Archive of Our Own

[..] So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints —
all that glorious, temporary stuff.

 

- Mary Oliver, On Meditating, Sort Of

***

There’s a clock on the wall.

He doesn’t remember it from when he first moved in the loft; and it rings strange, considering how glaring its position is, with sunshine hitting it just right, enlightening its numbers like a spotlight.

8:55.

It’s one of those wooden ones, kind of old looking, its presence strikingly out of place among the pristine white wall of the bedroom. The ones where the intervals, those numbers between every five minutes, aren’t marked, so when someone asks the time, you just find yourself saying “almost nine” or “ten minutes past seven”. But it’s not, is it?

It’s 8:56. It’s 7:12.

Maybe that’s where lost moments go. In the minutes in between. The ones we tend to gloss over, in a distracted hurry to get to the next one. Maybe those moments remain untouched, the time where they exist unspoken, unreachable, preserved.

He’s staring hard at it. At those hands that just won’t pause: their clicking unrepenting, unforgiving. He has to physically fight the urge to dismantle it to its essentials, taking out the batteries and rejoice in the silence that would follow.
But he knows, deep down, that it wouldn’t change a thing.
Because time’s existence, like many things, is not affected by our recognition of it. It hammers whether we decide to acknowledge it or not, its steps loud and blaring, uncaring of how hard we plug our ears. It marches on, and you’re made to go with it; sometimes on foot, sometimes dragging what just feels like your bones, the rest of you stuck somewhere far behind.

Maybe that’s where he’ll be, for what’s left of it, his life.
Stuck.
His feet surrounded by quicksand, his descend slow but merciless, some part of his soul forced to carry on. Forever split in two.

He can’t imagine anything different. Can’t phantom a future in which any acceptance of this, this loss, wouldn’t feel like some sort of dissolution.
Can’t contemplate a tomorrow in which he’s left without her, and she – most of all – without him. Some part must stay behind.
Perhaps in an interval minute, an unspoken time, a protected second. Because if she’s there, then he’s willing to do so as well. He’ll drag the whole world back if he has to, clawing for some of it to wait, to break, to slow down.
He’s not ready. He’s not ready.


“Who’s going to look after Buttercup?” The question tumbles out of his mouth before he’s actually done thinking it. Too fast, probably, considering how deep the furrow between Carlos’ eyebrows is right now. He’s paused with a couple of t-shirts mid-air, in the process of laying them in the open bag on top of the bed.
His eyes are on him, and the hopeless look of worry hasn’t left them since yesterday evening, when the smile dropped off his face with a finality that made his ribs freeze halfway to a breath, his hand calcified holding his phone against his ear.
He doesn’t think he exhaled since then. Consciously he knows he must’ve. But his chest feels tight, like a coiled fist, and the burning that accompanies lack of oxygen sits like a constant ache at the base of his throat.

“What?” He’s by his side in the half a second it takes for TK to realize he spoke at all. He has to strain a bit to hear him, his voice so careful, like he’s scared to disrupt the quiet. In stark contrast are the fingers that land on the back of his neck.
TK takes a moment to relish in the grounding touch, simultaneously surprised to realize his presence is solid under them, that he has not yet floated away.

“Buttercup.” He repeats, and he’s got to clear his throat to make it come out right, this time. “Who’s going to stay with him?”

The same fingers move to brush against his hairline, and this time the contact is too delicate, the fog that seems to have fallen between him and the rest of the world too thick for him to feel it.

“I-“ they twitch, by his jaw now, a nail catching against his skin in what he knows is an accidental barely-there graze, but it’s enough for his awareness of them to come back into focus. “You don’t need to worry about that. Mateo’s got it covered.”

He's nodding, probably too many times in a row. “That’s good.”
His attention goes back to the clock without his own volition, like everything seems to be now.
He goes where he does not wish to, all illusion of control escaping from his grasp like too fine sand. Look this way. Hold your breath. Feel this, and this, and this. And now feel nothing at all.

He wonders if that’s what loss must be. An invisible hand, ripping away your reality uncaring if you’re left on unstable ground. Pulling you in infinite directions, scraping you raw and empty, and taking away any choice to decide what goes in its place.
You’re left reinvented, and so, so, achingly unprepared.

It’s 9:20.

He lost time.

Carlos is still in his peripheral, crouching somewhere in front of him, no doubt having grown tired of standing trying to catch his attention while he went miles away, drifting somewhere above the room that welcomed so much of their happiness. He hates how badly he longs to be rescued from it.

But it’s not the house. It’s not the world, either. It’s him. It’s grief.
He scrambles to grip it, shove it away, desperate to breach the surface and gasp some air in. But it’s not in front of his hands: it’s what’s making them shake. It persists in his vision, unchanged by what his eyes jump to land on: it sits behind his eyelids, impossible to uproot.
It’s in him, and it keeps bleeding and spilling and engulfing all matter, and he’s scared that there’ll be nothing left once it’s done.

Carlos’ fingertips have taken rest at his hip, under the hem of his shirt, the rhythmic stroking of his thumb a warm balm across his skin.
He’s not speaking, he’s not sure he ever did, once he realized that his body was all that was sitting at the edge of the chair.
Where he finds him, when the next blink he takes is a little clearer and not like he’s underwater, movements lacking momentum, lethargic and slurry, is squatting in front of him.
The openness of his expression is almost too much to be faced with, so he doesn’t. His eyes stop somewhere at the corner of his mouth, where the laugh lines that are usually so deep, now sit like umbras, reverberations of a time when joy came without demands.

“Hey.” It’s but a whisper, really. Testing the waters, gauging where he is, if he found him yet. TK lifts his shoulder in an attempt at a shrug, because it’s easier than to say I’m sorry and I’m not sure the air around me tastes the same. “I need you to listen to me. Don’t need to watch me, just hear me. You think you can do that?”

And it’s not derisive, the way he says it.
He says it like TK could tell him no, and he wouldn’t scoff or laugh, but he would understand. How the act of engaging with his surroundings would feel too much like giving in.
He manages a nod, and he thinks it’s all for him, no actual will behind it. He doesn’t think he has it in him to deny Carlos anything, and he thinks that works, for now. His visceral need to make him happy, to uncurl the now so tight set of his spine, will carry him wherever he needs to go.
He’ll try, for him. He hopes the rest will follow.

“I need you to breathe with me. Is it okay for me to take your hand?” And he nods again, quicker now, because yes. Yes, always. Yes, because what if once he stops touching him, he’ll disappear?

He takes his wrist and for a moment he fears he’ll flinch away from it, from how cold he knows it to be to the touch. It must.
He finds difficult to imagine that the ice hardening away at his core hasn’t yet spread to his extremities. But Carlos just brings it against his chest, where his heartbeat rises up to meet him, sure and calm and steady. His fingertips start to prickle where they lie between the buttons of his shirt, and he notices he hasn’t felt them in a while.
It’s terrifying, how incognizant of his body he’s becoming, and yet how every feeling resonates ten times as strong.
There’s so much happening behind the veil of his skin, whose contact against his muscles aches, paper-thin. Barely contained, and yet enough to turn him statuary still, grounded on the edge. His insides a turmoil, outside of them eerily quiet.

“In.” His chest lifts as he inhales, and he’s compelled to imitate him, Carlos’ grip never leaving his own. “Out.”

He lets himself be coached to take oxygen in, over and over, until it feels like it belongs in his lungs, and isn’t trying to squirm out of them way too fast, leaving him with not enough reserve.
He breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

And he doesn’t know how long it passes until the next one he does unprompted, and it comes easier. It takes more for his hands to stop shaking, but Carlos is there for all of it, an unmoving constant, a focus point to concentrate his will onto.
Somewhere along the line, he tightened his grip on his chest, delighting a bit in the crease it leaves across the fabric.

He’s here, he didn’t scatter away, and there’s your trace of it.

The first full breath he takes feels brand new, and he grows a bit lightheaded from it. The back of his throat still hurts, but it feels impossible to conceive a day where nothing does.

“There you are.”
And Carlos is smiling, just a hint of it, but it’s there all the same. He sounds proud, like the fact that TK is managing to use his lungs without wheezing is some sort of grand accomplishment.
But who knows, maybe it is.
Maybe that’s something he needs to get used to, this new reality in which every breath feels like a concession. Like something he has to learn again; a child craving aid to walk on wobbly legs, scarily defenceless without it. The world as a cold and unforgiving place, and he’s in the middle of it, back at figuring it out from scratch.

It has new rules, ones that leave little space for weightless air.

He meets Carlos’ eyes for the first time since what feels like hours, and a bit of the fog clears away with the action, like a bittersweet reward for his courage. He sees him now, how he loves to look at him. Loves that he understands when he just can’t make himself to.
Loves that he’ll still be here, waiting, for when he can.
He’s beautiful, he thinks.
So, he tells him.
“You’re beautiful.”

Carlos’ smile just grows in response, losing its hesitance and instead unfurling like wings.

“Do you think you can stand up?” He’s still whispering. “I think we should get some food in you.”

TK wipes the bit of sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, finally detaching himself from Carlos’ chest, and taking advantage of the action to rub at his arid eyes too, the soft cotton smelling of lavender and some hint of roses.

He was the one to pick their detergent. He did so with a reverent kind of attention, cherishing the task like he was entrusted with something precious. He thought it so important, to be the one deciding which scent they were going to associate with home. It’s the one you rub yourself in when you rest after a long day, your limbs sore and tired and your head too heavy for your neck. It’s in the sheets when you’re fresh and loose from a shower. It’s in the sweater you have just lifted the collar of, bringing it against your nose to breathe in.
It’s behind his ears, clinging to the spot Carlos likes so much to bury his face into.

He wonders if that’s why he does it so often. To inhale and find TK there, but himself as well. It’s warm and soft and theirs, a reminder of the life they share together just one sniff of the wrist away.

“Honestly—” He answers, now twiddling with a thread come loose from his jeans. “I don’t think I’d be able to keep anything down.”

“How about just some fruit?” TK notices Carlos’ gaze dropping to the necklace he knows to be resting on his chest.
He reaches out with one hand, righting it where it got stuck on his shirt collar. Carlos’ fingers linger, there, seeming to have a hard time letting go. They brush gently, so gently, against the silver pendant, wiping away a sticky grain of dust. “I can cut up some apples I got at the market yesterday. It’s not much, but it’s better than the nothing you’ve had today.”

TK surrenders with a dip of his chin, blinking one too many times when his eyes burn for no apparent reason. They keep switching from feeling dry and parched to tearing up in the next second, and TK is just left riding the wave, giving up any chance of understanding its course. “Alright.”

A kiss drops between his eyes, to the spot so full of tension that started throbbing with it.

“I’ll be right back.” He can basically taste Carlos’ reluctance to leave him, in his hand still stubbornly anchored to his knee until the last second before he’s fully standing. And that more than most is what makes TK’s spine straighten and forces his head to rise from its defeated cower with a wince.

He doesn’t want to appear like he feels, weak and feeble and crying out for proximity almost as much as he wishes to recoil from it. He doesn’t think he’d be able to explain it, anyway.
How he loathes the thought of Carlos leaving the room, while simultaneously not knowing what to do with all the attention aimed his way.

How he aches to be touched like you would a bruise, compelled to do so even conscious of how much it’d hurt.

He lifts one half of his face in a smile that withers half-way, leaving his features suspended in a grimace instead. But it does seem to be enough.
Carlos finally turns his back on him after one drawn-out look, disappearing behind the door ajar.
With the action, TK senses the last of his resolve turn to dust. His limbs lose the little energy they had left holding them up, and the chill is back rising into some deep part behind his breastbone.
It stops on his chest, a twisted mirror of Carlos’ lenient hand.

***

He's bouncing his knee.

He knows his father, sitting next to him, itches to still the movement. Sees it in a tick of his wrist; in how he keeps shifting in his seat like he’s restraining himself to reach out. But he never does. Almost makes it one time, aborts the movement and his fingers end up gripping the armrest instead.

They barely spoke since everything happened.
And it’s all grown more strained after he found him with drugs clutched in his hands, dangling from a cliff of his own making.

He would almost prefer for him to just come out and say it; announce his weakness from the top of a chair, with the bluntness and cruelty reserved for the kind of crime he almost committed. He didn’t, he keeps repeating himself.
But he wanted to. Still wants to. Still, still, still.

TK wants him to scream at him as much as he’s terrified of him to, so afraid to see on his face the same shame he feels being ingrained in his heart with the force of a sledgehammer.
He knows Owen doesn’t deserve that. He knows the endless support he showed him throughout the rocky path he led them all through should grant him more reliance than this. Now more than ever, he wishes he could see anything beyond the havoc of what his soul used to be.

