Song recomendation for the chapter: Ocean eyes - Billie Eilish.
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"Are you awake?"
Nick settled into his bed with only the light from his nightstand lamp on. He had had a long and boring day. He was very excited about his new job, but today had been all about tedious introductory meetings, orientations, and safety protocols. After a billion meetings and reconnecting with many of his childhood teachers, which was quite heartwarming, he had spent the afternoon packing... well, half of his brain had been packing, and the other half had been thinking about Charlie, about saying something to him, and about everything he had discussed with Tao and Imogen the day before.
There was nothing wrong with sending a message, right? Imogen knew what was going on... or at least what Nick was ready to admit to himself, and he couldn't stop thinking about Charlie and all the ways he needed to make amends, as Tao had told him.
But there was also, deep inside him, an anger, a strange anger that he wasn't exactly sure where it came from. Anger that he hadn't processed in so many years.
So he type.
"Something like that. I'm at Elle's house working. How about you?" Charlie didn't take long to respond, which churned his stomach and made him continue.
"Working this late? The life of an artist is so tough. I just got back from a bunch of boring meetings at Thruman. It was strange being on the other side. But I felt important."
"Well, you know, when art calls, it calls. We make ourselves sound more bohemian and interesting than we actually are. I'm working on imaginary numbers homework, and Elle is painting. I can't believe you're already one of the teachers we used to complain about in high school. Does that mean we're old now?"
Nick couldn't help but laugh. It was true that he felt strangely adult dealing with all these kids. Thinking about Charlie trying to decipher whatever imaginary numbers were was truly adorable. One of his biggest insecurities with Charlie was that he felt immensely unintelligent compared to him. Charlie was brilliant, one of a kind, and when everything ended between them, there was a time when his grades in college began to suffer. He convinced himself that he was too dumb to love someone like that as he should.
Truly dark times. Fortunately, he had left most of them behind... almost all of them.
"No doubt, it means we're getting old. Soon I'll need a cane to enter the gym class. I was afraid I wouldn't feel old enough to teach so many kids, but I saw a few today, and I can't believe how small they look. It's weird to imagine ourselves like that. What is Elle painting? I'd ask you about imaginary numbers, but I won't understand a thing."
"I know, it's been so long. But believe me, we probably looked even smaller back then. Generations nowadays are much more adult like." After that, he only received a beautiful photo of Elle painting, covered in paint with all her tools around her.
"Elle looks amazing. I need to have one of her paintings; I love them. Please tell me Tao already has this photo."
"I just sent it to him, which earned me a punch in the face. It's the best. I love them too. Too bad you're not asking me about imaginary numbers; it was my chance to seem smarter than I am."
Nick couldn't help but imagine Tao melting at the sight of Elle like that, which made him go straight to his messages with Tao and ask him how he was doing.
"How am I supposed be doing after a picture like that?"
"Charlie send it to me, you better send her a massage because is the best moment to flirt with her."
"¿Charlie? ¿Talking to him already? So why are you chatting with me giving me advice about flirting when you supposed to be flirting too!"
Tao was right, Charlies intelligence was one of the thing he always found immensely hot, not flirting with him right now would be consider a crime. He already had too composed himself a bit after think about him with his concentrated face doing his home work.
"You don't have to talk to me about math to remind me hoy beautifully inteligente you are <3"
Nick hoped that would send enough signals to him... but he already felt guilty. Charlie yet didn't know about Imogen, and the haven't even saw each other in person after all that time... but stoping himself right now felt imposible.
"Be honest with me Nicolas, there's something more that keeps you awake at this time."
Nicolas. Charlie only used his full name when there were in there most intimate moments. ¡You Charlie!. ¡You are what is keeping me awake! He wanted to shout. Nick still remembered all the night by his side. Feeling his hot and heavy breaths while thew tangled each-others body to them selfs. The endless sleepless nights, trying not to make to much noise to not wake they're parents. He remembered that little camping trip they went to, when they set their tent further away from the other to have space to scream, so they could sleep completely naked and just enjoy them selfs fully. He had never saw Charlie more confident in himself, the way he pin him under him to kiss every part of his body, only with the light of a little flash light.
Nick had fallen deeply in his memories, while he stroke under his pijama pants. He had not have this much desire in a while. Sadly the noise in his phone startled him, weirdly it was a message from Elle... but what he saw made him almost pack a bag and run to their place.
