I had trouble falling asleep that night. The blond-haired boy had drifted away into a deep slumber, the pale summer moonlight streaming from the open window reflecting upon his porcelain skin. His lashes looked so pretty up close, his soft lips slightly parted. He looked angelic with his eyes closed, almost as if he hadn't been crying all evening. I suppose in his sleep he could finally catch a long-awaited reprieve.

But I couldn't. I couldn't help but think about what had happened earlier. I didn't even know how to process it, or where to begin.

Slowly, I pried myself away from the boy. I had held him there in my arms as he fell asleep just to do as he asked. His body was warm, but my palms were chilly.

I sat at the edge of the bed, still stark naked. Burying my face in my palms I let out a deep sigh. It was unreal. A burgeoning guilt split my heart open, quickly overtaking me with its tendrils. It felt suffocating, the unpleasant sensation, a mix of sadness, pain, anger and confusion reaching up to my throat, threatening to choke me. I finally took a deep breath, gasping for air.

It took all my strength to get up and walk to the bathroom. The feeling was overwhelming, all sorts of thoughts and feelings that had been bottled up inside me that I had been trying to supress all week came bursting at the seams. My heart thumped in my chest, leaping into the base of my throat. But somehow feeling the cool tiles against the soles of my feet grounded me to reality, and I grabbed at the edge of the granite counter for support. Splashing cold water on my face helped soothe me somewhat.

I stared into my reflection as I looked in the mirror. My hair was a mess, my eyes hollow.

I slept with Ferran. I slept with the brother of my best friend. I cheated on my girlfriend.

The sensation of his soft lips still lingered against mine, the traces of saliva still sticking to my neck. I felt disgusted – at myself, at him, at everything. And most of all, I felt disgusted at the fact that I enjoyed it. What would have Rafel said if he knew that I had his precious Ferran underneath me, whimpering and crying as he clung onto me for dear life, all the while as I was dating the girl he loved? Certainly nothing good.

And there was the issue of Ferran himself. Sure, he was probably the most beautiful boy I had ever seen, but he was also the most bizarre. And him moaning out his brother's name out loud easily topped the list. It was unsettling.

I tried to brush it off as him mourning, but I still couldn't help feeling that something wasn't right. I shook it off as I went back to sleep, thinking that I'll probably talk about it the next morning.

But it never happened. When I woke the next morning, the bed was empty – Ferran was gone.

It was something Amélie wouldn't understand. She had told me to give him a call, but she wouldn't understand how strange it would be. I'd rather leave it at that and never talk to him ever again.

The past few months had been difficult for all of us. Amélie and I had very different ways of handling our grief. She kept talking about it – every time I visited her in our first few weeks in Marseille she would mention him, a minor detail, something that had crossed her mind that reminded her of him. It made me uncomfortable and irritated me. 

I suppose it was unfair for her, as she was only grieving in her own way. Meanwhile, the last thing I wanted was to talk about him. In the end, she had gone for grief counselling, and I for myself could see how drastically she improved. She was not the same person as the girl in Carcassonne, and whoever she was now was very much keen on moving on.

She was the one putting in the effort as we drifted apart. She was the one always trying to make some time together, asking me out for dinner, buying tickets for the two of us to watch a movie. Meanwhile I was just drowning myself with work, and when I had nothing else to do, I just spent my day doing nothing. I simply didn't feel like doing anything. It was just too painful.

I felt guilty over all this of course. I felt guilty watching our relationship die. I felt guilty for not having the energy to commit to our love that has forever changed. Did I even love her? Looking back I couldn't even tell.

But I felt most guilty over cheating on her. One day I just told her. Out of the blue, over breakfast. It was strange when I put it in words. I didn't try to make excuses. I didn't try to explain why I did it. Mostly because I couldn't.

"A few days after the funeral, Ferran came over." I began. "He started crying and. . ."

"And what?" Amélie asked as she picked up her coffee.

I gazed straight into her green eyes and laid it out in the most matter-of-fact way I could.

"I slept with him."

There was a long silence as she just stared at me, long and hard. But it felt like she wasn't even looking at me, as if I wasn't even there.

"I'm sorry," I said, my hands shaking slightly. "I fucked up."

There was a long silence. She just held her cup in her hands just hovering before her pretty lips.

She didn't talk to me for the rest of the day.

I felt relieved. I suppose that was the bare minimum I tried to do to keep our relationship afloat, telling her everything. She deserved to know the truth.

We started talking again a few days later as if nothing had happened. I guess neither of us saw the need to bring it up. I had done my part. Things were going to return to normal, to the life I once had.

Then she broke up with me.

