"Tonight it's gonna be the loneliest."
When Victoria gets sick and ends up in a coma, Damiano, Thomas, and Ethan have to find ways to cope and keep themselves together.
The future is unclear for the three boys now that they're being forced to live...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Los Angeles, USA, March 2022
My fingers are slowly tracing an invisible line on the soft skin which belongs to the person that I love most. I take the same old road from her palm to her shoulder. The movements that once used to sooth the most amazing human being are now an ode of despair. I never reach my destination. I keep getting stuck halfway in the cannula that holds a needle inside her — the last connection with reality.
Her body is cold. Incredibly cold. I've been told that it's a normal reaction, yet I'm still trying to keep myself from covering her with another blanket.
"Vic?" I whisper, afraid that she might hear me and get scared by the sound of my hoarse voice.
Silence. The sound that I learned to hate in such a short amount of time. I hear it all around me, following me wherever I go, flooding my ears, taking over my memories and sanity. It's different when I'm next to her, though. Vic's silence is rhythmic, almost like her bass riffs. Sometimes I think she speaks through the small movements of her chest. Up and down. Up and down. No sound. I can do this all day, stay here and witness this small dialogue of ours. It's nice. At some point it gets sickening, but I love it.
I curse myself for all the times I told her to shut up. I remember them vividly, playing in my mind like the images of a video forgot on repeat. "Shut up, Vic." I told her when she was talking too loud in the middle of the night while trying to sneak out of my parents house. "Shut up!" I shouted at her in all our arguments when I was out of lines. "Shut the fuck up!" I screamed in excitement when she was giving me the best news possible. "Shut up," I said to her and Thomas while returning from a party, loud and drunk at four in the morning. "Shut up, I need to focus," I muffled countless times while composing.
Now she did. My stubborn girl listened and shut up for all the times when she didn't, in a moment when no one was willing to stop hearing the sound of her raspy voice. Fuck me!
"Vic?" I try again. "Do you hear me?"
I'm aware I sound like a fool, but talking to her keeps me sane. Well, as sane as I can be in these circumstances. Plus, according to my dozens of hours spent on Google, people in her situation might be able to actually hear even if they're unable to respond. So, I choose to trap myself in the luring arms of the idea that she's aware of the things I tell her, and go on.
"It's shit without you around," I say. "We all miss you lots. You see, Vic, it's like a part of me is gone. But, I try to think positively. Maybe you took it away with you out there, wherever you might be."
I look at the ceiling, trying to regain my power to speak, too afraid that my voice will break so soon. Then, I move my glance to the glass doors, trying to get a glimpse of the small backyard of our LA villa.
"It's sunny here," I report to my silent conversation partner. "Although, I heard it might rain later on. You would've liked it, Vic. You used to love when it rained."
