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There was a house. There was a boy. There was a mother.
The boy was Nathan Fischer. He was like a plant that had been attacked by pesticides, the kind that eats from within the stem. The plant looks fine and nobody realizes it's completely hollow until it's too late.
The house was part of Aryan’s inheritance from his mother. It was surrounded by rice fields, monsoons flooded the ground floor every ten years or so, rafts of ducks swam through the bodies of water created in the wake of the floods.
The mother drew cat whiskers on his face and threw away her bottle of sleeping pills because there was a child to feed and clothe.
And in the end when this mysterious illness finally consumes him from within,there will be nothing so Aryan spends a lot of time speculating on the minuscule details of the things that were.
If closes his eyes to find the start of Nathan he gets little snippets of images, but he can’t tell when they began or if they ever ended. He can see a bony little boy that gave the other kids nasty looks for being stupid and had the entire second grade wrapped around his finger. He can see the middle schooler flushed from running, beaming at him from when they used to play freeze tag, the milk spot on his incisor shining in the sun. To the eleven year old Aryan, Nathan shone brighter than the sun. He was the kind of boy that had the soul of an adult but not in an annoying stuck up way. Okay fine, totally in an annoying stuck up way.
Once they had been assigned a group project, Nathan refused to have a team captain, “ to prevent fights.” He decreed the work would be split evenly and they’d get it done. Ironically becoming the team captain despite what he said, by taking the initiative to not have captains. Aryan had been in awe of his leadership. He always had been so passionately righteous about one thing or another. Ostracizing anyone he deemed below his moral standards.
But despite his popularity Nathan did not seem to be close to anyone. Aryan would later remember watching him chat with everyone at all other times but during lunch break when everyone paired off with their best friends the isolation of the lone boy became tangible, as if he was trapped in a hamster ball, separated from everyone else who were free to look but not touch. In hindsight Aryan knows why he gravitated toward him. He knew what the hamster ball felt like… a little too well. He’d felt out of place as a kid, not particularly quiet but more mature and bookish than his peers at that point in time.
Nathan would eat alone but when Aryan kept visiting him in his classroom they started eating lunch together, they’d share their food and talk about books.They had those orange one armed desks at their school, the two of them had been short and skinny enough to fit into a single chair, so they’d share the seat. Nathan told him about his family, people he disliked, anything and everything, he was different around him, happier, more open. And Aryan was glad to finally have a real friend. Aryan would sometimes elongate names to make silly nicknames for people, he took to calling Nathan Nathania, this later evolved into Nia as nicknames do.
Aryan wasn’t the only one who saw how bright he shone. Two years after he left they were sitting for a French test, the first question had been translate: Nathan Fischer eats an apple.
“You still remember him?” a girl piped up at the teacher.
“That boy is one to remember,” the teacher replied fondly. Everyone in the room seemed to agree, Aryan, then in the middle of a rough patch with the boy, had bristled with irritation that no one could see him as nothing but perfect just because he was an overqualified student.
When Nathan left they kept in touch through phone calls. There had been a call where he confronted Nathan about telling Tanveer, “Aryan’s gotten boring ever since he got depressed.'
"It's fine that you need to vent or talk about goth shit but it gets boring when that's all you ever do." he’d explained.
Aryan had often wondered if he had been so crude intentionally, because all his 'explanation' did was further solidify the dehumanizing statement he originally made. What can you even say to that?
“I’m sorry my depression is not entertaining enough for you? When I can’t get out of bed in the mornings or run a blade across my skin I think, I sure hope this makes Nathan laugh!” Sometimes there was no justifying Nathan, there was just loving him.
Some of these calls were just idle chatter, some of them were life changing for Aryan. The one where he told he was changing schools even though it didn't seem like it at the time, more calls where Aryan would confront him about a snide remark he made to his face or behind his back and Nathan would, in true Nathan fashion, wave it off, the explanations flowing from his tongue like honey, until one day Aryan decided he couldn’t live on these crumbs anymore, either he gets to have Nathan all to himself right in front of him or not at all. There were calls, emails, laughter, accusations, crying. Then there was nothing at all, after all these years, some days Nathan feels like a figment of his imagination, some days he feels like the only person to have ever existed.
The last call that changed them actually came from someone other than the two of them, Aryan had been at home yawning and checking exam scripts, huddled up in a cozy cardigan, he was about to go to bed when his phone rang. An unknown number, on top of that he could not recognise the voice that said, “Hello, Aryan?”
“Hello, who is this?”
“Tanveer.”
“My cousin Tanveer?”
“No, god! Tanveer from school?”
Urgh, that Tanveer. Unpleasant memories flooded his mind, his stomach twisted. Tanveer had been with them at school but he and Nathan had shifted to the same school at the same time, in Aryan’s mind Tanveer had been one of the catalysts that caused the friendship between between him and Nathan to deteriorate, by constantly fanning the flames of their conflict on both sides, just because he had been jealous of the attention Nathan always received. Which he had admitted to himself.
“How did you get my number,” he said icily.
“Please, that’s not important right now, Nathan is in terrible condition. I need you to come to the address I give you ASAP.”
With that he hangs up, leaving no room for argument or query. Letting curiosity persuade him.
He drove to the address, he looked up at the fancy looking apartment complex with cobblestone walls and white wood doors,he rubbed his arms realizing he wasn’t dressed for the weather. Tanveer rang him up. He wordlessly lunged for his arm, dragging him to their apartment looking irritated, knowing him ,that might just be his default expression. Living with Nathan certainly wouldn't do anything to make it better. He flung the door open.
Aryan was greeted with the sight of what looked like a hollow vessel resembling Nathan sitting with his back against the wall hugging his knees, he looked straight ahead, sunken eyes unseeing but open. His skin was cling film stretched over his face, his hair limp and greasy, plastered across his forehead with sweat.
“What-” he said incredulously, wondering if this was some sort of elaborate and cruel prank.
“ His brother died, his parents' flight got canceled, they can’t come so now he doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, won’t eat, and won't let me call a doctor, whispers your name sometimes. I don’t wanna have to put him on IV, please do something.”
Aryans chest felt like it was being clawed against, it felt shredded and hollow, it was so unnatural to see to see Nathan look broken, that any vengeful satisfaction he could have felt could not be accessed, every fiber of his being begged for the man in front of him to be restored to his strong defiant self. He was surprised to feel the heat of tears on his eyes, he blinked them away. He walked to him, he got down on his knees.
“Nathan, can you hear me?”
He turned his head infinitesimally to face Aryan, his blank stare cleared with recognition.
