Bad Days

by A. S. Kelly

  Because of you… I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me… Because of you… I am afraid.

  This damned song isn’t helping me much, but what can I do? It seems like things always have to be difficult.

  I lose my way… And it’s not too long before you point it out… I cannot cry… Because I know that’s weakness in your eyes… I’m forced to fake… A smile, a laugh every day of my life… My heart can’t possibly break… When it wasn’t even whole to start with.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Alex. I am scared out of my mind.”

  “I understand,” I whisper because I don’t have the strength to speak forcefully.

  “I’m afraid of not being up to the task, of not being able to love you, to let you know how I really feel so that you feel loved and safe for the rest of your life. Not knowing how to make you happy terrorizes me. That would break my heart.”

  But it’s just the opposite, I can feel his words breaking mine. Jason isn’t as strong as he wants everyone to believe he is, even if he always has a shoulder for everyone, the truth is that he is fragile and vulnerable and could break down under the right circumstances.

  “Jason.” I touch his face and he seems initially surprised by the gesture. He shuts his eyes and his face muscles tense up. “Please look at me,” I ask sweetly.

  He opens his eyes and what little remains of my heart is pulverized in an instant.

  God, please, I pray for more moments like this one, because I don’t know how to live without them.

  He lifts a hand from the table and brings it towards my face, but then draws back and it becomes a fist.

  “I’m afraid of touching you,” he confesses. “I’m afraid even to look at you sometimes, Alex, because when I look at you it’s hard for me to control it. I don’t want to come off too heavy handed or to scare you, but I have this need that’s almost physical to touch you, to hold you, to make you feel my love. I know I said anything would be enough for me, but I was lying. Looking at you cannot be enough for me, I need to feel your skin, to taste you, to love you like you deserve to be loved and to let you experience everything. With me. Only with me. Because if one day the unthinkable should happen, I don’t want to live with regret, I’d like to know that you didn’t miss out on anything and that I can live with the memories of you and I being together forever.

  22

  JASON

  Well, my friend, you’ve outdone yourself. You deserve a round of applause. If this is what you mean by taking things slowly! What the fuck was I thinking of? Talking about touching her, holding her…

  “Okay,” she says resolutely, while I’m on the verge of a total panic attack.

  “O…kay?”

  “I also want it all with you. And I don’t want to wait. We might not have—”

  Time. We might not have time. That’s what she’s trying to tell me.

  “I know, Alex. I know about the operation and all the rest.”

  She nods and closes her eyes.

  “I just wish you could have told me sooner and most of all, that you would have been the one to tell me.”

  “I am sorry. It wasn’t my intention to keep you in the dark. I couldn’t imagine what I would have found coming back here and I could not have imagined that you would want—”

  “—To be with you?”

  “I thought you forgot about me.”

  “Never, Alex. That will never happen. Get that out of your head, okay?”

  She sighs. “Are you scared?”

  “Yes, Alex, terrified.” I can’t lie about it. “I’m scared at the idea of losing you and not being able to live every instant together, but I’m not going to go back now. I don’t care. I prefer to have you with me for three minutes than to have not had you at all.”

  “Really?” she says, biting her lip.

  “Really.” I smile back at her, despite the fact that I’m dying inside. “Alex, I’m not sure if this is clear to you or not, but I’ve been in love with you for my entire life.”

  She looks down and her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

  “Well, the fact that I kicked Rick Murphy’s ass in the school hall should have been an indicator for you.”

  She busts out laughing.

  “How old were we then?”

  “You were fifteen and I was seventeen.”

  “Wow, what a memory!”

  “I remember that I wanted to see his blood for what he said to you.”

  “That I had nice tits?”

  I can’t even think about it.

  “It was a compliment.” She smiles, drinking a sip of her coke.

  “Sure, a compliment from a pervert!”

  “Really. How come? You never thought so, huh?”

  Okay, dear, you’re playing dirty now.

  She’s asking me if I think she has nice tits? My God, I know her body centimeter by centimeter and I could live just off of that.

  “It’s not important.”

  Lie.

  “Do you consider me…pretty, Jason?”

  “Alex, what the hell are you asking me?”

  What the devil kind of question is this?

  “Well, yeah, now I mean. Do you still find me beautiful?”

  “Please, Alex”

  “Just…tell me the truth. I’m not who I used to be. I’m skinny, I don’t have, um, the shape and color I used to have.”

  “You’re stupendous, Alex. In my opinion, you are perfect just as you are.”

  As she blushes and breaks eye contact I think it makes her look even more attractive.

  “Let’s go, I’ll take you home,” I say, getting up and giving her my hand.

  “I’m supposed to be sleeping at Rain’s tonight.”

  Well, I’m screwed.

  I smile at her even though I’ve got a million thoughts bombarding me. I’m thinking about her in my bed again. Her hair on my pillow. Her perfume in my room.

  “Is there a problem?” she asks me, getting into the car.

  “Absolutely not. Everything’s great.”

