Aj had observed a few times Brian collapse under the weight of all that he held inside. He could count them on the fingers of one hand, and during those times, he could only watch his best friend with a sense of helplessness and uselessness clung around him. There had never been magic words that could make disappeared those tears or phrases that would erase the pain that hurt even those who only looked at him. 

That evening seemed to be even worse. There hadn’t been screams, there hadn’t been tears or rhetorical questions that made that time even more heartbreaking. Brian was just sitting on the couch, curled up on himself as if he wanted to disappear into his own soul so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the reality. Nothing seemed to rouse him from that apathy made of agony and despair. 

He and Blaine had continued to exchange looks just as desperate, trying to deduce from those who few clues what had just happened. Because the truth was that something had broken Brian and Nick up, and if, initially, Aj had felt anger starting to raise up at the thought that Nick could have done something so irreparable, all of his torture scenes had been deleted when he took note of the desperation interlaced in the boy’s voice when he had tried to call Brian out of the bar. Aj had told him to return home and he had ignored prayers instead of fulfilling them because it seemed almost foretelling the apocalypse if those two weren’t longer a couple anymore. 

Yet there Aj was, kneeling in front of his best friend, not knowing what to do to make him feel better. He would have listened for hours, if only he had begun to speak. If only he had opened a small window of opportunity to let him enter. He had no guarantees that could he heal him, but he knew it would be only worse if Brian had continued to hide. He was good, damn good in that game, and he had witnessed how much Brian could be self-destructive if left on the sidelines. Aj wouldn’t let him be, not this time. 

The first attempts to approach him resulted useless, for Brian continued to curl up and move away until he found himself against the arm of the couch. At that point, it wasn’t difficult to hug him, and although at first Brian had tried to protest, after a moment he clung to his back as if he were on the edge of a cliff but didn’t want to fall. 

Aj tried to reassure him, tried to tell him that everything would be solved, but even to his own ear those words just seemed useless palliatives that would last only until the morning. 

Blaine was still there with them and Aj was surprised, or maybe he shouldn’t have been knowing how much the boy was already fond of Brian. And he knew that even him wouldn’t go home until he was sure that Brian was feeling better. Until Brian was ok. 

A whisper, a voice broken by a pain that went far beyond what could be physically bearable, broke the silence of the room. 

"If I was the one breaking up with Nick then... why  does it hurt so much? Why?" 

The question lingered in the air but neither Aj or Blaine knew how to answer it.

*****

Nick didn’t know how much time had passed.

On the other hand, did it matter? Did it matter if it had been a minute or an hour or a day? No, it didn’t. 

To him, the time had stopped to exist at the exact moment when Brian had told him that it was over, that they couldn’t be Brian and Nick anymore. Without a justification, without a reason, without recrimination.

He hadn’t returned to home. Instead he had wandered and walked until his legs had sustained him. But even when he didn’t have any energies left, Nick hadn’t broken down, no. For some unknown reason, collapse meant admitting to surrender when, in fact, his heart and his soul wanted to fight. Even if they didn’t know who or what they were fighting against. 

Still, something was wrong. Surrounded by pain, clouded by tears that mingled with the rain, all that Nick continued to see in front of him was Brian’s while his words were the only sounds that his hearing could pick up on. And his sixth sense, albeit weakly, kept saying that there was something underneath, something that would and could explain that behavior so unexplainable. But Nick hadn’t more strength to deepen that warning because all that energies remained to him only served to protect himself from the waves of pain that continued to hit as if he was a helpless shell thrown into the sea. 

Unconsciously, Nick returned to his old apartment, the house that he had abandoned so voluntarily as soon as Brian had asked him to move in with him. And waiting by the door, almost like someone had informed him, there was Howie, his roommate and one of the few friends who hadn’t been left behind when his lifestyle had changed and he wasn’t longer available for parties and clubs all night long. 

He changed everything for Brian. No, it wasn’t right and fair saying that. Love had changed him, and thanks to Brian Nick had discovered that life was much more than sex and apparent happiness for a few hours. At the same time, though, thanks to Brian,  he was now finding out the back of the coin. He was realizing how empty, dark and distressing was a life without love. Maybe it was even worse than before because now he had to return to live after knowing what love was. 

He let himself be dragged into the living room, flopped down on the couch and covered with blankets. Only then he realized he was wet and shivering from the cold. But nothing would and could be able to warm him up. 

"He left me." Those were broken words, broken by an heartache that went beyond the tone of voice or the expression of his face. Those were words that implied an absence that, by each passing second, became more heavy to bear, even though it was inevitable and there wasn’t a way to avoid it. Those were words that didn’t need a response, a comfort or an invisible sponge that could erase them. And at the same time  Howie couldn’t stop him from picking up the phone and continuing to call Brian, even though he knew that he would never answered it. 

But no one would and could stop him from continuing to hope. Hoping that this was just a horrible nightmare and that soon he would wake up with Brian, who would looked worried at him before cuddle and reassure him that it had been only a bad dream and that he wasn’t going nowhere. Hoping that Brian would  take up that phone and fix back together what he had broken. 

Even though he doubted it.