stranger, soulmate, lover.✔️

beautiful boy

I came home after practice. I didn't see you at school, I didn't see you outside. I came home the next day, I didn't see you. Or the day after that, or even the day after that. I didn't see you the entire week. I came home after practice and you weren't there.

I couldn't help myself when I walked to your house, I couldn't help myself trying to talk myself out of knocking on your door. I couldn't help myself standing there all alone waiting for you the nights before. I did it anyway, I saw a lady that looked like you, she had dark straight hair. Her eyes were brown, the same color that got mixed in with your green ones.

She had a button nose like you, a nose ring wrapped on the inner corners of her nose. She looked young, her lips were bigger and pinker too, they turned up when she saw me on the other side of her door. Your little sister held her hand, she called out to me. She hugged me, I hugged her back.

"You're the boy." She says as I get up from hugging Lilian. I look at her quietly, my heart racing as I question everything she's thinking. She doesn't speak for a second, not until mumbling, "I knew it." For only me and her to hear. Her smile widens, she wraps her arms around me too. Your mother hugged me today, and her hug was soft and warm and it felt like yours.

"You're such a beautiful boy." She compliments in my arms. I release myself from her warmth with a faint smile. "Thank you." She invited me in, she told me where you were without me even asking too. She told me you were upstairs where you hadn't left. Where you've been the whole week.

She told me you were sad, that you hadn't even shown up to practice. She said you were tired, really tired.

So when I heard your voice on the other end of the door, I didn't know how to feel, I didn't know what to say. "Liam..." I could hear your body moving on the other end at the sound of my voice, only figuring how you must've panicked before allowing me to come in.

"Hi."
"Hi."

I stood there until you allowed me to sit at the end of your bed. I didn't say anything about how deep you were into the sheets. I only pulled myself closer to your body. I only rubbed the base of your eye bags or ran my hands against your skin that was slowly beginning to turn pale.

Something in me felt stupid for not knowing, that you'd hurt this much too. Despite the upbeat personality and the informal energy. You were hurting. I couldn't help but push my head against your own. Resting my hand against your cheek and feeling how warm you were becoming.

How your hand reached around my wrist. How your eyes lowered with subtle hints of redness. "I didn't even know," I whispered to myself, feeling your body tense with my humorless chuckle. I felt your other hand reach into my hair. "Don't." How slow and weak your pronunciation had become since we'd last talked.

You sound completely exhausted.

"Don't look like that, I'll be better."
"I'll be better soon, I promise."

Your head tilted up to reach my lips, your warmth reaching across to an unknown atmosphere, and I let it because I'd let you feel every inch of me if it meant that I could savor every inch of you too. And when your lips connected to my own, I let them. I rested myself on you. Feeling my body against your chest, listening to the sound of your heartbeat slower.

And slower. Listening to the sound that our lips make when they spread apart to collide back into each other. Listening to the sound of you asking me to stay with you like this until you fell asleep. Listening to the sound of your soft inhales and exhales as you slept peacefully in my arms.

Listening to the sounds of my growing love for a stranger, only a stranger.