He was sitting on the windowsill, his right knee leaned on the cold surface and a steaming cup of coffee warmed the fingers wrapped tightly around the ceramic. Outside that room of a hotel, the rain was starting to get ready for its melody as lightning made the grey shade of the sky darker and darker. He shivered at every thunder, the faint veil of fear that was slowly creeping upon him and his nerves.
He was fighting an internal battle, just like the forces of nature were battling each other out there. His fight was against the tears that wanted to win and make their triumphant way on his face, noticeable and visible for anyone who could might enter in the room. Maybe, not anyone since there was only one person who could appear without letting himself known. And, at the same time, that person was the last he wanted to be seen by. He would get worried.
He closed his eyes. He breathed out. Nothing happened and nothing change. The lump, the ball of emotions, still grew bigger and bigger until he was sure that cries were about to jump out from his lips. The tears were still there, under the safe protection of his lids that hard were fighting to keep them in the dark and in the unknown. He felt the pressure, he felt the stinging at the edges of his eyes and his heart tightened up inside the chest. Not once he faltered and not once he let it go.
Why was he unable to cry?
Another breath, longer than the one before.
Why was it so hard for him to cry? Why was there a feeling of shame every time he was about to surrender?
Sometimes, he felt so stupid. Deep inside his mind, in a place where logic worked with clarity, Brian knew that this was only a natural breaking point, for one couldn’t keep bottling up things and emotions without eventually reaching the moment when they would fall out, regardless if he wanted or not. The last straw hadn’t came from the outside because he didn’t give too much care about what the world thought of him: strangers, people he never knew existed, couldn’t know him so their jokes, their judging and name-calling weren’t that hard to shake off. But when those came from people close to him, friends or loved ones, he couldn’t stop the little snake of doubt slithering inside his soul, biting and spreading its dark poison until there wasn’t nothing left untouched.
He wasn’t that strong, he wasn’t the confident guy everyone believed he was. Instead, he was just as insecure as the others, though it was something he had never let it show. He needed approval like air; like the faeries that needed claps to live, he breathed smiles like they were pure oxygen and his blood pumped with renewed vitality when someone would come to him seeking an advice or a hug. Being needed was his reason to be alive and why he kept going with his façade. At the opposite, being left alone, isolated in a corner like he was only an invisible piece of furniture, that was what killed him. Though he knew it was only a thought created by his paranoid mind.
Sometimes, he believed that the others were the ones being stupid. How couldn’t they see what was there in front of them? So lost and drowned in their own sorrows, they couldn’t even imagine that someone else, that one always smiling and happy, was screaming for help and no one was hearing him. Maybe it was because his weren’t really screams but silent and noiseless whispers so how was he supposed to pretend that his friends could feel his pain if he didn’t allow it to show itself?
“It’s silly.”
“If it makes you suffer, it isn’t silly.”
Brian shook his head, willing those voices to go away and leave him alone, desperately yearning for someone to come and needed him so he could escape his demons. He angled his face towards the window, the glass steaming up around his nose and mouth as he breathed out tears and sobs. He focused his gaze and attention at what was happening outside: the storm was reaching its highest point, forcefully shaking the branches of the trees and stealing away the last leaves that still had to fall naturally. Yellow, orange and brown mingled themselves in the dark blackboard that the sky had become, where only lightning provided a flash of light. it seemed like that the storm raging inside his soul had found a way to escape and it was giving life and force to the forces of nature, with the raindrops calling his tears and asking them to come out and join them in a sad melody of a song that was hoping to be heard.
So Brian prayed. He pleaded not to cry, he begged for the storm to end so that, maybe, the sun would come back in his life. At the same time, however, he prayed for a shoulder to cry on, to someone who would ask him how he was but who wouldn’t believe his standard answer that he was fine, that he was okay.
A smile could be so deceiving because no one would go further behind it. A smile was reassuring, a smile cleared out every cloud of worry. A smile told that everything in its owner’s life was okay. A smile was the slyest lie and Brian was the biggest liar in the world.
A click. The sound of the door opening and then closing. In the window’s reflection Brian saw Nick’s figure observing him like he was a complicated puzzle that he needed to solve. As used to, he found himself curving his lips in something that should had been a smile but it didn’t work because a serious frown appeared between Nick’s eyebrows as he stood there, not moving and not speaking but only trying to decipher what was wrong with his best friend and what he could do.
