Today's Heartache (Peterick)

Part 9: Nothing Truly Matters Once You're Dead

Pete's POV:

We had fallen together so easily like he belonged against me. I never truly trusted anyone how I trusted him, never let them near me how I let him because there was this soft spot in me, an opening that allowed for him to see what I had tried so hard to keep hidden away from everyone else, but it turned out places like that only hurt when people get inside them. Knowing he wasn't mine anymore tore me to shreds and left me a vulnerable mess. The other man turned him warm. My heart was an iceberg, too dangerous for his ocean, and I was freezing over seeing them kiss.

I held back. Their lips came together like magnets, soft flesh pressing into soft flesh. I wanted to bring the moon of him down and hang it in the back of my throat, let the corners of me fill with his glow. They touched, hands cupping cheeks and holding waists. It was selfish to be like that, to want to be the ripe of his season when I was always winter.

It was selfish to want any part of his life. I knew that if things had turned out different, if I was allowed to love him right like I once had that I wouldn't ever let him go, but he needed to be with someone good and whole. My mind repeated it over and over again. It was for the best. It told me as their bodies melted into each other that I had to stand aside and let the other man protect his summers because I was too cold, and I held back. I held back.

They were laughing, looking at the pictures he'd brought with them, laughing at the happiness and joy they discovered in each other through the years of my absence. I had only plagued the boy with my memory and destroyed his happiness without even stepping a foot into his world until after the dust had settled and he was gone, out of it, lost and forgotten the times we ever loved one another. A shiver went up my spine at the sound of his delight. It was just that I used to be the source of it. I was back on his beach, and we were building a sandcastle, and the music of his laugh was drifting toward the ocean.

We had the summer stretched out for us like an unwrapped present, but it was just that I'd turned cold. It was just that when I heard the music right there and then I remembered why I loved him all over again. I'd spiraled out of control without really knowing it, spiraled and set loose spiders on every bridge I had ever built, and I forgot that I wasn't alone. It was dark there in my room with Gabe sitting next to me on my mattress, silent and unknowing of my internal sadness.

I forgot that he was on my side, wanting to aid me in my troubles. I had forgotten and only felt a small part of me collapsing with his hands holding me, keeping me from completely falling. The visiting hours had been over for a while, but I couldn't see him. It wasn't like I'd seen him at all anyway, not since before he had the splint put on and now taken off, his arm healed and functional like it had never happened at all. Yet, I'd done that to him, hurt him in the whirl of fury I had felt for the man who had the privilege of sharing in his smiles and hugs and intimate parts I used to once know as well as he did now.

Where was I going? I was flying with broken pieces, pieces I thought would fall back into place on their own. I had told myself to brace for impact when the engines stopped working, but there was nothing here when I crashed. There was nothing here. Gabe met my sulking with support and kindness and a cautious, gentle gaze, though he knew not why I was huddled into him, holding him so close.

I had only missed what it felt like to hold another person. He didn't know nor did he ask. He sat in the darkness of my space and tried to be the light to help me stumble through.
"How do you know if what you're doing is right?"
"We don't. We take the leaps of faith and just hope and pray we're doing something worth the hurt and pain at the end of it all."

"And what's the end?" I asked.
"Whatever you make it out to be."
"Can I go home with you tonight? I don't think I can be alone."
He nodded and pulled me into his warmth. My edges were melting. The iceberg was smaller, but it was still there.