“Aryan.” His voice was hoarse.
“Yeah, it's me.” he just stared; he sat so still if he hadn’t spoken a moment ago he could have been mistaken for a statue. He reached for his arm and grasped it, maybe Aryan saw it in slow motion because he was shocked, maybe Nathan was too weak to make any hasty movements but he saw the graceful curve of his head frame by frame as he rested it on Aryan’s shoulder.
Nathan stayed on his shoulder silently, breathing heavily for so long he had begun to wonder if he’d fallen asleep, but then he spoke.
“ Take me with you, please.” A clear whisper against his earlobe. As if telepathically sensing the onslaught of excuses, he looked up at him. “Please,” he repeated.
And so at 2 a.m in the morning Aryan found himself driving his estranged childhood friend to his apartment. Because for the first time in his life he saw an emotion he never thought he'd see in this man's eyes. Fear. He silently stared out of the window of his passenger seat the whole ride. He wordlessly followed him to the apartment,lay down on the beige couch and closed his eyes. Aryan would have offered him the bed but he didn’t want to bother him, so he gave him a spare blanket, pillow and toothbrush before going to his bedroom. He spent several hours tossing and turning, sleeping fitfully, the uncertainty and novelty of everything getting to him until he decided he should get out of bed when the sun finally came out.
He called in sick, unsure of whether there’d even be a point to bringing Nathan here if he just left him to his own devices anyway. He made some pancakes, went to the store for a pack of cigarettes, Nathan was already up when he got back.
“Good morning, are you a morning person?” he wondered out loud.
“No, absolutely not. I just didn’t sleep well last night.” Aryan supplied truthfully.
He nodded in understanding. He was more present today, he didn’t have that perpetually zoned out faraway look about him.
“You hungry?” Aryan offers.
“I could eat,” Nathan accepts.
They ate relatively little, Aryan didn’t want to put any pressure on Nathan’s body all of a sudden by feeding him too much, after how little he’d been eating the past two days. He ate less in camaraderie with him.
“Do you still like Toblerones?”
He looked perplexed for a moment, “ I do actually, why?”
“I put some chunks in the pancakes. Did you get any ?”
“Wait I wasn’t paying atten- Ooh I just got one!”
Aryan chuckled fondly.
Nathan seemed fine, and that should be a good thing, so Aryan decided to treat it like one. He decided it would do him no good to poke around open wounds, when he didn’t have a failsafe to patch them up if they bled too much, he wasn’t exactly a licensed therapist, so he went with the flow. In the next couple days they almost established a rhythm. Aryan would go to work and come back as soon as possible. He’d grade papers while Nathan peered over his shoulder pointing out mistakes he missed or judging the essays in general, his feedback was comparatively harsher, but he was mostly ignored anyway because Aryan was told to be lenient on the grading and verbally explain the mistakes in class to motivate the kids. After he was done with work, they would watch shitty cable TV, arguing over which couple had the most chemistry even though they both knew none of them were well written, they’d eat, sometimes take walks, alone or together, never talk about the circumstances that led to them coexisting like this, go to bed ( couch for Nathan), then rinse and repeat.
Not being a therapist aside, Aryan hadn’t been close to him in years, he didn’t know how to broach sensitive topics with him, he never had if their track record was anything to go by,and that was can of worms he didn’t want to open.The third reason, the one that he didn’t want to admit even to himself was that sooner or later, whether it be when his parents came back or when he felt better he’d leave. Aryan wanted to stall that more than he cared to admit. His stalling came to a halt when he woke up to take a leak at 3 a.m only to be greeted by the frightful sight of Nathan sitting up on the couch, staring into the abyss, pale as a corpse. He stifled his startled scream, hastily composing himself.
“ Nathan?”
“Yeah?” he replied, looking straight ahead.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Aryan let out a mirthless chuckle, it struck him funny in a sad way, how people were so thoroughly conditioned to deny the existence of their pain they did it on muscle memory even when hiding it was a lost cause.
He turned the lights on because the moonlight was casting an eerie silver glow on Nathan's unblinking eyes, and he didn’t want to be scared of the boy he was trying to console.
“ I guess the couch isn’t that comfortable,” he says awkwardly trying to diffuse the tension. “ You can take the bed if you want.”
Nathan stared over his shoulders, after what felt like an eternity he whispered okay. Aryan sighed a breath of relief leading him to the bedroom, he looked around pointedly.
“Draw the curtains,” he ordered.
He did as he was told, a calming darkness swept the room, Aryan had always hated the distortion that partial light brought with itself. Nathan sat down on the bed. Aryan turned to walk away, but Nathan grabbed his arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To sleep?”
“Stay.” He pleaded, here it was again, for the second time, fear dancing across his eyes like flames.
“I can’t make you sleep on the couch in your own house.” he wasn’t fooling anyone with his pretense of courtesy, under different circumstances if he hadn’t known better, Aryan would have gone back and forth with him a little longer just to see if whatever plagued him was bad enough for him to ask a second time, but tonight he just mumbled alright. Nathan sighed, moving aside to make space for him.
He lay down, turning to face Nathan.
“Is it nightmares? ‘Cuz I have these prescription sedatives that help me sleep without dreams.”
“No.”
A pregnant pause, “ I’m sorry, Nathan.”
“Why?”
“For not acknowledging how hard all of this is for you, I didn’t know how.”
“I don’t want to either so…”
“I don’t know if telling you this helps but my mother lost her sister under similar circumstances, I don’t remember much but when I got older she told me when we first moved to the house I grew up in, she used to see my aunt walk around the room, she’d talk to her and it never struck her as odd that she was seeing a dead person."
“How did she die?”
“The short truthful answer is that someone strangled her.”
“How did aunty stop seeing her?”
“She went to therapy, they put her on medication and stuff.”
He considered this, “ I was supposed to pick him up from the airport, the day his car crashed.”
“ It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have known but I keep thinking of a world where I went and he didn’t die or maybe we both did or maybe I died he lived and all of those worlds are better than this one.” he said.
Nathan's hair was growing out, it fell across his eyes as he turned to lay on his side to face him. Aryan instinctively reached out to push it out of his eyes, remembering how back in kindergarten he used to get infections because the hair poked his eyes.
“Get through this one second at a time, we’re here for you, and if I ever find out how to reverse time or travel through dimensions I will bring him back to you.”
At that he chuckled.