Slowly, Nick walked over the window and sat near Brian’s legs. Brian couldn’t form or make any sound because he knew that if he only opened a little his lips, the lump that was choking him would take control, successfully managing into reduce him in a sobbing ball. So he tightened up his fingers around the mug while the steam had already vanished away, leaving only the pungent scent of cold coffee. The strong hold around the cup, though had turned his knuckles white, helped him to steady himself as a battle was taking place inside his mind: soldiers that wanted to give up, unarmed and too weak to keep up the mask, were battled by the ones who would had preferred to die instead than letting show their weakness. Those warriors were the ones forcing him to come up with a joke, an impression, whatever and everything that would had make Nick believe that he was fine and that there was no need for him to worry.
Before Brian could make up with his mind, another hand took the cup from his grasp. He observed Nick placing it behind his back and then, without a warning or a word, he felt Nick’s arm surrounding him in a hug. Suddenly, there wasn’t cold anymore but only a scented warmth all around him.
At first, his body stayed perfectly still, gathering the new sensations it was feeling: someone’s else body pressed against him; hands upon his back, caressing in a circling and soothing motion; a chin resting on his head. The lump, the tears and cries grew stronger and stronger as Brian realized that he didn’t know how to react receiving a hug. Oh, he was good into giving them, it was his best way to let his friends know that he was there for them and that nothing wasn’t that helpless. An hug, to him, was the perfect way to tell them that they weren’t alone.
But being on the other end? He was embarrassed. He was ashamed of that feeling sitting on the depth of his stomach, the longing and agonizing desire of being comforted for once in his life, no matter how much silly and ridiculous were his reasons to cry. It had been so long since someone had hugged him that he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He sat there inside Nick’s arms, surrounded by a silence that though it was so unnatural, it didn’t scare him. He had never been fan of the silence. Even before sleeping, he needed music or his mind would go overdrive with all the things he should had done or said or what he shouldn’t had said, like that day. But know... know there wasn’t really silence, just an absence of words that didn’t belong to that moment: the air, instead, was filled with the sounds of two hearts beating, one slowly and calm and the other rapid, driven by emotions and fears.
He was still there, perfectly still, when Nick’s voice broke through his haze. “Bri.” Only a syllable but spoken in a sad and pleading note that Brian couldn’t remain like that and not doing nothing. It was an instinctive response, whenever he saw Nick sad he had the urge to make it better, whether it was with a joke, a basket match or just watching a marathon of cartoons, laughing and eating junk foods. He knew how to be with Nick, he just didn’t know how to be or what to do with himself. But, in that moment, he did it. Every last shields of control fell down with the first tear and, soon after that lonely one, others followed, streaming down and then disappeared inside the clothes. His vision was blurred, the sobs rocked his frame but it was held safely by Nick’s arms. There was no need for him to be strong, there was no need for him to keep his eyes open while they seemed like waterfalls. So, he hide his face in the croak of Nick’s neck, thinking for a moment that he was going to wet his shirt but then another sobs took over and ruining that shirt became another thought that lost its meaning. He just let it go. His hands, that until that moment had been resting upon his lap and doing nothing, now they travelled up above, clutching hard and tighter than he ever wanted the cotton fabric of Nick’s shirt.
It was strange and he never understood why time seemed to stop when someone was being hugged. It seemed like minutes and hours decided to step back and let that crying soul have a moment to break down, a space when nothing could interrupt and take away that precious moment of letting go. There was no words spoken, Nick was only there offering silent comfort because he knew that Brian didn’t want to hear them, for that he was feeling already embarrassed about those tears and wrenching sobs.
Soon, the tears subsided and only left a sob here and then. Nick’s arms still held him and silence rested comfortable around them, giving Brian the time to recollect himself. He inhaled and exhaled, deep breaths that let out the last drop of a sadness that had been chased away. He felt drained, an emptiness that was quite a pleasure because it meant that everything that had been so haunting now it was gone,
He quickly recovered, stepping away from that hug that he didn’t know he needed so bad. A faint linger of embarrassment stayed within him, making him blush while his hands tried to cancel every traces of tears left on his face. “Thanks.” Brian murmured in a raw voice.
“You’re welcome.” It was all Nick said and for that Brian was thankful. Now that everything was out of his system, it seemed all so ridiculous the way he had broken down. It seemed so silly the reason why he had cried like he hadn’t done in years, which was partially a truth.
“I think I owe you a shirt.” Brian said, looking at the wet spot in the same position where he had laid his face on just some moments before.
“It’s Kevin’s.”
The laughter found its way up on his throat and was able to escape without being stopped. It blew away the last tears, just like the shy and small sunray that was making its way through the grey sky, marking the end of the storm.
Chapter End Notes:
This story was waiting in my computer for an ending. It's just a little thing I wrote one day when I was feeling really low.
