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Here he is, waking up, the bed beside him cold and bare; the sheets are barely dusted with wrinkles, pillow still fluffed, a slight dip in the mattress from the memory of a once-dreamer. He can’t bring himself to smooth the covers, shift the pillow, or dust the blanket - not yet - so he rolls himself out of bed instead, running fingers through his blond mop, searching for footing on the threadbare carpet, stumbling slightly without the sturdy grip he’s used to, guiding his half-asleep hands to the glasses on his nightstand, to his morning caffeine on his desk. The melting traces of a touch leave his skin cold as he grips his empty mug, accidentally clinking it into the half-full one by its side. The coffee, now colder than ice, sloshes gently, the smudged stain on the ceramic fading slightly. He can’t bring himself to empty it. To wipe the lipstick away. Not yet. He pads to the kitchen instead.
There’s an unsure, but familiar, spring in his step: it has the rhythm of a waltz, the fluidity of a ballet. It’s reluctant, and for a minute he has half a mind to turn back to the bedroom, to let himself sink into the warm comfort of his duvet. He hesitates for the fraction of a second, aching to fall back into last night’s dream, to prolong it, just a little longer. His head is swimming, scattered with visions of pale cheeks, still flushed and rosy, of a smile, full, of locks of dark hair, falling in waves, not matted to cold, cold, cold skin. He wants to reach out and push them back. He wants to feel what he can’t touch, have what he can’t feel. He wants to keep dreaming.
If he can dream long enough, then maybe - just maybe - he’ll be alright.
But he can’t. No dream lasts forever, and no forever is long enough to redraw what’s gone, erased.
So he drowns it out, like he always does, the firm beat of his steps evening out, moving faster, and he all but dances his way through the kitchen, ghost hands placed at his waist, wrapped around his neck, tangled in his hair, ghost lips smiling into his, ghost laughter but an echo in the empty room, from sunny mornings long dulled and romantic breakfasts forgotten. Desperation is his orchestra, the symphony behind the hands clawing at the cabinet, the opera chorusing a sigh of relief as the doors creak open and deliver the already half-emptied bottle into his waiting grasp, and he chases his feelings down with the shot of truth.
And he gets up, unsteadier than before, even, falling into his well-known rhythm, going up, up, up upstairs. But it takes two to tango, and all he has left for a partner is a shadow, a memory. A ghost.
It’s okay. Well, it’s not - far from it - but he’s all too familiar with dancing with a ghost by now.
His hands tremble on the ladder rails. It’s a bad idea to come up here alone, knowing him, without the long, fair fingers, intertwined in his own like they should be, like he’s used to, the ones that keep him grounded. Anchored. Safe. But he has a job to do, one he’s been putting off for far too long now, and one he’s climbing up these godforsaken rungs to abandon again.
The floor is still littered with trinkets, sentiments, with fading polaroids and worn sweaters, with shiny picture frames and drying paint and it’s a jewellery box of his silver memories tarnishing in the open air, like a scabbing wound somehow still dripping blood. Every word he hasn’t said is a whisper on his tongue, but he’s breathless, and every word he hasn’t said stays unsaid again.
He’s not sure when his hands started moving, or when his brain caught up with them, but the piles on the floor are carefully stacked, not a chip in the wood or a dent in the metal of all their - his - things. There’s that pink smile in the photo by his leg, and those grey eyes in the one in his hand. He’s everywhere, bright smile, lean legs, there, there, there, he’s there, he’s here-
Except he’s not.
That’s what’s missing from the photos. The scarlet bloodstains, the hardened blue skin, the empty gaze.
That’s what’s missing here. Here, in this room, in this house, in this world, his world. That’s what’s missing. Him.
Something in the air grows cold, stinging at his cheeks, sallow, pallid, the phantom of a tan smeared across the dimming freckles dotting his nose. His hands, still shaking - when did they start? - graze fabric, so he pulls it out, and immediately, the softness of the cotton, the lettering splashed across the front, its warm scent: vanilla, rose, it’s all there, and he feels it all coming back when he thumbs over the darkened crimson streak on the sleeve.
Led Zeppelin, the shirt says, but to him, it doesn’t say anything, really, it just screams and kicks and wails and sobs and begs, it begs for someone to hear its pain.
He hears it. He hears it now. He was just a little too late.
Some time later (it might’ve been a couple minutes, or half a day; he doesn’t know and doesn’t care) he releases the shirt from where he’s buried it, tucked between his jaw and collarbone, a meager replacement for the dark-haired head that’s usually there. Well, it’s not anymore.
It’s automatic, the way he folds the shirt, like it’s weightless, worthless, like it’s nothing to him. He hesitates, then unfolds it again, the revealed titling unfittingly bold and bright in the midst of the fog settled into his head, a beacon of the past. He trails a finger along it bitterly, as though it’s the shirt to blame for all the wrongs and injustices in this world, not him.
We’re too young, too dumb, he repeats mentally, today’s mantra, though he’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. To know things like love.
He stopped believing in love weeks ago.
A twilight sky’s blooming through the kitchen window once he’s got the bottle in his grasp again, his clutch on its neck uncharacteristically stable, but his tread uneven. Today’s been too much, he decides, and he drowns out the ghosts shrieking in his ear, tugging at his arms for another game, another dance. He chases down the contents of the bottle and internally curses, feeling the bile pool in his stomach, but it all dissolves at the glimpse of the frame still splayed across the counter.
It took a bad dream, a bloody shirt, three shots of vodka, a haphazard, drunken kitchen dance, and now, a blurry, candid photo, but Jeremy finally lets his tears fall, salt painting his cheeks a portrait of hurt. Too young, he reminds himself, but the weight on his shoulders is age-old. Too dumb, he agrees, to think he’d somehow be okay. Was this okay? Was this fucking okay? No, no it wasn’t, and he’s too young, too dumb, to know things like love, because he knows love isn’t supposed to eat you from the inside out,
or laugh as it watches your heart set alight,
and love isn’t supposed to fucking kill you every single day.
You know what else kills him? That picture, that picture on the counter. A smudged pair of signatures is inked below it lazily. Jeremy Knox. Jean Moreau. An inky black heart drawn between them. The paling ink cracking it in half is fitting, he supposes, for what are hearts made for, if not to be broken?
Love, maybe. But then again, he wouldn’t know.
And he feels the ghost hands in his hair again, wiping his tears away, pressed to his lips, rubbing his back, gripping his shoulders, holding him tight, tight, just like the picture, like they won’t ever, ever let go. The real ones did. Maybe these ghost ones won’t. At the end of the day, he’s just a boy that can hope.
So he takes the ghost by the hand, and then the kitchen’s gone, and it’s a twinkling dancefloor - the sports hall, really, transformed into a ballroom - and it’s prom night again, their night, and he lets the ghost dance him through their house to heaven and hell and everything in between.
Jean, he whispers. Jean.
But Jean’s not here to catch him when his shorts snag the table and his face is pressed against cold tile and there’s something uncomfortably warm dripping down the side of his head, and all that’s left is a ghost whispering silent prayers with Jeremy’s hands still in his.
That was their last dance, his and Jean’s, their last real dance, the one in the picture, he thinks as he closes his eyes.
He guesses his feet don’t dance like they used to.