nick’s side, sliding inside that notch of the back that was more sensitive. For a moment Nick stood completely silent and still, surprised and shocked by that determination and that promise that he had never thought he could hold on to so easily. But he couldn’t keep still, not when that kiss had started to wake each one of his senses and was creating small flashes of a love that was now free to blossom and fly away.


“Did you have fun?”

The voice was different as well as the place where they were in that moment. Brian sighed for a second, observing those grey clouds what were hiding the moon and threaten to let their tears fall down. Even they had understood how much that night had been such a failure. He wasn’t ready to jump again in that ocean, he wasn’t ready to give away another piece of his heart when still he was still struggling to find a balance in that life turned single in a blink of an eye.

“Yes.”

He couldn’t lie thou. Because the truth was that, for at least half of the night, Brian had fun. They had talked about the courses they were taking together, about all the ones they didn’t and then they went back in time and told about a childhood almost similar, spent between soccer and basket fields. It had been easy, maybe almost too much easy, to forget about all the rest and when it arrived, Nick’s memory had seemed like a punch in the gut. Suddenly all the lights, the candles, the atmosphere and the fact that he was standing in front of another man, regained their primary meaning: it was a date, a damned date and all that Brian wanted was to continue as if it were only a dinner with a friend.

His plan had failed so miserably.
That plan could never had the chance to win and convince, not when Nick’s memory had seemed to come alive and resemble a ghost who had taken a seat next to him, ready to make fun about every little detail of that night. There had been comments about the wrong choice for the restaurant (French? Seriously? You don’t eat all that butter even in a whole year!) until those images had silently gone out from their hiding and had made him painfully aware of their presence: Nick’s laughter, that one that always made his nose and lips curling up, making him looking like a child instead than a grown old man; his voice, that lullaby between amusing tones and ones more husky and sensual, those innuendos that had always made Brian blushing up like a girl in front of her crush. It had been a bitter and sweet torture; it had been like reviving all those dates spent together and, at the same time, the slow but more and more firm certainty that there would never be place for someone else.
At least for now.

It had been an instant.
They were arrived in front of Ryan’s car, in the parking behind the restaurant. So lost inside his thoughts, Brian didn’t notice at first Ryan’s intentions nor when, suddenly, silence started to wrap its arms around them. And, as if it had been a scene from a movie, Ryan came slowly closer, lowering a little his face and turning so that it wouldn’t hit Brian’s nose. For a second, Brian was completely paralyzed, frozen from what was about to happen. Should he let it happen? Perhaps that was the solution, perhaps he had to stop thinking about Nick and starting to live again for real. And yet, a stab in the stomach kept warning him, whispering that it wasn’t the right way to forget about everything. In a fraction of a second, mind and heart quickly decided to move the body far away from what it was going to turn into the biggest mistake ever committed.

“Sorry... I’m so sorry... I...” Brian found himself murmuring as he lowered his gaze embarrassed.

“No, I’m the one that should apologize. I thought...” Ryan replied, embarrassed too.

“Kevin was right. – Brian said in a low tone, finding the strength to put together what he had just shattered. – I didn’t want to play with you. I had fun, yes, but I’m not ready for this.”

“Ready? What do you mean?” Ryan asked confused.

“I should have told you when you first asked me out. But it was the first time I met someone who didn’t know anything about me and... – Brian shrugged as he hide his hands inside the pockets of his jeans. - … I just wanted to be a normal guy once again.”

“Are you like a prince from a strange and unknown European state?”

“No, no! Hell! – Brian replied after a laughter. – I’ve lost my fiancé almost a year ago. We had been together since forever, we grew up together and... It hadn’t been easy coming to this point, some months ago I was still convinced that he would come back. I thought I’ve already turned the page but, in reality, tonight I understood that I’m still not okay. That wound isn’t healed already. And I’m not ready yet for falling in love. I apologize.”

Brian saw it. It was a subtle change in the guy’s eyes but Brian captured it, maybe because he already knew what was going to happen after those words. How many other times had he seen it not only inside strangers’ eyes but even coming from people he knew? That mix of commiseration and pity, those old and overused words that never worked and, instead, made him feel still so full of rage and anger.

