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“…Tom doesn’t want to talk to you guys anymore…”
“…we will be together forever, right, Mark?”
“…he’s changed his phone number…”
“…you will never leave me, we’ll be together forever, will we?”
“…indefinite hiatus…”
“…promise me, Mark, promise me you will never leave me…”
“Tom. Is. Out.”
“I promise.”
Mark was sitting in a chair in his slowly darkening room, an almost empty glass of rum and coke in his hand. He was staring into space with dead eyes. The light had left them weeks ago, disappeared into a void to never return. His chest was aching painfully as the words flitted through his brain, echoing over and over again like a broken record. He could faintly hear muted sounds coming from behind the door, downstairs, the sounds of his family he should be taking care of. A family he should be dedicating himself for. Instead he was sitting here alone for hours on end, not bothering to get up or even turn on the lights, only moving to fill his drink and lift the glass deftly to his lips to take a sip of the sweet liquid.
He had never asked Tom that same question. He had never thought it was necessary. The expression on Tom’s face when Mark had given his promise had been all he had needed, it had been enough to convince Mark his best friend would stick by his side just as he would, for forever. Oh how wrong had he been. Tom was gone now, and from the looks of it, he would stay that way too. He had left and taken everything with him. Mark felt like his soul had been ripped out, leaving nothing but an empty, hurting shell behind. Tom hadn’t just broken his heart, he had carved it out with a rusty knife and cut it into a million pieces, burning the remains and then left them crumble and rot.
Mark took another sip of his drink, his blue eyes still glazed over and unfocused. He had nothing left now. Sure he had his family, but that wasn’t enough. Tom had been everything to him. His best friend, soulmate, lover… his one true love. No one could ever compare, to come even close to what Tom meant to him. And now he was gone, taking with him their whole world and tearing it into pieces, destroying every single thing they had had for so long like it was nothing.
Why he had believed the utter love and adoration in the eyes of a seventeen year old boy even after twelve years was beyond him. Tom had changed, he had changed, their relationship had changed. But Mark had never believed it would lead to this, he would have never chosen to walk away. He had made his promise. And now, he realized, he should have made Tom promise as well. Even when he had been nothing but a fool in love, he should have thought of it, should have made Tom utter the words too. It was too late now. His world had been shattered and burned down, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Mark had tried calling, not believing the words he had read on those emails, only to find they were true. Tom had changed his number, his gear had disappeared from the rehearsal room they had been renting, and nothing had been left behind to even indicate the guitarist had ever even been there in the first place. Nothing but the throbbing pain inside Mark’s chest, the shivers that ran over his spine, the sudden stabs of torturous, icy agony that pulsed through his whole body.
Mark wasn’t sure how long it had been. It felt like he hadn’t moved from his chair in days, waiting for Tom to walk through the door and force him to show his face to the sun. Waiting for Tom to shake him and wake him up from this nightmare, to give him that cute little shy smile of his and kiss his forehead reassuringly. But that never happened. The door stayed shut. He didn’t wake up. Day after day, the pain continued to eat away on him, slowly widening the black hole in the spot his heart used to be in. Every day his eyes grew more and more dead, his spirit shrinking away and fading away, leaving nothing but an image of the man that had once been full of life.
Tom had left him behind, discarded him, without even giving him the courtesy of doing it face to face. That little their relationship, their band, their whole world had meant to him. Tom hadn’t cared enough to tell him in person, or even call. The email had been from his manager, not from himself. Tom had ended it all by simply telling his manager to send out a half-assed email about how they will never see the guitarist again.
Mark thought about the last time he had seen Tom, the angry sex inside the rehearsal room they had both arrived way too early in. The argument before it, the harsh words after it. It hadn’t been filled with love and adoration like it used to be; all it had been was anger and hurt, hatred and pain. It had been rough and punishing, but it had been something they both needed. Only now did Mark realize it had been a goodbye, the last time for them both to savor. Rough and broken, but so full of emotions and meaning, unspoken words Mark hadn’t understood before it was all taken away from him.
A lonely tear fell out of Mark’s eye and made its way down along his cheek, leaving a wet trail after it, just to be brushed off with a shaking hand and to be followed by many others.
“Good, because I never, ever want to lose you.”