He wonders if it really is all undeniably ruined; if it’s something else he perpetually lost: the ability to differentiate between real and not real. Will he be able to look at himself and recognize what looks back? It’s all inside, but it’s corrupted and shaped all differently and he can’t find one single familiar face amongst it all. Not his own, not his father’s, who right now just appears as an axe ready to fall.

Could loss really be that hungry of a creature? Could it be that it wants to take and take and take, and that it will latch its teeth on anything, until he’s left a mess of marks and pain?


He lifts both his hands to scrub at his face, in a futile hope for the rough action to take his thoughts with it. He always hates waiting at airports. Gives you too much time for your mind to wander, and that’s one thing he’d rather avoid, especially now.


The car ride to here lasted seconds, even though he’s pretty sure it was 30 minutes at least.
He keeps losing time, keeps being transported from one moment to the next, endlessly left lagging just behind.

His bouncing increases as the speaker beeps to life announcing the arrival of yet another plane at its gate, inviting all passengers to make their way to the boarding entrance.
A hand does land on his kneecap this time, its grip confident and yet soft in the caress that follows.

Everything Carlos does is the most intoxicating of oxymorons. The last few hours allowed him to witness it, his dance of opposites, amped up to eleven.

Back at home, TK accepted the offered apple slices, not allowing himself to feel embarrassed when his hand shook too much to be able to hold the fork steady. Carlos’ grip on his had been careful but even, gifting him the missing strength and guiding him to take the smallest bites.
TK grew restless soon, though, and proceeded to go out, with some departing excuse about needing fresh air. He knows Carlos didn’t want him to go without him, but TK insisted that to be alone was what he needed.

What a lie, that was. He doesn’t know what he needs. He’s so scarily out of his depth, stranded in a sea he has no compass for and he’s drowning. He’s drowning. But Carlos doesn’t know, because who does, in the face of this?
He keeps trying and trying to find something that works, something he can give him. But it’s like attempting to juggle a melting rock, incandescent and impossible to hold for too long. You just hope the next move you make is the right one, the palm it finally lands on cool enough to stop its decomposition.

He only texted once when it was over an hour later and TK still didn’t come home.
Just a simple you’re all packed. Plane leaves in 50 minutes. Just tell me where you are, I’ll come pick you up.
No ulterior questions that TK is aware must have been gnawing at him.

Carlos didn’t call him when he didn’t text back. His father and him just showed up at the firehouse some time later, probably having gone straight to either Tommy or the others to search for answers. Carlos waited in the car, protecting him once again from having to be seen stuck pretending the world was still the same. He just nodded when he saw them settle back in, immediately focusing on tapping away at his phone looking for the next flight, in replacement of the one they just lost.

They made it to the airport in record time.
Carlos then made his way through the hectic check-in line, mindful of putting himself between TK and anyone who could have accidentally jostled him, while at the same time glaring down a couple trying to pass in front of them. His steps did not falter while he led them to the nearest place for them to sit and wait, away from the surrounding chaos.

A kiss pressed on the top of his head, with an inhale a bit too strong to be casual. A forceful squeeze on the heavy set of his shoulders, making sure they were stable enough to receive it. A quick once over to make sure he was all in one piece.
It’s one of the things that defines him the most.
How he wears his heart on his sleeve and isn’t afraid to brand it as a weapon. How he’s relentless to go after what he wants, and yet does so with careful hands.

TK reaches for the coffee he’s handing out, taking it from him only to pass it along to his dad. He doesn’t need it, anyway. Doesn’t think caffeine would do his jittery system any good. Instead, he clutches Carlos’ now empty hand, brings it to his mouth to kiss the knuckles, before lacing their fingers together and resting them atop his stomach.

“I had one for him too, you know.” He knows the teasing glint in his eyes; welcomes it, leads it within, hoping for the sheer warmth of it to ease the insistent chill taken residence there.

“Yeah, I’ll take that, if that’s alright with you.” The previously handed over cup is suddenly under his nose, and its overwhelming sweet scent is quite impossible to ignore. “That is just vile.”

Carlos snorts in a way that should be unattractive, but just isn’t, before giving over the right coffee this time. If TK had more energy left in him, he’d gasp in outrage at the blatant disrespect of his beverage choices. Which are actually brilliant, considering coffee itself tastes like poison, but the kick it gives him fuels his worst days, so he’ll take anything strong enough to mask the taste of it. And caramel, white chocolate and cinnamon is just – the perfect blend.

“Now, that’s better.” Owen smacks his lips, letting out a contented sigh.
“Carlos, you shouldn’t encourage his bad tastes. Maybe with the right amount of patience we’ll train him out of them.”

Yeah, he’d probably shove his dad so hard he’d end up on the floor, before gulping down his coffee in one breath just to spite him. In the middle of all that he’d laugh too, an action that now seems part of someone else, with how remote it feels.

So instead, he closes his eyes, shuts them so tight that stars explode in his vision, lets his head drop on Carlos’ shoulder, and squeezes their intertwined fingers in a grip that knows must hurt a little. But his boyfriend does not utter protest, rubs his forehead against his, in a gesture that reminds him of what he’s seen kittens do, a kiss of skins that makes his next breath come out a tad strangled.

Resumes chatting quietly with his father, and the stinging of tears, unlike a smile, comes fast. He lets their muted voices wash carefully over him, savoring the knowledge that he doesn’t have to focus on what they’re saying. That for now, it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t have to.

Carlos’ chest, where his head is currently resting, slightly vibrates at every uttered word, and TK lays his ear better against it to make sure he doesn't miss a single rumble of it. Undeniable life, right under his cheek.

They stay like this for a while, only interrupted when Carlos gently unties their joined hands. He's grabbing TK's again before he even registers it, only this time with his right, bringing his left to curl around his nape. Once there, Carlos walks his index finger up and down his spine, a contact so delicate and yet one he feels compelled to initiate all the same. Like maybe violence is not all TK is made of, and for. Like gentleness is a tide of its own.

His taut back gladly receives it, greets it like it's not the first, and won't be the last. He doesn't sense it, but recognize it, hesitant and fleeting across his vertebrae like butterfly wings. It’s the same touch, the same reverence Carlos resorted to when he handled his necklace, back at the loft.

Like he was seizing something deep, something frangible; something he wants to make sure he does not disrupt the integrity of. Something so intrinsically his, that he can’t help but to long for, yearning to feel its presence, and making sure it does not forget his own.

I was here. I touched something of you. And it was bright, and golden, and beautiful.

***

They land in New York ten minutes in advance.
Seems the universe found a past time in him, with how fast all is moving, the one time he can’t make himself stumble to catch up.
Their first stop is Enzo’s house. Even among the mess that his chest has become, he recognizes the need.

He wants to see Jonah.
Make sure he’s alright, as alright as he can know to be. He selfishly hopes seeing his face, blissful in his untroubled infancy, will help soothe some of the pain away. Once, he too was like he is. He breathed alright, without making it a conscious decision. He had a clear sight, a head full of clouds instead of dark, heavy smoke. The wave did not yet come in its colossal force.

He needs to witness evidence of a world as a spotless ether, with room for something other than the hole she left behind.
When the door opens in his face, the one staring back at him looks all wrong. He knows Enzo, has for most of his life. Yet his features look like they have been assembled with no picture reference, his eyes too droopy, his mouth too thin.

He wonders if that’s what this will do to him too. He wonders if it already has. If it changed him, maybe little by little. Just a bit off, just a bit wilted.
Like there’s something missing, because there is.

He distractedly hears his dad making introductions, noticing Carlos stretching out to shake Enzo’s hand only because the action jostles him a little, being still latched on to his other side, in no way ready to let go. Enzo doesn’t try to hug him, and a distant part of him appreciates it. Just steps aside to let them in, and TK does so with precarious feet. The marble floor tilts like water under him, and he must stop for a second, sure he’ll collapse on the spot otherwise.
But he doesn’t. In. Out. Lifts his chin, and marches on with a solemnity that he’s sure the situation doesn’t require.

Jonah’s playpen is in the middle of the living room, and while his dad grabs a seat at the kitchen table taking up Enzo’s offer to a glass of juice, he makes his way over dragging Carlos along with him.
He’s pretty certain his hand started to sweat a bit, his grip getting clammy. If Carlos minds, he doesn’t let it show, squeezing tighter when his own turns limp.

Jonah babbles happily when he notices him crouching to his level. He doesn’t trust himself to pick him up: his arms feel weak and sore, the perception of his limbs still coming and going from his brain like malfunctioning feedback. Jonah reaches out with his puffy hands through the wooden bars, and in a sudden burst of clarity he wonders how he ever thought he could do this.

Because it’s everywhere, the very feeling he was trying to find solace from. He just came to the eye of the storm, stepped into the very heart of it, where destruction runs rampant and deafening and impossible to ignore.
He looks at Jonah and - instead of blissful ignorance – sees a future filled with his mother’s absence. He sees all the ways her loss is going to lacerate his life, just like it did to his own.
And it’s somehow worse. The impact that it’s going to have on his is lurking, not quite here, yet already set in motion, and stepping in its path would be futile as it would just result in it running him over.

He looks in his eyes and knows he’ll feel her vacancy way more than he’ll feel her being here.
He’ll hear her name and learn to only associate it with its echo; distorted, anamorphic. A memory that will turn paler and paler, until all he's going to be left with is a shadow, barely there, only visible if you know where to look.
His mother is going to be something he'll mention in passing, not able to remember much of. She died when I was a baby. And the conversation will end there, because there'll be nothing else to say.
Will he cherish the little time they had together as dearly as TK does? Will he find himself utter a lullaby when lost in thought, only then realizing he was not the one to learn it? 
There was so much more to come, such possibility in store. Will he ever know, and will the hypothesis of it hold as much weight as the reality would have?

TK's face gets all twisted up as the thought takes rest in his mind, and he knows Carlos is way too close to not notice the hitch in his chest. He hopes he won’t let him cry in front of the baby. He does not know sadness, not this kind, and damn him if the first pain-ridden tears he sees are going to be his.

“In.” His boyfriend's voice trickles in as a too-cold raindrop dropping on his face. Catches him by surprise, makes him flinch and come back to himself like a rubber band snapping against his wrist. “Out.”

The familiar command latches on to his spiralling awareness, dragging it back to the surface and putting it on its path to survival. It feels good, to follow clear instructions, ones he can trust; it narrows down his next steps, making them ones he can handle.

Jonah keeps watching him, now growing impatient at being ignored in favour of another breakdown. TK tries to smile despite his protesting face and reaches out to grab the baby’s fingers in his own. Him and Carlos sit down on the floor then, their backs against the couch, their knees pressing together and replacing the constant of his hand, when he lets him go to stroke Jonah’s cheek with his other one.

“He’s so tiny.” He really is. He’s probably big just enough for a one year old, but still. So tiny. Too tiny for what’s to come. “Was I this tiny when I was his age?”

His dad looks taken aback at being addressed for this conversation.

He supposes it’s to be expected, considering it’s the first words he’s addressed to him since the world spun on its axis. When he lifts his head to finally meet his eyes, all he sees is how deep-bone tired they seem. He wonders for how long he looked so exhausted, and TK just refused to pay attention to it.

He already misses him. Misses seeing his father and not identifying him with the spot she vacated beside him.
He’s no stranger to their separation, learned to appreciate even what arose from it. No matter how gnarled their family has been, them being apart hasn’t kept them from being for him what they couldn’t be for each other. Once his childhood fantasy of a perfect family stopped being the invocation whispered before blowing out candles, he learned to cherish their presence in his life for what it was. Two people. Two separate entities.
His father. His mother. Both his parents, just not together. Even in his dad’s fleeting presence, one minute here, the next gone, TK knows he tried.

He accepted a long time ago that having his dad wouldn’t always mean he would have his mother too, learned to exist with the division of it. He just never expected to be made to do so, like a severed limb no one told him was going to be taken from him. His dad’ strained smile, it all sits there. It holds an epilogue full of a decisiveness he’s not ready for.
A comma turned period in the half a second spent for him to take a phone call.

“You were quite chubby as a baby, actually.” He answers, his stare turning distant, probably approaching a memory. “You were crazy about cakes. All kinds of them. And with that face, we never managed to say no.” A little chuckle, a scratch to the eyebrow.
“And when we did, you would cry so much we were worried you’d make yourself sick.”

“The sweet tooth is not a recent development, then.” Carlos’ words are accompanied by his hand rubbing the small of his back. When he turns to look at him, his face is open and tender. He’s always asking about his childhood, the side of him that’s just a big softie for family pressing for as many little snippets he can get his hands on.
TK knows he isn’t the best at sharing that part of himself, most of his stories stained with sadness and regret for something he never got to have. He vows to make amends.
There were so many good times. So many. His life is tinged with love all over, and he now curses any time he made it seem like it was anything but.