There wasn’t anything he could say to make it better, so he rubbed circles on Nathan's temple with his thumb until both of them fell asleep. From that night onwards their usual routine resumed with the minor adjustment of both them sleeping in the bedroom. Nathan would spend a lot of time sleeping to avoid being awake. He still got that glazed look in his eyes, if asked what he could do to help, he’d only reply “Stay.” And Aryan would.
The other times they’d lounge around, Nathan reading from his extensive collection while Aryan finished menial tasks. He traced his long bony forefinger across spines of books on the shelves tacked onto the walls, picking whatever he landed on. One day he landed on a copy of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters , he opened the book, his eyes widening ever so slightly in recognition of the handwritings on the post it notes stuck on the front page.
Hey Aryan!
You’re a weird sarcastic thing and sometimes you talk a bit too much. But I guess you’re awesome in your own eccentric way, so Happy 13th Birthday. And take care of that L drawing I gave you or else I’ll chop your head off. Thanks a million for the card and your wishes even though you don’t know me in person = P. Do get Nathan to invite you so we can actually meet! And also now that you’re a teen, give weird teen-y advice to Nia so that she grows sick and tired of it and jumps off a cliff or something.
Rashha
Aryan,
even though you're a narcissistic little thing, school wouldn’t be half as fun without you so I guess I don’t have the right to complain. Happy Birthday to Ayan and all his stupidity.
– Regrets
Nathan
“You kept it?”
“ Why wouldn’t I?” It was one of my only reminders that you had been real.
“I misspelled your name the second time.” Nathan laughed.
“You did?” he peered at the note, “Oh wow, I never noticed.”
“You guys had similar writing styles, similar tones and usage of words.” Aryan pointed out.
“Yeah.”
Aryan thought about parts of a set being separated. After his favorite aunt died, he would stare at her sister, it seemed so strange that they bore such striking resemblance to each other and yet it felt hollow and wrong, because he couldn’t help but think, ‘My aunt was shorter, she didn’t say backhanded things like that, she was warmer, you’re not like her at all, you just look like her.You’re my aunt too but really I lost the only aunt I ever had’
The living bearing the traces of the dead can only be devastating. The smell of familiarity, so tantalizing that it lifts you up only to drop you in the grave realization that this one is similar to yours but yours is gone forever.
He wondered what effect seeing Nathan’s similar mannerisms had on Rashha’s friends and felt a sudden surge of selfish relief that his one was still here, with him, grief stricken, but alive.
“Aryan” he began, running his finger across the note tracing his name in a way Aryan himself had done a hundred times. “Did you mean it?” he continued, his tone frighteningly contemplative “The last email you wrote to me?”
He recalled the email in question, the one that was a reply to a very aggressive one Nathan had sent after he’d called him when they were nineteen. Nathan’s email had gone as follows:
When Tanveer showed me the email you sent him where you said and I quote "even though I have forgiven her there is no chance of a reunion", we both fell from the sky honestly because neither of us had any clue what it was that I had done to you for which I needed to be forgiven. I'm glad I got the chance to say sorry today because I really am, although I wish you'd told me sooner. But I find it really weird how you felt the need to tell me you forgive me for things I had no clue I had done before today, yet you never felt the need to apologize for hurting me deliberately, which you admitted to. I wish you had called me today not just to point out where I went wrong but also to say that you could have done better. And I also wish you hadn't said you called me so that I don't do the same things to another good friend and "end up alone" because from my end it sounded insincere at best and condescending at worst, and I hate that you feel like it's your responsibility to make sure I am a better person now, like there's no chance I could have improved in the last 6 years for which we didn't speak. Anyway I agree with what you said back then, there is no chance of a reunion because it's evident to me that we do still have irreconcilable differences, and even though I had many regrets about our friendship I have closure now and I am past it all which is for the best. But the most important thing I wanted to say is please stop contacting me or Tanveer about things which happened so long ago that we barely remember, we keep thinking it's all over for good but then these calls and emails catch us completely off guard and it's not something either of us appreciate. Also would love it if you didn't reply back, you had your say and you made the decision to contact me today so I think I have the right to have the last say. And I still truly wish you all the best!
To which he’d replied :
I know you know I've loved you since we were kids. That I am in love with you. Its just sad that I do not know how to coexist with you, so I just hope that in the short time we had together I loved you enough to last you an eternity,know that its always encasing you, protecting you, and that I in the next life am strong enough to stay with you, I'm sorry if whatever I said in the call hurt you, I didn't mean to.
Love,
Aryan
His stomach dropped to his feet, “I-”
Waves of panic crashed across his chest, caught off guard he did the one thing best not to do with Nathan, tell the truth. “I thought I lied.”
“But?”
“I don’t know anymore”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought I was being clever by lying through omission. I chose deliberately misleading words” Aryan chuckled bitterly, he stared at his toes avoiding making eye contact, “I knew it was true that I loved you, the lie lay in the fact that I also hated you, I said those things to hurt you, to haunt you with the knowledge that I loved you but you still couldn’t have me,” Aryan throat tightened, Nathan put his hand on his shoulder and gestured for him to go on. “I don’t know why I hated you anymore, maybe because you left my life, maybe because you never left my mind. I took it as a victory, the fact that you never replied, by your logic, I was glad it was finally over one way or another.”
“ You were the one who called me and dug it all up.” he whispered
“I shouldn’t have, it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“And now ? Playing house with me, did that top your worst mistake?” Nathan raised the pitch of his voice. Aryan winced internally.
Aryan looked up to see glistening tears forming at the corners of eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I wouldn’t have regretted it if you hadn’t been so scathing that I did not talk to anyone for a week. I went into hibernation because of how much it broke me, just , none - none of that matters anymore.” He slid his arm around his waist to envelope him in a hug, he was a couple inches shorter than Nathan so his face slotted perfectly into his neck, he whispered into his ear. “ I always say the wrong thing to you, so I won’t say anything for once, let me apologize like this.” He tightened the hug, Nathan leaned into it.
Following this all was well for a while. He’d wake up with Nathan’s face smooshed against his chest. They’d cook each other breakfast, they’d ruined some eggs trying to perfect the mid-air flip omelets, eventually they gave up.
When Aryan got back from work, he’d fetch his favorite comforter so they could cuddle up in front of the TV to watch a movie. Nathan would interlock their fingers sometimes, sometimes Aryan would rest his head on his shoulder.
They’d watch the horror movies he’d put on his list that he hadn’t gotten around to watching because he’d been too afraid to watch them alone and Nathan would make fun of his girly screams. If he ever came back from work in a bad mood because of something someone said, Nathan would say tell me what it is and I'll make you feel better. He usually did, by tearing whoever said anything to him to shreds with him.
