"What is love in this temporal life, if not just a distraction from the pain that doesn't seem to end."
After losing his best friend to an unexplained suicide, Mateu finds himself left to pick up the pieces with his best friend's younger brother, Fe...
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Ferran barely mentioned anything about his boyfriend. He only told me that he was coming back. Somehow a part of me didn't believe him. How could he have not even thought about bringing it up? Could it be that he just made that up because he was hurt by my sudden revelation? Maybe that was the case.
But I also did the same thing, so it was entirely possible that Ferran could be telling the truth. Ferran after all had a habit of keeping things he knew from me. I never really understood how his pretty little head worked, but he was always such an enigma.
Ferran and I still saw one another, but I couldn't feel like we were more distant than ever. Perhaps it was me who was putting that distance between us. Sure, it was usually Ferran who was that way, but I felt like I was drifting off as well. It wasn't uncomfortable or anything, it just felt like the embers of that faint warmth that we had were slowly fading away.
"How's your boyfriend doing?" I had asked him once when we went to visit the Christmas market together. "You have any plans together?"
We were in a rather quiet part of the market. I was very sure he heard me, but I was just met with silence. Just as I thought he had just dismissed my question, he finally answered.
"I don't remember."
I never brought up that subject ever again.
A part of me tried to think of Ferran as bright, intelligent, and somewhat sly even, but whenever I started to feel that way I began to remember how innocent and angelic he was. He was just a poor boy, a poor grieving boy still mourning the loss of his beloved brother. I just simply couldn't imagine and picture him other than such. There was no way he could ever come up with such a scheme. Which was why I probably never questioned him when no boyfriend ever showed up, and I just assumed he was telling the truth.
I found myself in that time thinking more and more of Momo. I suppose it was the kind of thing where you appreciated someone more when they were gone. I had no idea where he was, or what he was doing. Not that I didn't want to know. I just respected him too much to go against his wishes.
Sometimes as I sat beside Ferran on a streetside café with no one but the boy's silence for company, I thought about Momo who now seemed so far away. I thought about his bright smile, his dark hair, and his beautiful hazel eyes. More than once I caught myself smiling, thinking of him.
But what was the use? I felt like I've already lost him. He told me he would be back in two weeks, but it had almost been a month now. Perhaps he was somewhere out there, having moved on with his life. But I couldn't help but wonder if he thought of me as much as I found myself thinking of him.
Momo re-entered my life as suddenly as he left it.
It was a few weeks after the new year, just as I had gotten used to my new schedule of a fresh set of classes. I had just went to pick something up at the post office, I couldn't even remember what. But as I was walking down the street the bus pulled up ahead, and I watched as a familiar figure alight.