And if this really is what’s ahead of him and all he’ll ever get from now are memories, he’ll make sure he’s not the only one carrying them on. They deserve the light, the air.
He needs their essence to take place beyond himself, craves to see them getting away from him, to witness the lives they’ll touch, and how they’ll change to get greater and greater and impossible to erase.
He’ll make it. Before the rock that’s taking over sits too heavy to be moved, dragging down everything with it.

“We should bake cookies.” The thought comes to him like the ringing of a bell. “I know mom’s recipe by heart. They never- “ he has to stop for a second to swallow, and he’s doing that a lot, he notices, with never enough saliva to placate the dryness of his throat. His mouth feels constantly packed with something, which he has to force down in order to make space for anything else to exist beside it. “They never came out right whenever I did them without her. But we can try.”

“I’d like that.” Owen offers, after a tiny instant of hesitation, and TK is the one who did that. Turned his dad so careful around him, forcing him to handle him either like glass, or a spooked animal he’s scared to approach.
He knows he means well; that he’s improvising as much as he is. Knows he’s adapting to this like he’s struggling to, and that he’s just scared of saying the wrong thing. Yet some part of him still itches to hide with half embarrassment half anger, stomping down on the instinct to yell you can’t shatter what’s already in pieces.

Because sometimes being treated like you’re so easily breakable just serves you as evidence you can’t handle the fall.

But TK gathers enough willpower to push the thought back in its corner, the one he’s learning to identify as where all grief-ridden judgements come from. They’re not his own, not really. They’re the trashing of a cornered bird, smashing itself against its confines uncaring of the taken damage, escape the only intent on its mind. He does his best to not let them guide him.

TK’s mere attempt at replicating Owen’ smile is what makes his dad’s weigh a little less, the hard lines of his face relaxing in its wake. They hold eye contact for a couple of more seconds, his fingers never leaving Jonah’s, his happy mumbling a welcome background noise.

Enzo left the room to give them space, probably unsure on how to behave, and he can’t help but hold sympathy for him. This loss is his as much as theirs, and yet TK knows they cannot share it. His mother existed for both of them, but the duality of her presence is way too marked for the lack of it to be felt the same.
He’s having such a hard time accepting all the ways through which she’s escaping him already. He’ll never know the way Enzo will miss her, because you never can, but this too lands on his spine like some kind of withheld contact, like she’s off, taking shape in ways he cannot see.

“We still have a couple of hours before we have to head out. Do you want to go freshen up first?” Owen is already halfway out of his seat, bending down to lift the bag laying at his feet. “I know I need to get the car and plane’ smell off me.”

“You go ahead. I think I’ll hang out with this little guy.” He meets the baby’s eyes and takes a moment to admire the way they twinkle “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
The tickling of Jonah’s belly results in the delighted giggle he was hoping for, and with it, he feels the vise currently wrinkling his heart easing a little. He really is so adorable.

His father smiles and, with a departing touch to his shoulder, makes his way up the stairs.
Next to him, Carlos adjusts a little to get more comfortable, probably sensing TK will be making their visit to the floor a long one.

“You don’t have to stay.” And he’s sure he does a good job at hiding his reluctance, but at the face of his boyfriend’s warning look, he thinks maybe not. “You can start getting settled in the guest room. I’ll be up in a little bit.”

“Not going anywhere.” And the promise is followed by arms circling his waist and legs enwrapping his own, positioning himself between TK and the back of the couch. He’s holding him tight together - both physically and figuratively- and TK feels maybe a little undone by it.
He loves how tactile Carlos is, knows they’re evenly matched in that department. Loves how he’s constantly making him aware of his presence, how he feels the need to make it known that he’s there. Perhaps he too – like TK – feels what ties them together as an actual jolt, every little touch to be expected when so much of it is constantly overflowing, looking for new ways to break out.
With the hand not currently occupied by his brother’s, now holding on to his index finger, he seizes Carlos’ wrist, his thumb landing on his pulse point, ushering every passing beat.

“What can I do?” he speaks so close to his neck that goosebumps can’t help but answer right back to him. TK inhales for a moment too long, and rejoices at the sheer humanity of his body’s response. It feels like a gift. He relishes in that part of him, that side of his soul that he can sense is still fighting. You’re alive, it seems to be telling him. It opposes loss’ rising and greying hue, and reminds him of a life still waiting for him on the other side. Of course Carlos is the one keeping its flame from frazzling out, the one reviving it over and over.

“There’s nothing you can do.” He says, not unkindly. Because there isn’t. And he knows it must be driving Carlos crazy, to not turn his love into action. To be made a witness, when he’s always – always – at the front lines. He knows it must hurt to have nothing to fight against, no way to make anything better. He knows, and he shares the sentiment and the frustration that comes with it.
They’re all spectators, even those whose very essence kicks and screams for them to be anything but. Death doesn’t care. It evens the playing field, makes them all useless. “Just hold me.”

And he’s aware he’s the same person who mere seconds ago invited him to leave him there alone, but that – unlike this one – was a lie. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants the man he loves to squeeze him so tight the ragged pieces now composing his insides are forced to coexist again. He wants to pretend he never shattered at all.

And it’s with a heavy heart that TK falls back into his boyfriend’s waiting arms, allowing Carlos’ chest to remain a physical barrier between him and oblivion.

***

“I’ll just be here when you’re finally ready to admit defeat.”

His dad’s amused eyes meet his own in the reflection of the mirror. TK huffs for what feels like the twentieth time, unfastening the messy knot to start from scratch. What is up with this thing. He’s 27, he doesn’t believe in black magic. But he’s pretty sure this tie is enchanted to drive him insane.

“I so got this.” He so got this. “I almost did it right the last time. Just you wait.” And this would be way easier if his hands would stop shaking, his frustration only growing and making his grip on the black cotton slippery and just – infuriating. He’s going to be late to his mother funeral because he can’t fasten his damn tie.

He can’t do that. He can’t add carelessness to the list of things he needs to apologize for. And he knows that allowing his dad to help would considerably speed the process along, but he needs this. It’s not pointless. He’s not pointless. He wants to look his best and he wants to do it on his own.
He's got this. He can do it. He’ll do it. He’ll make her proud. She always says he looks so handsome in black, much more so when it’s formal wear. His jacket has a stain on the lapel but he’s sure it’s not noticeable. Or maybe it is. Maybe that’s what everyone will be paying attention to. Tyler Kennedy. Her son, who can’t even be bothered to wear clean clothes when attending mass.

He doesn’t want that. He wants to be someone that shines at her side, not a stain you unsuccessfully try to hide, one that persists and that just stands as proof of your worst miscalculations.

His dad’s hands are on his own, stilling their tremor with a forceful pressure.  “TK,” It mustn’t be the first time he’s said his name. “let me.”

TK submits with a sob that sounds ripped out from some deep part of him. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“Dad.” It sounds like a prayer, like an invocation of some kind. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Probably for some of it to make sense. For everything to stop hurting this much, so much. It’s an enormity of it and he can’t see. He can’t see.

“I know, son.” And now his dad sounds choked up too and that’s fair, he thinks. It’s fair that this pain reached outside of him.
Of course, it has. How could it not? Its size is that of mountains and oceans. He cannot hold an ocean. No one can.

He barely registers his father tying the knot of his tie with a couple of sure movements, and as soon as he’s done, his father's forehead lands on his own and a calloused hand is on the back of his neck. “TK.”

His vision is just one blurry tear, and his shirt already feels suffocating against his neck. “I’m okay.” He sniffles and his head throbs a bit with the effort “I’m good. Thank you.” But when he tries to get away Owen won’t let him, his fingertips probably bruising a little, but he doesn't mind. He thinks the unrestrained touch is exactly what he needs.

“You are, you know?” He ducks his face to try and catch his eyes. TK meets him halfway and his chin trembles when he does. “You’re so good. So good, TK. Please never doubt that.”

But he’s shaking his head before the last syllable is even out of his dad’s mouth and he can’t stand it. Can’t stand how the statement stubbornly lingers in the open air. He itches to right it, to snatch it back. “Don’t.” Don’t lie, don’t show me a mercy I do not deserve. “You know what I did. Don’t – pretend I am not already a disgrace to her memory.”

His dad makes a sound like he’s just been punched, the hand on his nape slackening with shock, and it is enough for TK to duck away and turn back to the mirror, where his reflection stares back at him, stock-still and stagnant in more than one way. He rubs under his eyes, wiping away any trace of tears and straightens his now made up tie. He does his best to neaten his hair, a bit dishevelled and wild. He’ll do.

“You didn’t do anything.” Owen is behind him and his tone is stiff, brimming with a tension TK has a hard time explaining himself the origin of.

“But I wanted to.” His response holds no hesitation. He’ll carry this. He’s ready to. And maybe he does not care that it is most likely misdirected anger. He does not care that it is just easier to take the knife that was previously roaming aimlessly, slicing everything in its path, and point it towards himself. That he understands this violence, one he chose. One he’s the only victim of.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t – “ but he’s not listening, not really. He makes for the door and this time his father’s hand is on his forearm, pulling him back a couple of inches. “Stop.” It’s the crushed voice that actually makes him pause. When he looks at Owen’s face, he finds it stricken. “Just stop.”

And it’s not right, this time. This is not what he wants. His father looks – mournful. Like something fresh is being ripped from him, and he’s desperately trying to keep it from disappearing completely. It’s not his mother’s loss. He knows its effect by now. That tinged his eyes with a quiet sort of agony; it made them dim, subdued, like crumpled and turned less by some external force. This new wave of grief passing over his features is for him. It’s not dormant, not resigned. It’s brutal and furious and vicious. It speaks of carnage.

It’s with a pang that TK realizes that while he took his torment and made himself a direct target of it, his father took his and instead morphed it into allegiance. Owen is holding onto his hand as firmly as TK is pushing that same one into his own chest, looking for comfort in a self-appointed penitence. A penitence TK was okay with, as long as he was the only one at the receiving end of it. But to go through with it now would mean sentence his father with it, and. It’s not, just. It’s not right when it takes a life of its own.

So maybe he got it wrong. Maybe it feels so bad because it’s what shouldn’t happen. Maybe the real disgrace to his mother’s memory is happening right now, with his fist coiled in a punch, ready to strike on his already battered heart. The same one she tried all her life to protect.

“You didn’t do anything. I was there. I found you in time.” And TK is looking. Looking and looking and perhaps begging a bit for forgiveness. “I will always find you.”

“I shouldn’t need you to.” His lips lift in a sad smile. He’s crying again. He’s so tired of crying. “I should be strong enough.”

“Why?” And Owen almost laughs. His eyes are so clear in the dim light of the bedroom. So like his own. “Why should you not need people anymore?” He shakes his head in what TK thinks is quiet disbelief. “You are the strongest person I know. And I am so proud of how far you’ve come.” His palm lifts to touch the top of his head, and this time TK doesn’t flinch from the attentiveness of the gesture. He didn’t stop to consider that maybe his father treats him like he’s so fragile because he is. “But that doesn’t mean you have to go through everything alone. It doesn’t mean you don’t get to stumble and it doesn’t mean your sobriety is only true if you’re the only one who kept it so.”

The new tears that come out of his eyes, then, are of a different kind. He can feel them being purged out of him by the weight of his father’s gaze, and the sheer faith in it that he was so scared he would never see again.
But it was never gone, was it? Grief just hid it, like it did so many things. “You are strong enough, son. But you get to be weak too. And when that happens, let me find you. You leaning on me, on your family, does not take any value from the making of your life. It just means others are part of it as well.”

When TK lowers his head, this time, is not out of shame. He’s overwhelmed.
He feels elated. Lifted from the ground and brought above, even if just by an inch, and yet gloriously grounded in his own mind, his muscles naked to uncover live wires, bustling with electricity.
Pleasantly surprised to discover that his skin, peeled away, still hides a beating heart.

TK nods, and he doesn't find any words left in him. His dad, somehow, understands his silence for the surrender that it is. Squeezes his arm one last time, a final touch that shakes him up only to put him back together.

“Let’s go say goodbye.”

They look at each other, and TK perceives some inner part of him tilt a bit to one side, like a rebalancing of the stakes.
Perhaps this felt insurmountable because it is; a kind of pain that doesn't start nor end with him. Others feel this too.
They feel it too, and he's not alone.
And if he's able to realize that, at last, then maybe sorrow is not the only thing left standing.

