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"i miss you," he murmurs over the call. honey and sun, ivy curls around your wrists, clovers sneak behind your ears. your silence is deafening. you twirl it between deft fingers, toy with it, carelessly. as if it doesn't mean the world.
you do not bring yourself to respond. you can't. your brain whirls in circles on autopilot, neon primaries bleeding into each other. your fingers twitch over the mouse, and you let out a nervous breath.
you're a mess.
he leaves the call.
you linger, eyes blurring over the end button. is that- 10 hours? you've lost track of time. of course you have, stupid, stupid. stupid. you two, you two and- you're notorious for those calls. for being together. together together together, like you always are. it is no one's fault but your own.
you linger, overwhelmed with it all, with him, and you can almost see the red bleeding into your skin. bright, too bright. you can't. you force your breathing to steady, because there is nothing wrong.
you linger, in an empty call, and breathe rose into the silence.
to miss, implies having had.
can you miss him if you've never seen his face? never touched him, held hands, shared breath, existed in the same space?
maybe it's not the physical. you've held his words, kissed them with your own. your friendship is such a fundamental part of yourself that your own you wouldn't exist without it. but if you haven't lost it, can you miss it?
can you miss him? do you?
you're hurting him. it hurts you too. you need an answer, you know you do, but instead you're already turning to your bed. instead you're buried in blankets, letting yourself suffocate, letting yourself forget. letting honey pool in your ears, and moss crawl over your shoulders, and ivy settle in your lungs.
you are stagnant, sleeping.
the world, however, keeps moving.
feigned indifference is your shield. you laugh, you bury, the world thinks you don't care. (does he think you don't care?)
and he pays back your indifference in unending "i love you"s that scald, scar, burn and drown. you laugh, you bury. you don't talk about it.
you hope he knows. you think he does. unspoken words between the two of you, that you sing through long calls and small gifts and dreaming about what could be if there wasn't an ocean and pandemic between you two. it's not an answer, but it's a start. you think it's enough, you hope it really is. you pray, because it feels like all you can do.
and you ask yourself often, which one does he know? and you ask yourself, is there even a difference?
in one hand, there's red, and in the other, a different shade. they mean the same thing, really—that one word you can hardly bring yourself to think, much less say. it doesn't make the red any less blinding in your eyes.
when you open your heart again, and the words still wilt in your throat, you laugh it off. it's just who you are,
or so you tell yourself.
maybe, in truth, you are afraid.
whatever it is, you keep waiting for an answer.
the two of you speak no less often, always hopping in and out of calls, always talking. sometimes basking in the warm silence of a best friend, sometimes cackling as you spam each other with twitter memes.
"i love you george," says the honey and the sun, but a little more solid, a little less warm. the ivy tightens, clovers fill your ears, your lungs bloom with all the wrong colors. your brain bleeds out red, yet your words bleed without any color at all.
you ache to say the same, but it wilts,
again. and again.
you sleep a lot more these days,
and the world moves on.
once, you two called each other's names like breathing, and now he passes you by. you call to him wordlessly, as you've always done, and he hesitates to call back.
maybe you matter less to him. it hurts. he hurts.
he hurts, and you're there. he stresses and sobs, and you're there. you tell him that "i'm here, you know? if you... need anything." it's hard to say, because you've never been good at comforting, but for him: the world. anything.
"thanks," he says, but you never speak of it again. he never reaches out.
you can tell when he's upset- when he leaves too quickly, or when his voice is blue and hollow and all too quiet. your fingers fly over your keyboard, always ready to invite him into a call, to talk, to tell him how he's... loved. not quite what you want to say, but close enough, comforting enough. you've worked so hard to get to the point where you can even say this much. and yet your messages are dismissed, left on read, left unsent.
you still can't say it, but you hope he knows.
it's all you do: you keep praying.
"i love you, george," was once so vulnerable. it was gooey, and sunshine, and golden and raw. it was indescribable, it was joy.
in your little bubble of existence, confined to you and your computer and your desk and your bed and him (his golden green that invaded every part of you), it was forever. he was your world.
but you stagnate. moss covers your still body, mushrooms feed off your rot, ivy curls in your stomach, your lungs. insects bathe in leftover honey and eat it until it is gone, hollow. the red's burst from your body and you're limp, deflated in the pool of color. the world moves on.
and he will never love you that way again.