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The first time he heard “TALK ME DOWN" by Troye Sivan, he was slouching at his desk on the verge of running away. Running away from what? He wasn’t sure. He wanted to run, and his legs jiggled in anticipation, his toes curling around the leg of the table, his mind a thorough and complete mess—more so than usual. At least his hair looked nice, he noted as he watched the top of his head bounce up and down in almost completely dimmed computer screen.
The second time he heard “TALK ME DOWN," he was on his way to work, one of the only times he ever used enough data to stream his Spotify playlist through his phone to the Bluetooth of his car. He could hear the bass pumping in the car next to his, and he could feel the family screaming in the SUV behind him. A song so sad and so aching: he knew it was for him, but he hadn't spoken to him in what seemed like the longest stretch of his life, reminded him of wanting and needing and wishing and hoping. It also reminded him of golden hour photographs and streaky sunbeams and soft daisies and the allergies he got every time he sat for too long in a grassy field.
The third time he heard “TALK ME DOWN” by a boy he used to call his was on a radio special dedicated to up and coming artists, played by a singer songwriter who, like him, was obsessed with the song. She, on the radio, mentioned the lilting qualities of the words that fell from the artist’s lips, the sweet summer butternut squash soup that enveloped his ears and made him close his eyes for fear of liquid silver forming teardrops near his lashes. It had been so long since him, so long since them, but it never felt long enough. It never felt long enough between the times he recalled falling out of happiness and out of excitement and out of bliss and out of laughter. It never felt long enough between the times he fell in his sleep over and over and over again to blue skies and parallel clouds and trees that seemed to surround him from every possible peripheral point in his vision. It never felt long enough between the times he got the lucky, lucky chance to fall into his arms and fall into his eyes and fall for him.
The fourth time he heard the song, he was pretty sure he had heard it many, many, many other times—just never really paid attention to the words because, well, he hated knowing he seemed to miss him, too. This was the fourth time he really listened. An aching rose from just underneath his ribcage, just below the surface, chilling warmth spreading outwards and upwards to his collarbones and striking into his throat and into his nose. It was the heaviest breath he had ever taken.
The fifth time he heard it he moved. He ran. He ran back to the park where they had their first picnic, he ran back to the bench where they had their first checkers game, he ran back to the place where the dandelions used to be. He stopped. He watched the whispers of each tiny blade of grass as they rippled against the breeze, half shining in baking sun, half basking in the lack of radiation—no skin cancer here. He always laughed at his fear of sunlight, but it wasn’t that. It was the fear of getting sick, not the fear of light, not the fear of bathing in heat and warmth, not the fear of sunbeams and bokeh—no, it was always the fear of not knowing what might happen, not knowing the future, not knowing if this would be the end or not. He always thought about the end, the end of this, the end of this world, the end of his life, the end of his life, the end, whatever that was. Would he ever expect the end? Probably not, he reasoned. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and when the end of this came, when the end of whatever they had become came, he was just as unprepared as he had ever been.
The sixth time he heard “TALK ME DOWN,” he let himself cry. He let himself weep and sob and bawl and cry until his shoulders finally stopped clenching after months and months and his belly finally stopped holding and his pinky fingers stopped shaking and his jaw stopped tensing and his calves stopped itching to fire and his lungs stopped caving in and his ears stopped repeating he left because you were not enough and his mind stopped screaming and his tears stopped falling and his heart, his heart, finally, after all this time, finally, stopped aching.