***

The funeral service itself goes by in a bit of a blur. He can’t quantify how long it lasts.
All his focus keeps being split between the wooden casket at the centre of the aisle, and the black torn ribbon pinned across his chest. He’s sure he is imagining the colossal weight of it. It’s just a piece of fabric, yet it resonates as iron.

When the funeral first started, he kept fiddling with it, his mounting energy finding no outlet in his uncomfortable suit. But then he left it alone, going from relentlessly touching it to being afraid to.
It feels estranged, like it’s alive.

When it came the time for the material to be ripped, as the keriah calls for, he was prepared to sense the rapture inside his chest as well as outside of it.
He was bracing for a flinch, an audible strike to land on him, already precariously balanced on his feet.
Yet the wreckage only came across as expected, almost necessary for this pain to be made fit to carry.

The Rabbi gently grabbed the piece from his jacket, cut it, and gave it back to him. It was still his to have, to hold, no matter how altered.
He didn’t return it directly on his lapel, though, even with the pin still attached. He instead took TK’s hand, placed it on it, and guided his fingers to close around it. To lay it to rest on his chest, new and different and unfamiliar, had to be a decision he made himself.
A physical reminder. A solidification of what was lost. A vow on what it’s his to keep.
Here’s what it was. Here’s what it is.  
It would be of no use to try to have the two halfs meet again. They'd stand indifferent to his desperation, and somehow the thought is cathartic. To know that, ultimately, all he can do is relent.

So TK accepted it; broken, torn, but his and fastened it on its rightful place over his heart.
His very own badge of honor, for he knows destruction to only be as great as what used to stand in its place.
For grief cannot touch what love did not touch first.

***

It's soon after that they reach the cemetery and begin the graveyard service.
It’s so cloudy outside, the weather all around gloomy with rain he’s sure will fall before the sun has fully set.

He doesn’t know why it seems out of the ordinary to him. It’s a sad day, and the world should understand. The elements should show clemency, the sun should stay bright and warm and willing to ease the cold when you’ve got so much of it inside.
But that’s not the world’s job. It doesn’t console. Doesn’t offer relief. It just is, and will still be -- even after you’re done existing in it.

TK throws a glance at the clouds and sees them running, pushed by a strong gust of wind, his hair going everywhere because of it.
How different they are, he thinks. Him and the clouds. One weightless, made of water and vapor and of that you can blow away. The other so, so heavy with bones and sorrows.
Yet the wind sings for them both.  He doesn’t get to drift because of it, unlike the clouds, which are now kissing a topless sky.
His feet are rooted to the dampening earth, infinitely thick of his corporeal form. His life a paper page, susceptible to the barest blow, the faintest scribble; made to keep standing. Built to bear.

The first fists of dirt get softly laid on his mother’s casket, and TK allows himself a few moments to ponder if he looked at it enough, in its wooden, heart-breaking hush.
There’ll be no more, after this. Has he memorized the perfection of the surface? He only touched it once, in passing, like a timorous child afraid to face the dark. Was that enough?
He won’t get a second chance, not really. Once the brown earth closes over the last of it, so will the opportunity for him to make amends, has he not done it right.

He sees his father deposit his sprinkling of dirt on it, and he knows he should too, as much as he’s aware Owen won’t push for him to do so. But TK thinks he owes it to her to be brave, and he aches for some of the cold ground she’s being taken to, to feel familiar and maybe, maybe, like coming home, perhaps just a different one.

The steps he takes towards the grave are measured and sure, and, unlike he saw others do, does not proceed to use a shovel. The dirt he picks up, he does so with bare hands. He doesn’t choose any particular chunk of it, knows earth is earth, surprisingly tepid in his shaking hand. He doesn’t throw it; instead bends with throbbing joints and drops it on the casket with a last caress, a lingering graze.
When he stands back up, his fingertips tingle and he knows, knows, that he left something there, something besides pieces of debris.
He goes back to his father’ side and burrows a little bit more into his jacket.
His hand is still stained with dirt. He does not brush it off.

Carlos is on his left, close enough for TK to feel the warmth of his body and the lingering scent of his cologne. It’s both comforting and devastating at once.
Its smell reminds him of home, of a time when everything felt so different, when the sunshine coming in through the blinds did not remind him of the turning of a merciless world. Yet he almost doesn’t want its presence in this – this new reality.
Like it has no place here, in a universe where things grow and bear fruit, but they don’t get to stay.

He doesn’t recall much of the Tanakh, not really. He’s grown apart from most remnants of it, against his mother’s better judgement.
But he remembers clearly, how much the prophets speak of gratitude.

So much of the world’s tale is its Genesis. They teach you of its creation, open you up to its beauty, to how deeply entrenched your presence is in it. They talk of human life beating in rivers and mountains and they drive the point home, that it’s all for us.

He reflects on how he can learn to make his peace with it.

Because they want you to love this world, and then just as easily accept your departure from it. They open your eyes to the immense grace of what you get to be born into, and while they do it they don’t tell you how quickly it arrives the time when you’re no more. That comes after.

When they speak of life, they do so without glancing ahead, at what’s inevitably waiting when you reach its edge.
Why do they make you love what surrounds you, why do they want you to kneel and pray and say thank you for something you don’t get to keep? But then they tell you that too, is a gift.
They guide you to direct the same gratitude you previously aimed at life, and point it towards its end.

And effortlessly comes the translation, from loving the world to loving at all.

Perhaps the two sentiments - the moment it starts and the moment it ends - must be broken apart, as they’re not as connected as they appear to be.
Maybe when you love something you’re not meant to perceive it as mortal. Maybe we must have faith in what we deep down know to be impossible, and to persist, and choose to feel it anyway.
Maybe love needs the illusion, the reprieve from its impermanence.

Maybe our ability to love is the holiest thing we’re capable of, and that’s why we need it to be absolute, or at least to believe it so. Metaphysical.
So they separate love and its disappearance because one should not influence the other.

Because the intensity with which we choose to hold something close has nothing to do with it being doomed. And because perhaps this world won’t survive, but love will, somehow, somewhere.

Maybe when they speak of eternity they don’t talk of life, but of the love that thought it real.

The ceremony arounds him falls into a quiet lull, leaving space for people to speak, if someone were to wish so.

TK’s aware that if he were to open his mouth, nothing would come out of it. A part of him wishes he could, the same one that rebels against the growing silence, sees it as evidence of an abandoned fight. He tries, a couple of times, but all that makes it out is a shaky exhale, and his shoulders keep dropping lower and lower with every failed attempt.
There’s another side of him, the one that’s enjoying standing still, mute, unnoticed. He dreads the thought of drawing attention to himself, can’t shake the feeling of inadequacy, in his too tight suit and trembling hands. He looks around, taking in all the people surrounding the grave and sees infinite anguish, but also a sort of acceptance, one TK himself is being dragged towards while kicking and screaming. It’s as if he were a child, remembers feeling this way, naïve and obstinate with the way he’s holding on.

His eyes are wretched as they search for his father, wordlessly asking to make this right, to be the voice he’s unable to be. She deserves it, even if it can’t come from him.

Owen takes one look at him, at his arms tightly curled around his middle, in a desperate hope to keep himself from crumbling down. He doesn't quite know what he sees on his face, but it makes him nod, quietly taking existing out of his hands, if it means giving him a break, some time to figure out how to do so again.

“I haven’t written down anything, so. I am not sure of what to say,” His tone starts hushed, before slowly gaining conviction. “And that’s right, I think, to not have something prepared. Because I’m not. Prepared.”

TK leans a bit into his side, silently making his presence a tangible one. He knows Owen is aware of him, but he's no stranger to needing the physical reminder. “I’m supposed to tell some kind of anecdote, I think. Something to celebrate Gwyn’s life, to share how beautiful, and kind, and brave she’s been for all of it.” He sighs, and his spine curls inward, like weighted by some crippling pain.

“She was so unapologetically herself, and it’s just hard to imagine a future where that’s something that doesn’t exist. She should get to live on.”
TK reaches out with the hand still stained with dirt and squeezes his dad’s nearest one, comforted by how he doesn’t hesitate to squeeze back. Despite it all, he’s not alone, and his dad isn’t either.

“I don’t remember some of it. I remember her 40th birthday but I don’t remember her 38th. I remember her wedding dress, but I don’t remember the centrepieces. I don’t remember exactly how long labor was, but I remember holding the son we just made, together. I remember thinking I didn’t know myself capable of loving something that much.” 

He turns to him, then, and the softest and saddest smile, like all his newest ones seem to be, lifts one side of his face. “That’s what she did. She taught me all the ways life could surprise me. She made everything two sizes bigger. Better. She made everything better.”

His head whips back to the front, but his eyes don’t drop to the casket. It’s like she’s not there, maybe because she isn’t, and TK just hasn’t seen it. His dad is speaking to something else, his eyes fidgety with how they keep jumping from one point to the next.

They stop on a scruff in the grass, lightly damp from the building dew. “And as much as it pains me to say, I wish today to be a jubilation. I don’t want to think of her life as something that ended too soon, because it wouldn’t matter. I want to laugh, and I want to smile. I think she would like that.”

He lets out a cough that TK recognizes as the smothering of a sob and TK feels the tremor of it tumble from their point of contact, climbing up his arm, his shoulder, dripping from his collarbone to take home at the center of his chest.

“When I thought of what I could possibly say, standing here, mourning a loss I never thought I would, I just thought of her. And I guess it’s that simple, right? It’s her. And no one needs me to be the one to say who she was, because she already did that, for all the time she had.”

A little laugh breaks out, and TK sees them as if they’re standing right in front of him: grief and love, walking hand in hand. Impossible to detach, futile to talk of one without bumping into the other.

“There’s this thing she used to do. She liked reading, right? Our house was cluttered with books all over. She could never pick one genre, either. She liked them all, said she enjoyed experiencing them, even if she’d end up hating some at the end.” TK’s side of his mouth lifts a bit at that, a memory of a book barely missing his face, thrown across the living room in disgust. I can’t believe someone actually approved that and got it printed. Reading glasses perched on top of her nose. A mock shudder as if to dispose a lingering feeling. TK went to bend to get it, only to scoff and laugh when she stopped him. Leave it there. It earned its corner of shame.

 “But a lot, she loved. And she used to annotate them, which drove me crazy. She even wrote with sharpie when she couldn’t find a pencil. How barbaric is that?” TK follows his father’s line of sight, settled on two blackbirds perched on a nearby headstone, orange beaks gleaming as they rustle each other’s feathers.

“Sometimes, all the notes were for someone else. She highlighted all the passages that she thought I, or anyone she was thinking of, might like. One time, she handed me a copy of The Starless Sea and I remember it because it was just so full of post-its that you couldn’t close it anymore.” A little chuckle, and their joined hands grasp each other even tighter. “That’s how I’ll remember her. For her constant urge to tend for those around her. Her incapability of thinking only of herself, but perpetually reaching for the closest switch, making sure a porch light stayed always on.”

He sighs with an exhale that seems to take all the will he has left. “You always hear, at funerals, of what the deceased leaves behind. She left two sons, friends, a companion.” His gaze sets on Enzo, then, but doesn't linger. It touches on all the faces attesting to his eulogy, silent and wounded like painted angels.

“And we focus so much on it like it’s all that matters. Because we live our life, but we outlast it in the love we leave behind. The type of love that doesn’t only live in memories, but of which you feel the presence in every step ahead. I still remember when I chose to make her my future, and no matter how our relationship changed, now, more than ever, I know that to be true. I know that’s what she is.”

And it’s for the second time that his father turns to look at him. Like it’s expected, a natural progression. From thinking of his mother, to then look for him. Like he can’t, and won’t, separate the two of them; as they’re one and the same. Like maybe there is more than one way to exist, and perhaps some version of it will get to taste it. The infinite. “She’s my future.”


Owen takes a tiny step back, drawing TK with him. Carlos, next to him, sways a bit on his feet, and TK notices his eyes are wet. He doesn’t resist the impulse to hold on to his forearm for dear life.
They stay that way, bracketed to one another, in the building of a lifeboat tenaciously making its way through a storm.

His father's chin dips, like a final blessing, like permission.

The Rabbi goes on to recite the parting words, only the top of his head visible from how deep his skull is lowered.

TK blinks, unable to look away. Why do we bow so much, especially in the face of death? Is it because we long for some mercy, when our time comes?
Do we do it to try to appear unoffending, wishing it’ll see in us no treat, and decide to spare us? Is it because we fear its barbarous hand? He is not quite sure of it.

