It was raining. It was bordering on pouring with ear-splitting thunder and blinding lighting, but he was here. Eros came to the spot only we knew, perhaps hoping for solace, or for me to come and find him.
And so I came.
Weaving my way from the dripping leaves of the tall trees, I entered our sanctuary: a grassy field bordering the ocean, harsh, black waves crashing against the rocky cliff. A somehow less than perfect area, but a holy place for Eros and I. My eyes widened as I searched the dark area for him, cursing the storm for blocking the little light the moon would've given me.
A flash of lighting hit the ocean, illuminating the sole body on the cliff.
With his back to me, Eros sat Indian style a few meters from the edge of the cliff, the wind whipping his clothes, whipping me, but heâ Eros was solid force on the damp earth, still against the anger of the thrashing ocean and whipping rain.
Carefully crossing the field, I came behind him, his soaking shirt and hunched body, standing over him, watching his hair flop over his forehead and fists continue to clench and unclench. His head lifted and he regarded the ocean with a blank stare.
"I knew you'd find me."
I heard a short, dry laugh pierce the air and came to the realization that was me, Alice Black, laughing at the words of her best friend. Squatting down, I came to sit next to my best friend, for my rain-soaked hand to find his in the slippery mud and hold his close to me.
"Why are you here Eros?" I asked softly, turning my head to him, watching as the rain ran down his angelic features, his sharp cheekbones more pronounced against the shadows of the night, the trickle of rain trailing down to his bobbing pronounced Adam's apple.
He swallowed and tightened his hold on my hand. "Three years ago today I lost my parents."
Everything halted. The sound of the rain on the ocean, the feeling of his hand clasped in mine, the vision of his face in front of me all dissipated as my heart broke for my best friend.
I couldn't even being to imagine the pain he was in, the distraught feeling of helplessness knowing that there was nothing he could to bring them back, the pain of being alone in the world with no parents to introduce a girl to, to meet Ryder, to see the home we found another home in in, the life he was living.
He continued without me needing to answer, "It was a night much like this in Virginia, rainy and wet and dark and they came to pick meâ" his voice shattered as he fell to a convulsion of sobs, body heaving with the effort to contain the sadness he was trying to expel.
"Eros," I whispered into the cool air, my fingertips weaving into his dampened hair as I puled him closer to me. "You don't need to tell me."
Automatically he retracted from my hold, his eyes alight with passion and determination. "Yes I do Alice," he reassured me. "I said we were friends didn't I. I need you to know. For fucks sake, don't you understand Alice? I need you."
His hand dug through the mud, squeezing mine, bringing it up to his lips and holding it there as he spoke. "They died when I was fourteen, when I was just beginning to develop as an individual and stop being the annoying prepubescent boy they knew."
"They would've liked the person you became Eros."
His eyes flashed. "Would they have?"
I stared back, I couldn't give the answer because I knew the desperation he felt inside. I spent my whole life dedicating myself to be what I hoped my mother would be proud of, but at the end of the day, she was dead. She was unable to tell me she was proud of me, to give me a hug only a mother could because she was gone.
"What were they like?" I asked, moving the subject.
He smiled.
"They were brilliant." Eros admitted. "My dad was always strong and caring and always working on something. My mom was kind and warm and hardworking and smart, God, my parents were fucking geniuses Alice. Mom was a computer engineer and Dad was a college professor and they worked their asses off to make it, to make a home for me." His voice faded away.
"I didn't appreciate them enough."
The rain filled the air, the air filled our lungs, and our lungs worked tirelessly against our rapidly beating hearts filled with emptiness, and yet, a small amount of hope for the friendship strengthening between us blossomed.
"I'm sorry Eros," my head fell against his shoulder, my other hand reaching for his other, and we held each other tightly, surrounded in a haze of despair.
"How do you and Ryder rekindle a friendship that never made it past middle school?"
A fit of awkward giggles exited my lips, the absurdity of his question in the middle of this seriously depressing conversation forsaking all my mannerisms. "When you're best friends it just sort of falls together I guess. I never needed to try to be another person with Ryder, I could be myself and that was enough, he loved me because I was Alice."
"Why do you push everyone away Eros?" The words were rushed, hoping he wouldn't comment on the fact that our friendship didn't just fall together and it wasn't easy and I could rarely just be me around him.
"I don't push people away Alice." He looked genuinely confused, as if he didn't deny our friendship, as if his only friends weren't Ryder and I by choice. As though there weren't 200 high school students dying to be in my place right now. "The people that I have in my life I hold dear to my heart, I'm just not like you and Ryder, I don't thrive on social gatherings and attention. I thrive on quiet nights and a thick book. I like the few people in my life and I'm not looking for any others."