It was a photo, captioned "revenge," and in it, Charlie was seen on Elle's studio bench, surrounded by her paintings, with his legs pulled up to his chest, wearing his oversized orange sweater. He was laughing. His blue eyes seemed to shine in the night, like an endless ocean. His curls fell over his face, framing how he blushed. Nick couldn't help but zoom in on his face and stare like an idiot. All he could think about was hugging him, kissing him. Holding him and making him laugh, making him feel like the only one in the universe.
He was the most beautiful man he had ever seen... and he had lost him.
"Why is he so cute, I don't understand," he replied to Elle.
"Tell him, he'll love it."
"Well, before, other things kept me awake, but now, I can't stop thinking about this photo. Charlie, you look... so good. I don't even know what to say." He thought about many other things to say, but he knew what kind of effect he wanted to have on him.
He wasn't good at taking photos, he used to send sweet things to his mother or to Charlie before, but never... in this tone. Did he have to try to look... hot? There was no one who could take a cute photo of him like the one Elle had taken. He spent some time pacing around his room, positioning his phone in many places to see if he looked better from any angle. In the end, he decided to just lie down again and take a normal selfie, trying to flex his chest and arms a little, not too much so it wouldn't look fake, but he knew that such details would be appreciated. He took several photos, deleted many, but in the end, he took a risk with one and sent it.
He thought about everything that could go wrong and what couldn't, and to calm himself down, he had to look at Charlie's photo again. In comparison, his photo just seemed like a thirst trap, but he couldn't do anything about it, he had already seen it and he still hadn't replied.
Did this count as some kind of cheating? His head began to hurt, he hadn't even talked to Imogen that day. Luckily, his phone pulled him out of his spiral of anxiety.
"Nicolas Nelson, you can't send me photos like that without... warning."
"¿So i assumed you enjoy it? Because if you don't like it I can send you others..." Nick laugh, thinking how fun would be like to see his real reaction.
"In that cases i didn't like, not one bit, try again PLEASE" Di he wanted more? Maybe he could be more daring and take his shirt off... but no, what the hell was he thinking. No until the see each other. Not until the clear things out and be honest.
"I think not. I think you liked it and you are lying to me."
"You look... too good, profesor Nelson"
Okay, that had been too much for him. The flesh was weak, and all the memories he'd wavered on before came rushing back. The problem was that his imagination played tricks on him, and now there was a new fantasy in his repertoire. This time Charlie was not the teenager he had broken up with, but the man in the picture in front of him. His drum kit was in the background, strangely, and he still had his drumsticks in his hand, but they were in an altered version of a painting studio, covered in paint. Charlie, shirtless, was dipping a brush into a can of paint, the same deep blue as the one in his eyes, and then painting a line across his naked torso until he...
Do you want me to stop, Professor Nelson?
"CHARLIE NO!"
"What, you don't like it when I call you that...Professor?"
He actually loved it... so much so that it was already part of his fantasies.
"<3 What are we doing? <3"
"Well if I didn't know any better, I'd say people call it flirting."
"We were supposed to have our big meeting tomorrow so we could talk and resolve this mess and we're already skipping a thousand steps."
Nick immediately regretted sending that message, since it sounded like he was full of remorse, and he wasn't too busy imagining erotic scenarios with him to regret it, but somehow that was what he thought. Maybe that message was coming from the same place as that mysterious anger. That mysterious guilt he still felt.
"Sorry, you're right. We can leave it here if you want. We'll talk tomorrow."
"NO CHARLIE. That's not what I meant. I really want to talk to you. I texted you because I'm so nervous about tomorrow and I knew you were the only one who would trully understand."
That was something he had experienced for several years. Breaking up with someone and not being able to talk to the one person who knows exactly what you're going through.
"I'm glad you texted me, I've been meaning to do the same all week and hadn't had the courage. I'm really nervous too...but I have to say I'm excited for you to see me play <3"
Nick couldn't believe that after all this time Charlie was still hesitant to contact him. He understood, because of the years of silence, but even in that moment of distance and strangeness, if out of nowhere he had needed to call him or for him to be somewhere, Nick would have taken the train, the plane, the boat or tricycle, whatever it took to get to him.
I would have to tell him that at some point.
"Charlie you can text me anytime, seriously, always. I want to see you play already too! Everyone tells me how magnificent you've become, and if you were already amazing, one can only dream. Although I'm also worried..."
"I guess I hadn't texted you because it's hard for me to understand that I still have the right to do so, you know? I feel like I lost that privilege a long time ago."
There it was again, that anger and guilt. Nick knew why Charlie felt that way, and he didn't blame him...but part of him wished it had been Charlie who had reached out again. The one who had the initiative to make things right.