Maybe, most likely, we do it in tacit respect. We bow because we recognize our impotence in the face of it. We offer ourselves at its mercy, and accept that all we can do is hope that when it is our turn, it is a kind one.
It’s what’s uttered over and over the most, he realizes. We say it at the end, as we say it at the beginning. We invoke it when in pain, we praise it when in bliss. It’s a prayer, it’s acceptance.
It’s fitting, and the only truth that falls on his heavy shoulders and doesn’t worsen their burden. Amen. So be it.

The casket is almost completely covered now, but TK is done focusing on it.
Instead, his eyes go back to the endless heavens that are bearing witness as much as he is. He delivers a farewell to the departing clouds and smiles just a little. The wind stays behind, rustling his tear-stained cheeks and trees’ leaves alike.

***

It’s pitch dark outside, and TK has been in bed for hours.
Carlos is a relaxed weight next to him, his soft snores filling the otherwise quiet room. He managed to fall asleep for forty minutes at best, only to wake up in a restless sweat to then never fall unconscious again. He succeeded to keep his tossing mostly to his side of the bed, and he spares a thankful thought to how much of a heavy sleeper his boyfriend is. Carlos turned a couple of times, but otherwise stayed serene and peaceful in a way he’d hate to break.

TK finally relents and accepts that maybe sleep is out of the question for now, and gets up as quietly as possible.
His feet make almost no sound as he goes down the stairs to the dark kitchen, turning on one of the dimmest lights to go on the hunt for a clean glass and some water to placate his parched throat. He sits on one of the stools, swinging his feet a little, since they don’t touch the ground.

Jonah didn't come to the funeral. A last and forlon attempt at shiedling his heart.
He stayed at home with some friend Enzo vouched for, but that TK himself never met. There’s so much of this life they built here, without him, that he’s a stranger to. New York felt familiar his whole adult life, has been home for longer than that. He marvels at how quickly it became something he looks back to, instead of what he aches to return to.

He misses Austin a bit. And he knows it’s ridiculous, considering he’s been in the city he literally grew up in for less than 48 hours and yet he already feels so distant from it, from its tall buildings and its lack of stars in the sky.
He hopes Jonah will get to visit him sometime. That TK’ll get a chance to show him around, to be allowed to leave some kind of imprint on his life, as his mother wanted him to.

He gets up after a moment of hesitation before he can change his mind and, leaving the half full glass of water on the counter, makes his way to what he now knows to be his brother’s bedroom.

Jonah doesn’t sleep with Enzo, has an actual room of his own, with a crib at the center of it, a few toy-elephants hanging suspended above it. They’re one of those without bells or lullabies; those who just delicately swing in the air, soundlessly watching over him.
When he gets to the nursery, he finds his brother awake, big, green eyes blinking up at the ceiling, peacefully curious in their roaming around. When they land on his silhouette still hesitating in the open door, they come alive. He reaches the crib in two large steps before Jonah’s excited babbling can turn too loud to be mistaken for anything but someone pretty much wide awake in the middle of the night.
He hurriedly picks him up, accompanying the baby’s head to rest against his chest with a contented sigh. Jonah settles against him without protest, like he was just waiting for him to make up his mind and is not at all surprised at the change in position.
His chubby fist curls around his sleep shirt, his eyes enormous as they take in his face.

“Hey, you.” He stars to pace around, improvising a little melody in the back of his throat. They leave the bedroom behind, making their way back to the kitchen with careful, swaying steps. “What are you doing up? Too many thoughts?”
Jonah just blows a spit bubble in response, a toothless grin following right behind. “Yeah, me too.”

They land on the couch, immersed by what he previously thought as way too many throw pillows, but that now feel comforting in how they envelop them both, creating a snug little cocoon for them to disappear into. TK lifts his knees up, sitting Jonah up against them. The baby’s feet kick at that, but after a bit of adjusting, he settles down, his little hand taking back its rightful place around his index finger.

“It was a nice service, you know.” He lifts a hand to put a stray hair back in its place, caressing it back down against the baby’s head. He wonders if it’ll grow out wavy, like his mother’s, or tightly curly, like Enzo’s. If he too will have that same white thread of hair that spurted from Gwyn's head once when she was twenty and then never went back. He recalls her telling him how she never dyed it, always kept it gloriously there, gleaming between her otherwise black hair.
He wonders if Jonah will get it from her, that same impenitent, unblushing spirit.

“There were so many people. I didn’t remember all the prayers, but I don’t think she’ll mind. She is good, so good at forgiving.” TK lightly taps Jonah’s little nose, suppressing a chuckle when the gesture makes him sneeze. “When you get older, I think you’ll like where she’s buried. It’s a nice spot, a little elevated, with green all around. She is next to my elementary teacher, actually. Ms Anderson. I didn’t even know she passed. I’m not sad, though. She always used to yell at me for eating candy in class.”
The baby’s gibberish picks up in volume, like he’s upset on his behalf. “I know, right? Candy is so great.”

Jonah’s cheeks are the rosiest they’ve ever been, and he’s helpless in the face of the urge to bend over to kiss the apples of them.

TK hears Carlos’ quiet padding just before his drowsy face and sleep rumpled curls appear under the living room’s arch. He watches him knuckle his left eye, the one still firmly closed. “Hi. I’m sorry. Did we wake you?”

His boyfriend doesn’t answer, just stretches his neck before moving one of the many cushions on the leather side chair and settling down against him.
His head lands on his shoulder, a deep sigh making his way out of his chest with an exhale. “It’s good. You’re warm. You need anything?”

And TK almost smiles at how, even fuzzy with sleep and probably lagging with exhaustion, Carlos’ priority remains his well-being. How his hands won’t stop twitching with the need to put things back in their place before he’s even done assessing the damage they caused.
He won’t give up on him, and TK loves him a bit – a lot- because of it.

“I’m okay. I was just telling him all about today. Or, technically yesterday.”

Carlos lifts his head a bit at that, just now seeming to notice Jonah’ squirming figure on top of his legs. He – like TK – is unable to contain an endeared smile at the sight of him, now wringing on himself, doing his best to gnaw on his own foot.
TK takes his thigh and pushes it gently back down, tutting in disapproval. Jonah tries again as soon as his hand leaves his leg.

“Did you know that I didn’t cry on my first day of school?”

If Carlos is taken aback by the sharp change of subject he does not let it on. He just twists a bit to look him in the face, his chin pointedly resting on his shoulder. Listening. “I was looking around and so many kids were just – bawling their eyes out and I just kept holding onto my mom’s hand and I remember feeling so confused and not getting it, all that sadness. I remember her not even accompanying me inside, she left me on the steps at the entrance. And I was so excited, because it meant I was big. I didn’t need her to come with me, I could do it all on my own.”
It’s only then that he meets Carlos’ cautious stare; his brown irises glittering under the moonlight coming through the open window. “I think I didn’t cry because I saw no reason to. She was coming back. So why should I have?” His voice cracks on the last word, a bit of strength leaving his spine.
He’s glad he’s sitting down. He does not trust his body right now. He’s aware it’s not fully his own, at least not yet. Still trapped in an endless vortex of an agonizing loss of control.

Carlos murmurs his name in a barely audible whisper, his hair tickling his chin now that his head is back on his shoulder. His arms come to squeeze his hips with tentative conviction, like he’s not sure the touch is welcomed.  TK’s chest lifts with measured breaths, pulling down Jonah’s onesie where it creased on his stomach.

“But I also think I didn’t cry because she wasn’t. She was so sure of me. She just patted me on the shoulder and told me I will see you in a few hours. Be good. Just like that, no hesitation, no second thoughts. Like she never doubted me for a second. She was so certain I was ready for it. She -" A pause, in which he blinks one too many times. "She believed in me since the very beginning. All that courage, she was the one to put it there. I think I always felt able to do what was hard because she thought I could.”

Carlos’ face rubs on his shirt, his hand now going up and down his bicep in a gentle caress, the reminder of a net safely fastened, whether he was to fall.

“Of course she did.” He tells him, fingers on his skin making his hair stand on attention. “Because she knew that’s what you’re worthy of.”
And of course Carlos knows where his mind has already gone. Of course he knows that from the acknowledgement of such received devotion, so close it sits his reluctance to accept it as well directed.

TK ferociously combats the impulse to voice his dissent. “Maybe.” He instead concedes, but he’s aware he’s not fooling anyone, much less so himself. So he surrenders. “Or maybe she was the only good thing left in me.”

Carlos doesn’t recoil from the bluntness of the statement. Instead, his hold on him gets tighter, his presence impossibly closer, like he’s ready to drag TK back from himself if he has to. Back into the light of day, in a world where he won't have to part from anything, or anyone.

“I don’t think that’s true. And I know you don’t either.” His tone is calm and calculated. Lucid, where his resembles that of a cornered animal. “But I also don’t think that it’s wrong for others to be the best part of you. I don’t think it’s wrong for how you're loved to define you.”

A kiss under his jaw, a hand landing on his chest and starting to rub, an attempt to dig inside and soothe the hurt away.
Jonah is still watching, happily chewing on his rolled-up sleeve. “I don’t think other people have that power, to create something in you that isn’t already your own. They can prove to you that you’re capable of it, but it doesn’t belong to them, and they don’t get to take it with them when they leave.”

A tear falls on his cheek, and it immediately gets wiped away. “Your mother trusted you to trust yourself. She did have faith in you, but you are the one who made it yours. And it’s there for you, whenever you need it. It’s you, your mother loved. Brave, strong, resilient you.”

TK is not sobbing, per se. But his eyelids are leaking, silent but determined moisture making its way down his face and getting kissed away before it can reach his chin. “And my faith is yours too, Tyler. It’s always been yours.”

His mouth lands on Carlos’ then, because he's powerless not to. It’s a contact salty with tears, and he wants to kiss him but he wants to cry too. Carlos gets it, as he seems to do everything, so he abandons his lips in favour of the rest of his face. His mouth brushes his eyebrow, his cheekbone, his nose, the back of his ear. TK sniffles, and something in his heart snaps back into place.

Jonah, as he is a baby, after all, sees another face in his immediate vicinity and doesn’t resist the urge to tap it. His little hand thumps on Carlos’ nose with a bit too much force.
“Ow, Jesus”, he takes it in stride, though, pretending to bite the offending fist and making the baby laugh in response. He can practically sense the room rise in temperature at the sound of it. It’s like he can perceive its fundaments take a deep breath in, rejoicing at the first signs of peace returning between its walls. Or maybe what he feels is his soul, at last starting the dire task of sewing itself back together.

Jonah is still giggling, now full on climbing on his stomach to try and get away from Carlos, busy chomping on his forearm. He’s unrestrained, cheeks red and puffy, eyes shiny and clear. He’s happy.
And while a portion of TK throbs at the face of it, another just wants to dive into it until he can’t feel the bottom.
He can’t help but notice that while grief envelops you and isolates your senses until they can’t detect anything but its anguish, happiness does the opposite. It opens you up, makes you bigger. And it’s never, ever only your own.

He watches as his brother laughs and throws himself back in his hold with no fear, just smiling at him when he doesn’t fall and lands securely in his arms.
He watches him and thinks of how thankful he is for his mother not letting him shut himself away, when Jonah was first born. He thinks of how she, and his father together, wouldn’t let fear of change prevent him from seeing how good everything could still be.
He realizes, in this moment, how much his blind fidelity acts as an oxygen mask on his struggling lungs, and he sees it. Her first act of legacy.

And he thinks that, as difficult as it feels on this day, he'll try and carve all that's left and build something else out of it. Something that resembles hope, the same one she had when she refused to leave him behind.
The same one she had when -instead- she did, with a pair of airport' sliding doors closing on an empty hall.

As he leans a bit forward to accommodate Jonah’ squirming better, he thinks he can try to do the same. He’ll bend, he’ll twist out of shape to navigate the new outline his body has taken.
TK marvles at the credence still liquid in his brother’s eyes and wonders how much of it is his mother’s. He leans down to press a kiss on his tepid forehead and spares a careful wish.

That maybe she’s not gone at all.

***

The next seven days are both everything he was dreading, and exactly what he needs.

The only memory he has of sitting shiva’a is when his grandmother passed when he was just a kid. He remembers so many people coming by their house, so many faces crouching down to his level, turning smaller and less overwhelming, so many hands landing on his shoulder, squeezing him tight. You are being so brave. As if he had a choice, as if an alternative existed. He didn’t quite know what being brave meant, back then. He doesn’t know now, either.

He only knows how to get up, face every scrolling hour and hoping he’ll make it whole by the end of each one.

To abandon all action is effortless, undemanding. The days go by and he’s only aware of them because of the visitors changing shape around him.

The words they feel compelled to say in the face of death don’t change, he discovers. Numerous are the I’m sorry for your loss and She was such a lovely woman. So is he. Yes, yes she was.

