Line of Time

Can't Remember

Gunner walked the city aimlessly, he pasted the park and memories came to his mind again. Ghost of his past ran past him. He stood on the side walk and felt them brush past. 

The two of them had ran past this fence and into the large area of the park, it had been winter and Tino had been the one pulling on his sleeve to drag him though a heavy snow into the park's clearing, once there he left Gunner confused on the reason to why they were here. Then he put out his arms and made a free fall into the soft and quickly growing amount of snow on the ground below him.  

Snow-angels, he had been dragged here all this way for snow-angels. Normally anyone would have complained about such a childish thing, but Gunner stood there for a moment before smiling and joining him. It had been an afternoon filled with laughter and fun in the snow, it hadn't ended with snow-angels, snow ball fights and snow-men were also there. 

Gunner now looked at the area in which the scene had taken place and saw that it was now covered in wild flowers. The memory like every other memory brought a bitter sweet feeling to him, they would just be memories and nothing more than that. He kept walking. 

He walked a few blocks with his head down, trying his best to clear his head but as his luck would have it he crossed the bridge to the river and another memory of ghosts came to him. 

They had been out on a stroll, nothing set as a destination but they had stopped at the river, to look out upon it and the smell of flowers that had been in giant hanging baskets from it's edge made the air sweet. This had been the place where Tino had heard Gunner say his first 'I love you' to him. Gunner had been a shy and nervous mess afterwards, his face a bright pink. Tino had picked one of the small pink flowers from the city's baskets and placed it in his hand. Gunner looked at him for the reason to why and was thus greeted with a kiss, short and simple. It not only described the kiss but also the young man who gave it. 

Tino had said that he loved Gunner for as long as the two could remember but Gunner said it in a more deep meaningful way, Tino did as well but he said it everyday. Gunner on the other hand said it only when Tino needed to hear it, in a hard time, when spirits needed lifting by the power that the word of love gave him or anyone else. Gunner was also a man who was very reserved, he wasn't open and very guarded. It was a surprise to even his own family and closest of friends that he would even talk to them about his emotions. That's why he told them that he had a boyfriend, that in a way they felt honored, Gunner had kept every other relationship a secret, he didn't speak of anything that was considered personal to him. That made up a lot of things so he was known as the shy and taken back remember of their household. They were happy to just see him have people around him and to talk to and about. 

He fought back tears and quickened his pace as he walked on past and over the bridge, he hated this, to see what he would never be able to have again dance so freely in front of him, it wounded him. 

But as it would have it, either out of routine of knowing the city too well or his subconscious telling him something that he didn't understand he found himself in the last place that he ever wanted to be. The scene of the crash, an accident that played out in front of him. 

They had been in the car with Mathias and Lukas, two friends of theirs, their chaperones for the night. It had been a busy night, a Friday, he remembered this night maybe a too well for his own good. Gunner and Tino sat in the back seat with the fold out armrest between them, nothing in it apart from their hands far apart from each other. They were under the cold violet gaze of Lukas looking from the mirror in front of the passenger seat, he wasn't really giving them a mean look but simply watching to see if they would do anything. They didn't and as Mathias was more concerned with the road he did check on them whenever they stopped at a red light and it was taking a while to turn. Occasionally telling Lukas to stop being weird and to leave them alone. To which Lukas gave him the same normal cold gaze he had. Gunner remembered the words that were spoken in those next few moments because they echoed in his mind for the next eight months.