AN EPILOGUE, OF SORTS.

'Dear Matty.

I make a lot of bad decisions. You were not one of them. Loving you. That, though, just might have been. But there's nothing I can do about that now. Nothing I can do about us now.

I hope you're happy. And I don't mean plastic smile at the neighbours happy. I mean screaming at the night sky, high on life happy. I hope you know what that happy means. I'm not sure I do.

I don't like the city. I wouldn't say I hate it. But I wouldn't say I'm happy here. But I wouldn't have said I was happy back there either. I think it's just weird. A house without cracks in the walls. A home. Conversations. We're speaking, you know?

Me and my mum - we're speaking now. I mean. She had to have said something. I guess it takes a lot to stay entirely silent when your son turns up out of the blue after two years. But there always was this part of me that thought she wouldn't even let me in. I don't know what I'd do then. I think maybe I would have used it as an excuse to come back. And we could have pretended to live like we were in love forever. Wouldn't you have liked that?

She didn't say anything properly for a long time. Just my name. George. George. George. All over and over again. Like she'd forgotten it. Like it had held no place on her tongue for the past two years. And I looked her right in the eye and said: 'Mum'. Then she started crying. It's kind of odd to see your mother cry.

Even more odd when you didn't consider her your mother very much at all. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Like, you're the one supposed to be crying, supposed to be comforted. But I'm eighteen. I'm an adult now. And this is that. I think. Being an adult. Taking responsibilities. Does it make me sound like an adult if I tell you you'll understand when you're older? Ha. You'd punch me if you could. Wouldn't you?

I think I'd let you.

I made her a cup of tea. In the end, that's what I did. And I don't think I made it right because it's been years since I've been home, and fuck if the one thing I remembered was how my mum liked her tea. But I made tea. And we drank it together, and she said my name like it was something she had to get off her chest. I let her.

I wondered, I think if we'd ever move on from that. If there'd ever be more than 'George' and 'Mum', and stolen glances, and cooling cups of tea. I wondered what would become of us. Of that. You see. I always had this idea in my head that I'd be coming back, and I'd cry on your shoulder with this great fucked up story of how everything went wrong, but I'd be glad to be back. And I'd kiss you. For like three hours straight. And maybe I'd go back to drugs. But then at least I could have said that I'd tried. And we wouldn't talk about it - not home, not family, not Jesse, not anyone. We'd brush over all the mistakes I'd made. And I know you'd let me.

I think that's why it can't be like that. Like up in our heads. Where we're in love and it's not pretend. And you can lie to me just as well as I can to you.

But then my dad came home from work and then there had to be conversation. My mum was still crying over a cup of tea in the kitchen, and I was just sort of trapped in this limbo between the two of them as I stood in the doorway. And my dad, I couldn't tell if he was looking at me or looking through me.

I almost felt like I wasn't there at all. I think he looked at me like I couldn't be - because at first, he didn't believe it himself. And maybe for like ten minutes there, I was a ghost.

And then he said my name. George. Over and over again. Like mum had. But his voice was different. He didn't cry. He just looked. Like he was waiting for mum to stop crying. So we could all sit down and have a nice civilised conversation. But that didn't happen. Because it all got to me. All the looks and the stares, and the expectations and the everything wrapped up around us. I don't really remember doing it but I dropped my mug. Onto the floor. Onto my feet.

And everyone just sort of looked at me.

I mean, I couldn't blame them. I just sorted of looked at me too. Well, at my feet. At the hot tea pooling out onto the kitchen floor, and my bare feet in the middle of it. And then, the shattered pieces of ceramic. I wondered if it had been somebody's favourite mug. But I didn't know. I guess my parents are the kind of people to have a favourite mug. But somehow I guessed that wasn't why my mum started screaming.

It probably had something to do with the piece of broken ceramic that had slotted itself into my foot. It cut the skin open almost perfectly. I didn't feel it at first, you know? I think I only started crying when my mum started screaming. But for a while, I just stared at the blood, pooling around my feet. I thought it looked a lot worse than it actually was, but I didn't really know.

I guess we were forced to talk to each other when we were piled into my dad's car, swerving past cars at unreasonable speeds on the way to the hospital. I think that was when I started being real to them. Like all the parenting instincts kicked in when I cut up my foot.

I thought it should have hurt more than it did. But I just let everything happen around me. Let my parents have their conversation over me. It was almost like I was fourteen again. I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. I guess I still don't know now.

But like, I didn't die or anything. No permanent damage. I got stitches. And the nurse in the hospital was kind of cute. I mean, she was at least twenty five. But she smiled in a way I sorted of needed. With people crying around me. And they gave me drugs for the pain, so getting legally high in front of my parents, that was an experience. But they weren't really the fun drugs. I just went to sleep.

And I had these crazy dreams where my parents cared about me again. Then crazier still, I think they weren't dreams at all.

