The Sound of the Soil Hitting the Casket

It is always hard to realize that something you once loved is gone. You cling to it clawing your nails into the last of the memories that seem to hold you and your world together, because if you let go everything will fall apart.

You pretend not to understand that it’s gone, because it’s probably the only light you’ve ever had in your life and without it the only thing left is emptiness. And it’s scary.

You’re scared but you can’t run, seeing it slowly but surely moving towards you. The waves of pain, of loneliness. And you can already imagine them tearing you apart, peace by bloody peace until all that is left is that dark little corner in your head telling you how you didn’t deserve it in the first place.

So, yes. You’re not stupid and you are not blind.

But you pretend to be- closing your eyes and getting lost in the dream your mind creates to hopelessly try to avoid the impact. And for a moment, just for a little while, you are safe and everything is just like it always has been.

Yet no one can really live with their eyes closed.


It was a hit and run.

A car smashed into another one.

The owner of the vehicle that caused the accident took off without as much as calling an ambulance.

Two men and a woman were left to bleed to death.


Tristan was sitting in a cafe, observing the bench on the other side of the almost-empty street. It was pouring and the night was falling fast onto the small northern town. Those few who were still walking down the main town road in front of him were in a hurry to get home. All dressed in black, they would hastily murmur their goodbyes to each other while passing by and hurry off. It was one of the many traits of living in a town with a population barely reaching two hundred – you knew almost everybody and almost everybody knew you.

Tristan put the paper cup to his mouth and took a big sip of the bitter beverage trying to gulp down the damn lump in the back of his sore throat.

It was unreasonably cold for the middle of spring and having spent a fair amount of time outside in this kind of weather, now soaking wet, he felt a cold coming up.

Nonetheless he didn’t budge an inch, making no indication of hurrying home himself. After all, he was waiting and he would be waiting as long as he had to.

“Boy, I need to close up; my wife’s waiting for me.” Carl, the café owner, hummed and Tristan could feel a streak of softness and pity in his voice. It was highly unusual to hear the middle-aged man talking without that strict fatherly tone, which half the time sounded like he was outright scolding each and every one of them- from children to elderly ones.

“Okay.” Tristan murmured and frowned at the thought of waiting in the rain. He met Carl’s eyes and with a swift nod of his head, in the place of a good-bye, stood up and squeezing the cup tightly in one hand reached out for the door with the other.

Carl’s eyes trailed down the young man with a black suit and he huffed quietly, yet loud enough for Tristan to turn around.
“Bring them by my house first thing in the morning, boy.” He grunted throwing the keys of the café into Tristan’s hands, which fell to the ground due to them being occupied, and after grabbing an umbrella scurrying outside, leaving the guy standing there completely baffled.

“Oh and Tristan,” Carl reopened the door and stuck his head back in. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

Not waiting for an answer he left, this time for sure, and Tristan watched him walk away down the darkening street.

He felt something trying to break out his chest. His stomach was churning and he felt as if he was
about to puke. Biting his lower lip hard enough for iron taste to fill his mouth Tristan tried to regain control over the liquid threatening to spill out of his grey eyes.

Picking up the keys he blinked slowly.

It was not his place to listen to ‘I’m sorry’s. Not his place to feel like he was just ripped off of
everything important. Not his place to feel sorrow. No. He didn’t have that kind of a privilege.

Cursing the man inwardly he stuffed the bundle of keys into the pocket of his highly uncomfortable pants and sat back down, drawing his eyes back to the bench.

He almost wished he had a reason to wait outside. The cold rain seemed like quite a pleasant thing by now.


After an hour, thirty three minutes and twenty seconds, not that he was counting, his wait was over.
He watched Neil stumble slightly, eventually sitting down onto the very same cursed bench. Okay, maybe Tristan did feel bad thinking about that bench like that. Maybe.

He didn’t hurry out, just sat and watched for a few moments as Neil just sat there in the dark, only visible because of the lamp-pole nearby, staring straight ahead with unseeing eyes and letting the rain run down him.

He looked terrible.

And that was putting it kindly.

Tristan heaved a sigh and stood up loosening the black tie pressed tightly around his neck. He couldn’t remember the last he had ever felt this scared and out of control.

He forced his body to move to the door and after locking the café crossed the street hesitantly, keeping his cautious stare on the guy on the bench.

Neil didn’t even look at him. Not a flinch, not a breath.

Tristan stood directly in front of him and his empty stare. For quite some time they both were frozen, letting the water soak through the material of their very similar suits and bite their skin with the coldness.

Tristan breathed out slowly, creating a white puff of air.

“Neil.”