They had a silent agreement that if one of them fell asleep on the couch the other wouldn’t disturb their precious sleep. On the weekends they’d go to the library to borrow books which they’d read at the park. Aryan would sprawl across the grass, getting mud and grass on his clothes. He’d urge Nathan to join him, he would always refuse looking fondly exasperated. The dewdrops that glistened like moonstones would tickle his ears.The earthy smell of fading winter would fill his senses as he made snow angels on wet grass, grass angels?
Some days Nathan would go to his apartment to bring a thing or two he needed or to just visit Tanveer. Those days Aryan felt a hollowness in his chest, he liked the quiet of the house but an acidic jealousy swirled through his veins at the thought of the two of them alone together, which he would promptly repress because of how embarrassing it was to feel that way. Reminding himself that they had lived together for all these years anyway.
Nathan would come back of course, they’d have dinner and go to bed. It was all strangely beautiful and domestic and…wrong.
How long could this charade of normalcy last? If they were acting on his confessions of love, how long until they acknowledged his hate, his manipulation? He never believed in delaying the inevitable, he didn’t know how, or when he would bring it up. Or what he’d say since these things rarely worked out according to plan but he knew he needed to sort out what the truth was for himself. Did he still hate Nathan? So far he had not been given a reason to. Did he hold a grudge for the things they did to each other as kids? Was he letting him stay out of pity or spite? Was he going to hold this over his head? Everything felt blurry, his perception of his memories kept shifting like a funhouse mirror.
So Aryan found himself lying side by side with Nathan, through the corner of his eyes he saw the other boy clad in a white wife beater, the moonlight hitting a bead of sweat on the dent between his collarbones, it glistened like a silver pearl.
“I forgive you.” he blurts out
“For what?” He's still lying on his back, playing catch with a stress ball. He doesn’t look at him.
Aryan is lying on his free arm, staring at him, studying his face for a hint of emotion. He detects casual annoyance.
“You tell me.”
He says wanting to avoid saying anything specific because he knew Nathan would find a wonderful way to dismiss it.
“The way I see it, we became different people.”
And just like that he feels something like a thin twig break in his chest with the realization that this will go exactly like every other real conversation he’s attempted with him.
“ Why did you become so different that you could tell me things like you wouldn’t be there for me if my mother died or that my depression made me too boring to hang out with. ”
“You’re taking my words out of context “
“Under what context is it acceptable to say that?”
“It was such a long time ago I don’t even remember saying those things but here you are assuming I’m still like that .I was just a kid! I apologized, you never apologized for deliberately manipulating me.”
“I didn’t assume anything but tell me, did it hurt? Did I hurt you?” his voice was patronizingly soft.
“Yes, it did and I ignored it thinking you didn’t mean it.”
“Oh stop that, stop forgiving me like a debt, Nathan. You ignored me calling you out because you didn’t want to face your own actions. You say it hurt? Good.” Aryan paused to close his eyes, when he reopened them he reached out to touch his face and trace circles around the place under his eye where the tear should be on Nathan’s face.
“Sometimes I think of how much I hurt you and my heart feels empty,” he sighs, dragging his hand down to his neck “ And sometimes I think of how it still didn’t give you any empathy for me,” he brings his thumbnail to the dip of Nathan’s throat. “ I regret not hurting you more.” he sunk the nail into the deep, it left a reddening impression on the pale skin.
“I was ‘just a kid’ too, and I didn’t have the tools to survive you and your casual nonchalance to my pain over your loss, your cutting remarks about me not coping well enough, by being nice. I’m not going to apologize when half the time I don’t feel sorry and I don’t wanna lie anymore.”
He’s not sure what he expected, he’d just ranted about things he’d kept to himself for years because he knew his friend would never understand, never even try to, he knew his candid outburst would be used against him at the worst of times.
He considered apologizing but realized how in poor taste it would be after he had already proclaimed any apology from him would be insincere by default. So he stared, defiant and fearful. He stared at the moonlight casting that eerie glow on Nathan yet again, he bore holes into his ghostly pearlescent skin. He stared at the gray circles under the slanted eyes, but he began to feel his resolution waver.
He hadn’t meant to be so vengeful, remorse crept up on him. If only he could make him understand he couldn’t let their past go because the other boy had been the only one to matter. It was easy for him to burn bridges and move on when slighted, he never found anyone whose bridges were worth mending so he never learnt how to.
He must have zoned out while spiraling because he didn’t notice Nathan inching closer to him until their noses were almost touching, he zoned back in with a sharp intake of breath shocked by the sudden proximity. He felt the breath on his lips
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
The proximity was clouding his senses just as much as the apology. He felt heady. He’d heard some variant of those words a million times over the years from the boy in front of him.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“I’m sorry it seemed that way.”
“I never meant to hurt you.”
He’d never heard an apology without some action or sentence tacked on to place the blame back on him. Toward the end it all blended together to sound like “I’m sorry you’re so insane and irrational. I said the thing are you happy now?” He forgave like a threat, as if to say, there there stop acting up now and we can forget this happened. If he could erase Aryan’s retaliation, he could erase his own original sin.The quicksand of flippant apologies and threatening forgiveness had nearly drowned him then. He wondered if instead of words he was using physical proximity to blur lines. This was a tool either seldom available to him in the past,over the phone, in public, or one he’d been too afraid to use as an awkward pre-teen, if this was a manipulation tactic to undercut the true weight of the conversation instead of something that transpired organically had he employed it himself the day Nathan found the book?
Metal wires intertwined with his ribs, tightening around his constricting chest, he gasped for air. He didn’t know what to think anymore, everything melded into everything else. It was all blurring and he was losing control. Whatever Nathan was trying was working. He nodded in acceptance, the movement caused the tip of his nose to slide across the bridge of Nathan’s. Their lips brushed past each other, neither of them recoiled. He closed his eyes and kept breathing like all the air in the world would run out any day now.He felt acidic hawk eyes on his face but he kept breathing begging for the world or his own consciousness to disappear, at some point he fell asleep which was close enough.