“Brian, I... – Ryan put a hand though his hair, finding himself without any words. – I don’t know what...”

“There is nothing to say. – Brian stopped him. – I apologize. But I had fun anyway.” He did something dictated more by instinct and habit, because that was his way to apologize to Nick when they had started dating: a simple kiss on the cheeks, though through a veil of tenderness.

But once inside his car, once he started the engine and took the road back home, the only tenderness left in Brian was the bitter feeling of being still blocked at the starting line. His vicious circle started and ended with Nick. And that was how it would always be and, maybe, it was time to accept the fact that memories would be his only companions for still a long time ahead.

*********

It was strange how the rain seemed to be the force of the nature acting as a background behind all that had happened to him in the last year: a storm had witnessed the day when Nick died and again raindrops and wind kept him company that fateful day Brian had decided to follow Nick wherever he had gone. So it shouldn’t had been a surprise if, even that night, rain had decided to pour down halfway through the drive back home, adding its own melancholy at that atmosphere inside the car. Most of all, Brian felt guilty. He felt like he had disappointed everyone by going out with another guy when still he was grieving Nick and, at the same time, by not being able to put the past behind his back and try to live again.
He had disappointed Nick though Briand didn’t know which was the right reason between those polar opposite.

“What do you really want from me, Nick? ‘Cause I can’t understand it and I don’t know anymore what is the right thing to do. Tonight... Tonight I felt like I was cheating on you, like I was stabbing you in the back by only smiling and laughing with someone that wasn’t you. You hated when something like this happened in the past, you would always got mad thinking that I was flirting with someone else. But I’ve never did it, I’ve never flirted with someone just like I hadn’t done tonight. Still... Still I feel the same weight of guilt upon my heart and I don’t know how I am supposed to react.
I should hate you.
I should hate you because you are gone, because you had been the first to hit me and, for fuck’s sake, it has been a year! I shouldn’t still feel so linked to you, no? Yet, I’m still tangled inside you and I hate myself for this. I hate myself because I want to move on, I want to find someone who can fill this enormous emptiness that you have created within my heart and soul. But, at the same time, I want to hold onto you. I wanna keep you inside me.

I’m not ready.
I’m not ready for a new relationship.
Mostly, I’m not ready to let you go.

You know... when you’re a child and they tell you about all those fairytales and stories about eternal love and happy ending? They make you believe that love will always survive, they make you believe that battling and overcoming obstacles is worth for all that you are going to gain and win. The most precious thing in the whole universe. And they are right, you do know this. We had our fairytale. We had that big and amazing love. But what they don’t tell you is what to do when you lose that love. They don’t tell you what to do when someone comes and steal it from you without even a warning. They don’t tell you that it’s an agony, they don’t tell you that all that is waiting for you is heartache and pain. They don’t tell you how many times you are going to lose hope. And they don’t tell you how you are supposed to get back on your feet. You just do. One day you wake up and you realize that you have to change, that you have to build yourself all over again because that dream you’re holding onto doesn’t exist anymore.

That day is finally coming for me. I don’t know if I should feel relief or being scared, I don’t know if I should keep living like this or if I should hide somewhere and protect what small I have left of you.

A help, Nicky. All I’m asking now is a little help. I’ve never asked you for help, at least not like this. I was always scared. I was always scared about letting you see me so weak and desperate. But yet you understood and helped me. You’ve always managed to let me see which the right road to take was. So, for one last time, tell me what I should do.”

Even with his eyes closed and the head leaning against the seat, Brian became aware when the rain stopped. The sound of raindrops ceased to harmonize with his thoughts and even the wind decided to go back to its rooms and rest instead than keeping breathing so frustrated and angry.

A smile, sad and melancholic, appeared on Brian’s face as he started to drive again, his eyes captured by that sky that had became so clear and bright, with the first stars starting to come out after the rain. After a storm, after every storm, there would always be the sun. His storm might had lasted for twelve long months but, maybe, now a small ray of light was slowly rise again as it put behind the last drop of rain and cold.

