Evan groaned as he got up to the steady sound of Matthew Healy's voice flowing out of his phone. It was one of his favorites. He shifted to his left to retrieve his phone off of his night stand, the blue light harshly glaring against his eyes. He could see the photo set as Caspar, with his fluffy, burnt chestnut colored hair and large eyes. God, Evan adored his eyes. How even in silence they speak volumes, how much emotion and knowledge they hold, how they magically twinkle when he has a brilliant idea, and how they glaze over when he's lost in thought. But his utmost favorite aspect of Caspar's unworldly eyes had to be the color; bright seafoam green splashed with tones of cerulean blue and misty grey. To put it simply, his eyes were enchanting. After three too many beats he tapped the screen of his phone, picking up the call.
"Hey, Cas, what's up?" He lazily rubbed at his eyes.
"Have you ever looked at the stars?" Caspar answers. His phone is on his stomach, each move Evan makes sounding loudly through the night air on speaker. His iPod is next to his head, the beautifully angelic sound of Ed Sheeran playing softly into his ears.
"Like, actually looked at the stars," Casper says when Evan doesn't answer.
"What are you on about?" Evan asks, his voice slow as he sinks into the sheets. Caspar ignores the question, eyes beginning to graze over the sky, clear for the first time in months.
"Cause I do. And there's so many, and they're so big. It's kinda strange. There's only seven billion people in this world, and then there's the stars. Scientists say there are approximately 100 billion of them, and that's just in the known universe! And, like, the amount of time it takes for their magnificent light to reach us. It's so weird, because when a supernova occurs, we could still be watching it live, cause there's a million light-years apart from what we see and what's actually exploding. God, think how irrelevant we are compared to the skies. Like, none of us are gonna do anything that's gonna be remembered forever. None of us, because eventually I'm going to die, and you're going to die, and eventually no one is gonna be left to tell our stories and to keep us going. For example, George Washington is important now, but in the future someone's gonna deem him unimportant someday, and he's gonna be forgotten too, and it all doesn't fucking matter. None of it, none of this shit life, because all of it is gonna fucking end." As Caspar stopped, Evan sat there just letting his words flow over him like ocean waves. It was two a.m and Caspar wanted to get philosophical and contemplate his existence, and for some God forsaken reason Evan found it endearing.
If I asked you what your biggest fear was, the first thing that's gonna pop into your mind is death, and it's stupid as hell because we shouldn't be scared of death. We all know it's gonna happen eventually, so why, out of everything we can be afraid of, do we choose death when we know it's imminent[a]? Why don't we actually live fucking life instead? None of us do that because we are all so fucking cautious so we don't die, and instead we could be living. But we dedicate our lives to going to school, and then going to more school, and then trying to do work, and not everyone really takes a minute just to take a breath. Yeah, they go to parties and they sing and dance and have fun, but they're not really taking a breath, not stopping, not really. They don't just sit at home with their best friends in pajamas, watching a stupid show that they're not really watching because they're too busy talking to each other and eating ice cream to really pay attention, or they don't just take random walks in the woods in complete silence and just listen to nature, they don't just take drives with no real destination and they don't care, because their with the ones they truly love with all their heart, they don't sit at the beach and watch the tide roll in and look out at the spectacular sunset, and that's, that's the most fun you could have. That's truly living." Caspar has to stop for a minute to click on a random song on his iPod and take a breather. He looks at the red flowers dotted in the grass and for some damn reason, tears begin to well up in his eyes.
"But that's only because we want to be remembered. We want to be remembered so fucking badly that we'd do anything to have it happen. We waste our lives trying to be remembered. But imagine if we could outlive the stars, Evan, just imagine if we could outlive them. Imagine how much stuff we could do in the world, all the good, and all the bad too but it still wouldn't be enough time for some people. They'd still want more, more meaningless shit to be remembered by and God, I'm such a hypocrite because I want to be remembered too and it's not fair, it's so not fair because my memory, my life, is gonna die with me when I die and it's gonna fucking burn when the world does, and I won't be able to fucking see it. I-I just want to be as big as the stars, Evan." Caspar's breathe stuttered with all the pent up anger and frustration, frustration with his parents, his teachers, his brother, hell, frustration with life flowing out in the form of hot fat tears, but he pressed onward, "I want to be like them because everyone knows about the stars and no one is ever gonna forget them. I'm not gonna do anything to impress the stars, but God, do I want to." Evan sat there, just listening to Caspar's sobs, just hearing his ragged breathing, and in that moment he just realised how in love he really was with this boy.
"Cas?" Evan sighed getting up, tossing the warm covers of his body. Tugging on the closest pair of sweats and his warmest jacket, he tucks his phone under his chin. "Where are you right now?"
"The park, right between the two cherry blossom trees." His words came out hoarse and strained as the tears kept falling.
"I'll be right there."
