Ending Innocence (boyxboy)

Chapter Fifteen

Life can surprise you sometimes, sometimes it's in the best way possible. But there are always those times life slaps you in the face... again.

Luca’s POV.

They say getting things off your chest can help the healing process. In a lot of ways it’s true. Telling Caden has helped me in many ways. I no longer feel like I can’t speak to him about things. At the same time, I have a hard time seeing how he’s still here. I know he pities me now, and who could blame him? No one, that’s who, no one. A lot of times he looks at me different. Cautiously, almost planning how he will speak to me next. I don’t like seeing the caution in his eyes. I understand it, really, I do. But I don’t want to see it there. I despise seeing pity and sympathy in his eyes. I’ve never despised anything before… and now I despise the way he looks at me? Or is it just that I don’t believe I deserve him to stay? I guess I’ll never really know.

One thing’s certain, he’s a persistent person. He does his best to not go to school. He makes excuses and tries every trick in the book. I love him for it, I really do. But I also want him to get on with his life again. I want him to live a happy life, full of opportunities, not to stay by my beside and waste his life. It’s not right, and I cannot allow him to continue.

He procrastinates; Monday, knowing what is coming, and not wanting to face the facts. I listen to him. Allowing him to speak his mind and to tell me why he doesn’t want to go to school. Of course I know why, he doesn’t want to leave me. He feels guilty – unnecessarily so – and thinks I will hate him for leaving me. The truth is I love him more for going, which he does. I explain to him the importance of time away from me. I tell him I love him, he smiles. A bright goofy grin that melts my heart. Does he know what smiles like that do to me? They light up his whole face and make him look so beautiful, so stunningly beautiful.

“I’ll be back after school, straight after. I love you.” He leans forward, kissing me gently before he walks out the door.

“I love you too,” I whisper to the closed door.

Before I can pick up anything, the door opens and nonnino walks in, smiling. He walks with a small limp now, unnoticeable unless you know what to look for. His face crumples slightly when he sees me watching him, the smile slips from his lips.

“No need to worry, Luca.”

“What happened?”

He shakes his head gently. “Don’t worry yourself with my little problems. They are nothing like the ones you have, my dear boy. Nothing at all.”

“Nonnino, you can’t expect me to not worry. I never saw you look like this before… You look ill.”

Sorrow flickers in his eyes, and in that brief moment, I know more than I want to. He lowers his head, not looking me in the eyes. I want to demand answers. I want to say so much, and yet, I don’t. I stay silent because silent is the way I have always been. Silence is my way of dealing with the tough times. And times don’t get tougher. A feeble hand squeezes my shoulder and I look up into the eyes that say so much and yet so little. Those eyes are ones I have trusted my whole life.

“It is nothing like that,” he says. “I am not a young man no more.”

He says the words and I want to believe him, I really do. Is it as simple as ignoring what my brain tells me? No. Of course there will always be something. Our eyes meet and he sees those emotions in me. My internal battle rages inside me, trying my patience until I feel like I’m standing on an edge with nowhere left to go. Nonnino grabs my hand and squeezes, his eyes plead with me, begging to let it go. But I can’t. How can I? How can I believe something when I can see the truth in plain sight?