For everything Charlie had done before he died, I really wished he had done it twice.
Growing up, Charlie never did have a happy life. Erstwhile caught up in the glitz and glamour of the usual, provocative New York and those city lights, I always find him looking at the night sky and searching for a star. And I infer it was because of the false hope that someday he can navigate his way through every shit he wanted to get away with.
In the form of a star.
All his life he had searched for what he is really meant to do, and everytime he asks that, there was nothing I could do but shrug. Sue me for being flippant or sue me for being utterly useless or you can do both.
Being the heir to a despicable home for prostitutes and drug-addled asses, Charlie perceived his life to be just another injustifiable case of misery and lost dreams in the city of chances. For whatever instinctive reason I have, I hoped he knew that he will always have me— that even if the world turns its back on him, I will turn my back towards the world.
"I'm here as long as you wanted me to stay."
With a slight caution, he said, "Nothing ever stays, love. Sooner or later, I will be gone and you will. Sooner or later, you will regret being here doing vulgar and staying vulgar. Think of this as something you don’t deserve. Think of this as a reason for not staying."
He had done everything he wanted once because time just so happens to be the one that slips, the one that gets away, and the one that never stays. All the years he kept wasted looking for a star were all the years I kept wasting cowering over what if’s and what not. I was a coward and now you’re dead.
And even if our love turned out to be another case of things that doesn’t stay, I could only hope for it to happen not just once. Not just a lifetime, I mean. Because right in the middle of a thousand lifetimes— even if you still didn’t know what you were meant to do,— I already know what was meant for me. If you are reading this,
I chose to stay.