Neil’s eyes traveled up at that slowly and he looked at Tristan, though his expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“I don’t have it in me anymore.” He whispered brokenly.

“Neil.” Tristan forced out feeling just as broken as Neil sounded.

“I can’t even feel it. It’s not there anymore. It’s gone. Gone.” Neil raised a shaking hand to run through his hair, splattered wetly all over his face.

Tristan gulped down and had to force his buckling legs to keep holding him up.

“It’s like… like I’ve used everything up. Like I’m empty. Hollow.” Neil muttered appearing amazed.

“Tristan, I… I don’t even feel sad.”

Neil looked like a kid. A scared and confused kid. His wide brown eyes wandered around unsurely as if he didn’t even know where he was. And truthfully Tristan understood his state of mind perfectly well.

“It’s like nothing even happened, like I- Oh my god it feels like everything is the same as before, but… nothing is, is it? Nothing.”

“Nothing.” Tristan agreed.

There was nothing that he could’ve said to console his friend that he hadn’t already heard a thousand times since the accident.

“Tristan?” Neil whispered pleadingly.

“Yeah?”

“What’s happening to me?”

Tristan mulled it over. He wished he knew what was truly happening to them both and why.
“You’re just in shock, Neil. Dramatic events cause it quite frequently.”

“Oh.”

Tristan almost wished he could say that Neil was going to be okay, but he couldn’t, because Tristan didn’t really know if he himself was okay.

“I keep on hearing it.”

“What?”

“That sound, it’s just horrible.”

“What sound, Neil?”

“The sound of soil hitting the casket.”


“How are you?”

“Been better.”

“Should we go?”

“I’m not going.”

“And what are you going to do? Drop out of school?”

“I don’t really care.”

“I know you don’t, so why don’t you let me care for the both of us and do as I say?”

“I don’t want to!”

“You can’t just lock yourself in your room for the rest of your life, Neil.”

“Watch me!”

“Please be reasonable.”

“Fuck you.”


“How are you?”

“Been better.”

“Going to school today.”

“No.”

“It’s been three months.”

“I don’t really give a shit.”

“I see.”

Silence.

“Well go already.”

“Neil?”

“What?”

“Sooner or later you’ll have to move on.”

“Just fuck off, will ya?”


“How are you?”

“Been better.”

“Tristan, you look like you haven’t slept since…well you know.” Kylie murmured concerned avoiding his empty eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve been having trouble sleeping.” Tristan shrugged. He wished she wouldn’t have mentioned the accident. He didn’t like it at all.

“Tristan, you’re kind of scaring me lately.” She frowned.

“Hm?” He hummed shutting his locker and stuffing his right hand into his pocket.

“You just… you can’t push yourself like that, okay? It’s not healthy for you.” Kylie scrunched her eyebrows, looking at Tristan with deep disapproval.

“I don’t get what you mean.” Tristan replied off handedly and moved towards the classroom.

He and Kylie were neighbors and both went to the same school in a bigger town nearby. While the school wasn’t something big or amazing, they didn’t really have a choice, because it was the only one within twenty miles radio. Because of that it was also quite crowded with people from all the villages and towns around it.

“We both know you do.” Kylie said coldly, eyeing him with a decent amount of anger in her eyes. It didn’t cover the pity and concern though.

“Yeah, well.” Tristan hummed and gave her a sharp nod leaving her to look at his back, disappearing behind the classroom door.

“You’re both similar.” Kylie sighed, knowing full well that he could no longer hear her. “Holding onto something that is no longer there.”


“Hi.” Tristan smiled at Nate, who opened the door for him as always.

Nate was tall, with dark brown hair, just like Neil’s, and unusual blue eyes, which made him stand out from the rest of the family. He was Neil’s uncle.

“Hey!” Nate grinned energetically letting Tristan through. He was twenty seven, but his attitude and
his never dying smile made him look like a teenager. It amazed Tristan to no end.

Nate had lived in this town before, but ran away as soon as he turned eighteen. He ran away to New York and pursued his dream of becoming a writer. Soon enough his first book was on the shelf with other bestsellers.

When he got a call telling him about his older brother getting into an accident he fled back to take care of his legally underage nephew, though his own life had barely started and he was not ready to raise anyone, feeling like someone should be still taking care of him, not the other way around.

The weight of the world crashed on Nate’s shoulders as he took the responsibility, no one else could take. Not to mention that Neil was not easy to interact with lately, leaving Nate at a loss of what to do with a teenager who was shutting him out and refused any help he offered.

“How are you?” Tristan eyed the mess, entering the kitchen which looked like something out of a horror movie.

