Part One (of Three): The Heart // Dan's Beginning~
MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING: THIS CHAPTER HAS CUTTING AND SUICIDE REFERENCES AND DEPRESSION.
I had always been prone to falling in love easily.
When I was seven, I fell in love with bicycling. I had begged my parents for a bike for my birthday, and happily, when June had rolled around, my parents granted my wish. That summer I'd spent the whole time with scraped knees and elbows, and a toothless grin from baby teeth that had sprung free prematurely. I'd been tired and sweaty, the bike helmet itchy on my head in the deep heat, but I'd still pushed my new bike up the hill, only to be swept away with the wind when I'd rode down.
When I was ten, I fell in love with drawing. My eyes had lit up as my parents and I had been shopping, as we had passed the art supplies section. Again, I'd thrown myself into the joy head first, drawing everything I'd seen, the colors vibrant and mismatched, the lines messy. Gradually though, I'd became more careful, more diligent about practice and line precision, until I'd been the best in my class.
When I was thirteen, I fell in love with a boy. I hadn't known his name, only that he'd been very pretty, the kind of pretty that hurt your eyes and made you squint. I'd told him as much, my face blank almost like even when I'd been saying it, it still baffled me. The boy's mouth had turned up before he'd said, "Probably not very pretty on the inside though," and then had laughed.
It wasn't until I was fifteen that I'd realize the boy might not have been joking, and that maybe loving things too much, wasn't always good.
I was a boy of humble beginnings and messy endings, which is why loving things usually ended with me getting hurt.
***
The breeze was nice, a filter of air cutting through the stifling room, allowing the students to breathe for a moment. It was the last day of eighth grade, summer lurking outside the unlit room, while the projector flashed images from some PG movie no one was interested in.
Aaron and I sat in the back, tucked away from everyone else, as we reviewed plans for my fourteenth birthday party— me doodling on Aaron's arm with a sharpie.
"It's not fair that you're older than me, when you're the one who's way more immature!" I whispered.
"I don't make the rules," Aaron whispered back, head on his folded arms as half smiled. I laughed, only to laugh harder when Aaron shushed me.
"We're going to get in trouble," Aaron said, shoving out a hand to cover my mouth, before I battled it away.
"So?" I whispered, continuing to doodle on Aaron's arm, drawing small dragons and birds. "What are they going to do— suspend us? Expel us?"
I looked up and smiled at Aaron, as he smiled back just as fondly— even if I could tell it was still a little flat.
Something had been off with Aaron lately, something I couldn't place. Although in retrospect, I had always noticed something was off with Aaron, even since the day I'd spotted him across the playground. Every lunch he took oval-shaped white pills, never offering an answer for why, though I never really asked.
I hadn't seen him take them this week.
I'd wanted to ask, but didn't want to pry.
Talking with Aaron was a slippery slope; sometimes when conversations were left open ended, no resolve, where Aaron wouldn't talk to me for days on end, and then pick everything back up like it was nothing— I was tempted to pry.
"Don't be a brat, brat." Aaron said ruffling my hair. But in moments like this, where Aaron was sweet and content, I became unsure again. It was that dangerous middle ground— never doing anything but always worrying about everything.
"I'm not a brat," I whined.
"Sure you aren't," Aaron said smiling wider, and my heart unfurled a little.
The bell rang, releasing us from the siffling room, and the cramped classroom, and I felt as though the entire room left out a collective sigh when it sounded.
"Thank god I never have to see another school for like three months," I said pushing back in my chair.
Aaron did the same, with an odd expression on his face. "Yeah, same."
"You alright?" I asked gently as we walked out of the room. It was my way of saying please talk to me without actually having to say it.
Aaron nodded. "Yeah, I'm just tired."
I frowned.
***
Later, Aaron called me. It was one of our many traditions. He'd call me unprompted late at night to ask me stupid things, or ramble about things he was thinking about. I really— even if I never said— loved them.
"Hello?"
"If you had to lose one of your senses, which would it be?"
The abrupt question wasn't unexpected, and I took it in stride. "Hmm, well definitely not sight, I would never be able to paint again."
"Or see my charming good looks."
I snorted. "Or that. Umm... probably speech. I know that's not technically a sense, but that's the one I'd lose. Just because it's probably the only one I could lose but still, ya know, function."
"Hmm."
"What about you?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, what sense would you lose?"
Aaron was quiet. "Probably, touch. Just because then... I wouldn't, ya know, get hurt. Or like, feel pain."
"That's awfully morbid."