Brian had just to follow that lead.

“Thank you. I don’t know if it’s you but... thank you, Nick. And forgive me.”

Twelve months.

Twelve months before Brian’s life seemed to be a painting almost finished: it hadn’t been perfect, there had been some stains here and there but it hadn’t really mattered because all the other colors made it so bright and much more than Brian had ever thought it could be. But then all it took was just a tear, a bigger and deeper stain than the others, and all left was only an empty frame.

A year later, Brian still found it difficult and hard to remember that fateful day: images came all vague and blurry, disturbed as if they were a tape already ruined while the audio had been completely turned off. Brian only could recall the emotions from that day or, perhaps, it was better saying the totally lack of those, as if a part of himself had died in that accident along with Nick. Brian had felt that way for a long time. He had built his life around Nick, he had designed projects that always included the two of them and, suddenly, he had found himself thrown in the river without a direction or something to hold onto. Getting up, during those twelve months, hadn’t been easy. He had fallen so many times that, at certain points, he had seriously wondered if it was still worth getting back on his feet since he had already lost the compass that had always lead him through the waves of life.

Still, in the end, he had made it through.
Still, twelve months later, he was standing there with a new life ahead of him and just one last thread to cut off from his past.

There he was, now, returning to the place where everything had begun. Nothing had changed on that road, the crosswalks had faded out since that far day and only a bunch of flowers reminded that someone had lost his life in that particular section. Brian didn’t know what made him stop there, for he wasn’t able to find any sort of consolation or a meaning but, maybe, it was just another way to remind him that it really happened. Another metaphor about how everything, sooner or later, had to start all over again and let behind its past.
The cemetery wasn’t that far from that place so Brian left his car in the parking lot of a supermarket, the same one where he and Nick were used to go, and started to walk in the chilly air. Autumn, perfect companion and brother of summer, had decided to change team and go over the winning one of the winter, changing his appearance into a cold partner that loved to make joke of the whole world. It was still too soon for the snow, the air still hadn’t that smell that foresaw those white snowflakes but soon fields and roads, roofs and sidewalks would change their looks while the city and the people would get ready for Christmas. Last Christmas Brian had asked only one thing, though knowing that his desire could never be fulfilled: he had been in that phase, which probably had lasted more than it should had been, where he was so sure and convinced that it had been all a nightmare, a terrible prank made by Nick. He had just wanted Nick by his side, he had wanted him back as much as someone could desire back that lost part of him so much to go crazy. Brian had never taken off that ring, that wedding band that Nick had gifted him after his own death, although now it was hidden and closer to that place where Nick’s memory would never be erased from: a simple keychain, a golden keychain that ended exactly upon his chest: now there were two scars, one physical and the other much more emotional and spiritual, that had met and were keeping each other company.

Brian had never been there, except for the day of the funeral. He would never be able to forget where Nick rested, even if that day and all the formalities were still a blur. But there was his gravestone, in a hidden corner and with still flowers and notes brought by all those fans who still were mourning Nick’s absence.

Brian had brought flowers too. Only three, for that he had always believed that three was the perfect number and because it had always appeared in each and every important date of their love story. Three flowers and three different meaning, linked and intertwined together. The first was a pale pink rose to remember that Nick had been his best friend.

“Do you remember? – Brian asked directly to the gravestone. It was useless calling that phone number that had given him comfort and security during those twelve months. Nick was there, even if he could only hear him. And that was all that mattered. – When I joined the band, you didn’t even speak to me. You were so shy and didn’t know how to act around someone who you only heard stories about. But then it only took me to teach you how to make a shoot from a distance to win over your shyness. I was shy too. Strange, don’t you think? I was in a place that I’ve never been, with three strangers that I had to convince so that I could be part of a group already tight. We were so similar, outsiders in two different ways but that had been what brought us together and made us allies, pals and, in the end, best friend. I’ve never been able to understand how you, a little boy of only thirteen years, could be able to get past my defenses and see what was hidden being the masquerade of an eternal happy face. You’ve always seen through my smiles, my jokes and laughs; you’ve always been able to notice when I was so fed up and just come to me asking about playing together. You knew that sports had always been my only outlet. You were so frustrating, though! Don’t doubt that there hadn’t been moments when I had been angry with you, especially for your habit to want to know everything at every cost. And there had been always something that I could never tell you about. There had been always one secret I couldn’t reveal because I had always been so scared about ruining our friendship. I was so petrified about losing you. Even if now it’s kinda ironic, don’t you think?”

