Chapter Text
1999
Julian didn't like to remember very much. Perhaps it was because doing so immediately took him to embarrassing moments of his adolescence, or perhaps it was because most of his memories were actually quite blurry.
That afternoon, however, when he saw Albert leaning against the doorframe with his broad goofy smile and his eyes resting on him, he couldn't help but think of the morning when he found Sam, his stepfather, in the modest living room of the little house where he lived with his mother, tending to the executor, which had leaned on the door frame through which his mother used to appear every time she returned from the supermarket in the same way he did now...
Bad omens.
He didn't like to distrust people, yet he always ended up doing it.
"I'm glad you let me stay here, if I hadn't found a place to stay today, I'm sure my father would have been able to come for me from Los Angeles to take me back home."
His voice took him out of his self-absorption; he couldn't help but be a little startled.
Albert walked towards him, Julian dragged himself until his back hit the wall, he felt like a cornered animal. His new roommate sat at the foot of the bed, as if he understood that he needed space.
Julian curled up, hugged his knees with his arms.
On the bed was an old copy of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" that his mother had given him for his eleventh birthday, Albert took it and looked at it with total confidence, as if it belonged to him. When he put the book back on the bed, Julian noticed that he had folded a sheet of paper indicating the page on which he had paused the reading.
Albert looked up until their eyes met again, smiled a little, and got out of bed.
"Well, I'll go fix my room... Thank you."
Julian didn't respond, nor did he move from where he was until he heard the soft "click" of the knob as the door closed.
…
"Fab told me to ask you something, you know why I'm here, don't you?"
It was a Friday afternoon; Nick had driven his Volkswagen Corrado from Dwight School in Manhattan to Julian's apartment in Brooklyn. When he heard the knock on his door, when he opened it and saw the elegant and lanky figure of his friend, he felt a heaviness similar to that which comes after a long nap at noon.
Even so, he agreed to go out with him. He hadn't seen his friends for months and his only company was his books and Albert, so she thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
The road to the place was short and silent, even though Nick had asked him where he wanted to go, Julian just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Wherever you want." So, they ended up in a square not far from his apartment and bought two tickets to see "The Silence of the Lambs"; Julian had seen it more than three times, however, all new movies looked like trash at the time.
The room was small and the seats were uncomfortable, they were so small that their knees hit those in front, although they were lucky that the place was empty, as they were able to raise their feet to the backs of other seats.
Julian knew that as you grew older, your brain did too; the conversations you had, the books you read, and the movies you watched slowly changed their meaning, however, when the final scene came, in which the protagonist answered her phone and Dr. Lecter's voice asked, "Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming...?", he was not able to understand why tears began to run down his face. He was only grateful that the room was dark enough so that Nick wouldn't notice that he was crying.
But now they were in the old McDonalds in the square, where he and his friends used to go after school; Julian couldn't help but wonder what they had found so charming in that place, for now he found the smell of grease suffocating and the number of people, the light of the long fluorescent lamps that flickered from time to time gave him a little headache.
His friend took one of his french-fries; They were the only thing he had ordered, the very thought of ordering a hamburger made him nauseous.
Julian shrugged.
"No, I don't know." He would have liked to tell him something else, perhaps something about how whenever one of them needed to ask him something they never did it directly, they always looked for a way to hide.
But he decided to keep quiet.
Nick pursed his lips, felt a fever run down his face from discomfort. His big blue eyes fell on his, Julian could see in them a deep concern.
"We believe that something happened... something wrong with you, Jules."
As Nick spoke, his fingers brushed against his intentionally, Julian pulled his hand away instantly, bringing it to his mouth and looked away at the window: outside, in the parking lot, he could see his friend's car covered by a thin screen of drops, the sky was cloudy.
Except for the sound of conversations mingling with the rain rattling against the window of the premises, everything was silent.
"I'm sorry, I... I shouldn't have asked that, it's just that..." Nick stuttered nervously something that even he didn't understand. "I didn't know how to ask you, everything we know about you is because of Albert and I'm seriously worried, what's going to happen to your grades? will you lose another year...?"
Julian felt tears crowd his eyelids, his vision blurred, he shook his head.
"I want to leave... I don't want to talk about this anymore..." He whispered without taking his eyes off the window.
Nick sighed, sounding frustrated.
"I want to help you, Julian. I really want to help you, and Fab and Nikolai want to do it too, but... Whenever we try, you're never able to tell us anything." He began to speak faster and louder. That was how Nick had always been, the most temperamental of all his friends. "We are friends, I thought there was trust between us, but it seems that you trust the guy who has known you for just a few months..."
Julian felt his whole body burning, anger was gathering inside him, almost about to explode, but he was not able to fight, he was very tired.
"I want to leave now." He said firmly, before getting up from his seat and starting to walk towards the exit of the place.
As he walked through the small corridor decorated as a chessboard, he could notice that some people turned to look at him in dismay; He must have looked terrible, as thin as ever and as pale as a ghost, for the last few weeks he had completely forgotten himself.
Outside everything was different, the yellowish light that caused him headache was replaced by a dark sky and a parking lot full of cars, the smell of wet asphalt was a little better than that of old grease.
He thought that Nick could say whatever he wanted, in the end, Albert's company was enough for him, he liked not having to call him on the phone when he felt bad, he also liked that he didn't ask questions about why he had dropped out of high school, but, above all, it seemed as always that he was available to him... Even so, he couldn't help but feel a little relief when he heard his friend's voice near him.
"At least let me take you back home, Jules..."
He poked his head out of the window of his car, his expression pleading.
"I don't want anything to happen to you, and it seriously seems like a cold can kill you." He said as Julian climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door.