On the Edge of Love (CarlxAlan)

Chapter 40: Carl

It had been almost two weeks.

Two weeks since Alan stood in my driveway, flushed and nervous and determined to tell me he was ready. That he wanted to be with me, not in secret, not just in fleeting touches and stolen moments. He'd kissed me before he left—soft and sure. We'd hugged longer than usual. If I'd known that was the last time...

God, if I had known.

I hadn't been the same since the crash. I didn't think I ever would be. It was like something had cracked open inside me and spilled out everything I used to be. My chest felt hollow, like there wasn't enough air in the world to breathe him back in.

Everyone had shown up to the funeral. Elie sobbed into my shoulder. My parents held my hands too tightly. The auditorium had been packed, but even in the crowd, I felt alone. A deep kind of alone that I don't think words really reach.

He was just gone.

Now, I was standing outside Alan's house. The place I'd spent so many nights at, sneaking glances when his parents weren't looking, laughing until my stomach hurt. The porch looked exactly the same. The wind chimes still clinked by the door, cheerful and mocking.

His mom opened the door with red eyes and a tight smile. She didn't say much—just hugged me longer than anyone else had and told me I could go through his room. "Take anything you want," she whispered. "Whatever reminds you of him."

I didn't know how I was supposed to prepare myself for this.

The room smelled the same. That soft mix of detergent and old guitar strings and some cologne he never remembered to put on before he left the house. His bed was unmade. His shoes still under the desk. It was like he'd stepped out for a second, and any minute, he'd walk back in with some sarcastic comment and a grin he'd try to hide.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and just... stared.

I touched everything. Slowly. Reverently. His hoodie on the floor. His school lanyard draped over his chair. A crumpled movie ticket from the drive-in we went to tucked in his desk drawer. I didn't even know he kept that.

His guitar sat in the corner, the same one I gave him for his birthday. I ran my fingers over the wood, blinking fast. I remembered how he told me he didn't deserve it. That he'd never had someone look at him like he was worth something, until me. That guitar was the first thing he let himself want out loud.

I set it gently on the bed and kept going.

His homework was still open to some calculus problem we both pretended to understand. A sweatshirt I'd borrowed once still smelled faintly like me. My heart twisted at the sight of our old polaroid taped to the mirror—both of us making dumb faces, Alan with his head half on my shoulder.

I almost left it there.

But then I saw it—folded paper sticking slightly out from underneath the desk lamp. I pulled it free with shaking hands.

It wasn't addressed to anyone.

Just a single page in his messy handwriting. I unfolded it carefully.

"I don't know if I'll ever be brave enough to tell him everything. But he's the best thing that's ever happened to me. I feel like I'm alive around him. I don't have to hide or flinch or lie. I didn't think that was possible. I didn't think someone like me got to have this.

But Carl makes me feel real. Like I'm worth something. I hope one day I'm brave enough to give him the love he deserves."

I couldn't breathe.

I held the letter to my chest like it was him. Like if I squeezed hard enough, it would beat like his heart. Like it would hum and smirk and say something too smart for its own good.

And then I broke.

I cried harder than I did at the funeral. I sobbed into his pillow. I curled up with his sweatshirt and the stupid polaroid and the guitar leaning against the wall, and I cried for all the things we didn't get. The songs he'd never finish. The college apps we joked about. The idea that maybe, someday, he would've let me hold his hand in the hallway without shame.

He should've had all of that. We both should've.

By the time I left his house, the sun was already dipping below the trees. I looked back at his window one last time.

The pain wasn't gone. I didn't think it ever would be. But I had the letter in my pocket. The guitar in my car. A quiet kind of clarity in my chest.

I'd loved Alan. He'd loved me. And no amount of loss could ever touch that part of the story.

He was still with me—in every memory, every melody, every part of myself I found through him. Maybe love like that doesn't end. Maybe it just changes shape.

I drove home in the soft orange glow of twilight, the world looking the same but forever changed. And somewhere in the wind, I could almost hear his voice, like he used to, like he wasn't gone at all.

Like maybe, on the edge of everything, love was still there.