He awoke at 6 a.m in cold sweat, the dull orange light of the rising sun filtered through the window behind the bed post . He breathed in the fresh morning air of dying winter. He slowly climbed out of the bed, careful not to wake Nathan. He got his keys as quietly as he could and got out of the apartment. He went down to get a pack of cigarettes from the 24/7 pharmacy underneath the apartment complex. The irony of getting cigarettes from a pharmacy was not lost on him. He lit one, sitting down on the curb. Waking up had brought tendrils of memories from last night so he’d run out. He swallowed the smoke letting yesterday come all at once, to try to process it. It came languidly, like the flow of a glacier. A dream resurfaced. A red carpet of blood flowing out of his mouth, so heavy and thick his lips were barely visible, scarlet strings ran down his shirt. He limped across a dessert, he was weak, he wouldn’t make it. Right before he fell, Nathan appeared out of nowhere to catch him, wearing a white shirt. the sticky slick red seeped into the white as he rested his chin on his shoulder. He gripped his arm and held onto it for dear life. He remembered knowing in the dream, as you just do with dreams, that the white shirt he wore had not been pristine before he caught him.
His hand floated to his lips as if to check for blood. Last night floods in all at once and he wonders if that had been a dream too. The first thing he feels when he realizes it wasn’t is guilt.
He was apparently the kind of man who tormented men who’d just lost their brother about things they did a decade ago. So much for helping and being there for him. Here he was pulling him apart. It had been months, there was no sign of his parents getting here. He didn’t know what to do. He thinks of the apology and wonders if last night was a dream after all, because if it was real he doesn’t know what he got himself into. He doesn’t know what it meant or what he should do or what he felt, so for the first time since he came to that city, he prayed.
He prayed to whoever might be up there to give him the strength to survive this without hurting Nathan in the process. He goes back home to find him awake, buttering toast at the table. He has set two plates. They lock eyes and Aryan knows he’s been forgiven. Not like a debt this time.
It’s a nice lazy weekend like any other. Nathan is lying in his lap reading something, damp sweat plastering his dark hair to his forehead. Aryan is half asleep, his back against the foot of the couch.He runs his fingers through the soft damp hair.They’re on the floor, the soft fur carpet nuzzles against their skin. Spring is floating in, light and buoyant, cherry blossoms lined the streets. Pink petals floated in through the windows with the breeze.
“Who’s Zayn?”
“Hmm?” He replies in his sleepy haze.
“The person you got this book for, you annotated it. Did he return it or did you never give it to him?”
Aryan’s wide awake now. He knows what book he’s referring to. The Song of Achilles. The first year of anniversaries you were supposed to present your partner with paper presents. To symbolize frailty existing alongside durability that may come with proper care, highlighting the gamblish dual nature of new love. He'd asked his then boyfriend which book he liked best that he didn't have a physical copy of, to his delight it had been one he had recommended, one he loved, he had found and emailed the digital copy of it to Zayn when he said he couldn't find it anywhere during his first read so it seemed fitting he'd be the one to give him the physical copy.
The annotations ranged from funny idle commentary to reactions to particularly ironic sentences, some drew parallels to the relationship in the book to him and Zayn, which had been a red flag in retrospect. There had been a little essay on his takeaways from the book at the back, it went :
The beauty of love and life is that we die the moment that we are born, our hearts are broken the moment we fall in love, because even before we read the first page the last one existed. We are full of life and completely dead at the same time, but this inevitable death never stops us from living.
Patroclus, the ordinary boy, became divine for Achilles, donned his armour, marched into battle. Achilles, the godling destined for glory, became ordinary for Patroclus, grief overtaking his soul. For grief is the greatest equalizer.
I know now this book hurts so much because the person who wrote it knows what love feels like, when Patroclus sees Achilles as a flame, warm , comforting, radiant, and fully capable of killing him. Love is a wound that never quite heals, it's a residual sadness in our bones. And yet the inevitable heartbreak never stops from loving.
“I never gave it to him.”
“Why?”
“We broke up.”
“Do you still love him?”
“No.”
“Do you hate him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was just some kid. He’s not important.” He never was, because he wasn’t you, he doesn't add.
“You poured your heart into the annotations, you wrote them glitter, you doodled hearts on every other page.You kept the book. You could have thrown it out but you didn’t.” he sniffs the book “It’s perfumed!”
Aryan laughed at that, “I was nineteen, give me a break. I kept it because I really like that book, and why shouldn’t I? I paid for it. It’s incredibly well written and poignant. It brings me back to the first time I read a free digital copy of it because Tanveer recommended it. It brings me back to senior year when I read this copy, how happy I was to be growing up but I don’t dwell on it too much.”
He nods smiling then stays quiet for a bit. "If Tanveer hadn’t called, you would have never spoken to me again."
"I would be following your orders."
"Right because we tend to do that."
"There's a first time for everything, how much longer could the bitch fighting continue."
"Are you happy that I'm here?"
Aryan paused at that, contemplating the truth.
"I don't want you to go."
" But are you happy that I'm here ?" 'Am I important', he means
"Yes."
Of course just when he’d admit he wanted Nathan to go, he’d leave. A call came and with it, his parents and Aryan knew then he’d be left behind again because he wasn’t needed anymore. He watched him get off the phone, a heavy dread seeping into his bones.
“So…you’re leaving?” It was so pathetic that his voice cracked, but dammit he couldn't lose Nathan again.
“I can’t. I’m not ready.”
“Then stay. For as long as you need.” He hates that it sounds like a plea. Hates that it is one.
Nathan put his hand on his face. It should’ve felt infantilizing, but it didn't, it felt like shelter in a fierce storm. His fingers were warm against his cheek.
“I will, I promise my parents just want me to visit them and go to a therapy appointment they booked for me. I’m not leaving.”
Aryan rushed to hug him, the brown Henley Nathan often wore was soft against his cheek.
“I’m glad you’re getting help.” he said, breaking up the hug.
That night he dreamt of blood again. He was in a desert bathed in gold and twilight colors of the setting sun. A single venus flytrap stood in front of him, its whole body a striking midnight black hue,velvety hairs lined the stems, a single violet flower bloomed on top.
The strange phenomena of just knowing things in a dream let him know he loved that flower with every inch of his being. He kept sticking his fingers into the flower, becoming its sustenance, giggling like a child every time it gobbled up one of his fingers, it showed no sign of stopping, blood splattered across the sand, gleaming in the fading sunlight. It began to form a pool, the larger the pool became the harder he laughed. The plant got bigger, sprouted more branches.
“I will protect you forever.” Dream Aryan said between bouts of laughter.
The plant spoke back with his bloody floral mouth, its voice a low deep rumble “Who will protect you from me?”
The plant eventually sprouted legs and walked away. Dream Aryan began to cry. He cried until he could not breathe. He cried until his throat was raw. He cried until he woke up.