“Been trying to cook again.” Nate sighed scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

“Yeah. I can see that.” Tristan chuckled at the older guy dropping his bag onto the floor and picking up a mop instead.

“You don’t have to do this, Tristan you know tha-“

“I know.” Tristan cut him off, already picking up the pieces of a shattered plate.

Nate leaned onto a wall and let his eyes follow Tristan’s movements as the boy worked his way through the chaos.

“I can’t even cook a meal.” The words slipped his lips before he could catch them.

Tristan’s shoulders tensed as he turned to Nate to see the man staring into the space with a distant
look in his eyes.

“You can’t.” Tristan nodded solemnly.

“He hasn’t said a word to me since I got here.” Nate continued.

“He hasn’t said much to anyone since then, Nate.” Tristan pressed his lips into a tight line.

“I can’t even get him to come out of his room.” Nate’s stare focused and he looked at Tristan.

His blue eyes were cold and the usual glimmer of energy was gone.

“I can’t either.”

“I feel like he’s slipping away, Tristan, and I can’t do hell to stop it.” Nate laughed humorlessly sliding down the wall pulling his own hair to the point where his knuckles turned white with force.

Tristan fell silent at that.

“I’m in trouble because he refuses to go to school.” Nate continued, his voice sounding more and more psychotic by the second. “He doesn’t want to go to therapy. It’s not like I can force him. Well I can, technically, but what would be the point in trying to force help onto someone who doesn’t want it? He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t eat, he…”

Tristan pressed his lips together tightly.

“Nate, I understand it’s difficult, but-“ He started, not quite finding the words to finish the sentence.
“They had no right to leave us like this, Tristan. I can barely take care of myself, I don’t know how-“ Nate choked out.

“I know, but you’re all he has left.” Tristan murmured his voice hoarse.

“I’m not. You are what’s holding me and him from falling apart and you know it.” Nate looked up at Tristan with a desperate look on his face as if trying to hold onto the last bits of sanity left for him.

“Then I’ll be here as long as you need me.” Tristan said simply and returned to tidying the room.

“You shouldn’t. You can’t be here forever.” Nate whispered.

Tristan pretended not to hear him.


“I brought you food.” Tristan entered Neil’s room with a plate in his hand.

“Not hungry.”

The boy lied on his bed staring at the wall emptily. The curtains were shut, the light was turned off.

“You have to eat something, Neil.” Tristan argued patiently.

“I don’t want to.” Neil responded and brown eyes rose up to meet grey ones.

Tristan almost flinched at the indifference behind them.

“Okay, but I need you to try. It’s not healthy for you to go this long without food.” He said and sat down on the ground next to the bed.

“I don’t really care.”

Neil’s voice was a quiet monotone.

“Do it for me then.” Tristan felt pathetic.

“Why do you care?” Neil asked and sat up slowly, apathetically in his bed.

“You’re my best friend.” Tristan shrugged as if it was clear on its own.

“Yeah, but I don’t care. I don’t care about food. So don’t bother with it. I don’t care about school, so
don’t try to make me go. I don’t really care about you anymore either. Why don’t you just go away?”
Neil rasped out, no trace of emotion showing on his face.

Tristan placed the plate on the nightstand and stood up leaving the room, closing the door softly behind.

He walked outside, passing a surprised looking Nate.

And he kept on walking.

For an hour or two.

Or maybe longer.

Till he couldn’t hear the words echoing in his mind anymore.

Then he turned around.


Tristan was seven years old the summer his mother got herself a new boyfriend.

His father left the two of them right after his birth, so he had no recollection of him. His mom… well
she wasn’t the nicest person around.

Tristan didn’t understand it at the time, but blaming your child for everything that went wrong in
your life was not… okay. Nor was leaving a seven year old unattended for days on end.

But Tristan didn’t complain, really. He loved his mother. She was a beautiful lady, who, when she
was in a good mood, loved and cared for him. The only person who was more or less constant in his life. Who cared at least a little bit. Enough to put food on his table and dress him. And that was all he really needed.

She never hurt him. Well, psychological abuse was not a term he knew back then, but still. She never physically abused him. Not once had she laid a finger on him. But then he came.
And that was when Tristan had learned the meaning of the word dysfunctional. His body was covered in marks. He was constantly afraid. His mother allowed it to happen.

Tristan knew the first day of school, when a boy came up to him and asked him about the bruise on his leg, giving him a very weird look. He then realized that his family was not normal. That he was different and so were his parents. He also learned that people are afraid of things they don’t
understand when the kids started making fun of him.