There was nothing spectacular, nothing sanctuous about it. I don't even know what I had said or what I had done to make her feel it was finally the moment to leave. It was a whole month ever since I confessed to sleeping with Ferran and I thought it was just something that we had gotten over. It didn't mean anything to me, and I thought she was willing to bury the hatchet. We had just watched a musical down in the city and were heading home. The subject of which I couldn't even remember. The plan was to head over to her apartment to hang out for a bit.

But I remembered the both of us at the tram stop, how she shifted her weight uncomfortably from one leg to another. How she had tied her hair back in a ponytail, and how she breathed out streaks of white smoke. She wore a golden bomber jacket over her white shirt, paired with stressed jeans. Not how she usually dressed, but I couldn't deny that it looked good on her. She couldn't have chosen a more drab setting.

"I don't hate you," she said, rather unceremoniously. "But I think it's about time the both of us move on. From each other."

My eyes widened.

"Are you breaking up with me?" I turned around to ask her.

She took drew another breath, before blowing out another steady stream of heavy white smoke. Finally she stubbed the cigarette out and tossed it aside.

"Yes." She said, staring out at the road as the cars passed by. "It's for the best don't you think? I've tried. I tried my best. And it's just not going to work anymore."

I looked at her long and hard, but I wasn't able to read her features. She seemed nonchalant, but in retrospect I suppose she was just protecting herself.

I walked off without a word. I didn't even say goodbye. I never even bothered waiting for the tram. It was a long walk back to my apartment, but I felt numb. I didn't really think about it- I simply couldn't. But perhaps I had already known it was going to happen all along.

The next morning after I had collected myself, I headed over to her apartment. What few things I've had over at her place had been left in a box outside. Not wanting to disturb her any further, I slipped the keys underneath her door, before walking off.

A creeping part of my conscious gnawed at me as I sat in my apartment those long months later after our reconciliation. The both of us knew how Rafel felt towards Amélie. It was doubtful that we had any part to play, but I suppose our minds were just grasping at straws, trying to point out why it even happened. He never left a note. He never said goodbye.

It was a slow process – rationalising. Even if I can accept that we will never find the actual truth. But Amélie was right. The only person who could help me make sense of this and move on was none other than Ferran.

I never thought of Ferran all that time, until Amélie mentioned him again. He was stored away in a long-forgotten corner of my heart just like Rafel was. But he was slowly coming back now, reappearing together with his brother.

That summer, once I was finished with the last of my exams, I decided to finally return to Perpignan. It had been an entire year since I left for Marseille. My family was delighted to see me of course, but I supposed what I missed the most were the foothills blanketed with green forests, and the Pyreenes in the background, the peaks almost touching the low-lying clouds.

It took me some time after overcoming some hesitation, but I finally decided to visit Rafel. It was long overdue.

He had been laid to rest in one of the cemeteries that lay right outside of town. I found it rather poetic, that the first day we met we had passed by a graveyard, and couldn't forget his curious gaze over the medieval tombstones. And yet here we were, together in another graveyard. It was bittersweet.

The grave was rather simple, covered with a marble slab. I sat down by his headstone in silence. It felt almost surreal reading it – he had died so young. Almost every other grave in the vicinity had the numbers listed above fifty, at the very least. His was marked with eighteen.

I thought about the life that he would never get to have. How he should've been in Paris right now. How he would've probably gotten himself a nice girlfriend. How he would've been happy, how he would've thrived.

But those were all fantasies in a world that never existed.

I didn't know what to say to him. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that he meant the world to me, that he was the brother I never had. But it was all too late wasn't it? I wish I had told him these things instead of being so aloof. I wish he knew how much I treasured him before he decided to take his own life.

But that was a bit selfish of me to think that way was it? To think that it would've stopped him. It made me realise how little I knew of the boy I called my best friend.

He made me feel vulnerable, and at that point I hated how he could so easily disarm me, the suit of armour I had taken so long to build to shield me from the world. But I missed that. He was absolutely special. Someone should've known something was wrong. And I would never forgive myself that that someone wasn't me.

I was lost in my thoughts when I heard footsteps approach. I scrambled to my feet, quickly giving my farewell to my best friend in my heart.

I found myself face to face with Ferran. He was wearing a white Oxford shirt, tucked into a pair of chequered trousers. His sleeves were folded at his elbows, his shirt unbuttoned, revealing the cross on his chest. He held a bouquet of white oleanders in his hand. His icy blue eyes which used to be filled with such sadness seemed so cold.

He had stopped in his tracks too. His soft lips slightly agape. A rosy blush crept on his cheeks as I noticed him taking a step back.

"Sorry," I muttered, stuffing my hands in my pockets. "I was just about to leave."

A wave of guilt washed over me.

I tried to step past him, but I felt him grab my arm. I turned around, meeting his gaze in the eye.

"Please," he said, his voice hoarse. "Please stay awhile."