The ones he prefers, he finds, are those who say nothing at all. They walk inside on silent feet, only a dip of their head in tacit acknowledgment. Then they just join him on the carpet, where he often settles in the morning, the weight of what seems to be the whole ceiling pushing him down. They don’t try to reach for him, don’t attempt to comfort. Just stay there, breathing the same air, the need to make themselves known suddenly a forgotten one.

The kitchen fills with dish after dish. He recognizes his cousin’s brisket by the smell, entering the door right before she does. It’s the same one his aunt used to make.

His senses, he understands, hold a memory of their own. Every second he ever lived, every feeling he ever had, it all gets stored, somewhere; sometimes in a drawer he does not know the existence of until it’s opened, and he gets a look inside. Thinking is not the only way through which he gets to remember. His nose recognizes things, makes a lightbulb switch in his heart and pulls at strings that he thought non-existent. His hands acknowledge textures as old friends circling back, instead of strangers he couldn’t tell apart if he tried. His body a witness of everything that ever walked through him.

The fourth day is the hardest, because it’s when Jonah starts crying and doesn’t stop.
None of them knows the extent to which he understands what’s going on. But nothing they try seems to work.
They put a washcloth in the freezer, assuming he’s teething, and it must hurt a little. The baby accepts it, but the sobs don’t subside, just become muffled around it.
They attempt their luck with mashed apples. But Jonah firmly refuses to open his mouth, only grabbing the spoon to throw it on the floor. He doesn’t need changing, he doesn’t feel feverish.
And they resolve to accept that he probably must miss her, and her absence is a concept he has no issue grasping. She was there, and now she isn’t. And he doesn’t like that.
TK rocks him delicately in his arms, shushing him and his own urge to succumb to tears at the same time. When Enzo offers, probably sensing his crumbling composure, TK hands him over without protest. Jonah keeps wailing for a good thirty minutes, before finally tiring himself out, and only soft hiccups remain to fill the silence. His big eyes are wet, his cheeks red with the strain. TK lightly brushes under his eyelids, wiping the worst of the moisture away.

“I know, little man.” He bends to kiss his forehead, and Jonah’s breath hitches once, before finally smoothing out. Enzo’ shirt is ruined, but the other man still lifts a portion of it to finish cleaning the baby up, snot and all. “I know.”

On the fifth day, it rains.

TK is on the balcony, feet swinging in the open air. The roof is big enough to keep him from getting wet, but he doesn’t think he’d mind, either way. He extends a hand, letting some droplets fall on it, and watching as they chase themselves on his palm. Under him, New York is bustling with never ending life. The honk of a cab, a couple arguing in the house across from his and lastly, a street artist playing the violin on the side of the road. Under the building storm, he looks like a painting.

He likes the rain, always did, since he can remember. Countless are the colds he caught when he used to stand under it as a child, an improvised shelter built of sheets and a couple of pillows, in the middle of the garden. His dad almost busted a vein when he saw it first.

They compromised when they bought him one, waterproof, and he couldn’t wait to drag it outside whenever the first strikes of lightning appeared in the sky. He used to lay in it for hours, listening to the ticking of the rain as it landed on the tent, flashlight pointed on some comic book, blanket up over his head.
The smell of it is now strong in his nostrils, and he finds himself smiling without meaning to, when a bee lands on a nearby chair, looking for shelter from the water. He read somewhere that they usually don’t go out when it’s raining; that they stay put in their hives whenever they catch its approach in the air. He looks at this fearless little thing, which only heard of storms and wonders if it thought its time too short to never witness one. Like a peek behind the curtain, of what the world looks like without the sun in it.

A hoodie gets gently wrapped around his shoulders, and Carlos' hand follows suit, curling around him until it reaches his belly. 

"You okay?" It's quiet, so quiet. Spoken against his ear, impossible to miss. 
And it's not useless, nor absurd. It holds multiple meanings, beyond what makes it out as words. It's hope and reminder at once. You okay? but it sounds more like you can be. Just know that you can.

TK cranes his neck to look back, catching Carlos' cheek with his nose. He nods, and it feels good. He gets to ride this, feel it all, doesn't have to shy away from it like a too hot flame.

He'll forgive himself, forgive his heart, for having turned soft and breakable under everything. He thinks it's okay for it to stay that way a little bit longer. For once, he looks at its cracks and doesn't demand. He has time.

On the sixth day, he rolls over in bed to get up, puts on his socks to make his way downstairs. When he stops at the bottom of the stairs, already reaching for the coffee his father has ready for him on the counter, his bones hurt a little less. As he lifts the mug to his lips, his movements aren’t slow with exhaustion. When he goes to wash up, to throw water over his head and scrub at it with a towel, the face that stares back at him, did so before.

On the seventh and last day, he gets a photo album out of the dresser, lays it on his knees, spends most of the afternoon brushing against Gwyn’s young features, careless and loose, with black hair down to her waist. He’s on the floor again, finds it the most comforting, to not have to find the strength to support his weight.

A brioche gets gently laid by his thigh, carefully wrapped in white tissue paper. When he lifts his eyes, the ones he meets are ones he does not know. Blue as a clear sky, framed by eyelashes as dark as her hair. A woman, around the same age as him.

“May I?” She points to the empty space next to him, and TK nods, grabbing the bread and ripping a piece from it. It’s soft as butter when it lands on his tongue, and TK recognizes a hint of strawberry jam. His favourite.

“How is it?” She sits down beside him, and gestures to the pastry getting swiftly demolished, the powdered sugar lingering on his fingertips. “I think I overdid it with the yeast.”

“No, it’s –” he wipes at his mouth, coughs once to clear a crumb that got stuck. “It’s really good. Thank you.”

She nods with a smile, before scooting a bit closer, craning her neck to look at the photographs on his legs. It’s one of Gwyn at the pier, green sundress on and a hat as big as TK is, barely three years old and balanced on her hip. “She was really beautiful.”

TK looks down, squinting against the tears that come as if called on command. “Yeah.” He sniffles and tries to smile too. There’s a little note, written on the side. A bit faded, but still decipherable. Riverside Park, July, 1997. He doesn’t remember much of that day, but he does recall the feeling of waves lapping at his toes, and someone screeching to not get in the water right after eating his weight in ice cream. He remembers being swept off his feet, the echo of his laugh resounding until he has to shake his head to make it disappear, his free hand digging into his leg in an attempt to ground himself. “Sorry, I didn’t ask your name.”

The woman waits a beat before answering, seeming to notice how he must need it, in order to compose himself and actually listen. “I’m Era. I am –” She cocks her head to the side with a one-eyed squint. “I guess I was a client of your mom, some years ago. We kept in touch.”

And she’s not the first to come around. There have been colleagues, clients, even supervisors from affiliated firms, where Gwyn didn’t actually work at.

“I see.” He says, now fidgeting with the empty tissue in his hands, crumbling it into little pieces. Era shifts a bit in place, following with her eyes while he turns the page, now revealing a solo portrait, Gwyn perched on a bench, sunglasses on top of her head and the Colosseum in the background.

The door opens again, but TK doesn’t glance at it. He thumbs gently at his mother’ smiling face, wiping just as carefully at the print he leaves behind, craving for everything to stay as he found it, unaltered, always accessible whenever he’ll need to go back for it. He turns the page again and this time it’s him, age nine or ten, sitting on the kitchen counter, waving a spoon dripping with sauce that already adorns his bare belly.

“She saved my life, your mom.” And it’s so low TK has to get closer to catch it but, when he does, he turns to look at her. Era wets her lips, eyes roaming wildly before they settle on him. “I was in a bad place, a bad home. My husband was –” She shakes her head, putting a strand of hair behind her ear when it falls on her face. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t be where I am, had things gone differently. If I never listened to her and refused the help she offered.”

She turns fully in his direction, her shoulder resting on the back of the couch. TK mirrors her after just one moment of hesitation, photo album still tightly held in his hands.

“We met at a diner, one where I went to look for my friend, asking for a place to stay. I didn’t want to go home.” Her eyes dim a bit, turn distant. “I found her instead. We got to talking, and I didn’t know what made me spill my guts all over the table, but I did. I told her everything.”

She laughs, just a little one, and TK finds it easy to imitate her. She had the power to do that, his mom. To make you feel safe, secure, fastened. She shared such affinity with people, could recognize a need before you’re even done gauging it yourself. It drove TK crazy, sometimes, to have his ability to hide taken away from him. Seen, without reprieve from it.

“She didn’t do pro-bono cases. But she took mine, offered me a couch to crash on, or a hotel room if I wasn’t comfortable with it. Told me to stay safe, and not worry about anything else.” She moves to get her wallet from her back pocket, flipping it open to get a tiny picture out. TK leans over, gently taking it when she offers it to him. “That’s my son, he’s four now. He was two at the time.”

A curly haired boy stares back at him, blue eyes the exact same shade as Era’s, only with tiny gold speckles in them, nitid despite the blurry quality. “I was constantly terrified of what would happen to him.  My husband was the one with the job, the house. I had nothing, and any judge would take one look at us and give Noah to him, if I ever decided to leave him.”

TK hands the picture back, following its path as it disappears back in its place. “He looks just like you.”

Era’ smile shines like the sun. “He does, doesn’t he?”

She settles back down, putting one arm on the couch to rest her chin atop of it. “It was a long fight, but she saw me through it until the end. Until we were safe, and stable enough to make it on our own, with him erased out of our life in a way I never thought possible.”

TK nods, and he watches her take a deep breath in, before speaking again.

“She told me about you, you know.” And her gaze looks heavy, way too wise for someone her age.
You don’t get to look like that without the scars to prove it, without having felt on your skin how it resonates, to turn your weeping into battle cries. “She said her son, TK, had some trouble accepting help too. Just like I had in the beginning.”

TK bows his head, wiping at his eyes that started to get wet, once again.

“I guess I didn’t want to believe something was wrong, wasn’t ready to take the leap. She wasn’t bothered. I’m good at waiting, she told me. Said sometimes that’s all some people need.” She smiles again, and TK sees it, the person Era used to be, and the one she forged from the ground up. Both, merged into something different, something stronger.

The sound of pans and plates banging in the kitchen rises in volume in the background, and TK looks away to search for Carlos, smiles when he finds him shoulders to the wall, cornered by his aunt who’s speaking way too animatedly with her hands. He looks a bit terrified, smiling his tight-lipped grin that reserves for moments when he doesn’t know what to do with his face. Across the open space, their gazes meet, and his boyfriend takes advantage of a second that his aunt turns her back on him to throw him a wide eyed look, only to smile impossibly bright when she whips back around. TK just shakes his head, supressing a chuckle as he watches her pinch his cheeks, patting him against the jaw right after.

“I’m glad she did.” TK initiates the contact, gently seizing Era’s forearm. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Her smaller hand covers his own, squeezing once before letting go. “I am glad you are here too.”

Their attention goes back to the still open album on his lap, and the rest of the time they spend in silence, swiping page after page until they reach the end.

The sun is coming down through the window, painting the living room a dark blue. When he blinks, it’s to watch Era stretch beside him, hands raising to shake out her hair. He lets her lay a hand on his shoulder to help herself up, not flinching away when she delays the contact to tug affectionately at his ear.

“You take care of yourself, yes?” A business card finds its way under his nose, and TK reaches up to grip it. Era Shaw, flowers and plants. A florist. How lovely. “If you need something, anything, even just someone to talk to.”

TK nods, curving his head back to meet her eyes. “Thank you.”

She just winks at him, shrugging her jacket back on and reaching for her abandoned shoes. He turns the card over in his hand, tracing with his fingertips the embroidered daisies, their texture raised as his pads press against them.

Era gives him one last look, and then goes for the door. She makes it only a few inches, though, before turning back around. “Oh, and TK?” But he’s already watching her.

“You look just like her too.”

***

“A cup of sugar goes next. No, that’s not a cup. Dad-“ but he doesn’t make it in time, and what is definitely way too much sugar ends up right on top of the eggs he was busy whisking. “Are you serious?”

But his dad just shrugs, licking his index finger clean. “I’m sure it won’t make much of a difference. I bet the sweeter the better.”

“I thought I was the one with the irremediable sweet tooth.” TK throws Owen a pointed look, to which his dad responds with a nonchalant shrug.

“You must have rubbed off.”

TK rolls his eyes, secretly amused, now handing Carlos the mixture and proceeding to set up the electric mixer. His arm is already too sore to do it manually, and with how much sugar his dad just added, the paste is going to be even thicker, so. Electric mixer it is.

His boyfriend takes the offered bowl with a determined set of his face, but before he can make it his personal mission to whisk it all by hand and pull a muscle in the process, TK intervenes. “Don’t even try it, you. Just hold on.”