Most of all he learned to hide. To camouflage all the spots in his life that were not up to the tastes of general public.
If you asked him now he would tell you that he didn’t know how things went unnoticed by many curious eyes of the neighbors, who were just waiting for something to happen in this small insignificant town. How the teachers and the parents of other children let it slide.

At the time he thought that he was just that good at hiding things. But no seven year old really is that good.

At age of ten he was introduced to yet another term.

It was not psychological or physical abuse. Nor was it dysfunctional.

No.

It was molestation.

And up to this day he thought that he may have deserved it.

That it was no big deal, because it was just touching, not…

That boys did not get…

Because his mother didn’t do anything about it when he told her.

Because he said that it was a punishment.

Not that he ever explained what he was punishing Tristan for.

And he still haunted Tristan up till now.

But in a way he was thankful. And he resented being thankful to that person, but still.

Because he met people who cared because of the marks all over his body. Because he met Neil the summer he lied there beaten down to the point where he couldn’t really move anymore. Because Neil told his parents when he brought him home.

Because Neil’s parents were the first ones to react.

To explain to Tristan that it was not okay. That it wasn’t his fault. That he did not have to hide it.

The first ones to explain it to him in words he could understand.

To call the right institutions.

Tristan will never forget the shocked, fearful gasp that escaped Neil’s mom’s lips when her gentle,
caring hands carefully took of his t-shirt.

Yes. Neil’s parents saved him.

They soothed the turmoil and the shame and everything in between.

They didn’t really heal him, because there is not much that can be healed after things like that.

Scars stay.

But Tristan, for the first time in his life felt like… well there was something more than just hiding and fear and pain and…

They made sure he was safe. They made sure the aunt he was living with now was good to him. (She was okay. Though coming home twice a week may not have been a good way to raise a child.)
They made sure that if anything was ever to happen he would come to them.

And Tristan never felt he could repay them for their kindness.

But he was not- not a part of their family.

Because deep down in his mind he was never really a part of anything.

There was this wall, this camouflage wall, which separated him from the rest of the world. Which he hid his shame and filth behind. Because he was dirty. He felt dirty. He felt like touching something as pure and bright as family would dirty them too.


Tristan will never forget that one time when Neil’s dad took them fishing. And the feeling when a friend of his asked whether Tristan and Neil were his boys, to which he just smiled and nodded like a proud parent.

Tristan will never forget his first real Christmas. When Neil’s mom insisted on Tristan spending it at their house. He will never forget the warmth of the woolen sweater she made him wear or the taste of hot chocolate in the early Christmas morning.

He will never forget the two worried faces, making sure that he was always fed and dressed properly. That he was always safe.

Mostly he will never ever forget the quiet ‘oh, honey’ and the warmth of the two and afterwards four hands wrapped around his childish body when he broke down that one time when the world seemed to be just too much to bare.


Neil became his best friend. They were just as normal as any other boys they’re age, playing and running around. The only thing that didn’t really feel right to Tristan was that he felt like getting close to Neil would somehow dirty him too.

That if he was to see the filth he would turn away in disgust.

But then Neil would smile and Tristan would push everything aside, because no matter how much he tried he couldn’t actually resist the warmth behind Neil’s laugh and touch.

Then they hit their teens.

Nothing came close to the way Tristan felt when he came to certain mind blowing, world crashing,
disgusting in the truest of senses realization.

At fourteen years of old Tristan realized that he didn’t really like girls quite as much as he liked Neil.

The small town they lived in was not a place for such realizations. It just wasn’t.

The lack of knowledge about it and the non-existent real life examples, lead Tristan to think that it was unheard of.

And he felt guilty and ashamed and even more dirty thinking about it.


They were both sixteen when Neil met Greg. Or rather than that, when Greg noticed Neil at last.
You see, Tristan didn’t even know that Neil was into guys up until the point when he saw the two of them kissing on that goddamned bench in front of the café. It turned out to be one of those epic love stories, where the not-so-cool, artsy, quiet kid (Neil) fell in love with the popular, hot, wanted star of the school (Greg- though why he was that popular or what they all saw in him, Tristan failed to understand).

His wide-eyed, loving, always smiling Neil was sucking Greg’s face off, for the lack of a better expression.

Tristan felt his world shift.

Adapt to the new revelation slowly but surely pushing Tristan’s mind to the edge of mental breakdown. It might have been jealousy. It might have been betrayal. It might have been confusion- because really, Tristan thought that the way he was feeling was not normal under any circumstances, but when Neil’s parents took one look at his and Greg’s clasped hands and smiled shrugging their shoulders, Tristan was forced to thing that through again.

Whatever it was, Tristan felt hurt bubbling in his chest.