Kneeling down, Brian placed the rose upon the headstone along with the other two flowers: a red rose and a sunflower. He caressed with his index the letters engraved in the marble, stopping when it reached that date that made everything so painful real.

“You were my world. My sun. I’ve followed you everywhere, even when I was still trying to resist those feelings I had for you. I’ve fought you because you didn’t give a damn about what people would think about us. You just loved me and that was all that mattered. I was scared, terrified by the intensity of my need and desire of just being with you. You’ve... you used to say that it was because of me that you learned how to love but I can’t really take that credit. Love was something that had always been inside you, you had just hidden it because no one really taught you how not to turn into something toxic and poisoning like your parents, But you... Nick, you taught me how to be loved, how to accept that I was worth of being covered with attentions and care as much as I loved and took care of others. I’ve never been able to depend on someone else, life had always made him be the strongest I could be and never let my weakness show. I didn’t have to force myself with you, I could be weak with you and I’ve never been ashamed or less.
It’s going to be hard now. It’s going to be hard opening my heart to someone else. And not only because your name is still written all over it. It’s because I don’t want to find myself once again in this condition, I don’t want to find myself again with my life shattered in pieces that I have to put together again. One day it’s going to happen. I won’t lose hope, I’ve never lost it. Even when I screamed, even when desperation had been the loudest voice inside my mind, I still had this small flame of hope to protect and to grow.”

Words died without another breath or air. During those twelve months Brian had confided in Nick just like had always done, putting into an answering machine all of his tears and screams, each breath caught inside his throat and those first laughs that had lead Brian to the other side of the sun, the part that shone and warmed up even when it was winter. It was going to be strange and weird not calling anymore that number; it was going to be weird not leaning to that last brick that still smelled like Nick’s. It was going to be strange but it was the last step Brian had to take to finally welcome his new spring and, as much as he was scared and terrified, he was also ready to move on. There wasn’t happiness, joy or enthusiasm for they couldn’t exist when someone was about to say goodbye to the most important person in his life; there was only a melancholic acceptance of how present and future were going to be and the realization that he had to face obstacles and battles counting on his own strength.
No one could prepare himself for that moment. Saying goodbye felt like definitive, much heavier than that gravestone. Fingers were trembling hidden inside the coat but it wasn’t for the cold: the hand kept opening and closing into a fit around the cell phone, slipping upon the surface and touching the buttons without really pressing any number. Brian had already decided that that was the way he was going to put an end of a year full of messages left to an answering machine without getting any reply. He was going to leave a last message, a last word and then he was going to end that story, disconnecting definitely a number that no one was going to use anymore.

“I love you Nick. Even if you’re gone, even if I’m about to start a new life, I will always love you. Not like I did before because there isn’t your love giving flame to mine anymore. But I will always do and, maybe, one day we will be together again somewhere up in the sky.”
Brian got up to his feet, finally having found the courage to take the phone out of his hiding spot inside his coat. With a breath, exhaled more to let the tension and apprehension out, and then phoned that number, ready to hear the metallic beep and then the voice...

Drin.
Drin.

Forced by the instinct, Brian ended the call.
He had called the wrong number. He had called the wrong number, that was what Brian kept telling himself while his heart started to beat furiously against the chest. It couldn’t be, otherwise. It couldn’t ring as if someone had turned on the cell phone after a whole year.
He dialed the number again, this time careful to every single digit. A second of hesitation, an instant of fear and apprehension as he pressed the last button.
The metallic beep didn’t come.