  What a good actor I am. There ought to be an award for this.

  I’m not able to handle this at all. Look at me. It’s obvious that I want her in my arms, in my bed, but I feel like an adolescent with his first crush.

  Clumsy, nervous and completely out of control.

  I put the key in the lock and open the door for her. My hands are sweaty, even though it’s cold outside. I try to dry them on my jeans, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

  “Would you like something?”

  “No thank you. I’m tired. Haven’t the others come back yet?”

  “No, it’ll be a few more hours at least.”

  She nods as she takes off her jacket and set’s it on the banister.

  Okay, well, here’s the embarrassing part where I have to pretend like nothing’s wrong and take her to Rain’s room. I swallow hard and block any sexual desire I’m feeling for her and behave like a gentleman.

  We head upstairs and with each step I can feel my dignity slip back another stage. As we pass my room Alex hesitates and turns to me as I’m trying not to suffocate on something that seems like a mix of glass shards and pride.

  “Can I… can I stay with you?” She bites her lip in embarrassment.

  And she even asks me permission?

  I open the door of my room, I take her by the hand and pull her to me until we’re chest to chest. She sighs for a moment and then relaxes in my arms which, from now on, will be her home.

  I rub her hair and she blushes again but doesn’t break our eye contact this time. Our eyes remain like that, reflecting for one another and my heart feels like it’s about to explode with love.

  I touch her face and smile at her because from now on I want her to see smiles surrounding her, no more tears or worries, no nothing.

  Nothing that isn’t love.

  Mine.

  “Hey, Alex?” I whisper to her lips.

  “Mmm-hum?”
r />   “Don’t faint.”

  She looks at me as if she has no idea what I’m about to say now.

  “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you remember what you promised me?”

  She nods again.

  And a moment later my lips are on hers, light but intimate. I just brush them and I smile at her again before exploring this kiss, which is helping me get over my doubts and fears. Because kissing Alex is loving, breathing and living.

  I live for this woman.

  And she is timid and clumsy but she allows me to take the lead, caressing the nape of my neck with her hand. I hold her even tighter so I can feel her heart beat against my own chest and I say a silent prayer that her heart doesn’t try to play any jokes on us.

  I lose the ability to speak, I lose the capacity to think.

  I lose everything about myself.

  I lose myself to find myself again in her.

  I let my hands slide down her back and slip them under her shirt and exhale as soon as I feel contact with her skin.

  I’m trembling, and I realize it, but for me, this feeling cannot be repressed, immense and at the same time devastating as it is, because I know I need this contact.

  To feel her.

  To feel every part of her.

  And I’m not talking about a physical need, I’m talking about something much bigger and more important than contact between two bodies: I’m talking about a primary need that cannot be substituted by something else, as if it were the only thing allowing me to go on living.

  I don’t know how to explain it with words, I just know I am exploding with desire to feel her flowing in every part of me, to unite us forever, so that she remains, no matter what happens.

  I move to the side a bit to be able to tell her the only thought I’m capable of formulating in this moment, that vibrates in my mind and on my lips and that never leaves me.

  “Live, Alex. Live for me.”

  —

  ALEX

  I woke up at dawn in his arms.

  I don’t think I’ve ever slept as well, or so peacefully before and I ask myself now how I could have deprived myself of these intimate moments, this love for all this time.

  Why we denied ourselves to each other.

  We kissed, touched: we breathed one another in and I felt comfortable with it all, so sure and loved.

  Live for me.

  His words made both my legs and my heart tremble because I know he means every word of it. He is sincere and desperate. But how could I blame him?

  I get up gingerly from the bed without making any noise, so as to not wake him. I slip on his sweatshirt that smells like him and I wrap the sleeves around my waist so I can continue to feel his warmth on me through the fabric. I open the door carefully and go to the bathroom to wash my face and as I look at my reflection in the mirror, I like what I see—for the first time in years. I don’t want to give this up.

  I leave the bathroom without looking in front of me and run right into something. I look up and see Patrick’s sleepy face.

  “Umm…good morning,” he says, still dopey and scratching his head. “I didn’t know you were here. This house sure is getting crowded.”

  I smile at him and pass by with the intention of going back to the bedroom.

  “Alex?” he stops me. “There’s some freshly made coffee downstairs, or if you prefer, I can make you some tea.”

  I nod and go downstairs. Patrick arrives a few minutes with Lily, who rests her head tenderly on her daddy’s shoulder.

  I have to admit that seeing Patrick like this is so strange to me. He’s always been such a…well, asshole. But it seems like he found the right woman in Erin. Knowing that Patrick fell in love with her even though she was pregnant by another man really fills my heart with joy.

  It can’t have been easy for him and I understand his love for this woman must be truly incredible. For her and her child.

  “I think tea would be better,” I tell him, preparing a place at the table in the kitchen. He gives Lily a tender kiss on the forehead before setting her in her stroller, where she’s still sleeping blissfully.