The kind of hurt he never felt before due to the numb sickening state he was constantly in.

And then Tristan felt dirty for feeling hurt.

Yes, he felt dirty again.

Who was he to feel hurt? To feel hurt over something that was making Neil happy?

So Tristan smiled encouragingly, when Neil eyed him with that cautious look, as if he was expecting some kind of angry or disgusted reaction.

He smiled.

He even managed to shake hands with Greg.

Even as the thought of that hand touching Neil was nagging him in the back of his mind, making him feel like something was stuck in the back of his throat.


When he thought about it, a lot of things happened when Tristan was sixteen.

One of the most memorable being Greg’s friends beating up Neil behind the school for being who he was.

Tristan had never let his fists get their way before that day in his life.

He never felt the sickening urge to hurt someone.

Mostly because he knew how it was being hurt and because he felt filthy even thinking about hitting someone. Tristan always thought that he was a lot of things, but never would he be like him.

Even so, the very moment he saw Neil trying to push himself from the ground, blood running down his chin, Tristan forgot all those things.

His mind went blank.

The next thing he knew he was being called up to the principal’s office with a broken arm, for ‘assaulting other students’. He didn’t even try to explain himself.

As his mind gradually cleared up and the thoughts came back he felt disgusted by the memories of himself hitting someone.

However, a quiet, shy ‘thanks’ from Neil and a fatherly pat on the back from Neil’s dad managed to dim those memories quite a bit.

Violence was violence, nonetheless, and he never used it again.


Sixteen was also the year of his life Tristan met Nate for the first time.

The interested, attentive spark in Nate’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed. Tristan just pretended that it did.

Nate smiled like Neil and his blue eyes were full of joy and pure liveliness.

Tristan, on the other hand, was filthy, right?


“Tristan, can I ask you something?” Nate asked one day leaning against the living room wall, observing Tristan, who was trying to figure out what to write in his History essay with books spread on the couch.

He spent most of his time at Neil’s house nowadays anyway, so this was not an unusual scene.

“Go ahead.”

“The scars on your arms…” Nate started carefully.

Tristan went rigid for a second. He didn’t lift his eyes from the pages, nor did he acknowledge that anything had been said.

Nate frowned and came closer to the guy, lifting the book from under Tristan’s gaze, this way, making him look up and meet his stare.

“Where did you get those?” Nate breathed out, his blue eyes wary and determined at the same time.
Tristan leaned back creating more distance between them.

“His father did that to him. He used to beat him up and rape him, when he was still a child.” Came a third voice and Tristan and Nate’s eyes snapped to the doorway.

Neil was standing there with a bottle of water in his hands. Tristan noticed how the bags under his eyes seemed to be getting worse and worse, not to mention all the weight he had been losing recently. The dirty clothes were just hanging on his body now.

“That’s where they’re from, right Tristan?” Neil asked, his voice ragged and void of any emotion, and then he just turned around and left, climbing upstairs to his room.

“Ne-“ Tristan jumped from the couch quickly.

“Is that true?” Tristan’s shock of seeing Neil finally leaving his room was interrupted by Nate’s unsteady tone.

Tristan turned his head to look at Nate and was taken aback by the fearful look on his face.
That was why Tristan hated people knowing about his past. He hated feeling like all the dirt he was feeling was visible on the outside too.

“It wasn’t my father, it was my mother’s boyfriend.” He muttered, before running after Neil.
He didn’t want to deal with this right now. At least with Neil it was always the same steady ‘go away’ and ‘I hate you’. Nate’s reaction was out of his comfort zone, because by now he felt numb towards Neil’s words, which had hurt like hell at first, but Nate-

Nate was the only one still smiling at Tristan and Tristan didn’t want to see that fall into pieces.


Tristan realized that nothing really changed. Well except the fact that Nate’s smile seemed to be even gentler now and that sometimes there was this stubborn, protective look shining in the blue eyes as they seemed to follow Tristan more often than not when Nate was around.


“Neil, please eat.” Tristan begged for the hundredth time that day.

“I’m not fucking hungry, Tristan!” Neil yelled annoyed.

Tristan knew that this wasn’t something he should be glad about, but it was an improvement from his usual indifference or passive aggressiveness.

“You haven’t eaten in days!” Tristan groaned.

“‘Cause I don’t want to!” Neil screamed and jumped up hitting Tristan’s chest with his hand. “I don’t want to eat! I don’t want to go to school! I don’t want to leave my room! I don’t want you to be here! You’re not him! You will never be him!” He screeched hitting Tristan’s chest harder and harder with each sentence. The tears made their way to the brown eyes glaring angrily at him.

