Raphael /BoyxBoy/

||Nineteen||

Scarlet knew, somehow.

Maybe not all that went on, but she knew. And she helped me get past the days that led up to the weekend.

Days I had to spend completing last minute assignments before spring break. Thinking about him and how could he? He promised spending time with me, staying in that tiny bed of his, in that cramped apartment with him. I had imagined lazy mornings, I had imagined breakfasts in bed and slow burning kisses. I had selfishly imagined him calling in sick everyday for work just so he could spend time with me. I had imagined his apartment suddenly feeling smaller, the dishes too unclean, the sheets too dirty with the smell of his sweat and mine interlaced. And we would throw open his windows, play music on high, stumble our way through cleaning his apartment. We would leave our clothes to dry and finally escape to the outdoors, relish in the changing climate, find somewhere else to steal kisses.

And instead of his plain, colorless wrists, Raphael would fill them will color. Colors from rainbow pallets, with pens that shined anew. He would sometimes press shapes and images, imprint them on my skin when he felt tired of his own. And then, when things went really well between the two of us, when a certain point in our lives revealed that we were more than just two bodies in need of more heat, we would find a way to rid him of his biggest fear. He would slowly open up to me, carefully as if unraveling tissue paper, and we would work on getting him behind that tattoo pen.

And in my deepest, wildest dreams, this would stretch further than spring break. This would stretch so far ahead that I would find a job nearby and we would settle down. Just the two of us. His tattoo work a massive success, and my job, whatever it would be, I would feel happy just to have.

Scarlet fixed me up. Pulled me out of bed and commanded me to work my way through it. She dragged me to the kitchen, insisting I help with that recipe like I once promised. Even though the kitchen grew silent while we waited for the dough to bake, and my thoughts swiveled back to him, and I didn't even notice when she pulled out the pan and burned her thumb until I heard the clatter of metal on kitchen tile. And then I'd spent hours apologizing until she angrily told me to, "shut the fuck up," and, "grab the strawberries from the fucking fridge. Fuck, this wasn't part of the recipe."

Then there was Nate to think about, too. Who had emailed me back minutes after my own reply, demanding a deeper explanation. One that I argued I could not deliver to him, that no words could explain what I had done or what had happened. He wouldn't believe me anyway, even if I told the truth. Yet he insisted for more. I gave him all I could provide, but it must not have been sufficient enough to him and I received no further emails after that.

And so I planned a getaway.

At first it was a stray thought as Scarlet hacked at some onions on a cutting board and babbled on about her annoying coworkers, who kept insisting they were better than her when clearly no one was better than Scarlet at what she did. A "what if?" that developed into a snow balling effect until I was pacing the apartment thinking "what if, what if, what if?" What if this and what if that.

What if I booked a ticket? For when? Sunday morning, 10AM. I would get there in a few hours, have enough time to find a place to stay. And do what? Fix things. For good, for once. I fucked up, and I had a solid plan to fix it.

"You're out of your mind," Scarlet said, Saturday night as I booked my ticket on my laptop.

"I need to do this," I said.

"You're wasting your money," she said. "Skype exists, you know."

"I know, but I need to do this face to face. What kind of person would I be if I did it otherwise? I need to see him."