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Numbness.
That’s all he could feel for the first five months.
He was an empty husk of who he used to be. A husk that refused to stop living, but a husk nonetheless. The only piece of him that remained was his grief and sorrow, worsened by the memories left behind.
The way Non smiled, blinding and filled with sincerity.
The way his eyes twinkled, as if the moonlight had whispered tales of their love across the night sky and engraved them in his orbs.
The way his usual calm demeanor transformed whenever he shared his favorite movies. How he could spend hours raving about all the random facts of the movies that went into the production. How he would blush the moment he realized that he had gotten carried away.
The way his tender lips felt pressed against his own.
The way his body would curl under his touch, so eager to be worshipped, and so worthy of the love that Phee covered him in.
But, most of all, he just missed Non.
His presence.
It’s funny how quickly everything can fall apart in the blink of an eye.
One moment they were at the lake, his stomach churning as he finally confessed his true feelings. How he wanted more than a fleeting summer fling. Non had looked at him with a longing he had never seen before.
And the next, he receives a call at three in the morning. The cold, distant voice of Non’s mother had filtered through. It had been the same voice that would deliver the news of Non’s sudden disappearance.
Every night, Phee had prayed for sleep to take him captive, to take him away from the cruel reality that he was stuck replaying. To dream of Non again, to hold him close and never let go.
But the gods were never merciful enough to grant him that escape.
Instead, he was left with a numbness that consumed him. How do you grieve someone that is neither dead nor alive?
"Unknown." That’s how the police officers had framed it to Phee. "Maybe he just ran away, he already didn't have the best record. In that case, there’s nothing we can do for him." No amount of reasoning worked. Even when he pleaded, telling them that Non would never just disappear without a trace, leaving him behind. That at the very least he would have written a letter, notified someone, anybody.
But there's no second thought given to a boy that needed medication to function.
There had been no casket, no funeral, no burial. No closure, no goodbye, no final words that he could ever utter.
Loving Non had been the easiest thing he had ever done. Grieving? That had been the worst—gnawing at his insides until he had been left hollow. There was no escaping the burden of a love with no destination, a lake without a shore to reach. The love he had been so willing to drown Non in no longer belonged to any destination, instead it had returned to the only pounding space left—his own chest.
Anger.
That came second.
At himself. At Top. Tee. Por. Fluke. Jin.
At Non. For getting close to those people when he had warned him that they had been nothing but trouble. For not listening, for leaving him behind. Because, now, he couldn't stay.
People told him that grieving would get easier with time. That 'time heals all wounds'.
But how could it get easier when there was no peace for Non? There was no better place, no ending to his suffering. He was just gone, as if the wind had whisked him away without a trace left behind.
There's an anger that bubbles inside Phee, because if only those people knew what it was like to wake up everyday with an ache in their chest with the realization that there was no going back. The realization that he could not take away the pain that Non must have endured, all alone and so likely afraid.
No, they forget that some scars fester, never fully healing.
If grief getting easier meant forgetting Non, leaving his ghost in the past, then he'd claw at the Earth and bloody his knuckles so new scars would form.
Without Non, there's no ease in grief.
“I really don’t like how you got close to those people. Are they really your friends?” He had asked Non once, wishing that he would come to his senses.
It’s funny how care could turn into frustration. And frustration into anger.
“I’m too much, aren’t I?” Non had diverted, voice even.
Phee should have noticed the explosion before the trigger had been set.
“I’m too much, aren’t I?” Non repeated, his eyes darkened. His stare colder than Phee had ever seen it to be. The sweetness that had usually laced his words was gone, absent.
He had exasperatedly replied, “No, Non, but you’re letting them use you. You know that they’ve never acknowledged you before they had you write the movie. But you keep going back to them. How much do you even know about them? Why are you so desper—”
“Yes, I’m so fucking desperate. I’m so desperate—,” Non’s admission had hung in the air, “So desperate to be accepted, to have friends. I saw a way to do that. For once I understood what it was like to be asked to join something, anything! But now, everything is falling apart and I’m drowning.” The air, heavy with the unspoken, had hung suffocatingly between them. The usual tenderness in the conversation between them was nowhere to be found, instead it had replaced with full exhaustion.
“We can find a way through this,” Phee had reiterated, his voice pleading, “But you have to see that this-this destructive path you’re on. I can’t bear to watch you self-destruct, Non. There’s no future if you’re constantly lighting your life on fire.”
Non, wounded and defiant, had pulled away from Phee’s touch. Any vulnerability was steeled into a façade of resentment. “I don’t need you to bear it. You think I asked for your heroics, Phee? I never signed up to be your pity project. Fucking hell, I’m so tired of feeling like I owe everyone something.”
“Pity project? Is that what you think this is? You’re not a damn experiment, Non. I’m trying to find you a way out of this mess, and all you’re doing is pushing me away.”
“A way out?" Non’s bitter laugh had echoed in the room, "Where were you when I called you after getting beat an inch from my life? Where were you when I called you twice because I was scared of what I was getting myself into? Not once did you pick up. Maybe you were exhausted of me, I get it. Face it, Phee, I’ve always been the problem, even my parents are embarrassed of me. I’m fucked up. I’m a stain on your pristine life,” his voice had quieted as tears had threatened to spill out, before continuing, “Maybe we should have stayed as fuck-buddies. At the very least, you deserve someone who won’t ruin everything he touches.”
The words had clung to the air between them, heavy and suffocating. Without either one of them noticing, somewhere along the way, they had both become collateral damage.
“Is that your solution? We just throw everything away. After everything we’ve been through?” Phee had retorted.
"Maybe I’m just tired of being your burden.”
Their last words were not made of love. No, they had been filled with regret and venom, looking to strike at their weakest points.
If Phee had known it would be their last conversation, he would have held onto Non tighter, listened more intently to his words, done everything to stop Non from going back to that cabin. He would have held his tongue back, instead choosing to whisper him sweet nothings and words of adoration. He would have told him Non was the one that he had deserved, that there was nobody else that could take his place.
So many would haves that he could never get back.
There were no second chances given, no pathway to mend all that had been broken.
All he was left with was a torrent of seething regret, a disconnected phone number, and a wish that he had called the night before Non had disappeared.
He longed to scream and punch and destroy everything in his path. Non was gone, as everybody moved on, leaving him frozen behind at the tender age of seventeen with dreams unrealized.
The guilt had weighed heavy on Phee’s chest, suffocating him, as he walked into the same building that had shattered Non’s life—teeming with the very people that had played a part in destroying him.
Students passed by with their eyes glazed over, their voices filled with hollow laughter. The entire school, a collective amnesiac, had erased any memory of Non's existence.
Phee gritted his teeth, his heart heavy with an anger he couldn't contain. Apologies meant nothing anymore. They couldn’t bring back the person he loved.
Death offered no mercy, no possibility of forgiveness.