“I’m not trying to be him. I am trying to help you.” Tristan responded calmly, catching Neil’s wrists into a tight grip to stop him.

Neil tried to get away by squirming and kicking, but Tristan overpowered his body, which was weak from the lack of nutrition.

“Yes, you are! You’re trying to replace him! You hated him!” Neil screamed at the top of his lungs struggling even harsher and with more force.

“I’m not. I didn’t. Neil, I need you to calm down and think clearly, do you hear me?” Tristan pleaded squeezing his wrists harder.

“You are! You’re trying to be him, aren’t you!? You’ve been in love with me since we started high school, you dick! I bet you’re glad he’s dead! Why couldn’t it be you!?” Neil yelled and froze suddenly as if realizing what he just said.

Tristan released his arms and stumbled back a few steps feeling like he had just been hit.

His thoughts were just wiped out from his head as he opened his mouth to say something, not yet knowing what it was.

“Tristan, I-“ Neil started, bringing his hand up to his lips.

“It’s okay. Sometimes I wish it was me too.” Tristan felt surreal, as a distorted humorless chuckle escaped his body. “I wish it was me too.”

“No, Tristan, I-“

But Tristan was already leaving the room, not even shocked to see Nate standing in the hallway, listening to their argument with his eyes wide and a shaken look on his face.

“Tristan-“

“Isn’t it too bad that we can’t always get what we want?” Tristan muttered before fleeing downstairs and shutting the doors behind him.


“Can I talk to you?” Nate said leaning against his car in Tristan’s school’s parking lot the next day.

“See you.” Kylie murmured quickly to Tristan and practically ran to her car, after giving Nate one
curious look.

Tristan watched her car leave and put on a smile, hopeful that it looked the same as always.

“Well, it seems that you just chased my ride away.” He joked feebly.

“How does coffee sound to you?” Nate asked tilting his head to the side, observing Tristan with some kind of unreadable emotion plastered on his face.

“Um…” Tristan scratched the back of his head sheepishly. He had a feeling what this was about and he could admit that he was a coward if it got him out of it.

“Tristan, I really need to talk to you.” Nate pleaded, his eyebrows furrowing and lips settling into a subtle frown.

“Is this about yesterday?” Tristan asked outright, meeting Nate’s stare as bravely as he could.

“Partly.” Nate nodded calmly, but there was something burning in those blue eyes that made Tristan want to shift under them. To get away from them.

He didn’t though.

“I don’t exactly want to talk about that Nate, I’m sure you can understand.” Tristan replied, trying to keep the cold undertone away from his voice.

“I do, Tristan.” Nate sighed and eyed the cloudy sky, which was quickly darkening above them with unshed raindrops. “I just… Call me selfish, but I kind of was hoping that you would still talk to me.
I… It’s not just about yesterday.”

Tristan stood there for a minute looking at the reflection of the sky in Nate’s eyes.

“Okay, but this better be the best cup of coffee in my life.” He gave in at last rubbing his temples tiredly.

“Thank you.”

Tristan looked up to meet a gentle smile and hummed, wondering what exactly he had gotten
himself into.


Tristan decided that car rides don’t get more awkward than that.


As they entered the café, Carl’s head snapped up to look at them.

“Ah, Tristan, long time no see, boy.” The man said smiling at him timidly.

“Yeah, I’ve been kind of busy lately, sir.” Tristan explained grinning easily, yet not quite feeling it.

“Hm.” Carl hummed and eyed him thoroughly. After that his eyes fell on Nate. “Nathaniel, now you, I haven’t seen for years.” His voice was somewhat critical.

“It’s nice to hear that someone still remembers my name around here.” Nate smiled politely, seemingly unfazed.

The man just nodded solemnly.

“I’ll take the usual.” Tristan said, remembering all the days he used to spend here reading when Neil was preoccupied and he just didn’t feel like going home. “Actually, make it two.” He added, glancing at Nate.

Because really, not many things in life were better that Carl’s caramel macchiato.

“And here I thought I was the one taking you out for coffee.” Nate muttered under his breath, quiet enough for Tristan to wonder whether it was meant to be heard or not.

“You can pay if it bothers you.” Tristan smirked nonetheless and the surprised look on Nate’s face suggested that he had, in fact, been talking to himself.

They got their coffee (though Tristan ended up insisting that Nate paying had been a joke and that he was perfectly fine paying for himself) and as Nate turned to walk towards the table by the window, Tristan shook his head motioning to the door.

“Isn’t it cold?” Nate wondered. The dark sky was still looming over them.