"Is it?" Aaron asked faintly.
"Just a little." I tried to change the subject. "Do want to go out tomorrow?"
"Sure, but then can we go back to your place, mine is..."
It wasn't that Aaron's parents hated me, but it was close. The first time I'd visited, his mother had sent me right back out the door, saying we don't allow any fags here, except for the ones we smoke. "Sure, see ya tomorrow."
"Alright, love you."
I was surprised Aaron said it first. Usually I had to pull it out of him by being really cute. "Love you, too." I said, before hanging up.
***
I was always nervous— kind, but hesitant when being faced with the start of things. Even though I was welcoming and accepting, I always held my vulnerability and chance of getting hurt close to my heart. Because of that night.
Maybe I thought that if I didn't talk about the things I loved, maybe no one would get hurt. Maybe I wouldn't get hurt. Maybe I could be stronger.
***
It was hot, and I was annoyed. Aaron, unlike me, had the uncanny ability to wear god knows how many layers and not sweat a thing. But with me in my brown shorts and white tank-tops, I was sweating like it was raining outside— drenched.
"Tell me seriously: are you a vampire?"
Aaron laughed, his ice cream cone dripping down his hand as we walked. "No, I mean—" He lean in close to nip at my neck, before whispering, "Or maybe you should find out."
Luckily it was hot, so the blush the raced across my face could be excused away as my hand clamped over the place Aaron had bite. I felt like a tomato on shoulders, but with Aaron smiling next to me I also felt like the luckiest boy in the world.
Being with Aaron was equal parts difficult and easy. There was the lack of communication, and the unspoken rules of which question I could ask and which I couldn't. But it wasn't all bad.
He was very kind. He would always make sure I was okay, ask me how I was doing, and if I'd eaten properly that day. He never pressured me to do or say anything— the farthest we'd gone sexually was making out in the backyard of his house, when he'd gotten leaves in his hair and I'd nearly made a mess in my pants.
He was sweet. Like the ice cream we were eating that day.
But sometimes your sweet tooth falls out, and new ones grow in.
***
"I'll call you tomorrow," he'd said.
"You promise? We still haven't finished my birthday plans."
"Of course, I won't forget," he'd said. "I can never forget you."
***
There was one time, while we were dating, that I was truly scared for Aaron.
It was right after winter break, about four months after I'd met him. I was feeling terrible, the downward spiral of depression, tight on my chest. Not many knew I had depression, even if I was a mild case. It didn't show many signs, plus I always wore a smile to deter someone from asking me that never ending trident of are you okay?
I didn't tell Aaron, but I thought maybe he knew anyways. I would get numb, emotionally, sometimes— it came in swings, and when they came they hit hard.
During that winter, my grandmother had just died. She was the only one I felt comfortable with in my family, the only one who I knew wasn't judging me each letter grade, each friend I made, each kiss I left on Aaron's cheek.
I was standing in the bathroom that day, razor in hand, eyes drifting in space, when I felt someone grab my arm.
"What are you doing?"
I looked at Aaron with dead eyes, fingers wrapped loosely around the razor in my right hand, his fingers wrapped tightly around my left arm.
"Nothing."
Aaron yanked the razor out of my hand and started pulling up my sleeves. "No, not nothing. What the fuck, Dan?"
He was yelling but I was too out of it to care. I only really had two mode, the switch between not that far apart. Sometimes I was too apathetic that I basically shut down, or I was an emotional mess that just wanted to—
"What are you doing here, Aaron?" I asked as he finished checking my wristed, pushing back down the sleeves when he found no damage done.
"I want you to promise me something," he said, fingers coming up to my jaw, turning my head so our gazes met. "I want you to promise you're never going to do something like this. Ever."
I looked at him, my eyes practically glazed over. "Okay." I said in a small voice, the switch nearing closer. "I'm sorry."
I burst into tears, as Aaron held me close, cradling me into his shoulder. "Please don't cry, you'll be okay." He paused before he breathed, "I know how depression feels."
***
"Leave a message after the— beep!"
"Hey Aaron it's me. You said you were going to come over. Did something happen? Just wondering what's up... Love you, bye."
***
Memory is a funny thing.
Sometimes we remember things exactly as they happen, frame for frame, undoubtable truth in every crevice of the thoughts. But sometimes our mind fills in the blanks we don't want to be responsible for, altering rememberings so we don't have to face the horrible or confusing truths.
What happened that night in the bathroom... I could never be sure.
