Perfume

Brian sighed softly to himself as he looked through his friend’s bedroom window, facing the quiet beach that was now beginning to shadow itself with the mild darkness of the nearing night. The sun no longer poured the last warm rays of that day, having hidden itself underneath the seam of the ocean, remaining on its confines long enough to give the night a soft orange glow accompanying the shiny newborn stars.

He could distinguish the large figure sitting alone on the sand, the body so still he could have sworn he was already dead. But the quietude of a yet to fall shadow assured him he was still alive; at least physically he knew he was.

Brian wasn’t stupid to ignore the crude facts that were constantly thrown to his face, even though not intentionally, and everything rolled before his eyes with such clarity sometimes it made him wonder if it wasn’t all just a cruel, horrific dream. But he had been there, he had seen it all like Matt hadn’t seen himself and, even though the brown-eyed man’s pain could never compare to the one his friend constantly carried within his heart, he still suffered so much from his friends’ pain it felt like his heart was bleeding itself inside his chest. He still remembered that day as if it had been yesterday and every time those same images brought themselves to attack his brain he felt his heart flip and his chest clenched so painfully hard he always thought he would surely lose his breath.

Their lives changed six years ago, all their lives. Not only Matt’s, not only Sarah’s, but also the lives of those around them who had fought for that child as if she was their own, the lives of those who suffered for days, weeks, months waiting for the sweet child to return, the lives of those who prayed every night for some kind of good news that never would come. The lives of those who cried when the idiotic cycle of life finally dictated the end.

Those had been hard times, probably the hardest he had ever lived, and even after so many years the wounds were still so fresh a simple wrong word could make them bleed again, making the healing seem more impossible than before. His heart started beating erratically within his chest as he let himself think about the past, reminiscing things that for long had been labeled taboo within his inevitably broken family. The things they lived those six years ago had been so heart-breaking, so life-changing, he often wondered how they could possibly still be alive, standing strong even when the pillar of their lives was now completely broken.

The brown-eyed man had seen everything like no one else did. He had been there when at the age of sixteen Sarah discovered she was pregnant with Matt’s child. He had been there when a seventeen year-old Matt found out his life was about to drastically change. He had been there when, at the age of eighteen, his hazel-eyed friend paced the tiles of the hospital complex, waiting for his child to be born. He had been there when Matt held the little girl for the very first time and he had seen the happiness radiating from those hazel orbs like nothing he had seen before.

Being Sarah’s cousin and Matt’s best friend, Brian had become the godfather of that precious girl at the tender age of nineteen and at the age of twenty his friend was already the best father a little girl could have asked for and even more so. He had been there for the first faint smile, the first laugh, the first tooth, the first step.

He even had been there when the little girl said her very first word.

Brian had been playing with her that day, lying on the soft grass of the Sander’s backyard as the girl fisted her small hands on the soft fabric of his white t-shirt and giggled as he tickled her still slightly chubby tummy. The girl had looked up at the sound of Matt’s voice and Brian still remembered how her young eyes had shone at the sight of her father, much like a believer seeing their god for the very first time. The girl had pointed at Matt, her other small hand hitting Brian’s chest as she squealed, repeating ‘daddy, daddy’ and Brian couldn’t remember a time when Matt had looked so stunned, so marvelously happy he thought he would pass out with joy. But he had only smiled, held the girl carefully in his strong embrace and whispered to her that he loved her, like he did every other day.

Brian had been there throughout the little girl’s six years of life. Brian had seen it all. But what made him sick to his stomach, feeling more angered and revolted than he had felt his entire life, what made him want to cry like he had never done before, was that he, inevitably, had been there in the end as well.