It takes him a second to get it from the cupboard, to locate exactly where it is. TK is aware that she was staying more and more frequently at Enzo’s house, trying to give this co-parenting thing a real chance. Enough for Jonah to have his own room, and enough for an electric mixer to take home in his kitchen.

TK releases a little sound of satisfaction when he moves a stack of plates over and sees it in all its glory and then. Then, a new wave of sadness washes over him when he notices how well used it is, how much she must have baked while he wasn’t here to see it, the memories she made, and how many of them she won’t get a chance to. He thumbs at the caked dough against its edges, the residues that firmly remain even after repetitive washes. He blinks once and he’s back in his childhood home, the smell of chocolate and oven thick in the air, his mother’s laughter ringing in his ears.

But TK is able to take back the reins this time, before his sight turns blurry and the walls around him start to close in. He shuts the marble door with a soft click, shakes his head and plants his feet on the solid ground, his toes curling a bit in his worn-out socks. When he hands the mixer over to his boyfriend’s outstretched arms, his chest doesn’t hurt.
“Use power 4, or we’ll be here till tomorrow.”

Carlos nods, and their fingers brush for a prolonged second when he takes it from him; a secret touch. A check-in. How you doing and it’s me, it’s us. I’m here.
TK is surprised to feel his cheeks lift of their own volition at the gesture, his eyes jumping on the other man’s face to take it in. He’s wearing a hoodie, just like TK is, and he likes him the best this way. Soft and unguarded, with his nose slightly red from the quickly heating kitchen. It’s a pale blue, the hoodie; and it makes his eyes shine incredibly bright against it.

“Okay, so. I managed to find the cinnamon, but they were all out of chocolate chips which is just – insane, if you ask me.” Enzo shoulders the kitchen door open, both hands occupied with grocery bags. “So I guess we’re making them without them? I can go out again, though. I think I saw a bakery a few miles from the Target I went to. I should have gone already. I’ll just leave these here, and be right bac-“

“Enzo.” It’s his dad to interrupt his rambling, already making his way to take the plastic out of his hands “ It’s okay. Take a seat. They’re gonna be just as good without the chocolate.”

“Well, now, that’s a lie and you know it.”
But TK says so in the mockery of a mumble, his eyes shining with mirth when Enzo’s head whips in his direction.
TK just winks, pleased with his answering smile. He pushes down the urge to bristle when he notices how startled it looks, like he never thought he would joke again. He allows the annoyance to settle for just a moment, before just as easily brushing it away. He won’t give it space, not if he can help it.
They’re all just happy he’s happy, and they’re clinging on each other just as hard as he’s clinging onto them. Any speck of joy walks amongst them on its tiptoes, uncertain and afraid to do so. They all fall dazed at its appearance, with no little amount of fear that it'll disappear if they grow too accustomed to it.
It feels good, a bit, to be the one to embody the force behind it, for once. The one to show them that it's okay to exhale, and that it’s not necessary for them to save their breath.

They work soundlessly for the rest of the time, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s more like none of them wants to think of things to say, and they all quietly accepted the easy blanket of silence for the repose that it is.
Enzo stays perched on a stool for most of it, reaching out only to steal pieces of raw dough every few minutes, no matter how many times TK slaps his hand.
Owen follows his lead in terms of being a silent bystander, apparently having decided that throwing too much sugar in the recipe was his first and last contribution. So it’s Carlos TK is left working with, and they do so with minimal effort.

He hands his boyfriend a lemon for him to peel, and Carlos takes it from him without glancing his way, already with a knife in his fingers. TK takes the pot he put the honey to melt into, in the meantime, setting to the task of pouring it over the rest of the mixture. Carlos steps behind him to get a cloth to wipe his hands with, gently rubbing his knuckles against his back as he does so. Then, almost timid, a kiss in the crook of his neck, which tickles way too much for TK not to squash his face into his own shoulder, a startled little laugh making his way out of his throat, too fast for him to doubt.
When he turns his head, the smile he sees reflected on his boyfriend’s face is blinding.

“You just made me spill honey all over my sleeve.” His voice is rough, but the squint he aims Carlos’ way is playful; the sticky liquid already seeping into the soft cotton.

“Here.” Carlos rolls up said sleeve, which is something TK supposes should have done himself before they started in the first place. “All fixed.” Another smile, this one even deeper, crinkling the corner of his eyes, before he’s back at his post, starting to butter the tray and dusting it with flour.

His tongue peeks out from one corner of his mouth while he’s shaping the cookies, and TK gets distracted as he lifts a hand to brush his curls out of his eyes when he bends over the counter to analyse the roundness of them with way too much scrutiny. And he watches as a sprinkle of flour lands on his nose and stays on it, Carlos too busy picking up a previously thoroughly examined cookie and bringing it close to his face.

“Do you think this one’s too lumpy?”

TK lifts himself on his tiptoes to place a kiss on his boyfriend’s lips, bent on a pout. “It’s perfect.”



They settle at the table after they put the board in the oven, unanimously deciding to leave the cleaning up for later.
TK opts for a cup of tea, something smoky and fresh with a trace of citrus fruits. He’s never been one for hot beverages, even in the coldest months. But the liquid is soothing as it goes down his throat, warming him up from the inside.
The living room is quiet except for the ticking of the oven timer, slow and noticeable only if you strain your ears.


“You know,” it’s Enzo that breaks it. His hands are curled around a glass of lemon juice, the fingers of his right restlessly tapping against it. “There’s something I’d like you to have, if you’re feeling up for it. She saved it for you, even though I am not sure when she intended to give it.”

And it’s no mistaking to whom he is speaking to. TK feels all eyes shift to him, as well as Carlos’ thigh stiffen, where it’s pressed against his own under the table. And he gets it, their uneasiness. They found some relief from it, from everything. For a few moments it felt like the world was unchanged, and now they’re back at approaching a previously shattered vase, held together by still drying glue. Owen, in front of him, has his forehead set in a frown. “I don’t think-“

But TK lifts his chin and meets Enzo’s waiting stare with only a bit of hesitation. “Yeah. Yes.” He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, but it helps. “What is it?”

TK is expecting the other man to get up and go pick it up, whatever it is, but he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches into his jeans pocket, struggling just a little before a chain comes out of it. He straightens it out from where it got tangled, and proceeds to lay it on the wooden surface, in the exact space which separates them. Even without coming closer, TK identifies the pendant as soon as he sees it.

It’s a Star of David. His Star of David.

He recognizes the little dent on one of the edges, from when he fell off a swing and landed too hard on the ground when he was 12. The chain still has one ring that’s slightly clearer than the others, since it’s the one that snapped and they had to replace. 

He had it with him for most of his childhood, before one day deciding to leave it in his drawer to never pick it up again. He lost track of many things, back then. The necklace is just one amongst the multitude of them.

He wonders when his mother made the decision to take it and save it where she was sure he was going to find it, someday. He wonders if she did it because it was – and still is – a part of him, a remnant of a time that she did not want to forget. He wonders if she held it like he did the black ribbon; or the dirt that he did not brush off.
Hopeful. Unyielding. If you want it, you’ll have to take it from me.

“How-“ his hand twitches in an halted movement, nails lightly scratching the surface of the table. “Where was it?”

“She kept it in her nightstand. It’s one of the first things she left here when she started coming. I think she took it with her everywhere.” He thumbs at his beard. “I knew it was yours because she told me. And when this – happened, I thought that it should leave with you.”

TK finally reaches over, then. His index finger touches the lowest point of the star, flicking delicately against it. After the initial approach, he takes it fully, and does so freely. One step at a time.
It shimmers vividly against his palm, and when it closes around it, the way it pinches his skin is so familiar that he feels the corners of his mouth curl up, unprompted.

His father is smiling too, shoulders now relaxed against the backrest. He probably knew, that she had it all this time. Held her secret like she did; a gift secured, an inheritance in the making.

“I’m not sure how much of the faith you still –“

“It doesn’t matter.” TK is aware that his eyes must look a little wild, determined and almost unnaturally clear. “It’s not – it’s more than just that. It’s her.”
He feels the usual lump take residence in his throat, and he’s no longer surprised when it solidifies, morphing his next breath into a choked-up sob. “Thank you, for this.”

Enzo releases some pent-up tension at that, his fingers stilling their dance against the fogged up glass. “I always thought she should have given it to you sooner.”

“No.” TK shakes his head and thinks of Gwyn’s fiery eyes when she stared him down across the table in that dim-sum restaurant, ready to fight tooth and nail to make sure he didn’t go under. Of her holding his life in her hands and refusing to be pushed out of it.
Of her knowing exactly how many steps to take before letting go, her trust in him still firmly holding him up.
Taking care of him, being for him what he needs, regardless of anything else. That was her.
Faith, in all its forms.

A steady hand, the last words of a shooting star, endlessly echoing through time and space. “I think it found me exactly when it was supposed to.”

The thrill of the oven timer cracks the moment, and TK makes to get up to get it, but he's gently stopped in his tracks by a hand landing on his shoulder.
Carlos rubs his scapula one, two, three times, before standing up to bring out the tray and settling it on the counter. 

His father was right. The cookies come out great, despite the absence of chocolate. They’re crunchy on the outside and just gooey enough on the inside, and TK takes a moment after the first bite to allow his eyes to fill with unshed tears.

“I like them.” His voice is thick and all wrong, but none of them brings attention to it. They just nod, ceremoniously so, like they’re all aware of the weight of the moment, wary of disturbing its importance.

He doesn’t have a physical recipe anymore. It used to be on the back of a take-out menu, a bit faded and ruined in more than one place.

He wonders where it ended up, once they stopped reaching for it and let memory guide them, instead. He knows it’s somewhere, left in a cupboard or under a pile of books. 

He’ll make a new one. He hopes he’ll get to watch it change as the old one did. Turning yellow with the passing years, gathering chocolate stains on its edges when they won’t bother to wipe their fingers clean. 

He remembers how much he loved it, the way it registered every person it landed on. Maybe it can do so again. After all, his hands are still the same.

And how glorious it is, he thinks, that he gets to try again.

***

TK doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, he truly doesn’t.

After finishing off all the cookies, they took a seat on the couch with all the intention to watch some tv.
Instead, him and Carlos fell asleep merely a few minutes in.

He comes to only because of the ringing of his boyfriend’s phone, and the consequent wriggling Carlos must resort to in order to get it from his back pocket. A whispered curse, a hand against his hair that he knows to be a mess, and then a sigh, before the beep of a call accepted dings in the air.
TK just burrows more into his chest, the cushioned material of the hoodie a soft embrace against his cheek. His arms tighten their grip around his waist, and it’s with a sniffle that he settles back down, no intention of getting up anytime soon. Sue him, Carlos is warm.

So it really is no fault of his own that he finds himself catching Carlos’ conversation with his mother, muffled but still clearly perceptible, considering how close they are right now.

“Mom.” It’s the first thing he says, voice rough from sleep. A pause, during which he smacks his lips, probably to untie his tongue, heavy with disuse. “Yeah, we were napping.”

Andrea’s answer is too faint to register, but TK doesn’t try to. “No, I was already awake. I should start packing soon, anyway.”

It should not take long. They didn’t take much, after all. Only some changes -mostly consisting of sweats and hoodies- the essentials and a black suit, which TK already craves to put into some deep part of his closet, away from sight. He doesn’t think he’ll wear it again.

“I’m okay, I think. TK is – well.” His fingers press into the lowest point of his spine, and TK arches a bit against the contact, wishing for it to leave a mark on his skin. He’ll never stop wanting evidence of how intently he’s loved, so much, all the time. Still persist moments in which it does not seem real, the amount of affection surrounding him, with Carlos as its leading agent. “It’ll take time.”

The room must be in the dark because there’s no silver of light passing through his eyelids. When he opens them, all is empty except for them, curled up on the cushions in a mess of limbs. He can’t tell where he ends and his boyfriend begins, his thigh thrown over his hip, and his foot anchored behind his calf, pinning him in place. A fleece blanked covers them, probably his father’s doing.

“Mom, I don’t think –“ He lets out a frustrated huff at being interrupted and a muscle of his left leg twitches. “Alright, alright. Let me just – I’ll ask.”
Carlos presses his phone against his shoulder, covering the microphone. When he looks down at him, TK is already waiting, chin up and sight a tad obfuscated.
 
Carlos doesn’t speak right away, though. He prolongs eye contact for a few seconds, like he’s taking the time to absorb something in. His face seems to abandon the strain it was carrying, loosening up as it meets his own.

A fingertip lands on his eyebrow, feather light, tracing then the outline of his nose and reaching the cupid bow of his lips. TK kisses the pad when it stops there, lifting his hand to grasp at Carlos’ and guide it to glide against his cheek. Another kiss, to his wrist this time.

