The night came and went as morning arrived, bringing with it the same sadness of the previous day. Brian hadn’t slept that night: the hours had passed so quickly that he hadn’t even noticed that Aj had been next to him all night or that Blaine had fallen asleep in the chair. 

But now that the fog, made of clouds of shock and pain, was slowly fading away, Brian began to notice the world around him and how it had continued to turn in spite of what had happened in his own. He had left Nick and he had it done in the most cowardly way possible. That thought was enough to bring back the lump in his throat that he thought he had consumed that night. The day before, it seemed that there wasn’t any objection against that decision he made: it was the right thing, even if they would suffer. It was the right thing because, as important as he might be to Nick, he couldn’t and shouldn’t compete for being more important than his dreams. 

Despite all his good will, he didn’t know if he would be able to resist and carry on with the break up, especially if Nick would continue to call him. That was the reason why he didn’t answer his calls nor that he intended to do any time soon. Because he knew what he would do in that case: he would collapse on his knees, he would pray for Nick’s forgiveness and beg that Nick would take him back. Already those hours without him had seemed like a slow death: it was as if he couldn’t breathe because there wasn’t the scent of Nick in the air while his heart was beating faster and faster, more madly because it couldn’t feel the other beat that had always beat together with it. 

Why did he keep feeling so bad? Why did it still hurt? 

"Because you love him." 

Apparently, he had spoken that question aloud, or at least high enough to attract the attention of someone. A bit of surprise struck him when he noticed that it was Blaine, and not Jay, there with him. 

"How can you tell?" 

"Because I know that pain. I’ve been there too.. And I recognized that look, that heartache that you try to disguise because, technically, you shouldn’t be that desperate because you’ve been the one to have destroyed everything and the person you loved. It was the same one that welcomed me every time I looked in the mirror. " The boy sat down next to him on the couch, copying perfectly Brian’s posture. 

A few minutes passed in silence before Brian answered. "Was it the right thing to do? Leave him? " 

Blaine sighed, his fingers intertwined with some threads of the blanket still wrapped around Brian. "For a little while, yes. But just because I’ve forced myself to believe it. Do you know what Kurt told me when we got back together?" 

Brian shook his head. 

"He told me that a year, compared to the bigger perspective of a whole life to spend together, it’s nothing." 

"I thought you had moved together here in New York."

"No, I was still a junior when he graduated. A year away, him here in New York and me still back in Lima. I was afraid ... I feared that I could slow him down, prevent him to fully enjoy this new experience. Instead, I destroyed him and it's something that I will have to deal with forever." 

The implicit remained in the room even when Blaine walked out, leaving Brian with even more questions than before. Did he do the right thing?

*******

It had been a few days, even if to Nick it seemed like as if he had entered into a black hole where time simply didn’t exist. The days gave space at the nights, yes, but how could he perceive the change of light if there wasn’t any light in his life? 

He had always believed that he would never be reduced as his mother. Now, instead, he had to change his mind because not only he had been brought at the smae level but he was almost sure that it had been even worse, locked in the house for days - two but who was counting? - And the battery of the phone that he had consume in a few hours: he had called and called only one number and he had never received an answer. 

It hurt. Breathing, opening his eyes, everything hurt. Every moment when he realized that Brian wasn’t there with him, and worse that he had left him, it was yet another stab, others silent tears running down because now he didn’t even have a strong voice to cry out his pain. 

Nick wanted to hate Brian because he deserved more than silence, he deserved more than half lies told in a voice that wasn’t Brian’s and supported by eyes that weren’t the ones he still loved. 

He couldn’t hate him. Because every time he relived that afternoon, a particular, though small, lited up from the cloud of pain that had covered him until then. At first, it had been Brian’s posture the first signal that had triggered the alarm as soon as he had seen him: huddled in himself, arms around his waist as the only defense against the heavy rain. Then, the voice had come. Dull, devoid of any expression, as if he were reciting a message to an answering machine. It wasn’t Brian. Oh, maybe he had the looks and appearance, but his soul, the center of what had always been the man he loved, wasn’t there. Where he had locked his soul up, he couldn’t know exactly and, in the same way, he couldn't know why Brian had made that gesture even if he didn’t want it. 

And that morning, another piece, the most important one, had made him understand that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t want the break up. Brian’s eyes. Brian’s eyes were the final piece that had revealed this information, eyes full of suffering that had turned the blue in grey, a vain attempt to confuse despair with coldness. He had fallen. Taken suddenly, without even a warning, the first thing Nick had thought was the appearance of that situation. There he had found himself overwhelmed by his pain, he had let himself be guided by a desperation that he didn’t even know that could exist. 

It wasn’t as if the heartache had disappeared. No, that monster was still living inside of him, it continued to bask in his tears and woke up as soon as he let down his defenses in the vain hope that perhaps the worst was over. But Nick also knew that Brian was in pain and that, maybe, he was also suffering as much as he was. And that wasn’t a satisfaction. It was a double burden that had been laid on his shoulders along with the anxiety that was corroded by the thought that no one was helping Brian because no one but him knew how to take care of him. 

So, in the end, Nick wanted so much to hate Brian. Instead, the love continued to burn even stronger than before.