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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.