Prologue

Everything happened on Sundays. Sometimes I thought, and believed, that it was kind of fitting; sometimes I wondered if there was a sort of bigger plan, a final picture that I couldn’t see.

Yet.

That first Sunday I got the worst news, one of those things one can never expect or believe that it can happen to them. It was shattering. It was more than disturbing because not only my world was being turned around and upside down but it made me realize how many things I still wanted to do and how many things I’ve left undone because of fear and doubt.

I didn’t believe it that day. The moment the words left the doctor’s mouth I’ve immediately shut down, choosing to believe that he was talking about someone else. Someone who had my name, my medical records but that it wasn’t me. It couldn’t be me.

How can you accept something like that?

I knew something wasn’t right with me. I knew I had been walking around with a ticking bomb inside my body but I’ve always thought it was just my heart: it never worked perfectly from the start and, even though I had it repaired, a part of me have always known that it was bound to happen sooner or later. I knew I had to face whatever was wrong and fix it but… no, I’ve never imagined it could be something like that. The thing is that I was prepared and, most of all, I knew I could deal with it: it was going to be harder than the first time, tougher because I was older and I haven’t always been kind with my own body. But I knew how to face it. I knew how to prepare myself for what was bound to happen.

When I got the news, instead, I didn’t know how to act. What to think. I wasn’t prepared. I would never be ready for that kind of battle, I didn’t even know if I was able to fight it. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want it to be real, I just wanted to rewrite time and history, erasing that day from my life and act as if I’ve never got that news. I couldn’t deal with it, I was so scared and so… so numb. So defeated. So tired of fighting, so tired of not being sure if I was going to live another day or not.

Everyone expected me to win. Everyone expected me to fight, never bending my head in front of the fire. I’ve always known who I should be, I’ve always known how I wasn’t supposed to let everyone else down. Cheat death once, you can do it a second, third, fourth time, right? But that...

That was just the appearance of a younger, careless me. That me threw himself into that battle with a courage that I didn’t even know if I had it in me anymore: clouds had became bigger, monsters had became uglier and more evil.

I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want it to be me.

On that first Sunday I acted as a mad man. I was mad, blinded by something that wanted to claw its way out from my chest.

I wanted to forget. I wanted to feel alive, more alive than that sentence said about me. I thought…. I thought that there was no more need to be silent about my feelings. My emotions. That burning desire for someone I loved more than everything, but that was never supposed to be the one.

So, that unsuspecting Sunday afternoon, I didn’t go home. I didn’t choose to stay alone and hide from everything.

That day I came to you. That day I ran to you because, somehow, I knew that you were my salvation, a fixed point that was never going to change. That day I put behind all my insecurities, all of my doubts and fears.

Scared,

That was what I’ve always been with you. Scared about my feelings, scared about my desire to be more, more than anything we could ever be. Scared about that love burning inside me, that love that had always pushed me to be more, to be the best version of myself because... because of you. I couldn’t dig into that love, I couldn’t scare you away or taint with all the darkness I bore inside.

I wanted you. I needed you. I’ve told myself that I could walk away, that I would walk away when it was time and you would never see me in those conditions. Weak. Beat. Afraid. Maybe I shouldn’t have started anything but it seemed right at that time.

Life is too short, right?

 Life should be lived at its fullest and if I was going to… well, I wanted to live everything, I didn’t want to have any regret. I didn’t want you to have any regrets, I didn’t want to leave you wondering and asking what we could have been if I, or you, would ever made the first step.

That unsuspecting Sunday afternoon I took that step.

I came to you. I kissed you until the sun was in your eyes, until I could bathe myself into your love and dreamed, wished and hoped that it would be enough to heal that heart of mine. And you accepted me. You welcomed me into your arms, your bed and your life as if you’ve been waiting for that moment since forever.

As you’ve been waiting for me forever.

You didn’t suspect what prompted me to come to you that day. You never suspected that I came to you when I was at my lowest. You’ve never suspected all the dark and the clouds that I was hiding inside me. Or maybe you did but you didn’t say anything.

At least that first day.

At least that first Sunday.

Because on an unsuspecting Sunday afternoon, Frick went to Frack and so our, our last story began.