Discovering the Past

I was already three days in the psychiatric section. I shared the room with a bulimic kid and a guy that didn´t talk.
It didn´t help me at all, At least they let me go out to the gardens for a smoke.

“Do you have one?” A voice pulled me out of my trance.
I turned to see a man in his forties. Black hair, very tall, at least for me. He had this strong British accent. His eyes matching his hair.
I offered the carton of cigarettes, making it obvious the bands around my wrists. He took one and I gave him the lighter.
“Oh mate, that´s awful…”
I just shrugged my shoulders, without any interest in explaining.
“Jasper,” We shook hands and then he lit the cigarette.
“Frank.”
He smiled at me as he inhaled the smoke.
“You already know why I’m here. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m on the third floor.”
I just nodded, not knowing what that meant.
“You don´t know what that means,” He smiled.
“Sorry, I don´t.”
He dragged smoke from the cigarette,
“The homeless bastards,” He looked at the sky “We don´t have anywhere to go.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah it´s okay. Some of us actually care about life you know?”
“Hey! What´s your problem?!” I said defensively, that in some how bothered me.
“”What´s yours?” He looked at me like I was crazy.
“I don´t know, my life isn’t any of your business!” I almost yelled at him. He looked at me like I was a bug.
“You don´t…”
“Don´t know what is like? Feeling depressed? Please… What happened? You´re girlfriend dumped you, you parents got divorced and you never get over it? Or you’re just too weird or special for the world?”
I just stood there in silence. I was mad as hell.
“My life is mine. I can finish it whatever I want,” I said.
“Whatever mate,” His voice was calm.
“Thanks for the smoke, kid.”
He started to cough heavily.
I just looked at him, annoying, stupid asshole.

Kid? I´m not a kid.

I went for my therapy session.
Boring, all the same shit I’ve been hearing for years.
I was about to go in, when the door was opened, that Jasper dude came out and smiled at me.
“Life is great!” He winked at me. I just looked at him, annoyed, and went into the office.
After the stupid doctor asked his stupid questions I asked some.

“That guy, Jasper. What´s wrong with him?”
The doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I can´t reveal…”
“I´m just curious...”
“Well. This might help…yeah…” He thought out loud.
“Well Jasper comes whatever he´s out of a home. He lives in the street, I don´t know how he’s still alive.”
“Many people live on the streets,” I said, not finding anything incredible in that.
“Oh but Jasper is sick. He has AIDS, for about 5 years now.”
I gasped.
“His boyfriend gave it to him, I don´t how he started in with life on the street, he doesn´t tell us much.”
“I see,” I felt a little ashamed.
“He doesn’t give up. He´s always in a good mood and even goes to the child sections to tell them stories or help them with their homework.”
I just nodded.

Great, I yelled at fucking Mother Theresa.

“He´s a fighter, but he doesn’t have the money to buy the pills.”
I felt awful, even for giving him that smoke.
“So is he dying?”
“He doesn´t have much time left. You see Frank, life is a gift. Don´t you think it’s ironic, some people try to end it and for others it is a privilege denied.”
I left the office with a horrible feeling in my stomach.

After a few days, I was I on my bed, I couldn’t get Jasper out of my mind.
That afternoon, I was smoking again in the same spot.
“Going for pulmonary cancer now? I tell you that shit takes way longer than cutting.”
I knew it was him; I smiled at his black humor.
I put out the cigarette.
“Can I have one?”
I just shook my head in a negative answer.
“Okay, be a bitch,” He said, looking like a girl.
“I don´t think you should smoke in your state…you know,” I said in a small voice.
“Ha…That´s what THEY said.”
“Maybe THEY are right.”
“Life is too short….”
“I´m sorry, about the other day…”
“I´m sorry too,” We looked at each other and smiled. I smiled, and I didn´t know why. I noticed how skinny Jasper was.
“I´m not used to talking with other humans you know?”
He smiled, “Why´s that?”

It had only been four days since Jasper and I started to talk in a friendly way, but we were already best friends. I told him everything, everything that happened to me, since the moment Gerard and I started to go out.
He was what I had needed all along, someone who listened, someone who didn´t judge, someone that cared. I cried on his shoulder.
In return he told me everything about him.

He was an architect and had lived with his boyfriend, Alan, in Kent.
The bastard cheated on him and gave him AIDS. Not only that but dumped him and threw him of the house they shared.
People at work started to notice that he was sick and fired him, because he was a danger to the others employees.
He never got in contact with his family, his father threw him out when he found out that he was gay and his mother had died a couple of years ago.
So he ended up living in shelters and sometimes in boxes in alleys.

I felt so ridiculous and stupid.
This guy had been through so much worse than me, and he still managed to smile at the kids, and listen to me, and even give advice.
We stayed awake until late at night, talking, just talking, and baring our souls.

According to the therapist, I was making great progress. I thanked Jasper, now I felt renewed, reborn. But there was something there inside, that kept tormenting me.