When the time came to visit his parents his dear non paying guest insisted Aryan tag along, for his nerves, it would be less overwhelming according to him, plus they asked to see him to thank him. He found himself in front of the bathroom mirror combing his hair, then messing it up again because his curls just didn’t sit well combed. He combed it again because the mess did not look good, he tried to pull some hair to his forehead to frame his face, he kept repeating the process until Nathan grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the house. They drove to Nathan and Tanveer’s place uptown, taking the stairs to stall, but of course the stairs were still finite and they reached the fourth floor. The door glared daggers at them. Memories of when he’d come here months ago seemed like they were from a different lifetime. Nathan’s hand hovered over the bell. He stared at it like it would launch itself onto his face and bite.
“I can't,” he sighed finally.
“Do you want me to do it?”
“No I just can’t.” He was hyperventilating now. Aryan grabbed him by the shoulder.
“It's okay, Nathan, look at me.” Nathan looked at him.
“One thing at a time okay? Breathe in with your mouth, very deeply, like this.” They inhaled together. “Good, now slowly breathe out through your nose.” They exhaled together. Aryan took his hand and guided him to the stairs. They sat down. Nathan across the wall, shame crumbling his face, Aryan wished he could erase it.
“We could go home today, if you want. I’ll call them and say something came up.”
“You don't have to do that.” Nathan said it so softly that Aryan was suddenly keenly aware of the fact that he hadn’t let go of his hand.
“It’s just that, when I walk through those doors, the last image of my mother’s face when she had both sons will be erased from my mind, reality will come crashing down on me, I won’t be able to run from it anymore.” His voice was tight, when he looked up Aryan saw his eyes were glistening with tears. “I can’t burden them with whatever is going on up here,’ he pointed to his temple. “A dead son and insane one, it’s a real fucking combo, isn’t it?”
The tears finally fell across his lap. Aryan wrapped his arms around his shoulders, cradling him, Nathan leaned into the embrace, resting his head on his chest, his tears now falling on Aryan’s thigh, making dark blue spots on the faded jeans he wore.
“A piece of their heart was taken from them, don’t deny them the remaining ones, they deserve to grieve with you. You won’t burden them.” He sniffled and nodded against his chest in response, they stayed like that for a while. Wait in silence. Nathan finally broke the silence as he extricated himself to wipe his eyes.
“I’m ready,” he said.
He rang the bell, his parents opened the door. Just as he’d predicted they took him into their arms, and they sobbed. Aryan felt his own eyes well up, he blinked the tears away, he felt a hollowness in his chest at the sight of this family broken, but still united in their grief. He couldn’t remember the last time he called his mother.
He fiddled with his hands unsure of whether he should be intruding upon this private and emotional family moment. Nathan’s mother Mona, broke away from the group hug to look at him.
“You must be Aryan.” she smiled politely, wiping her tears.
“Yes, aunty.”
The hug that came was surprising but not unwelcome. She patted his back.
“Thank you so much for taking care of him.” she whispered.
“It was my responsibility, he’s my friend.” he said quietly.
At dinner, Nathan’s parents sat facing each other at the ends of the table, Nathan and Aryan facing each other. The family discussed the funeral arrangements in grim but practical voices. Aryan silently shoveled food into his mouth, speaking only when spoken to, giving the bare minimum answers about what he did and studied, where he lived etc etc. After he finished eating, he washed his plate and wandered around the apartment, he hadn’t had the time last time he had been here, the circumstances were a little pressing to say the least. It made him a little uncomfortable how much better this place was than his tiny one bedroom apartment, with its sleek well polished high end furniture, wooden floors, stark white walls, white door frames. He wondered how Nathan and Tanveer even afforded it. He thinks of the rusting rails of his balcony, the chipped wood of his doors. Even the stairs they’d sat on earlier had been white marble, without any dirty carpeting carrying suspicious stains.
He went to Nathan’s room, he assumed judging by the luggage and the fact that Tanveer would never give up his room that his parents were crashing here. There were a couple of books lined up on a mahogany shelf. The room was just the way he left it he gathered, from the mess on the study table that almost gave Aryan an anxiety attack. Papers, stationary, open books with dog ears strewn across the desk without any discernible pattern. He wondered if Nia was one of those people who could find where all their things were no matter how messy it looked to others and got mad if anyone tried to organize their things, claiming to have a “method to their madness.”
There were shelves nailed to walls with wood accents like Aryan’s house, a small bed to the corner of the room. His shelf had a rack devoid of books, instead filled with framed photos, showpieces, and more papers. He examined the photos, one of his family, a photo of him Rassha and the cousin who used to live next door to them, one him, Tanveer and some friends he didn’t recognize, and the one that caught him by surprise. Their fifth grade yearbook class photo. It didn’t mean that much, it had been Nathan’s last year at the school they both went to after all, but it was somehow still so overwhelming that he was in that photo. Twelve years old, ugly, innocent, happy. Wearing a uniform that was too big for him because his mother anticipated growth spurts, smiling like he was on top of the world.
“Did you go to school with him, dear.”
Aryan turned to see Nathan’s mother at the door.
“Oh, um yeah. A long time ago.”
“He used to mention you, but then he stopped. Did something happen?”
“Just children having childish arguments,” he laughed awkwardly.
She nodded seemingly sated. He had told a truth that somehow felt like a misleading statement leaning toward a lie, it felt like he was downplaying something to hide something Nathan’s mother would not understand.
Nathan saved him from his spiral by walking in, “ Do you wanna stay here tonight because if not we should head out it’s getting late.”
“We could stay here if you want.”
“I don’t know, Tanveer’s gonna be back so we’ll have to crash on the floor or the couch.”
“Take your room Nathan!” his mother said.
“No mom it’s fine, Aryan has to uh - feed his fish.”
Aryan rolled his eyes at amusement at him, they said their goodbyes and Aryan drove them to their apartment, briefly wondering when he’d begun to think of the apartment as theirs. He rolled down the windows to let the summer breeze in, Nathan smoked in silence.
They had begun to establish a routine of establishing new routines by integrating whatever new development occurred into their day to day, so this pattern continued when Nathan started therapy on Mondays. It continued when he went back to school. It went on but Aryan knew it wouldn’t go on forever, even if he hoped that somehow it would. But he knew when Nathan began to spend some nights at his own apartments again that he’d regrow his wings and fly away. The last time he lost him he hadn’t had time to dread it. But he had had time to dread losing Zayn, the experience had been vastly different.
