october 3rd
A U T U M N
THE CITY OF DALLAS WAS PERFECTLY COVERED IN WHITE CARPETS. Roofs of houses, entire streets and even my neighbor's dogs were wrapped in snow which made everything look like a present – no one remembered what those things looked like without a layer. Snowflakes whirled their way down the sky, landing on various types of things. Needless to say, it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Withal, the citizens of Dallas adored Christmas – who doesn't? – and couldn't wait to decorate everything. At night, the whole city was lit by red and green Christmas lights and there was a huge pine tree in the middle of the center.
I stared out of the window, observing people who passed my apartment. Two men were holding hands as they walked closely to each other to preserve warmth during the cold winter times. I smiled at the happy couple and noticed a lonely man behind them who clearly was jealous of the two. That was me. That man was me, how relatable. It reminded me of the dream I had last night, although that was the last thing I wanted to think about. In my dream, Xavier visited my apartment and he was coated in a thick layer of the white goodness, so I helped him warm up by giving him new clothes and a blanket. When he was all good, we decorated my apartment as Last Christmas played in the background. We danced, drank wine, decorated some more, cuddled and so on.
I hadn't seen Xavier since the first of November and it was quite devastating. When I was by myself, he would be in my mind in synch with a biting feeling of utter guilt. It was unlike me to leave him in that fucking hospital while he was ill and needed a lot of support to keep going. Instead of being something like a good friend, I listened to his stupid words and traveled back to the States. Then there also was the coming book of his in which he told the reader about how he felt about me all that time – and there was nothing I could do.
Because if I'd return like autumn, he'd fall every time.
X A V I E R
I walked through the lonely corridors of the oncology department, actually, I strolled. That bloody room of mine killed all my well-functioning blood cells – not literally, though, but the feeling was comparable. Then every morning of December the nurses would awake their victims with a live-sung Christmas song, usually Last Christmas, because that's the only Christmas song I liked. Candice, my nurse, told me I once sung it during my sleep. I wanted to hang myself.
Suddenly, a door flew open right in my face and hit my nose, causing me to cuss quietly.
"'Scuse me, mate," someone said.
"No need to worry, I wanted a nose surgery anyway," I mumbled.
They laughed and appeared in my view. It was a man of my age with a lighter skin than mine and a nice smile. He wasn't bald yet, the chap possessed a head full of blonde hairs neatly combed to the back. His dark eyebrows gave him this womanizer look, weirdly intimidating which girls seemed to prefer over a softer look.
"You wouldn't need one, Montgomery. Girls admire your nose," he said.
"Oh, stop it."
We both laughed and I looked at my watch.
"So what would a lonely man be doing at four in the morning?"
"Could ask you the same," he said.
The man was quite clever and delivered an excellent first impression. He was someone who had the capacity of understanding my jokes, possibly even coming up with similar ones. The last time I felt a click the second I met someone was back in secondary school when I was an innocent boy. Those were the fucking days.
"Usually masturbate, because nurses are coming in all day plus people visiting me."
"You're relatable, my man," he laughed.
"I'm Xavier."
"I know you are. I've heard things about you, even around here. You're really the nurses' favourite, perhaps that gives you a bigger chance of survival," he said, "I'm Beau, nice to meet you, fella."
It always was a pleasure to hear about people adoring me, but it was something I had gotten used to. The bits of compliments added to my ego, but ninety percent was waved away – went in one ear and left the other in a couple of seconds.
"I have some cold beers in my room, Beau. Would you like to share one with me?"
"You're insane. Cheers."
We quietly walked back to my room where we enjoyed our beers and talked about all kinds of stuff. He asked when I was diagnosed and I told him the story about my past leukemia story. Never knew that, he said. Because I don't say everything, I answered. Beau knew me, because his ex-girlfriend was a fan of me. She had read my book and forced her boyfriend to do the same.
Beau scratched his head and accidentally pulled out some blonde hairs. He stared at it for quite some time and I let him be, because it was something he needed to get used to. I didn't want to tell him that he soon needed to get his head shaved, just like me.
"I'll look like a bloody elephant soon," he said, "without hair, my ears will look gigantic. Almost as gigantic as my penis."
I drank from my bottle of beer and sighed.
"I don't pull it off either, mate. I look and feel so naked all the fucking time, it's driving me mad. Chemotherapy is killing me."
"How's yours going?"
"Honestly, my parents are the reason I'm having chemotherapy now. If it were to me, I would've just slowly let myself die – that's what my body wants anyway."
"What about the people you care about?"
I didn't answer.
"What about Autumn Morris?" he asked.
"What?" My eyes widened instantly and my hands started shaking. Every time someone brought up her name, I felt so different – so fragile and small like a little boy in a crowd of adult men during a football game. I had been trying to forget about her in this hospital, but she was haunting me and I had to express my feelings in some way. That's why I came up with the idea of publishing a new book basically about her, I knew for sure that she'd read it and in that way I'd feel her again. Her never-ending worrying about everything, foolish sense of humour and above all how incredibly stunning she was as a person. Not only was her appearance breathtaking without trying, she also always succeeded in making my knees feel a bit weak whenever she was around. I hated how she made me desperate to want her, all of her.
Get over it, Xav, I thought to myself. Don't be such an immature fucking pussy.
"She's your- oh," Beau bit his lip, "she dumped you, didn't she?"
"No, she didn't."
"You dumped her?"
"No."
"You cheated on her?"
"No, you idiot. Low expectations you have. No one dumped anyone, because we weren't in an actual relationship."
"But you want to be in an actual relationship."
"The fuck are you, Beau, clairvoyant?"
"I don't have to be psychic to see that you're tearing up, mate. I have no clue what is going on between the two of you, but ring her already."
"Shut the fuck up, I'm not crying." I jumped off the bed and walked to the mirror in my little bathroom. My eyes were indeed red and there was a tear preparing to roll down my cheeks. I quickly rubbed my eyes and wanted to leave the mirror as fast as possible, because I couldn't stand looking at myself. That bald head of mine made me sick.
"Hi, hello miss Morris. I'm sorry for disturbing you, but I'm here with a sad man who really misses-"
"Beau!" I yelled as I ran out of the bathroom and jumped onto the bed. He had my phone is his hand, held it close to his ear and grinned widely. "You fucking asshole!"
"Oh, he wants to talk to you I think," he handed me my phone and I cussed quietly. When I realized there was no one on the other side of the line and that my phone wasn't even turned on, I punched Beau in the chest. He laughed his ass off and protected his chest before I could punch him again.
"Get the fuck out of my room, immature wanker."