Tristan just shrugged nonchalantly and walked to the bench on the other side of the street. He figured as long as he’s going to do this, he could also take a chance to get over the hate for the
damn thing.

Nate eyed him weirdly, but sat down next to him anyway.

“He didn’t actually mean it, you know.” He muttered and Tristan felt his heart sink a little bit at the straightforwardness to the topic.

“He did, Nate. If he was in his usual state he would be too nice to say it, but that’s all.” He argued, taking a sip of the beverage, hopelessly trying to savor the warmth.

Nate was right, it was cold.

“You’re his best friend, Tristan. You’re what’s been keeping this whole thing from falling apart for the last nine months, you can’t seriously believe that he meant it.” Nate frowned at him disapprovingly.

Tristan looked at the blue eyes, seemingly desperate to prove him wrong. Nate looked like he was ready to fight. Though Tristan couldn’t quite understand what exactly he was fighting for.

“Keeping what together, Nate? Because if you look at it through his eyes, there’s really not much left. He loved his parents, he loved Greg. They were his world. If at least one of them was still here he would be okay. He would be fine.” Tristan hummed apprehensively. “So you can’t blame him for wishing that it was someone else that died that night. Because if at least one of them were here instead of me they would know what to do. How to make him better.”

A slow smile settled onto his lips as he had to admit that this was a beautiful place after all. The houses looked so calm and cozy from here.

“Can’t really blame me for wishing for that too.”

He could feel Nate’s intent stare, taking him in part by part, trying to figure him out.

“You lost them too.” Nate whispered.

“I-“ Tristan started, but the words got stuck in his throat.

“You loved them, didn’t you?” Nate said more like a fact than a question.

“I did.” Tristan agreed. He didn’t know much about love, barely anything at all, but if Neil’s mom’s
hands and dad’s smile were not it then the term probably should be rewritten.

“It had to hurt you too.” Nate hummed quietly.

Tristan scrunched his eyebrows not quite sure on how to respond. Yes, it hurt. Yes, he loved them.

But hurt was already there before that. Like constancy in his life, which he already got used to and didn’t know how to live without. Like the frame to his personality, the spine of his emotions.

“You’re not supposed to hold it in like that, Tristan. If you’re sad, then you’re sad. It’s like you put Neil before your own feelings, only caring about him, but not about yourself.” Nate murmured determinedly.

Tristan stole a glance at him. Wasn’t Neil above Tristan’s everything?

Nate’s mouth opened in what appeared to be shock.

“You do put him before yourself.” He said as if Tristan had just given him a confirmation. “I thought that maybe you were looking after him, because his parents looked after you, but you…”

Tristan let out a heavy forced laugh.

“Aren’t I cliché?”

Nate looked at him with some sort of sadness shining through. Or maybe hurt. Or maybe pity.

Most probably all three of them.

“No, not really.”

Tristan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t respond.

“How long?”

“Four years for what I know, but probably longer than that. I suppose I wasn’t conscious about such things before that. I’m sure you can understand.” Tristan said. He felt naked. He had never talked about this with anyone. None of it.

“Fuck, Tristan.” Nate gritted out. His blue eyes were wide and frantic and so so carefully gentle that Tristan felt the walls around him crumbling down. “I can’t even-“ Nate’s hand reached up, but stopped in midway, before touching Tristan and returned back to its previous place. “You just-“ Nate muttered and turned his eyes down, the hand holding the cup shaking violently.

“What?”Tristan asked, and hid his nose in the scarf, looking at his own hands intently, trying to hear any repulsion or pity in the other guy’s voice.

“It must have sucked.” Nate groaned out finally.

Tristan was surprised by that.

“Huh? No, not really.” He hummed.

“’Not really’ he says.” Nate snorted. “Do you ever think about yourself, Tristan?”

“What do you mean?” Tristan looked at him confused.

“I mean how can you just sit here when the world is throwing its worst at you and think of nothing but Neil?” Nate said his voice low and his eyes looking up and shining solemnly.

“Its worst? It could always be worse. Always. And I guess, I de-“ Tristan stopped himself.

I deserved it? Why? For what?

Because HE said so?

He wiped his face of any emotions and started building the walls back up quickly.

“I’m going to be fine. You shouldn’t be concerned about me right now, Nate.”

Nate looked betrayed when he heard the cold undertone in Tristan’s voice.

“I see.” He nodded. “Can I just say one more thing before you completely shut me out again?”

Tristan flinched at the anger in the blue eyes. It didn’t look like it was directed at Tristan, but Tristan could feel that he was one way or another the reason behind it.