The brown-eyed man still remembered it perfectly, the crystal clear images floating above the surface of his memory like hard, deadly stabs to his heart, making him feel so small he sometimes thought he too was ready to give up. He had seen everything; he had seen the heartbreakingly small corpse lying on dirty floor, the concrete drenched from the rain that had been falling mercilessly down the sky that same awful day; he had seen the shadow of the once incredibly happy little girl dancing along the rough walls of the narrow alley, the casted figure tainting the bricks so widely the small body looked more fragile and incredibly more broken than before. And Brian had seen the blood, crimson fluid running along the nude body of the child, circling the flesh where the bones were so sickly noticeable it seemed like the girl had become nothing but a skeleton covered with a thin, cold mantel of purpling flesh. But what chilled Brian to the bones, what had tears prickling at the corner of his eyes, what had the salty water begging to be shed while his heart shattered inside his chest much like old glass breaking under the pressure of a thousand brick walls, was how degrading everything showed to the world, how the sweet child had been left to die in a dirty alley as though she was nothing but a piece of dirt, a piece of garbage that had no place in this stupid cicle of life, how she had been tainted so brutally, inhumanely scarred, broken, degraded and killed as if her pain meant nothing, as if she was meant to be hurt so badly, so cruelly, when she had been just a little kid, a little angel with yet so much to live, with yet so much to give to the pathetic, idiotic, fucking unfair world Brian had come to know.

If he was going to be honest with himself, Brian couldn’t remember the perfect details after those images and surely he thanked whoever was listening to him for giving his mind some bittersweet kind of internal peace. The hours after his discovery were nothing but a blur, only flashbacks of actions, not one memory of a thought. He could see himself moving towards the corpse and he still remembered the bile rising in his throat as he noticed the stomach of the little girl had been opened, letting its contents to drift out as dirty rats fought to get a piece of the once pure flesh that now lay on that same blood-tainted floor, the whole scene reminding him of some horror movie that he had seen back in his teenage years when such horrid things only happened in fiction and fake terror stories. He still remembered how he had laughed upon seeing that same awful movie, how those images had seemed much too pathetic and unrealistic to make him feel the least bit scared.

Oh, how he regretted it now. Laughing. He wouldn’t have laughed if he had known how it would feel, if he had known how scary the whole ordeal would ever be. And Brian would admit it now, now that he had seen everything with those mocha colored eyes that even six years later held so much turmoil along the lingering sadness that had been living inside those irises for way too long. Brian was scared, so scared he sometimes thought of himself like a little kid scared of the dark. It all started that night and it took one little, precious girl to have such grown-up man fearing for what felt like the first time in his life.

And that night, the night when every little hope was crushed, the night when he discovered the small child would never come back, the night the world turned black and gray… the night Melanie Sanders died, Brian Haner Jr. cried for the first time.

The sound of a door opening shook Brian from his horrid memories, making him quickly sweep his long fingers along the underline of his eyelid to brush away the stray tear that had been making a cruel path of its own along his sun-kissed, defined cheek. He heard the click of the door closing again, followed by the soft cringe of the bed as a small weight was added to the mattress, all the while keeping his eyes glued on the figure still sitting by the beach, watching with conflicted eyes as everything seemed so peaceful while he knew the world was a mess of constant bloody wars.

“I’ve tried everything, Brian.” The voice bristled through the air in a raspy whisper, making the chocolate irises of the man leave the silent figure as he turned around to face the child-less mother that sat miserably above the soft red sheets, silent tears already streaming down pink cheeks as the green-eyed girl let herself break down for the first time in so many years. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve done all I could to bring him back, but he just won’t come back, Bri. He doesn’t want to.”

Sarah looked into her adoptive cousin’s warm eyes, and Brian knew she had been seeking for the kind of mournful comfort Matt hadn’t been able to give her while lost in his own internal pain. But Brian didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. Not when he himself felt so broken inside, not when he didn’t know how to heal his own heart in order to heal another more broken than his own. Not when he was still so scared and stupidly ready to cry.

“He’ll come around, Sarah.” Brian said, voice low and quivering, and he knew immediately the girl wouldn’t believe those farfetched words. He himself couldn’t believe them, no matter how much he repeated them or how much he forced his heart to keep them inside and hold on to them whenever he felt he would lose his best friend for the cruel world much like he lost the beautiful child all those years ago.

