Bad at Endings.

Chapter 1

Prologue:

I don't do well with endings.
I think it's the definite finality of it all that bothers me so much.
The never again.
Not ever.
Not ever ever ever.
On a cosmic scale that's almost unfathomable.
That this will be the last time you'll ever see someone, talk to them, hold them, hug them....
The fact that, even if you waited until the very end of the universe and existence itself, this moment, in its very essence, just how it is now, will never return.
How can you even begin to appropriately appreciate such moments when you also have to acknowledge that unbearable gravity?
How do you not buckle and suffocate underneath the weight of it?

I don't know.

And so I just don't acknowledge it.

I  tell people: “I don't do goodbyes” and “until next time” even when I'm fully aware of the chances of that ever happening being probably close to zero.....or less even.

But I say it like I believe it anyway.
And they believe me. Or maybe pretend to believe me.
Because the truth is far too heavy.
And so I smile and keep my words light and full of lies so thin you almost can't see them anymore.

And so we shake hands and smile at each other and make promises that are even thinner than our lies and we let them drift away on the summer breeze that graces the beach and float away on the waves of the sea.

In that moment I briefly contemplated kissing him again.
But I didn't.
Because, if I had done so, I would have forever known that that would have been the last time I'd kissed him and the knowledge of it would have weighed me down for the rest of my life.

It was better this way.

I don't know when last I kissed him.
I'd kissed him too many times for that.
Slow kisses, soft kisses, tentative kisses, kisses full of wanting and lust and just a hint of fear.
Stolen moments during a summer holiday in Bournemouth.

I never expected anything like this to happen.
I never expected him to happen.
Sunbronzed skin, golden tousled windswept hair, eyes as blue as the sea.

I don't remember the last time he smiled at me either.
Because he was always smiling at me.
A version of him so freely given.
So precious and honest.
And he decided to give it to me.
And for two weeks I felt as if the sun might never go down.
As if we would be like this forever.
Two boys on a beach without end like the coming and going of the tides at our feet.

But everything ends.
I just don't handle it very well.

I keep the memory of him locked away in my heart like it is something precious and I only take it out again on very special occasions.

I don't even know if.....whatever it was we had.....meant the same to him as it had meant to me. If he even still thinks of me sometimes......

Probably not.

If he had wanted to remember me he probably would have asked for my phone number.
He would have asked where I lived.
My address, so we could keep in contact.
But he didn't.
And I didn't either.

So now we are left with this...'thing' that might or might not have meant anything and is left without an end because I lied to him and told him I wasn't leaving for another two days while in fact I was leaving for home that night.

I just don't do well with endings.

Maybe I should have told him that.

But I didn't. And now it's too late. Because I will never see him again.
And, even though I tried avoiding it any possible way I could, that still feels an awful lot like an ending.