That automatic message, which had been the only ear who had received and heard his tears and prayers in those twelve months, didn’t come.

Drin.
Drin.

The phone was ringing. One, two, three rings that said that the line was connected and they were only waiting for someone to pick up and answer. Time around Brian seemed to stand still, wanting to be a witness of what could have only been a bad prank. Perhaps Brian was still sleeping, perhaps he was only imagining that scene when he was still protected by the blanket of dreams.
The ringing suddenly stopped. Someone had picked up and answered.

“Bri.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an exclamation. Just one syllable. His name. That nickname that only a person, only a voice, had always pronounced in that way. But that voice couldn’t exist anymore, that voice should had been suffocated by flames and dirt. How could that voice still exist if its body had ceased to breathe life a year before?

Brian could only hear his heartbeat, a beating that followed time along with that syllable.

Thum. Bri. Thum. Bri.

He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move his lips and make out a simple syllable too. His throat seemed to have turned into a dry desert and even air couldn’t seem to find a way out because it only hit a wall made of terror, anxiety and hope.

Yes, hope.

That hope that Brian had always pretended to hide under a fake new security and acceptance. Hope that had turned into comfort when pain had been still a too much bigger and powerful to even try to talk with. Hope that everyone, from family and friends up to even strangers, had tried to defeat with words of compassion and pity, shaking and putting Brian in front of the image of false illusion.

There weren’t any doubt there. No doubt that it wasn’t a joke, no doubt about the fact that it wasn’t a mere and pale illusion. That voice that had said his name, Bri, could only belong to only one person. Brian would had been able to recognize it through hundred and more voices more or less similar, Brian would always been able to recognize that curve of sweetness within the last vowel.

“Nick?”

His question was broken by a cry. In the silence it echoed like as if it had been screamed but it would only took another sound, even that heart that was beating and refusing to believe, to hide and steal it away. Waiting for an answer, Brian kept telling himself that he was a fool, he was crazy just to hold onto that hope. Nick was dead and couldn’t answer him after twelve months of longing silence.

“Turn around.”

Brian didn’t move. Fear had literally paralyzed him. Logic kept screaming at him that, if he would turn around, he would realized the truth and that was that he was all alone in that place. There wasn’t anyone around there and, most important, there wasn’t that person whose gravestone Brian had placed those flowers and cried over his loss. And yet he had to turn around. He had to do it, he just had to realize that he had reached the bottom.

“Congrats - He said to himself mentally. – You’ve finally gone mad.”

But. There was a small and little but that was slowly starting to yell and shout against the cage it was being held prisoner.

What if hadn’t he gone mad?
What if hadn’t he reached the bottom?
What if had Nick been really there, behind his back?
Nick was dead and, yet, he was there. Somehow, in some twisted and weird way, Nick had to be physically there because the voice that answered Brian at the phone belonged to him. No doubt.

So he did it. Brian turned around, slowly and conscious of every sound surrounding him. Brian turned around and there, even before realizing where – or more exactly who – his gaze had fallen on, he felt like he was about to faint. Each color had been sucked away, every shape and frame had become a blurry and faded combination of lines and points. Trees, paths and gravestones were just one big thing and, between that haze, only a figure stood out. A figure that was standing in front of him.
He had changed. Nick. Nick had changed. He was thinner, wearing clothes that Brian had never seen or had never bought him as a gift. His hair was different, short, almost shaved and much darker that the blond Brian had always loved. Yes, he had loved that color even when Nick would get the dye wrong and ended up looking more like a cartoon. But even with that dark blonde, more like brown, there was no doubt that the figure was Nick. Because Brian would had recognize him everywhere, wearing every kind of masquerade or make up. He would recognize Nick even if now the blue of his eyes had turned into a shade of light green.

It was Nick. Alive. Breathing, so that meant that he couldn’t be dead. Though he should have been dead, he should have been resting inside that coffin covered by dirt and earth.
No. Nick was very much alive.
Nick was alive and standing in front of him.

“Yes, Brian. I’ve come back.”