“He won’t.” Sarah shook her head; sarcastic, shaky laughter rushed through the thick air of the room, seeming to Brian like a subconscious sob, like the sound of a fragile heart breaking again and again, like the sound of a life ending a little bit each day, a little harder each time. “Matt will never come around. It’s been six years, Brian, six fucking years. What am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell am I supposed to expect from the shell Matt has become? I can’t do this anymore.” She whispered, her soaked orbs flicking towards the large open windows for an almost imperceptibly second before void green found chocolate brown yet again, new tears pooling down tired eyes as the first sobs started racking her fragile frame like the harsh wind of a damn old and cold hurricane. “I’m so tired, Brian, so, so tired. I just- it’s too late. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep trying when Matt’s already given up.”

Brian felt tears well up in his own eyes, his stomach clenching as he watched his friend degrade herself in front of him, as he watched Sarah giving up when the last ounce of strength finally left her to fend for herself with only a tired mind and a broken heart. And, inevitably, Brian knew this was the end.

So he asked, surely with no need for an answer, but feeling as though the words had to be spoken for that chapter to finally end. His only fear being that those words would drastically mean the end of the story.

“What do you mean, Sarah?”

And the green-eyed girl didn’t even need time to think over her answer. She had already decided and, unfortunately, Brian knew there was no coming back. “I’m leaving. For good. I can’t stay here… with him. I can’t do this to myself, stop living like that. You understand, Brian? Matt has long since been dead, to himself at least. But I don’t want to die with him like some part of me died with my baby girl.”

And Brian did the only thing he could possibly do. His head moved itself in a soft nod and he felt another stray tear ran along tanned skin, touching his button nose and falling along until the small droplet touched his thin, trembling lips. Brian gnawed at the inside of his cheek, keeping himself from breaking down while making his way towards the green-eyed girl, his strong, comforting arms soon engulfing the trembling girl who clung to him as if he was the hero she had been waiting for to save her from her demons. But Brian knew that, although she had been craving for the smallest, silliest kind of comfort, the one she was looking for had long since died inside the man Brian was sure she still loved.

“I know.” Brian whispered, his chin on top of her head while he breathed hard through his nose, the tears still and dangerously at bay, just waiting for the right crack to finally be shed. “And it’s okay.”

“Is it?” Sarah asked in a low whimper. “Is it okay to give up, Brian?”

Brian wanted to deny it, he wanted to make her see how wrong she was, how coward she was for even thinking of giving up. But could he be such a hypocrite? No, he realized, he couldn’t. Not after everything the small girl had been through, not when Brian himself felt like giving up more times than he certainly should.

“Yeah.” He concluded softly, leaving a lingering kiss on top of her sandy colored hair. “You’ve been fighting for way too long and, no matter what you do now, I’m really fucking proud of you.” Brian stepped aside slightly, letting his hands cradle her flushed face, while brown orbs looked into deep green ones. “Mel is really proud of you.”

“Is she?”

Brian smiled, a sad frown contorting his features as he allowed his lips to twist up for a small moment of tenderness. “Of course she is.”

“Won’t she be mad because I’m giving up on her hero?” Sarah asked between another heartbreaking sob.

Brian shook his head sadly, bringing her closer to his tall body once again as he mustered an answer to such hard question. He knew that, no matter what he said, no word could ever be enough. “Mel loves you, Sarah. She’ll forgive you for giving up.”

And then he let her go, his eyes now clouded with a kind of sadness he hadn’t known before. He felt almost… empty.

“Thank you." The green eyed girl whispered, smiling sadly before stepping away from Brian, silently moving across the shiny surface resting bellow their feet and grabbing a light purple suitcase lying on the floor.

And when Brian was sure the girl was completely engulfed in her sad departure, moving around the room and collecting everything that had been hers, the brown-eyed man left the room as silently as he could, the sadness in his eyes soon changing to anger, despair and so much disappointment the tears finally started their cruel path down tanned cheeks.

