you'll kill me if you stop ☼ call me by your name & kill your darlings

five

waking up the morning after something incredible is its own phenomenon.

i was both shattered on the inside that anything magical that had happened before this moment was gone far behind me, but so hopeful that the best was yet to come that i could only feel hunger.

my classes that day didn't start until after eleven. i had many hours to kill. even better, i had a job to do.

the one poem that would change the world. no one decided who were to write it, or when, but it felt like oliver was speaking directly to me as he announced his plan. i wanted to write something, some draft of my worth so that he knew to trust me to carry out his plan with him.

my typewriter was very happy to see me. i let my hands fall on the keys but the inspiration that was supposed to strike me ended up somewhere else. i had nothing.

i had nothing. nothing to offer. i was just a student-- the son of a poet, someone willing to learn but still without knowledge. i couldn't do this. yet. yet.

i let my head fall back on the chair. no magical piece of writing was going to fly out of my fingertips no matter how hard i tried. no great piece of music was written to one pair of ears alone.

i had to find oliver.

"oh god, what are you doing here?" it was eric. i wanted to ask him the same thing.

"elio," oliver said.

eric pulled at oliver's collar before saying, "i'll see you at lunch."

i moved out of the way so that eric didn't bulldoze me over.

"welcome back."

i stepped into the room and felt my entire body float as i re-carved oliver into my brain. this was no dream. this was no fantasy, some unattainable utopia. this was just oliver.

"why did you come?"

"i... i wanted to talk about our revolution."

"our revolution?" he replied, with a tone i couldn't decipher as mocking or genuinely intrigued. "what about it?"

"well," i started. oliver began to walk in a circle around me like he was grading me during an exam. "i was going to start drafting something, but then i started thinking, how are we going to get this piece out into the world?"

oliver stopped in his tracks. he smiled at me, a smile that only belonged to him, and it made me nauseous with bliss. "what did you have in mind?"

"the library," i replied. "the information center of the school. any revolution of words must begin there."

i was playing his game of sly seduction through question and answer. was this how he held a conversation all of the time? this certainly wasn't how we were talking last night. that was real. this, this was his way of holding his ground. avoiding vulnerability. but did i like him like this?

"bingo!" he exclaimed. "elio, you're fantastic."

i sat down on his chair. i had passed his test... i think.

"only one problem," he said. "we need the work."

if i were to make a montage of the next few weeks at columbia, it would contain these images:

randy, oliver and i, drafting not a poem, but a statement. we read books, discuss language, break rules and concoct the overview of our mission.

eric kicking us out of his apartment. many times. we giggle and conspire.

oliver and eric discussing things they wouldn't dare let me hear or know of. i am still an outcast.

randy, oliver and i, at the sax, jazz and alcohol pulsing through our veins. i am happiest here.

and at the end of the month, we had a statement. we had a mission: an objective. we would not only bend humanities concept of rhythmic storytelling, but also the philosophy of abiding by rules, and how breaking them is the only way to move society forward.

all we needed was the example. we had the launch pad, we needed the rocket.

oliver entrusted me with the blueprints. randy provided the drugs.

i was no longer in eric's apartment, oliver at the typewriter and randy scouring the bookshelf, but at the sax. my favorite singer was on stage, and it was only oliver and me who sat at our usual table.

the music slowed to a stop. everything froze and to oliver, it was far from unusual. he walked around the club while everyone else stood still, uring me to follow him. he grabbed someone else's drink and swallowed it. i followed him.

we took our seats at the bar, and the bartender stood still. oliver took my hand and placed his against it, our fingers connected as everything else was separated from reality.

"how many times do i have to tell you to stay out of my apartment," eric said.

i was back. i was drugged. oliver's fingers were touching mine and we sat at the table, like the other reality. i was the one to move my hand away.

"we're exploring the depths of elio's mind," randy said. "well we were, until you disrupted the gas," he added, taking the mask off of me and packing up the experiment.

"this is not a science fair, this is my life, and you don't just get a seat at the table whenever you please," eric said. "leave. get out."

randy and i shuffled out, but as usual, eric held oliver back.

eric was old enough to be a professor at columbia. every time i had the chance i wondered about his past with oliver.

oliver didn't normally given the chance, though, like he knew he had to occupy me becuase if my mind wandered that's where it would go.

the next day after classes i came to oliver with a poem for the revolution. not a very good one, but a seed. a spark.

as soon as i walked in i could tell something was up. he didn't seem interested in hearing my work, i figured it was partly because he knew it wasn't any good.

oliver looked different. less like a diety and more like, like just a boy. "we need to get a final draft pinned in the library by the end of the semester."

"i'm working on it," i told him.

"well work faster!" he shouted back. he was drunk. it was hopeless.

"i'm swamped with assignments, okay? i'm working on it."

"this is important to me." he sounded angrier than i've ever heard him. i had no idea what to say.

"you wanna head by the sax?"

"the sax. of course. because the last thing i need right now is more to drink," oliver sighed. "i'm sorry, elio. i shouldn't be putting this on you, it's just, it's complicated right now."

"i love complicated," i replied.

"you should probably go," he said. "you have work to do."

"are you sure i should leave you alone without eric to babysit you?" i spat at him. my anger at oliver for hiding his past with eric and at eric for being in oliver's present exploded out of me.

"eric? the fruit can't leave me alone for more than three minutes. you think i like having him drape over me all the time?"

one word hung in my brain.

"fruit?"

oliver stepped towards me. "a queer."

he took a deep breath. "you have to understand, he found me years ago, and couldn't look away. he's quit his job, moved across the country, just so he can be around his darling oli. he's rescheduled his entire life around me, and you think i have any say in this? you just don't understand."

the irritation i had with oliver's secrecy quickly turned to pity. his love for first times. new introductions... but no matter how hard he tried to reinvent himself, a piece of his past found a way back.

"let's get rid of him." i had no idea what i meant by that.

"first i just need you to write me a revolution," oliver said, sitting on his bed. i sat down next to him.

"you're a writer," he said to me. "first thought, best thought."