Even though he had been the one to run away...technically.
"I understand why you feel that way. But believe me there is no thing I would have liked more than to hear from you all this time."
At least that message didn't feel fake, nor did it feel free of all anger and guilt.
"Thank you Nick. You've always been so supportive of me and my disasters, why are you worried about watching me play then?"
"Because watching you play has always had an effect...very strong on me."
DUMB DUMB DUMB DUMB NICK, that should have been stuck in your head.
"Watch your words...Professor Nelson <3 Remember when I taught you how to play?"
Nick hesitated if at any point he had shared the anecdote that popped into his head. From the first moment he found Charlie endearing. He always noticed that strange light he seemed to emanate. But it hadn't been until once at his house that he truly felt for the first time that fleeting, electric spark that people we truly desire leave on our skin.
"Do I remember? I don't know if I ever told you, but that was one of the first times you made my heart stop. I remember we shared that little bench, and you pressed your body against mine, and you took my hands and you saw me with those eyes. .... And I don't know, from then on it was free fall, I got so nervous! At that moment I didn't even understand what I was feeling".
But I did understand the spark. That spark that never went away.
"I remember it too. You never told me before. Did I tell you the first time you made me feel that way?"
"Was it the snow day?" That had been the first time Nick had noticed Charlie seeing him with more than friendship in his eyes, but he wasn't sure.
"WHAT? No! I was already completely in love then. It was the first time I saw you. I remember going to study hall and the teacher told me I had to sit with you, that you were in the grade above me and that you played Rugby... I was so scared, but I saw you... and I think the rest of the class disappeared. I don't remember anything else about that day. Just you. It was love at first sight."
Tears came to his eyes. How could he be so immensely romantic in such natural and mundane ways? Of course it had been love at first sight, that was the most Charlie thing he had ever heard. He had forgotten that it had been months when Nick was just fooling around with his new friend while Charlie already had a crush on him.
If had he known sooner, maybe they would have had more time together.
"Aw damn Charlie now I think I want to cry."
"Me too haha."
At that moment Imogen returned to her head. Followed by the mysterious anger and guilt. He loved her, of course he loved her, she was one of his closest friends and he certainly cherished every moment they spent with each other.
But this was different...something profound. Primordial. Oceanic.
But like everything elemental, Charlie seemed to be tied to his roots, to his being. Along with that anger and guilt. Feelings that he still carried with him after so long.
Feelings that like water, and aided by the doubt Charlie felt about whether or not it was appropriate to contact him, returned to the front of his mind.
"Can we promise each other something"
"Whatever Nick."
"That tomorrow we'll be completely honest with each other."
"I promise."
Now he could no longer regret it. He would have to tell him about Imogen, and about how he felt.
But...how the hell did he feel?
In an instant his memory came flooding back, and the good came back with the bad. There was that dark night again five years ago when they had ended it all. When Charlie was screaming at him with tears in his eyes and fury boiling all over his skin.
"Go away Nick. I can't take this anymore. And neither can you."
"I'm not leaving."
"Leave. I'm not asking you."
"Charlie I promised you I'd stay and I will stay. You don't scare me. This doesn't scare me... I know you've had a terrible few weeks but we have to..."
"Nick you're not listening to me. This isn't about you. This isn't about us. This is my life... and it's in pieces. I need to pick it up alone. I'm asking you to leave because... I don't need you. I don't need you to fix me or pick me up. I don't... I don't want you here. I don't... I don't love you anymore."
Nick couldn't say more. Out of anger and pride he just let the tears flow, even though Charlie had a blank stare and didn't know what he was saying.
But he listened to him. He believed him for several years.
"Me too...thanks Charlie. I needed this...I think I need to sleep...and so do you! It's a very important day tomorrow."
He tried not to let his last message be steeped by stale memories...but they had never been able to talk about all that.
"Sweet dreams Nick...but wait...you were talking to me to tell me something specific weren't you?"
"Yes, but I'd rather talk to you tomorrow."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow, professor Nelson."
How the hell do you put into words so many things? What are you feeling Nick? How can it be that in a week you're ready to throw it all away again... when he asked you to leave him alone.
Say it. What do you feel, Nick. What you want. Say it.
But he couldn't. A lump in his throat held him back. He couldn't tell the truth. Tell himself the truth. Even if he knew it.
He couldn't until he had no doubt that he would never do what he did to him again.
But he could, at least, make him feel the way he deserved.
"I hate you... See you tomorrow Char <3"
He fell asleep like that, amidst doubts and fears.