He doesn´t have much time left…

“I’ll buy your pills, okay?”
“Frank, you don´t have to pity me…”
“It´s not that, but maybe if you take the proper medication, maybe you…”
“What? Save me from death?”
I just looked down, and felt a tear falling down.
“I have my time counted Frankie,” He took my chin and raised my head.
“Look, I don´t regret my life, I did it my way, even the time with Alan was great.”
He wiped the tear away. We looked in each others’ eyes. I started to get closer.
“No, That´s not right…” He pulled away abruptly.
I just sighed and hugged him.
“I know…”
He hugged me back, “I´m sorry.”

It was time for me to go home. I was afraid.
Afraid of being weak, afraid of feeling alone, but most of all afraid for Jasper.
“I want you to come with me.”
“Sorry, babe?”
“You heard me. I want you to move in with me. I’ll take care of you, and you´ll take care of me.”
He looked at me.
“It´s not like you have many choices here; it’s the street or a home, my home.”
Jasper kept looking at me.
“C´mon, Jazz…”
“I don´t want you to see me dying” for the first time, I noticed he was about to cry.
“And I don´t want you dying in the streets.”
He hugged me back and kissed my head, “Okay.”

Jasper started to live with me, he made me change so much, and appreciate everyday as precious. For him everyday could be the last one.
I thanked Mr. Potter for saving me and bought him a present. I started to talk more with the neighbors.
I was successful in convincing Jasper that a kiss wouldn’t give me AIDS.
After a month, Jasper was feeling better. He looked better, not so thin, and his face was litting up, just like mine.
I smiled a lot .

He was lying in bed, reading a book.
“Hey…”
I laid next to him and rested my head on his chest.
“I was thinking…”
“Oh really, about what?”
“About you…”
I just looked at him.
“You need to get away Frankie.”
“I thought that I already did that.”
“No, like change, totally and completely. Sometimes in order to advance you have to became a new person.”
I just looked at him horrified, that´s what Gerard used to say.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I wash the déjà vú away.
“You should change lifestyles.”
“I´ll have that in mind.”

He caressed my face.
“God, you´re so beautiful, I´m sorry he didn´t see it.”
I kissed him. And he kissed back. I opened my mouth but he never made the entrance, I licked his lower lips trying to find an answer, as my hands where wrapped around his neck and his on my waist. I pulled him closer. I kept licking his lip, until he finally opened his mouth, I took my chance and introduced my tongue, he pulled back little, but didn’t break the kiss.
I knew Jasper was afraid. But a kiss couldn’t kill me, and I had done a lot of research on safe sex with a person with AIDS. I was prepared.

I started to kiss down his neck and he made a pleasured sound. “Frank…no…”
I didn´t listen, I just kept kissing his neck harder, leaving a mark on his weak body.
“Stop, please,” his voice was a whisper.
I started to go down his chest, raising his shirt and licking his abdomen.
“Stop!” He pushed me gently.
“It´s okay, I want to.”
“It´s too dangerous.”
“No, It´s not.”
He just gave me a glare.
“Well, we´ll use protection.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“I want you Jazz,” I bit my lip, a habit I had formed when I had my lip ring.
“I….I love you.”
“Don´t say that only to have sex.”
I stood up. “It´s not like that,”
“I love you. I didn’t think I could feel it again, but I do, Jazz. You give me the butterflies again.”
He smiled.
“I love you too Frankie, so much. I want you too….but I´m scared…I…”
“Shh…It´s okay,” I came closer again, leaning over him.
I started to kiss his neck again. This time he caressed my hair.

That day I felt loved again. Of course we used protection, double protection, and the day after I went to the doctor and got tested.
I was clean.
“Told you!!” I screamed at him, showing him the test results and wrapping my arm again his neck.
He just smiled at me, Those kind of smiles that make you feel warm and safe.
I was safe with him. I felt safe.

I knew it wasn’t going to be happily ever after.
Progress, he started to go more often to the doctor, the treatments got more aggressive, making him sleep a lot and always tired.
I started to prepare myself for the worst. I took some practical lessons in first aid and nursing. So that way we didn´t have to go to the hospital for everything.
But I was ready. I knew this all along.
I knew Jasper was an angel, my angel, but angels must go back where they came from: heaven.
I was grateful enough that we met. That we loved each others. Nobody could take that form me.

“I´ll be watching you babe.”
I just nodded, he was just back from hospital, they told him that they couldn’t do anything more. Jasper asked to be taken home with me.
“Of course you will,” I kissed his cheek.
“Remember you have to get…”
“Tested, I know.”

“Thanks Frank. Thanks for everything.”
“No, thank you. You…” I felt the tears coming.
“You saved me…”
We kissed briefly.
“I´m tired…”
“Sleep then,” I tried to stand up.
“No, stay with me…”
“Sure.”
We cuddled together, my head on his chest. I felt sleep listening to Jasper´s heart beat.

When I woke up, it was very late at night, silence filled the room.
Completely, silence, quiet, not even a heart beat was pounding.

I started to cry, realizing what was going on.
I hugged Jasper´s body tighter.
“I love you.”