Even if Aaron had been dead when I arrived, and the scars that remained on my flesh were— in reality— self inflicted, the mind is a twisted place. The "real" memory may have been finding Aaron dead, and me slitting my own wrists, my own thighs, as I'd laid next to him in that cold water, blood running out as I'd whispered into his loose shoulder don't fucking leave me.
Or maybe it really was that Aaron held me down, not wanting to live in that world but not wanting to leave me behind either, and he'd held me down as he'd cut up the two of us, trying to form a blood bond, a lovers charm.
Which one was a slip of memory? Which one had I seen in a picture, and which one had I lived through?
I think maybe one day I'll be able to sort that out. Or not. Maybe my brain was protecting me by adding some easy explanation— because wasn't it always easier to assume the worst in someone, rather than having questions left unanswered?
That night, when I went home I wrote both memories down, before discarding the kinder one.
Even if that was the truth, I don't think I could ever believe it. He was a wonderful person as I knew him but all I was left with now was a monster.
Silver, red, and rushing water in my ears.
Like passing the torch, Aaron had passed his mental instability from him to me. What had once plagued Aaron's head— images of people hurting him, and in turn causing him to hurt himself and me— now plagued my mind, only in a different light. Now I could no longer remember the smiling boy from class, with beauty that hurt your eyes. Now I could only remembered silver and red and running water, and someone who was dead because I loved them too much. Now I only remembered someone who abused me, someone I didn't love, someone I couldn't love, because that wasn't Aaron. That was a monster. He was a monster to me now.
I tried to not remember him that way, to not have his memory be tainted, but how great of a deed needed to be done to erase this pain, to this erase abuse— figment or not— to erase this hurt and betrayal? The answer was there isn't a deed great enough to do that. So even if I had good memories before, even if maybe he wasn't like that always, even if maybe the memory was false— that monster he became, that's all he was now. If I couldn't even again tell anyone how great he was, if I could never forgive him, I couldn't tell anyone how terrible he was either.
It was my burden to bare— my fault.
Silver, red, and rushing water in my ears.
Weeks later, after I'd officially stopped speaking, when I was walking in the dim night, I remembered another phone conversation Aaron and I'd once had.
It'd been late when he'd called. He'd awoken me from a deep sleep, from a dream about a seal and a missing treasure.
"Hello?"
"What's your favorite thing in the entire world?"
"Aaron, what the fuck? It's like four in the morning couldn't this wait unti—"
"What's your favorite thing in the entire world?" He repeated.
I yawned, not interested in his ramblings right now. It was early. "You."
He laughed. "No I'm serious, besides me. What's your favorite thing?"
I thought about it seriously. "Probably the sky."
"Why? Tell me about it."
"Well," I said sitting up in bed, the air making my naked shoulders shiver. "Probably because it's so open, and freeing. Like when you look up at it, and all you can see is blue. I like that."
"Unless there are clouds out. Those grey ones make everything depressing."
"Leave it to you to be the cynic," I laughed but Aaron didn't join in. I sighed. "But the clouds just make the sky all that much better, because then it's all blackblackblack and ohmygodblue."
That made Aaron laugh. "You're such a dork. You're clearly are the artist in this relationship." He paused. "Dan?"
"Yes?"
"If for some reason, our relationship doesn't make it— for whatever reason— please remember the good things about me. or try at least."
It was my turn to pause. "Want me to remember you when I look at the sky?"
Aaron was quiet when he responded next. "No, that's too precious a thing for someone like me. I like the water. Remember me by that instead."
"Okay, but then who should I remember for the sky?"
"I don't know, maybe yourself? Or save that for someone else. Yeah, someone else so then one day you'll find the person who makes you feel like your sky."
He'd hung up after that, and I'd been left, again, confused.
It didn't matter what other people thought of Aaron, if people liked him or didn't, they had other reasons that weren't mine. I'd always have his ghost, that slept in my bed and whispered horrible things at me, but that was me, and other people were themselves.
Although... that phone conversation...
Now as I walked outside, one of my many habits since aaron had left, I thought of it, and it made a bit more sense. A lot of him made a bit more sense; his questions, his silence, his urging for me to stay away from him.
I thought about his request to save the sky for someone else. I looked up at it now, as the colors faded from lights to darks, as the scale of different shades petered out into one overruling black night— so pretty.
I wondered if I'd ever find someone worthy of the sky.
Someone who'd remind me of that blackblackblack and ohmygodblue.
AN:
Hope you all enjoyed the first part of the prequel.
there will be two more parts, and then the prequel i will release at some point too lol
Alright hugs kisses and all that jazz!
-Xxx