Powder [phan]

XXI

"You're high, aren't you?" He asked freely, looking at me and I swallowed hard. The moonlight was reflected in his eyes and I knew that he was the only one I could tell the truth about at the moment. I didn't really have to say anything, he knew it.

"Shit, Daniel." he said, wiping his face.

"I can't take it. I can't do this. I can't do it, I really can't."

He swallowed hard, whereupon we just sat silently on the bench and his presence comforted me. It was pitiful that his presence was comforting me. He was to blame for this whole dilemma. Perhaps at that moment I realized that I had forgiven him.

"What are you going to do now?" He asked and I shrugged.

"I'm moving back to my apartment, breaking up with Phil. Maybe I'm going to America again, I have no idea. I only know that my old life is over. There's no point in holding on to it." I said honestly. The thought had been in my head since last week, but I never dared to spell it out.

"You're not serious, Daniel."

"I guess I am."

"You love drugs more than him? More than your friends? Your work?"

"Why do you say it like you can't understand it?" I asked as I got angry.

"Precisely because I understand it and because of that I know exactly what kind of fucking mistake you want to make there. Dude, that you make me say that. Philip, loves you, okay? In fact, very clearly, he flew to America to pull you out of some rancid hotel room while you were high and fucked with everyone you could."

"I know he loves me, but I can't give him what he wants."

"You can, Daniel. You just don't want it."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean now?"

"You're scared, aren't you? Scared of what he can do to you. What would happen if he chose not to be with you. That's why you push him away first." He was right. And he knew that it was partly his fault. Because he was my first great love and I associated with him the most terrible experience of my life and therefore knew exactly what love could do to a person. I was afraid to go through hell again. But I didn't want to give him this profit.

I was too high. And I was a fucking asshole when I was high.

"What are you talking about, Tyler? You pretend I could never love someone other than Phil? Who says we weren't just made for each other from the start? That it wasn't doomed from the start?"

My hand rose as if by itself, so my thumb could gently stroke his cheek.

"Who tells me that you are not the right one for me?" I whispered and came closer to him, wanted to put my lips on his, but he avoided me, turning his head to the side, which I used to kiss his neck.

Maybe I just wanted to distract myself, but maybe I was right and I had never listened to someone else's side.

I gently bit his skin and his fingers buried my hair, he groaned under suppression and I felt so much more longing for him than I had felt in our time together.

"Daniel, stop that, please." he managed to bring out weakly as my left hand went down his torso and stayed in his crotch. I started moving them remotely, and he tensed.

"Ty." I breathed into his ear. "Let's go to your place, okay?"

For a moment it was dead silent before he suddenly pushed me away so that I almost fell off the bench.

"No, we won't! I have AIDS and you love Phil! Finally admit that you love him so much that you finally have to give up control! Sometimes I think you are much more addicted to this control than you are to everything else! At some point in your life, you have to learn to trust someone and give yourself blindly into their hands. Are you really don't realizing that the more you try to hold on to it with every little incident that gets you out of control, the more you lose control? Can you find it again and again by stepping yourself into something new? First in me, then in the drugs, then in Phil, and now again in the drugs, because Phil apparently failed to prevent the inevitable. You make it impossible for him to win your trust because you don't want him to win it at all! That would mean that you can no longer hide from life." He gave his sermon and I knew that it was true, but I pushed all insight away from me without really being able to defend myself against it. "And now you take advantage of the fact that I love you so that you can continue to destroy yourself! Because you know very well that I am sick and something gives me the fucking feeling that I am just a convenient way for you to kill you without you having to do anything yourself. The illness would then take over for you and you have a new excuse to flee from life, you stupid asshole!"

I saw tears on his face and a whimper in his voice that froze me. No, no, no, this was going in the wrong direction. He should help me and not make me feel any worse.

"Daniel, you mean so much to me, but you behave obnoxiously and if you go on like this you will lose everything and everyone that is important to you." He said firmly and my heart contracted so tightly for a moment, that I couldn't help but let go.

I got up quickly and looked down at Tyler, breathing heavily.

"I trusted you, once gave you control, do you remember? Look where I am now. Where we are. Fuck you! I'll be fine without you. Without all of you! Why do I need people who just keep making me feel like shit!"

"Daniel, wait-" he probably suspected that he had now brought me to a point where I would no longer compromise.

"If you don't want to, just die alone!" I added furiously and regretted having said that a second later. But I wouldn't apologize. "I'm leaving." I announced, walking quickly out of the park when Tyler struggled to his feet.

My gait accelerated until I ran, though I didn't know if he was following me, but I wanted to be on the safe side.

I ran and ran until I remembered where I would get my distraction. My distraction from what I would do to Phil.

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i hope we didn't forgot, tyler exists. our most hate/loved baby.
spoiler, it probably will just go worse. haha. sorry.
stay safe. stay sober.