He still remembered the day Nathan called him when he got into the school he’d applied to. He remembered that call like it was yesterday. It was on the landline. It was very brief, his voice was tentative like he knew the news would break Aryan. He told him both him and Tanveer got in, as if emphasizing now that even Tanveer was also gone he was truly gone. As if Tanveer ever mattered. He’d replied he needed alone time before hanging up, and that might've been the first and only time Nathan didn’t fight him on something. He remembers crying in the crevice between his wardrobe and the door, he wanted to cry a whole lot more but neither the pain nor the tears wouldn’t come. Because it wasn’t pain that would allow itself to be flushed out so easily in a single afternoon, in a pool of pathetic child's tears. He later found out it was pain that would cloud his vision with ancestral darkness and weigh on all his limbs for the months to come as he stared at everyone in class who still had their friends.
He had not been so devastated by the loss of Zayn. His ex had been the college jock, he had been something of a heartthrob, always swarmed by giggling girls, and smirking boys. Just as well known as Nathan but better liked because he had been less intimidating. This similarity to his previous friend drew him to the jock. He thought, this boy is actually sweet. This is what Nathan was pretending to be. They grew closer gradually, finding so much in common with each other, world views, books , movies. Aryan spent years in love with him all through high school and the first year in college. It had been fun to just have a silly crush at first, but as his feelings deepened they turned inward and began to hurt. So he let them out never expecting them to be reciprocated, firmly believing Zayn was just a religious straight boy who’d magically become a devout ally almost overnight.
All the while Zayn had been declining girls throwing themselves at him to pine over his best friend Farzan. When they started dating Aryan had always been understanding of his fears of being outed,he could not bear to think about how he would face his mother if he was outed, so he ignored how much it stung when Zayn pushed his hand away from his shoulder but didn’t push away Farzan’s one. He ignored that he was always the first one to say hello. He would plead and negotiate for affection, for recognition, “I would never put you in danger, we’ll be careful, please.”
He later found out his compassion had been misplaced, turns out his dear boyfriend hadn’t been afraid of being outed, he just hadn’t wanted him. As soon as they broke up, he was joined at the hip with Farzan. Running into them was inevitable given their intersecting friend groups, he watched them fussing over each other, sitting so close an atom couldn’t have fitted between their thighs. He observed Farzan being such a cartoonishly evil frat boy jock that he did not feel embarrassed to unironically make fun of people for being poor. He saw Zayn smile fondly as if the joke wasn’t going too far.
He felt a resigned disappointment then, at losing out to this loser, at being in love with the cheap idiot who’d choose this loser and parade him around just a month after their break up. All of Zayn’s friends looked down upon him, he had been so unwelcome in that world but he had still tried to be friends with the boy after the break up, despite what he knew Zayn said about him behind his back. The cold shoulder he received at that fateful party made him sick to his stomach, he ran to the bathroom as he had felt his rib cages diminish in size and cut through his lungs, he ejected all the cheap beer and nachos from his system. His throat had closed up with vomit residue, his eyes watered, for a second he thought, “I’m going to choke on my vomit and die here because there’s no one to help me.” He slowly put a finger in his throat to clear the air passage. He had breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. He splashed water on his face and reentered the room, flamboyantly announcing he’d vomited all his internal organs so the party must be getting started. His acquaintances looked concerned, his friend got him a glass of water. And Zayn rubbed a papercut Farzan had gotten, not even looking up at him. It wasn’t until everyone left the room to take pictures, that his ex sheepishly poked his head into the host’s bedroom room where he was resting to ask him how he felt. The stark white walls threatened to close in on him. The idea of still being Zayn’s dirty little secret made his skin crawl with so much shame, disgust and fury that he never spoke to him again.
He wouldn’t disturb the famous boy’s squeaky clean reputation with his pollutant queerness anymore. Zayn used to tell him, “You gave me the courage to come out and be myself.” He never saw any courage in him, just selfishness.
In the beginning he would daydream and wish his former boyfriend would carry their memories wherever he went. Jealousy rarely reared its ugly head when he thought of him with other men or women, if he ever pictured them back together then, he never saw any resentment or sense of betrayal over what he would have seen as gaining a deeper knowledge of themselves and the world. Sometimes he would be so sad that he’d lose Zayn. But slowly then all at once he fell out of “love” with the boy. He grew tired of being sidelined, invisible in his classmate’s life. No one even seemed to know they were close friends, maybe because they hadn’t been. Not really. He hadn’t even cried much when he broke it off.He knew it was a fact of life you couldn’t force people to love you. When that fact applies to Nathan he doesn’t feel like crying either. He feels like burning the world down.
He never forgot Nathan because he was never the one to push Aryan out of his world, he always begged him to stay in it. He was at times, cruel and manipulative, entitled and pushy , he was so many things but he was never distant, not to him. He never made him feel shame over his feelings. When Tanveer had blabbed to him about Aryan’s little juvenile crush when they were fourteen, he got upset Aryan didn’t trust him enough to talk to him about it. He’d blown him off saying there was nothing to talk about. Back then he had been pissed that Nathan didn’t understand privacy had nothing to do with trust, it was redundant to tell him when he clearly didn’t feel the same, looking back considering their religious upbringing it had been a sweet declaration for a thirteen year old. He hadn’t known then, but Nathan had been slowly but steadily figuring things out for himself too, through him. He wishes he hadn’t stomped on the hand reaching out to from the edge of a cliff. He would bounce his developing ideas off of Aryan, then it had sounded like a personal attack, when he said shit like it’s okay to be gay as long as you don’t influence others to do it too, you can be gay and still go to heaven if you compensate by doing a lot of good deeds and being generally pious. Now he understood it was the fumbling of a child lost in the dark. He regrets sneering and turning his nose up when Nathan told him he wasn’t religious anymore a couple years later, he said he was sick of cutting out parts of scripture that outright wanted him dead. Aryan had been so scathing.
“Which celebrity was it that convinced you to be more open minded this time? I've been saying the same thing for years, when I asked you to consider you might be queer you said no to my face but when the straight white Josh Hutcherson comes preaching fluidity you’re all for it.”
Nathan had ignored him. If only he’d known then people figure things out at their own pace. Zayn had been religious too, but he grew out of it on his own unbeknownst to him.
“They’d been the coordinators of the theater club in college, they had been on the bus taking freshmen to a play in a rival college. Aryan’s arm had been on his neck, they reminisced about the time Teresa had been twerking on him in the cabin party during the field trip when the vice principal had walked in on them. Teresa had buried herself in the blanket out of mortification, the V.P far too innocent and old to understand what she had walked in on urged them to carry on with their fun.
“I wasn’t at that party,"
“I remember you being there though.”
“I left midway. I missed out on so much fun with you guys in that period of my life because of how religious I was.” he’d admitted.