There was a reason why the strong man was so incredibly angry. Brian wasn’t stupid, he had noticed the angry flush of Sarah’s cheek, he had distinguished the mark coloring her once ivory skin and he had been wise enough to put everything in the right place in his head. Matt had hit Sarah. Brian hadn’t seen it happen with his own eyes, but he knew it had been his friend, and that alone had his heart thundering against his ribcage with brutal speed, had his head aching as if his brain was bleeding on the inside, had his stomach clenching as though it had been twisted in knots. And surely, had the tears on his eyes multiply themselves as he ran outside, moving at high speed along the still hot sand until he was finally face to face with his numb friend, livid brown orbs locking with void hazel eyes.

“Brian, wha-“

And it did it, the emptiness in Matt’s voice, the lack of emotions in his eyes, the feeling that the hazel eyed man was quickly disconnecting himself from the world. It all did it and, before he could even muster any kind of thought, Brian’s hand had twisted, his arm had been pulled back, and in an almost deafening second Brian’s fist had collided with Matt’s jaw with so much strength the larger man fell back onto the wet ground.

The tears running along Brian’s cheeks were foreign to him, strange small object that in a normal basis would have never made themselves known on his strong face. Brian was a man, a strong, big man at that; Brian didn’t cry. However, he found himself crying that moment in time, but he knew those were not tears of sadness. No, Brian was strong enough to fight back the bad feelings and keep himself together even in the worst of the moments. Regardless, the brown-eyed man found it in himself to cry over nothing other than utter rage. He was angry, almost possessed with the will to destroy everything in his path. If Brian was crying for a reason and a reason only was because he feared losing his friend sooner than his time. He fucking loved his best friend, his brother and he wouldn’t let another member of his family die when they had yet so much to live. Matt was already lost between those feelings of mournful loss and Brian had to do something before it surely was too late.

Matt looked up with a glare of his own, eyes slightly wide with surprise as he let his fingers run harshly along the base of his nose, blood already pooling out of his flared nostrils as something other than emptiness finally grew inside those sad, desperate hazel orbs.

“What the fuck, man?!” Matt growled, his body shaking as he sat himself on the sand yet again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Matthew?! How the fuck could you even think about hurting Sarah?!”

“That’s nothing of your fucking concern, Haner!” The hazel eyed man yelled, scrambling to his feet and glaring at his friend who stood stunned in disbelieve, a loud huff ripping past his thin lips. “I do whatever I want to, you hear me? I just put her in her fucking place!”

“I can’t fucking believe you.” Brian scoffed. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

Matt looked at his friend with angered eyes, but even then it was possible to see the void lingering on the depths of those now dark orbs, such great emptiness he reminded Brian of a black hole: everything bottled on the inside, nothing more to show to the world. And Matt, much like that same black hole, seemed to have nothing more than unknown, eternal darkness.

“Fucking go away, Brian.” Matt muttered, turning his back on his friend while starting to walk away, blood still pouring down his nose like some kind of sick, broken fountain.

“Sarah’s leaving. For good.” Those words alone had the hazel-eyed man stopping on his tracks, his muscular body tensing under the large tissue of his t-shirt as he let out what seemed like a strangled breath. “And it’s all your damn fault, Matthew.”

“Shut the fuck up, Brian.” Matt seethed, never facing his friend again, but Brian didn’t care. He knew now he had all his attention and, even though Matt’s posture could be enough to intimidate the brown-eyed man, now was in no way time to give up.

“Do you know what she told me? She said she couldn’t do it anymore, that she was too damn fucking tired of all the bullshit you’ve put her through. And you know what? Yes! It is you fucking fault Sarah is leaving you with no intention in coming back! Because you are nothing but an idiot, stupid, selfish fucking coward!” Brian’s words had felt like stabs, like fucking stakes being thrown towards Matt’s heart with such ferocity he could have never stopped them from sinking in.