  I know that Erin goes to university in the morning and that he takes care of the baby and he does it so well and so willingly that I could just cry at the tenderness of it all.

  He puts the kettle on the boil and prepares me a cup of tea. Then, he turns to me and I snigger at the sight of his T-shirt that has the words: ‘I am a dad with tattoos. Just like a normal dad, but cooler’ and his bulky tattooed arms shoot out from under the shirt adorned with words and images. It’s the same on his neck and probably elsewhere on his body.

  “You want something to chew on? Some toast, or an egg?” He brings me back to the present.

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  “Shouldn’t you…eat something?” he asks, sounding a bit embarrassed, without looking me in the eye.

  He’s right, of course. I should, but I always feel nauseated in the mornings and prefer just having a tea. If my father knew, he’d be shocked!

  “I’m not hungry,” I say and close the question. He hands me my cup and sits down in front of me with his coffee.

  “So,” he starts off, “you and Jay…”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Okay, listen, I’m not good at these kinds of conversations, you know, with words, bullshitting around something and all that stuff women love, but I am making an effort here, so try to meet me in the middle.”

  His face is strangely worried.

  “You’re afraid for him,” I guess.

  He nods.

  I knew it. Patrick always seems to be out of this world and that he couldn’t care less when it comes to anything about anyone else, but I know that’s just his way and that in fact his friends are very important to him.

  “I’m worried about him too,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, it’s a big problem.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  “I am not saying that you shouldn’t be together, Alex. Jay has always been here for all of us, even though he’s the smallest one in the house…” He smiles with half his mouth. “We worry about him. I worry about him.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  He makes a gesture with his hand to brush it off and then looks at me seriously.

  “I will be here—” he tells me, and I shake my head just a bit because I don’t understand, “—for him. I’ll be here, Alex, if something should happen, I want you to know that he won’t ever be alone. I’ll take care of Jason, I promise you.”

  I thank him with my eyes because I wouldn’t be able to do it with words without bursting into tears. I stand up and walk up to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek and walk away in silence, leaving him alone.

  I’m happy Jason has his friends, even if I’m not sure that their kindness, their nearness and affection could ever be enough. I’m afraid that nothing could ever be enough.

  I go back to the room, saddened by this strange conversation that has left a bitterness in my mouth. I’m not at all resentful with Patrick about what he said, but for a minute, distracted by this bubble of happiness in which I’ve been reborn, I forgot that Jason could be alone in a few days.

  I open the door and find him just in a pair of boxers.

  Why the heck do guys have to always sleep half naked?

  “Hey, I was just getting worried. I woke up and you weren’t there…”

  I give him a gentle kiss on the mouth to make him be quiet.

  “Oh…good morning.” He smiles, squeezing me in his arms.

  I burrow down in his embrace, rest my head on his bare chest and I smile too at hearing his heart accelerate.

  “Everything okay?” he asks, kissing my hair.

  I nod and move a bit so I can see his eyes and even if they are still laden with sleep, they are clear and sparkling.

  God, how I love this man.

  “I have to go to work this morning, but
first I have to pass by home and take a shower and get changed. After that, I promised my dad I’d have breakfast with him at the cafe.”

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll get dressed and take you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He kisses me on the forehead before whispering in my ear:

  “Tonight, however…you’re mine.”

  I feel the heat flushing my face and neck and I bite my lip in agitation.

  “Oh, hey, I didn’t mean…”

  “Don’t justify yourself, Jason, I understood what you meant. You don’t have to worry about everything you say to me, okay? I want you to always be honest with me.”

  He takes a deep breath before brushing my face with his hands.

  “I want you more than anything else, Alex. I cannot resist touching you and now that I finally know what flavor your lips have, I feel like I can’t peel myself away. I’d like to kiss you until we both can’t see straight and I want you in my bed always and to never let you go anywhere.”

  I sit there like a big dummy with my mouth wide open, unable to say anything. I touch my chest instinctively and his eyes lose their shine in a heartbeat.

  “A bit too honest?” he asks, alarmed.

  “No, it’s alright.”

  “Just because I want it doesn’t mean that we have to do it.”

  “I said it’s fine, Jason. I can’t stand that everyone holds everything back for me and the idea that you treat me that way too would be a slow death for me. So, do me a favor, and just say what’s on your mind. Just be yourself. Be that boy I fell in love with all those years ago.”

  His eyes dart to me, confusedly.

  “What? Didn’t you know? Weren’t you soo sure…” And he kisses me again and again without giving me time to reply.

  And it’s a kiss that leaves no room for thoughts or doubts. It’s an avid and passionate kiss that lets me know very clearly how he is feeling right now.

  His tongue enters my mouth and I accept it and follow it, completely wrapped up in him, his hands caress my back under my sweatshirt and I quiver under the heat of our two bodies brushing against one another.

  “Alex,” he whispers against my lips and my name takes on new meaning as if it were the most erotic thing he could say to me. “We’d better go now or I won’t be able to.”