“It hurts me probably as much as you, but four people died in that accident, not three. If you keep trying to hang onto ghosts you’ll become one of them. I don’t know if it means anything, but I’m not willing to lose yet another person.” Nate said steadily as if he was controlling his voice thoroughly.
Tristan let it sink in before the words hit him.

He jumped up and growled, feeling fury run down his veins.

“You gave up on him!” He accused.

“It’s been nine months, Tristan, I’m just facing the facts. The sooner you do the same the better.”
Nate answered calmly.

“People grief! He lost everything! How can you just-“

“Grief and clinical depression are two different things.”

“So what?! How dare you say something like that?! He’s your nephew! What are you suggesting?! SHOULD WE JUST WATCH HIM WASTE AWAY?! HOW CAN WE NOT TRY TO HELP HIM?!” Tristan lost the little control he had, screaming on top of his lungs.

“And what do you want to do? Drag him through life forever? You can’t pull him through, if he doesn’t want to pull through himself.” Nate kept cool, spurring on Tristan’s anger some more.

“He just needs some help! You should take care of him! Not give up on him, because he’s sad his parent passed away!”

“I’m not giving up. I’m just saying that there’s ninety nine percent chance that nothing can be done. He gave up fighting the day they died. You can’t fight for him, you have your own life. Live it, don’t waste it away on someone, who jabs and stabs you, pulling you down with them on every chance they get.” Nate muttered.

“What?! He’s the only thing keeping me-“ Tristan’s voice disappeared.

Sane. Whole. Alive.

“I only have him.” He finished instead.

“You don’t have him. He’s gone. Is that boy really the one you fell in love with? Because I know for sure that he’s not the Neil I knew.”

“He’ll come back. He will.” Tristan promised both of them.

“He won’t. You have no reason to keep doing this to yourself.”

“I love him. How’s that for a reason?”

“Apparently, sometimes it’s not enough.” Nate whispered looking comprehensive.

“It’s enough for me.”

“Even if it’s like this forever.”

“Even so.” Tristan spat and turned around stomping off.

Nate watched his back with empty eyes.

“Even so.” He agreed after some time.


Tristan was met with a deep sigh the next time he knocked on Neil’s door.

Nate looked at him with disapproval letting him in regardless.

A wordless conversation set them both straight as Nate gestured to the stairs.

Tristan found Neil in his bed staring at the ceiling.

“If you’re here for me to apo-“

“Apologize, don’t bother, because you’re not sorry.” Tristan finished for him, emotionlessly.

“Yeah.”Neil looked at him shortly and turning away immediately, letting the silence fall between them.


Life went on. More or less.


Nate found Neil hanging by the neck in the garage that summer.

Tristan felt the ground slip from under his feet.


The priest was murmuring something Tristan didn’t care about. His voice was disturbing the silence of the cemetery.

People gathered around dressed all black once again.

Most of them had tears streaming down their faces.

Tristan couldn’t find it in himself to cry.

He felt surreal. Like this was some sort of distorted dream and he was going to wake up any second.

Like the last year didn’t happen.

He was numb.

Felt like a ghost. See-through.

That is until Nate’s hand slipped into his, intertwining their fingers and digging into his flesh to the
point it was painful.

Tristan raised his eyes, ready to rip his hand out of the guys forcefully.

Because it was all Nate’s fault. Because Nate stopped believing Neil could deal. Because he almost gave up on Neil when he needed him the most. Because Nate was the reason Neil was in a wooden box six feet deep.

But then he saw Nate looking like he was sick. Like he was see-through too. And he dug his own nails into the flesh of the other.

The people were looking at them weirdly.

Maybe because they weren’t crying.

Maybe because they were the only ones who didn’t feel the need to hide under the umbrella from the cold rain that was biting them mercilessly.

Maybe because they were the only ones who actually saw the boy being buried since the last funeral.

Or maybe- maybe they really were see-through and people were staring into the empty space.

The thought brought a smirk onto Tristan lips.

Nate raised his eyes and his hollow stare shifted into a questioning one.

Tristan shook his head slightly and felt the smirk quiver. Gasping for air he felt his body betray him, as his knees gave out and he fell.

Before he hit the ground strong hands pulled him up, holding him up straight.

“Almost over.” He heard Nate whisper as his world shifted from clear to black and back to clear again.

The next thing he knew he was being pushed forward gently.

A bit of soil made its way into his hand somehow. He was holding it up looking at it and at the dark brown casket below. He felt like he should just jump down. Like he belonged down there, not up here.

Two hands covered his ears and he felt lips kiss the back of his head as his hand released the soil without his permission to do so.

He couldn’t hear a thing.