"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's words hit me like a truck as I stood there in the stairwell, eavesdropping. He loved me like a brother, he had said. Like a brother.
I took a few steps back, grabbing the handrail behind me as I stared at the ceramic tiles beneath my feet. After all this while, after I had gone in circles realising that deep in my heart I still loved him, I was met with this. I suppose he never loved me in that way. Maybe he never even loved me at all.
But that day at the harbour – I tried to dig within my own memories, he had told me that his feelings for me were real. What feelings were those then? Infatuation? Lust? A flurry of thoughts raced through my head as I tried to make sense of everything, grasping at anything I could find. To even try to comprehend a reality where Ferran never loved me was like being swept away by a strong current, taking me out to sea.
He loved me like a brother.
And that was when I remembered it all. How Ferran would rest his head on Rafel's shoulder as he rode on the back of the bicycle, how he would snuggle in bed against his brother, or how his eyes would light up whenever his brother was around, in a blissful reverie of his own. And then I remembered the shrill sound of his voice piercing that silent, empty night. The voice calling out to his brother as he climaxed. The voice that I could never forget.
I could only see two ways in that moment on how I could interpret those words of his – and neither were any good. I just stood there, clasping my palm over my mouth as I still tried to process everything. It seemed like all that mattered in that moment. Even what Momo did, or what he had asked of Ferran still hadn't registered with me, paling in comparison.
He loves me, he loves me not. Except it wasn't like an innocent game of ripping of flower petals. The feelings hit me like a brick – first pain, then confusion, and finally disgust.
It was only when I heard Momo coming down the hallway did I sprint down the stairs, hiding in floor right below Ferran's. I held my breath as I listened to the echoes of his footsteps approach, getting louder as he descended, walking past my floor, before they faded into the distance. I let out a sigh of relief – at least Momo hadn't seen me.
Walking back up to the floor above, I approached the door to Ferran's apartment. The door that I had approached so many times. Behind it was a world so comforting and familiar to me – a world full of flowers in full bloom and their pastel petals, and vivid memories brought to life in a tinted golden filter. I could press the doorbell – I've done it countless of times without a problem, but that day I just froze.
After what I've heard, I simply couldn't face Ferran. I placed the wine bag on the floor, pressed the doorbell, and made a rush for the stairwell.
As I scurried my way down the stairs, I thought of excuses that I could give to Momo. He surely would've been at the car by now, possibly wondering where I have gone. As I exited the lobby on the ground floor, I quickly made a stop at the convenience store under Ferran's apartment. I paced around the aisles, before finally buying a bottle of mineral water and a pack of cigarettes.