Aryan had been dumbfounded by this sudden striking vulnerability from a boy he was discovering he didn’t know at all. He had been so lenient, so very understanding trying to correct a past wrong that he didn’t see it until it was too late. As Zayn told him it wasn’t the religious shame anymore, he wasn’t afraid, he just didn’t want the responsibility of a relationship, he just wasn’t feeling it. He thanked Aryan for having the courage to do what he couldn’t do: end their “strained”, dying, non-existent relationship. He said he’d only ever felt an alterous attraction to him, somewhere between platonic and romantic. Aryan tried to muster up some heartbreak at being treated like a burden, some anger at being lied to about being loved, wanted. But all he felt was relief because he felt the same. And that was the end of Zayn.
He knows the part of his heart that loves Nathan won’t shrivel up, slowly go black and die like the part that had loved Zayn did. He knows it will just twist around until it wrings out the sharp crystals of sugar embedded in it, he knows it will tug him to the indigo seas when the sun sets , he will just keep walking into it until his lungs fill up. He often spends his increasingly sleepless nights pacing around the balcony smoking these days. A restlessness takes over, he feels something is slipping past him. He glances back at his bedroom sometimes where he knows Nathan is sleeping peacefully. He crawls into bed at dawn operating on three to four hours of sleep at work. Some weekends he spends with Nathan in the park, smoking, or just eating takeout while lounging on the couch, talking about anything and everything, their childhood, politics, what they did in between the time they had no contact, how long it was healthy to hold pee for, debating the necessity of the cultural impact of Michael Gambon’s terrible performance as Dumbledore.
The weekends Nathan visits his parents, he watches TV alone, grades papers, compiles material for his students, then goes to bed early.
On one of these evenings Nathan came back early from lunch with his parents. He lounged on the beige couch, a fag loosely hanging from his lips, he flicked his silver lighter open, the flame cast an ethereal golden glow on his face, the shadows it cast obscuring his eyes, highlighting his mouth. Aryan sat cross legged on the floor, his chin resting on his friend's knee. Nathan reached into the pack to put another cigarette into Aryan’s mouth; his fingers lingered as he languidly dragged them across Aryan's mouth to pull away, he brought his face closer to light the unlit cigarette, putting his hand on Aryan’s face again to keep him in place, his thumb stuck firmly on Aryan’s bottom lip , it briefly stung as a canine made contact with the soft flesh of his lip from when Nathan’s thumb pushed down on it, the tips of their white sticks touched, orange embers snaked through the unlit death stick in his mouth. Nathan pulled away, his retreating face obscured in smoke as they exhaled at the same time.
The smoke ascended; Aryan imagined a halo forming above his head. The dim yellow lights of the room melded into the smoke. He imagined the vines from his house plants snaking their way up the walls behind the man in front of him. He imagined dying in this moment, in his lap, while he still has him, his best friend. Past, present, no possible future. Nathan who is looking at him nearly unblinkingly, Nathan who still has his finger in his mouth. He does not want to speak because he doesn't want the movement of his lips to shake the hand off, but his lips move on their own accord, by order of some ghost of Christmas Past it seems
“I made Ben spy on you when we were kids,” he blurts out.
“Hmm?” Nathan responds, it would seem they were both zoned out. He withdraws his hand, Aryan misses it.
“It was a whole thing,” he realizes that now that they’re both zoned in he has to explain this sentence his dazed self uttered without context.
“May told me everyone had to file out an application to be your friend, I did and you rejected it.”
“Wait, when was this?”
“Around fifth grade.”
“An application?” he chuckles incredulously.
“Yes,” he admits, smiling himself. “ I made a scroll and everything, used a rubber band to tie it. I think she even asked for a photo, but I didn't have one so I drew it.”
“Wow, that's so cute.”
“I mean to be fair if you remember how culty and high and mighty y’all were it wasn’t that far fetched for there to be a formal vetting process for your friend group back then.”
“I don’t remember us being high and mighty.”
“Well you were, anyway I made Ben befriend you as a spy to “bring you down” when May told me you’d rejected my application. He used to give me intel on you.”
“Did you?” he asks quietly.
“What?”
“Bring me down?”
“No, I mean, you got all nice all of a sudden and we became friends the next year so the application thing was forgiven. Plus Ben felt bad about all the spying and deception.”
“Wow, I had no idea. An application, spying. I always considered you more creative than smart but that is dumb even for you,” he smiles.
Suddenly time stops. They freeze at that moment in his apartment. He blinks but when his eyes open he’s twelve years old and sitting on the marble floor of a gazebo, he recognizes it, he’s in the backyard of his middle school. He looks at himself, he's wearing the midnight blue school tie, a white shirt, blue slacks. He looks up at Nathan, he is still in his adult body. His tie shines crimson red and he sits on a white metal chair, it shines like a throne. A white metal garden swing creaks beside them. Pink roses bloom all over the garden, dew drops linger on the jagged petals, slowly rolling down, single drop seems to take longer than usual to fall, Aryan watches it transfixed, it drops with a deafening fury , Nathan is talking, he tries desperately, to hear through the ching of the droplet ringing through his ears, the rose thorns all fall from the shrubbery, they float up and twist themselves into horns around Nathan’s head, the roses blacken. Thick smoke fills the gazebo.
Nathan's voice is now a loud distorted rumble that cuts through the ringing. “I consider you creative, not smart.” he bellows. Time restarts and Nathan smiles at him in the present day.
“Are you feeling a little bit better than before?” Aryan asks, looking up at him.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I could tell, the old you is back.” If Nathan heard the resignation in his voice he did not comment on it.
That night he went to bed early and dreamt of the venus flytrap again. Stars shone in his eyes as he gazed upon its glittering midnight blue flower. The plant in turn was fascinated by the stars in his eyes that only shone for the plant. It cocked its flower to the side like a person would with their head, it came closer, Aryan inched toward it. It lunged forward inserting the thorny vines into his eye sockets at lightning speed, he felt dizzy, not quite registering the pain, the vines twisted around his eye ball, enveloping it. Blood swam down his face, he opened his mouth but the scream would not come no matter how hard he tried.The vine jerked forward, pulling his eye out, then languidly reached for the second one. When he woke up in the morning he felt an unexplainable unease at the sight of plants.
They carried on with their delicate friendship day in and day out, Nathan began to transfer more and more of his stuff back to his house. He began to stay over less and less. He called sometimes, but even the calls and texts dwindled when their schedules clashed and Aryan did not have much time to pick up. Slowly but surely he disappeared again.