Constellations

There’s nothing tying him down now.

Harry stands near the edge of the platform, waiting for the train to arrive… the train that should be all he’s ever hoped for, but is instead a dead weight inside him, dragging him underwater, choking him.

Leaving. Leaving the city he was born in and the city he grew up in, the city he’d grown to bitterly hate as time went on. It had always been his dream. So why does he feel his presence pulling him back, now he has nothing left to hold on to, now that he’s finally free? Because it’s there, no denying it.

Kevin’s voice floats through his mind, unwanted and unbidden, but still so beautiful it makes him want to cry. I love you. Three little words he’s heard so many times he’d almost taken them for granted at one point. I love you. So close, yet so far out of his reach.

Harry can feel him – he can feel him deep inside him, calling to him, begging him not to leave, and he knows any foolish picture he’s been trying to create about being over Kevin is nothing more than a desperate hope. He can tell by the flavour the memories have to them. Sweet and cutting – the kind of flavour you can’t help but want, despite knowing with an absolute certainty it will destroy you.

But still, he can’t find it in him to stay away.

If there’s nothing to hold him back down now, how come his limbs are lead and he’s breathing through water? How come there’s a dull pain tugging at his chest that only gets stronger the more he tries to distance himself from Kevin? How come his gut tells him that if he steps onto that train, he’ll regret it for the rest of his life?

This is my future. This is what I chose my life to be like. How many times has he spoken these words to himself in the last week? The more they repeat themselves, the more hollow they sound. And each time, he finds himself wondering if he’s just attempting to convince himself that this is the best choice for him – that after all these years, the promises he made to himself are still worthwhile.

“When I turn eighteen, I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.”

He remembers the words perfectly. Spoken from the determined mouth of a fourteen-year-old who was convinced he had control over every little thing in his life, they’d go on to change him as a person, becoming almost an obsession. What did he know about attachments back then? What did he know about letting go, about love and the utter dependence it brings?

“I’m coming with you, then.”

He can still see the deathly earnest expression painted onto Kevin’s face. It was so typical of him – he’d follow Harry to the ends of the earth, never letting him stray too far from him. And Harry had always stayed gladly, to the point where their relationship became much more than just best friends – to the point where his whole life depended solely on Kevin.

And then came the arguments. Then came the screaming, the shoving, the slamming doors and muffled sobbing. Slowly, but with a clear, heartbreaking certainty, his whole life fell apart on itself… until there was only one thing left to hold on to: the scattered ashes of his former dreams.

Ten minutes to go.

Kevin’s face, pressed into the back of his eyelids, calling him.

I love you.

He never knew how much power a few simple words could have on him until today. He’s never yearned for them as desperately as he does right now, reaching out blindly, trying to hold the broken memories closer to himself as they escape through his outstretched hands.

Seven minutes and he almost feels like something is physically stabbing him through the chest. The feeling of gentle fingertips caressing his neck, faded with time, echoes painfully through his memory. It arrives hand in hand with the ghost of lips that meant bliss and sweet, tender nothings in between tangled sheets and each other’s bodies.

It’s torture. It’s torture and it’s heavenly.

Three minutes. Where are the seconds going? When exactly did his lungs decide to stop functioning? The tips of his fingers are ice cold as they grip onto the handle of his suitcase, suddenly ten times heavier with the twin weights of loss and regret tugging it down. At the same time, his heart also gets heavier. It starts to sink deep into his chest, overburdened with unspoken thoughts and hidden, held-back longing.

And then it happens. The rumble of the train’s wheels on the iron track reverberates across the station, and for a moment he’s paralyzed to the floor, legs frozen in place. Then, as all around him faceless strangers start picking up their suitcases and the train stops in front of him, he’s able to move again, although he does it stiffly, mechanically.

The doors slide open, and through them Harry can see glimpses of his future. It’s bleak and it’s empty, and it carries a faint aftertaste of hard, bitter remorse. When I turn eighteen, I’m leaving and I’m never coming back. His fourteen-year-old self sounds so hideously mocking now. This was what he’d always wanted, wasn’t it? This was his dream.

And as his footsteps carry him away, away from everything he knows and from the sole person his life depends on, he slowly erodes away… until all that’s left of him is a forgotten hope, a suitcase full of dead memories and a face etched deep into his eyelids.

A face which we knows will never completely disappear.