For a moment, I pondered this, this confession of solace and the time he enjoyed that I never took time to understand, to understand him.
He, Eros, he bloomed in the soft echoes of night.
Ryder shined in the melodies of the day.
And I, I fell somewhere in the middle of that, not necessarily an extrovert nor a introvert, but me, Alice, the everyman.
"You weren't always like this though."
His expression softened and he offered a weak smile. "I wasn't," he confessed. "My therapist supposed my front of sex appeal and young teenager angst was my way to cope with their loss," The smile was long gone from his face and Eros now avoided eye contact with me as he continued to speak. "And he also noted that the move was a chance for me to connect with the home my parents came from and to grow and become my own individual without the label of 'dead parents' following me around."
A single word stained my mind. I swallowed and turned my body to him, taking both hands in my own, staring down at the tattooed knuckles.
"Therapist?"
He retracted his hands from me, a tendon flexing in his jaw."Alice my fucking parents died, did you expect anything less from a 14 year old boy? I've been in therapy for three years and still have phone conversations with my therapist. Their death isn't just something I can push to the back of my mind and take out when convenient, their death fucking haunts me day in and day out!"
I suddenly felt how cold the rain was, the pounding thunder and the rocking ocean. I felt Eros' cold attitude toward me. "Whyâwhy are you getting so defensive? I didn't mean therapist in a bad way!"
"Defensive?" He laughed. "Alice I don't tell people I see a therapist so they don't treat me like how you are right now. Like I'm unstable, like I need help. Fuckâ I do need help Alice but don't fucking talk to me in that tone. Like you're better than me because you don't see one because I can tell you right fucking now you and Ryder need therapists just as much, if not more than I do."
His eyes were blazing and every pore of his was exuding a sudden anger I had known, something I hated when directed toward me.
My eyes were wide as I stared back at him, my mouth hanging open in shock, a stream of my conscious thoughts halted, as though my body was in pause, determining how the fuck to go on from here because I sure as hell had no idea yet.
"Don't act like you're better than it Alice. You and Angelica are in desperate need of some good therapy." Eros seethed, eyes narrowed at me. "For fucks sake Alice, you made a fucking list to spur some real happiness in your life, if that doesn't scream instability," he chuckled. "I don't know what does, your father mentally and verbally abuses you two and you fucking shove it under the rug like it's nothing!"
At the point of my upcoming protest, Eros shot me down immediately, "Just because he doesn't lay a hand on you doesn't mean it doesn't affect you mentally Alice. Or Angelica."
I lost my ability to speak as I stared back at the boy I called my best friend. My best friend who called me out on the reason we became friends. My best friend who called out my very own father on his abuse on Angelica and I. My best friend who urged me to check out my own mental health and to talk about my problems instead of burying them, like Angelica and I do. Like Ryder does.
In that moment, I supposed I became like the ocean, wild and untamed, angry, confused, sounds emitting from me that I couldn't justify nor explain.
A single tear fell down my cheek. And another. And a few more. And then suddenly I was sobbing in front of my best friend realizing the shit show I created, that I could've have had taken care of. I was sobbing because I wasn't stable and I did need help. I was sobbing because Angelica thought she was to blame for our mothers death and that's resulted in her hindered childhood. I was sobbing because we were all fucked up and too pompous to realize it.
But Eros knew, and he saw and he understood, and he never called us out on it.
Until now.
His cold fingers pulled on my numb ones, and his lips pressed firmly against my forehead as he surrounded me in the love only Eros could give. Eros was pulling back, I could feel it and I appreciated it. He pushed me to the edge, but I needed it, I really did.
Now, all I needed was his love, and all he needed was mine.
This cliff wasn't my safe place.
With this thought in mind, I lifted my face to his, my fingers tracing the trail his tears took. "This isn't your safe place Eros," I said. "Your safe place is with Ryder and I."
More tears filled his eyes.
"Your safe place is me."
â¦
i feel fucking mushy and gushy after this chapter god dam! BUT GOOD NEWS.! the next chapter is light and happy and focuses a lot on the joy shared between my beloved golden mf trio.
i really hope the two people i know reading this like it, and if you don't, don't hesistate to slid that critisicm! fuck is that how u spell critisicm? oh whale. i love my lil readers w all my god dam heart. you guys are the BESTÂ ppl in the world.
mucho luv for u bbs :*
all my love