- Text Size +
On that very day the first bathroom, the one at the first floor and adjoining the kitchen, had been finished. One last sweep over the light blue tiles and then Brian leaned against the doorframe, observing proudly his hard work. Two days. It had only taken two days to do and finish that room and, in the mean time, even the kitchen was slowly beginning to find its identity. Or maybe Brian should had to admit that slowly wasn’t the right word to describe it but more likely as the speed of light. He turned off the light, making sure that the windows were firmly closed and then he closed the door behind his back. The kitchen seemed like a battlefield with tools left on the floor ready to be used and boxes half closed and half opened, one piled up on the others.

One week.

It had been only a week since Brian had moved in that house and it had been a week since he had started to work on put it back in order. He had been doing every single work on his own, except for those much more complicate like the plumbing and electrical system of the house. For all the rest, he had never stepped down even if it meant to cut the wood for the floor, sweep until every tiles was shining under the light or paint until he reached the tone of color he wanted. He was very meticulous, he had always been and how fun it would had been doing all those works together with Nick, with a span attention so low that he had to do thousands of things at the same time or he would had soon all forget about them. He could imagine, Brian, the two of them standing around the only table in the house, drawings scattered on the surface while they were busy discussing about the furniture and if they should or shouldn’t make space for another window.

“How many windows do you really want? – Nick would had asked him, after bursting into a laughter. – We live by the sea so you would be forced to clean them every day because of the sand and dry salt.”

“So? One needs to be above the sink so I’ll be able to look outside and watch you teaching our son how to swim.”

Arms would had been wrapped around his waist, a chin would had found its place on his shoulder.

“Or I’ll be the one watching you helping our daughter with her homework. Just like you used to do with me.”


Those were the moments when Brian would found himself putting more strength into his work, the times were he would use even the last drop of energy just so that he couldn’t go back being a prisoner of infinite and endless ifs and buts: if Nick would had been there with him; but what he would had done instead. Those were the questions that Brian wanted to silence, those were the answers he didn’t even want to imagine because they hurt. Because they were knives that appeared so suddenly and stroke there where the scar still hadn’t started to develop and where, maybe, there would had been only a frail layer of skin, lighter and much more sensible. So, in those moments when all he wanted was to hide and cuddle inside his blankets and the darkness, Brian just lowered his head and went back to work painting the walls or look over again all the plans to be sure that he hadn’t make any single mistakes. And where there was nothing more left to do, when everything had to wait until the morning after or the sun to be started. Then Brian would just walk. Beach and sea had became his nocturnal friends, silent companions that stood by his side while, step by step, he tried to put together something that had been shattered beyond repair. It had became a cycle, it had became his new routine: only when his muscles would surrender, only when his body would ask and demand to lie down to rest, only then Brian would listen to it and sit on the couch. Because at the moment it would start his second battle, even though not against nightmares, demons from the past and from a future that would never had again the chance to happen, but with the will to get up in the morning. There had been mornings when Brian had been sure he was going to lose that fight; there had been mornings when he had to use every energy just to put his legs over the couch and place his feet on the floor.

“Do you remember that particular conversation we had one day? It had been a few weeks since you were out of rehab and you were always so quiet, always so cautious around me because you were afraid to have disappointed me. And because you were ashamed of being so weak in front of my eyes. – Brian leaned over the rail while his right hand started to play with the ring he now wore as a necklace. – Remember what did you tell me? You said that you envied my strength, you envied the fact that I’ve never left myself fall that down just to escape my problems instead than fight them. You envied the fact that, even if stubborn, in the end I’d always find something to hold onto and stand back again on my feet. You... you thought that you were weak because you had let your family poison you so much that you needed another type to of poison to forget all that they had inflicted you over the years. And I don’t know how much breath and oxygen I’ve used to make you see how wrong you were, that there hasn’t been a stronger or weaker one between us because… well, you were still alive. No matter what, you were still with me and that was the most important proof of your strength: you were alive and you had been able to stand back again.”

A breath of wind raised up from the shore, ruffling bushes of grass and making vibrate the catch-dreams that Brian had put on the window-door. That air caressed him, a simple touch that decided to lie for a second on his arm before flying away. It was maybe his romantic and sentimentalist side speaking but Brian always believed that the breeze was Nick’s new way of touching him. Not that he would had gone and said it around, knowing exactly how people would had looked at him and pitied him even more than before. And though it may be sound dumb, that thought always managed to make him feel better. Less alone. And it made easier for Brian to accept Nick’s absence if he thought that, in reality, Nick wasn’t really gone because a part of him would had always found a way to stay with him, even if only in the air.

“There are moments when I want so much to use your same tricks. There are moments when all I want is something that can erase all the pain and your absence. I want to, Nick. I want so bad to forget. I want to forget you because living like this is too much painful.

And still I can’t force myself to do it.

I’ve came very close to doing it the other day, it would had been so easy to just buy some beers and get so drunk to the point that I won’t be able to remind myself why I had to make all those decisions all by myself. Or why I always end up with much more food that I can eat. But I didn’t do it. Because I know you would hate me if I did it; I know that you would look at me with those eyes that can only say how much I’ve let you down, you that had always admire me so much even if I never understood the reasons why. I... I’ve never been special, Nick. I’m not and I will never be. If I were, it was only because I was loved by you.
– The sob didn’t come out that time, it stayed within the throat without a voice, as if it wanted to hug its owner and offer some kind of comfort and support. – I feel like I’m lost, you know? I feel like I’m a pebble that has been thrown in the water and it doesn’t know what it is supposed to do, if it should follow the stream or if it should try to fight it and find its way. I know that one day, someday, I’m gonna find my way. Even if it’s going to be so far away from the one I have chosen together with you.”

Brian closed the call, going back inside the house but leaving the window-door opened a little bit. It wasn’t a cold night, that was one of the many advantages of living in places like that. He didn’t waste much time to change for the night and, without too much thinking, he laid down on the couch and wrapped a blanket around his body.

That blanket was one of the few things that Brian kept from the old house. It was a gift from Nick of some years before, at first a playful reply for his always saying that he preferred staying home and watching old movies at night instead than going out to try the latest and coolest club.

“Is this how we are going to spend our evening once we will be married? An old married couple with a colored blanket on the knees and old black and white movies that you know by heart?”

Brian remembered the laugh painted on Nick’s face while he was making fun of him, the blue in the eyes a little bit brighter and those angles curved in a smile difficult to hide. Brian remembered the sound of the laugh born immediately after, when he opened his gift and found himself with the warmest and most soft blanket he had ever possessed, wrapped around a box of dvd.

That was the reason why Brian brought that blanket with him. Not only because it was his favorite. Not only because he knew that it would be perfect on that couch he had already seen in a little shop and that he would placed it in front of the fireplace, for those cold nights that might happen even at the beach. But because, when he wrapped it around his shoulder, the faint aroma that still lingered inside those lines rocked him within the illusion that it was still Nick and his arms offering him a refuge.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks to everyone who is still reading this! *__*
Next one is Nick's birthday.... oops? lol