“Hi, baby.”
TK’s eyelids drop at the pet name, and he’s sure he’ll never tire of hearing Carlos say it. He kind of wants to ask him to say it again, even now. And again. Can he say it twice, at the same time? Can he say it louder, or quieter? Can he spell it, whisper it, sing it? TK is willing to listen to all versions of it.

“Hey.” He answers. It’s like time hangs suspended around them, and he finds himself blissfully uncaring of it. He’ll stay in this, in them, as long as Carlos will. Right now, that’s all he needs.

“My mom wants to talk to you.” Carlos’ hand now moves spontaneously against the side of his neck, shivers blossoming after it like flowers. “Do you feel up for it?”

TK just moves soundlessly in response, gently taking the phone from Carlos’ slack grip to bring it against his ear. He softly pushes against his boyfriend’s forehead, then, brushing their noses together in a grateful touch. Careful, always so careful.

He drops back down against his chest: Carlos’ heartbeat in one ear, the smartphone occupying the other.

“Hi, Andrea.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the receiver, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the way his voice sounds, frail and hoarse, or if she’s surprised he took the phone at all.

“TK, vida.” It’s what greets him. Kind and brimming with infinite tenderness. “Have you eaten yet today?”

TK has to chuckle at that, bending down to do so against Carlos’ sternum. When he meets the other man’s eyes, they’re confused but gleeful, too scarred by laughter’s departure to doubt its presence when he sees it.
He decides he wants to look at him better, so he drags himself up, laying his head to rest on the same pillow as his is, their faces a millimetre apart. Carlos adjusts to get more comfortable, features open and serene.

“Yes, I’ve eaten.” Carlos’ smile gets brighter at that, with a fond shake of the head. “I had eggs for breakfast, and we also made mom’s cookies.” He reports, dutifully. “Carlos is going to cook that genovese sauce that I really like, for dinner. I am sure we can find the ingredients in time.”

Oh, am I? He mouths, around the grin stretching his expression. TK rises his chin, playfully defiant, before nodding. “I bet Enzo’s got enough carrots in the fridge.”

Andrea snorts. “I know of a variant with tomatoes, if he doesn’t. Tell him to call me if he needs it.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you.”

He lifts a hand to brush a curl that fell down on Carlos’ eyes, gingerly twirling it around his finger once before pushing it back. As much as he likes his hair all neat and gelled down like he wears it to work, the way it frames his face when he doesn’t, free and candid, will always have his heart rush to its next beat way too fast. It makes him look younger, light, like the weight of the world is no longer resting on his shoulders as it sometimes seems to be. His kindness often demanding of him almost as much as it gives.

You don’t get out of it unscathed, when you care as Carlos does. To have one’s heart so open is a bittersweet experience, for it leaves it without defences. TK is familiar with the effects of it, even shares them.

It hasn’t always been the case. He came into Carlos’ life with wire surrounding his most vulnerable parts, in the making of a cage he felt compelled to build around himself, a desperate cry to protect what was left of them after all that happened.
It was Carlos that showed him that when you shut down in order to not feel more pain, you do so with all that’s good too. That you don’t get to choose what you close towards, you’re either alive or you aren’t. With everything that comes with it.

It was Carlos that showed him that a bleeding heart is just as precious, valuable, and worth listening to, for it still holds the ability to pump blood into his veins and make him the happiest he’s ever been.

“TK.” Andrea’s voice is cautious, and TK sighs. “No need to thank me.” She pauses, and he can sense her holding something back. So he waits, fighting a bit against his eyelids that start to fall. The darkness around him is not helping, and Carlos is radiating heat like his own personal fireplace, making it very difficult to stay alert. And that’s alright, he enjoys this too. This little space between consciousness and lack of it, delicately floating right in the middle.

Carlos must take notice of his slipping awareness – constantly so attuned to his presence in what seems to be an effortless act – and lets out a soft protesting sound, a little frown appearing between his eyebrows. He knows he’s going to reach for the phone soon, probably already contemplating on what to tell his mother in order to cut the conversation short.
But TK intercepts him before he can, with a faint shake of the head and a reassuring smile. Carlos surrenders, but he’s a little bit more guarded now, his expression turning vigilant, and TK loves him so much he doesn’t know where to put it all.

“We’re here for you, you know.” TK’s attention sharpens abruptly. “Me and Gabriel have you in our prayers. I know you have Carlos, but do not think you can’t turn to us too. Not with how much we love you.”

TK’s lips curl on themselves, and he’s suddenly battling tears way more than he is battling sleep.

“I—” He coughs to clear his trembling voice. “I appreciate it.” And it’s not enough to express how unprepared he feels against it, against all the care steered his way. He was incredulous of it before, but it’s even more extraordinary now, when it fights against that ever-dimming part of him that still believes it all left with her.

“You make sure to come around when you boys are back home.” He can hear the smile in her voice, and it’s good. So good, and it’s for him. “If you like Carlos’ genovese, wait until you taste my picadillo. It was my mother’s recipe, she always made it for me when I was feeling sad.”

TK is nodding, before remembering she can’t see him. “I would love that. Thank you.”

“You go back to sleep, now, you hear? I know you’re tired.”

TK lets out a wet laugh, unflinching when Carlos raises a hand to wipe away some tenacious tears that managed to find their way out. “Okay, yeah. I’ll see you soon, then.”

“You will. Give Carlitos a kiss for me.”

And when he ends the call, TK proceeds to do just that.

The phone drops between them, falling somewhere between two sofa cushions when TK grabs the back of his neck in attempt to get impossibly closer. He longs to kiss him without having it taste like tears, so that’s what he does. Their mouths don’t subside until enough time passes that his eyes are a bit stiff with how the moisture dried on his lashes. Carlos gives it his all and more, a thumb on his chin to keep him steady, anchored, making it hard for him to drift away. As their lips open, so does something else. An invite, a willing embrace to take more, to house it all. The oxygen he loses, he’s giving up freely. He always does enjoy when they get to breathe as one.

As they separate, he senses both their recluctance to do so. Carlos tries to chase him, only making it halfway before TK is pulling back, eyes shining.

“I love you.” He says it in the air they’re still sharing, lets Carlos map the taste of the words straight from his mouth. He doesn’t wait for him to say it back, for he knows. He knows.

Instead, he kisses his smile, delighting in the fact that when his mouth lands on it, his own cheeks lift to match it.

***

They’re back at the airport by morning.
It feels like he just blinked, and like it’s been lifetimes all the same.

They’re not as early as they were when they left Texas, but there’s still plenty of waiting to go around.
His eyes wander then, now busy with the one activity he actually enjoys free time at airports for. People watching.
They’re everywhere; some a blurry trail as they run past him, the rolling of their suitcases obnoxiously loud on the shiny floors. Some are sitting down like he is; some on the ground, with their back against the wall and a book balanced on their knees.

A businessman talking way too noisily on the phone, his arms waving around and almost smacking a passer-by in the face with the motion.
A group of four children climbing on the back of what must be an exasperated dad at the register line of the closest Starbucks, their bundle of excited voices overlapping each other.
A teenage girl sitting at the piano in one of the aisles, cracking her knuckles, preparing to start her next piece.
A couple walking side by side, their hands swinging between them and with only backpacks fastened across their backs; young and with long hair flying everywhere.
A TSA guard longing on a chair, lifting his cap to scratch at his scalp.
A hurried hostess making her way on rickety heels.

It’s just off to the right side that his eyes choose to stop at, and they linger.
A man, sitting on one of those benches that are always empty, way too close to the bathroom doors. He must be in his 80s, with hair white-as-snow and a cane precariously balanced against his thigh. Even from this distance TK can see his sweater is frayed at the edges, the too long sleeves worn-out and tattered.

His leg is bouncing in a reflection of his own, a week ago, covered in maroon dress pants, and making the cane shake along with the movement.
His left hand keeps picking at a scab on his face, a new red patch blossoming under his digits.
In his right hand: a sunflower, the stick long, and leaves still attached. It shines as molten gold among the paleness of their surroundings, blazingly out of place.

The minutes tick by, and his fidgeting worsens with every passing one. At a point it gets so severe that his stick drops to the floor. TK means to get up to get it, but the man does so himself before he can, laying it to rest on the bench itself, still rigorously vacant except for him. He doesn’t look nervous, per se, just like he’s waiting. Like he’s balanced on something precarious, all the pent-up tension making his limbs tremble. His hand still hasn’t stopped its fidgeting against his cheek. His other one remains still as set in stone, the contrast between the two almost unnatural for how severe it is, like they’re commanded by two isolated stimuli.

TK notices someone has arrived only because the change in the man could be seen from miles away. His knee falls quiet, his wrinkle-marked face lifts as if moved by invisible strands, and now both his hands hold the flower, bright and striking as yellow paint.

A child who can’t be much older than six is making her way towards him, her tiny hand holding the one of a woman, whose smile is visibly tired and run-down but still firmly there.

Their pace picks up once they spot him, his figure who’s now getting up on cautious feet.
The child is full on speeding now, her chest-nut braids cascading behind her, purple dress sticking to her legs. When she makes contact with the man, TK can hear the muffled oof  that comes out of him. The other woman lets out a soft warning, probably about aging bones and the damage they can sustain.
The man waves her off, busy taking the now laughing girl by the hand and making her twirl. TK watches as he lifts her off her feet then, quietly surprised by how unflinching the action seems to be. The woman still makes to intervene, only to scoff when dismissed for a second time.
He hears it clear, this time, the admonishing words said with a fond shake of the head dad, I swear, only to quiet down when the man reaches for her too, pulling her in a tight hug with the child squashed in the middle, her giggles echoing in the bustling air.

When they separate, TK notices the man handing over the flower to the younger girl, the gesture timid before it meets her waiting fingers. She squeals in delight, her little nose burying in the petals with a vigorous sniff that TK knows just made her lightheaded. The action is followed by a toothy grin, and the hug resumes where it started.

A few whispered words that TK is too far away to catch; the older woman’s expression turning helplessly affectionate. She kisses her father on the back of his now empty hand, doing the same for the little girl’s forehead. She says something to her, and the child nods, dropping to the ground and taking the old man by the wrist. He hesitates for a second before allowing himself to be dragged along, sharing a look with his daughter that seems to freeze them in time.

TK gets a little window into them, right then. A bookmark; gloriously warm, tinged with rosy cheeks, cloudless mornings and child-like delight. 

The pair then starts strolling ahead, the little girl’s voice raising in volume as she looks up at him with an adoring beam. The woman stays a step behind, guarding their retreating backs. She stops in her tracks only to collect the cane forgotten on the bench, gathering it under her arm before following them out.

TK looks at them go and asks himself, not for the first time, if all humans experience life the same way.

He looks around the brimming airport, to the man still shouting on the phone and the piano music now increasing in momentum. He thinks of gifted flowers and forgotten pains. Of a legacy and contemplates its meaning.

Could there be that that’s all there is to it? That it’s all we should strive towards?
He thinks of a grandfather who wants to be remembered by the blossoms he sowed behind; of a daughter left carrying his cane. He thinks of a granddaughter who will spend her life smelling flowers, and thinking of him, even long after he’s gone.

He thinks of his laundry detergent, of lavender and roses and how we look for evidence of the earth no matter how detached we feel from it.
It is ours, still. Still.

The old man is now a blurred point at the sliding doors TK can barely see. Once they close behind his daughter’s back, they do so like the turning of a book page.

What’s next?

He feels his hand starkly change in temperature, turning hot and aflush; and it’s with quiet disbelief that he welcomes the sun’s rays, touching on his now heated palm and burrowing themselves in the cracks of his skin.
The life line, they call it. The deep mark going across it. Cracked, bent, jagged. And yet it connects the two points, from the base of his thumb to his wrist. Beginning to end.
He has many of those; like scars, like prints. His palm is written all over.

TK stares hard at it. At how deep they look illuminated by so much light.
Of course. Because what he touched, touched him back. How lucky, he was. How lucky.

And he believes that’s what his mother is whispering to him, in this bustling time, in this world that keeps spinning.

I am in your skin. I am in your heart. Do not mourn my loss when I’m here, here 'cause you are.

He waits for the orange glow to pass over the world, bathing it bright, taking him with it.
This time, following comes easy. She’s coming with him, is she not?

He feels his grip on a wish, the one with claw marks on it, the one he was stubbornly refusing to ease because no, not without her.
But the sun touches him, as the Star of David now side by side his 252 pendant, which rises up and down, leading his every breath. 
His mother’s love. His past, his future, and everything in between.

So TK closes his eyes, smiles and lets go.