But Brian didn’t know how Matt felt like, he didn’t know how it was to feel so empty, so destroyed, so non-human the hazel-eyed man could no longer distinguish the feelings inside his broken heart, or maybe lingering in his lost soul. How could Brian be saying such harsh words?, Matt thought to himself, feeling as though the brown-haired man was betraying him like he had never been betrayed before. Brian was supposed to understand him, to support him, to be by his side every fucking moment, even when he was wrong.

And did Matt know he was wrong. He had known it from the beginning; how selfish he had been, how self-centered, how… lost. And now, the tall man couldn’t place his feelings as knew sensations brought themselves alive inside his for long numb heart. Sarah was leaving and Matt couldn’t bring himself to doubt Brian’s words: this time even the hazel-eyed man knew that if he let her leave she would never be coming back.

But did he really care? Could Matt really bring himself to fear her departure when he had been telling, almost convincing himself of how much he didn’t want her? Did it really matter that she was giving up on him? And, sadly, Matt never had any kind of instant answer to those questions.

“Mel’s dead.” Brian’s soft voice interrupted Matt’s thoughts and the bigger, slightly younger male couldn’t help but cringe at those crude words, words that had his heart sinking more inside his chest, sinking so deep he thought he could throw up the nothingness he now held inside. “She’s not coming back, Matt. And I get it; it hurts. God!” Brian stressed, tugging at his brown locks as he closed his eyes in desperation. “I fucking get it, okay?! But it’s been six years, Matt. Six years; that’s a lifetime for your little girl. Do you really think she would want you to do this to yourself?”

“How can you possibly know what she would fucking want?” Matt growled.

“She surely wouldn’t want you to kill yourself like this.” The brown-eyed man countered, his words lingering in the air once again, this time covered with such a thick layer of disappointment Matt felt himself cringe under his friend’s stare.

But that was it; a cringe. Not some heartfelt cry, not even some stupid halfhearted growl. Nothing. Sarah was right, Brian realized, after all it really was too late.

Brian watched with sad eyes as Matt sat back on the sand, the void consuming him almost instantly as he seemed to become nothing but dust grains in that damn destroyed world.

“I tried.” Brian almost whispered, “I really fucking tried.”

And then Brian was gone. Just like Sarah, Matt had now managed to lose his best friend and yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to mourn for that kind of loss, not when his whole heart –even if it wasn’t whole anymore- had been completely suffocated by other kind of loss, one that had happened six years before, one that had him feel dead even when his body still claimed he was alive. But he couldn’t feel it.

But it was then, when he heard the back door of his house close behind his friend, when he heard the sound that seemed the warning bell telling him how it meant that he was now disconnected from the world, that he realized how lonely he felt.

He wasn’t supposed to feel it, not when he had been nothing but some empty shell of the Matthew Sanders he used to be. But he couldn’t help it when his heart started hurting all over again when he looked through the open window, seeing the one girl who once had been the love of his life preparing to leave him and hoping to never come back. And Matt realized that he had been sure when he said he didn’t want her. He truly didn’t. Matt couldn’t find it in himself to love her again, to want her like he had wanted her before, to feel her in all the ways he did back when life was perfect and they were blind to the cruelty suffocating the world.

Regardless, Matt didn’t want the green-eyed girl to leave him, because he couldn’t lose her, not like he lost his child all those years ago. His feelings were confusing, contradictory, almost idiotic. But, in his own, insane way, Matt needed Sarah. He needed her so much he couldn’t cope with the thought of her leaving him completely and utterly alone. Matt felt so broken now he knew she was the only thing keeping him alive, the only thing keeping him breathing and going through every hurting day.

And it didn’t matter how much Matt didn’t want her, because he needed her more than anything in the world, almost as much as he wanted his baby girl back. But Brian had been right after all; Mel wasn’t coming back and if he let himself lose Sarah too, then his safe harbor would go along with her and he knew that when it happened he would never find the strength to make it through the day.

So Matt could only hope: maybe it isn’t too late.