Because I woke up in the hospital, and my sister was there. I'd sort of tucked her away in the family part of my head, trying to forget she'd ever existed, because I needed to deal, you know, with everything. But then, she was there, and she was real. Which is maybe a weird thing to say, because of course she was, but, it sort of stood out to me. Because she was real, and alive. And I'd sort of let her die in my mind. I think that makes me a bad brother, but what can I do?

I don't know if I ever told you that I had a sister. Well, I have two. The other's in like, fucking America, I think. So maybe it'd be a bit drastic to call her over because I'd been a dickhead and dropped a mug of boiling tea onto my foot and nearly broken it or something.

But my sister that came. Her name's Sarah. She's like twenty, or twenty one, or maybe twenty two. I should know. But I don't. I just know that she smiled at me and brought me cake. That was nice. That was really nice of her. And she shooed our parents out of the room, thank god, and sat on the bed with me.

We ate too much cake and had a chat. It was the sort of calm, casual thing that just felt so out of place. I felt like I was about ten years old. Like we were just kids again. She didn't talk about my foot, or my sexuality, or the fact that I'd decided to show up again after two years, or where I'd been. But that was okay. I was still working on answers to those questions.

We went home around lunchtime. And I've never been a fan of hospitals. I don't think anyone is, but I didn't want to leave. Because we'd get home. And then everything would start up again. But things always had to happen. I knew that.

So we got home and sat around the dinner table as mum tried to put some lunch together quickly. My dad stared at me. I stared at my sister. She saw what I was doing, and stared at him.

We had pasta. I don't think I really enjoyed it, but I ate it anyway. Then, I think I had to. And finally, my mum looked me in the eyes and asked me, in these words - "Where the hell have you been?"

I laughed. Because it was funny. My mum saying 'hell'. Like that. She'd always been very polite and very conservative, but there we were. Nobody else really found it funny.

I told her I'd been about. All over the place, with friends. With people that would talk to me regardless of my sexuality. And then she stared at my dad. And my sister stared at me.

And she drew in a breath, like she really needed the air. And looked me right in the eyes and said - "I'm talking to you now, aren't I?". I looked at my dad and he nodded. I looked at my sister and she smiled, although she didn't need to. That was different.

Then we just ate lunch and I thought about a million different ways to say the word 'bisexual', until we'd all finished eating and I couldn't hide behind that anymore. I didn't look anybody in the eyes that time. I just said "I like boys like I like girls." And somebody said "we know." I can't remember who. Because that was when I started crying.

I kind of lost what took me from the dinner table to my old bedroom. Or my bedroom again. Because I was sat on the cramped single bed, and the door creaked open and my sister sat down with me, with the cake, or the third that was left of it. And I laughed.

And I think then. Things were okay again.

They never asked me why I wanted to stay. I just told them I did. That I wanted things to work out. Things to make sense. And I think, slowly, over the months. They did.

I've got a proper job now. Imagine that. George Daniel - respectable citizen. But here we are. Here I am. But I can't stop thinking about things sometimes. I can't stop thinking about you, I can't-'

George rubbed his eyes. Ink blotted and smudged across the page. He crossed a neat single line through his last few sentences.

'Sorry about everything. I hope you're doing good. I hope you do well in school. I hope you get yourself someone who loves you, properly. Not someone who needs an excuse to stay in a shitty old town. I hope you get somewhere in life, you know? I hope you get out to the city, maybe you'll like it better than me.

I love you. Goodbye.

George.'

George stared down at the letter: the scrawled mess of black ink, the stories extended out into words that he hoped Matty might come to comprehend. This wasn't an explanation, this was an excuse.

He took the letter into his hand and clenched his fist. The scrunched up ball of paper seemed to hold little weight at all as he stuffed it into his top drawer - left to rest amongst a dozen others.

Amongst those months, George had thought out a good dozen ways to say 'I'm sorry', but not a single way to be brave enough to voice them aloud, or in print, to seal them into addressed envelopes, ready to be sent.

He toyed with the word 'happy' in his head. The night grew old and George grew bored. He switched off the light and thought of Cam, then of Matty, and then of Jesse. His heart grow old and he went to bed, as the night almost seemed to smile at him through the window. George smiled back.

He only hoped, miles away, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, that somehow Matty could feel that smile.

-

It hurt.

In more ways than one.

Matty watched the skies turn grey and pulled at his lip until it bled.

It was a dreary afternoon. A dreadful day, and one he saw only out of courtesy. There was a world, maybe even several universes, in which he was curled up in bed that afternoon. He would have perhaps given his soul for a lazy day in bed, but it seemed as if his soul was not his to give anymore.

Ross looked at him in a very Ross-like way; what else was Matty to expect? He reckoned it was on account of the way his lip was bleeding, but still, Matty didn't stop. He tugged and pulled at the skin like his life depended on it, and still, Ross stared, as if to carve a hole out of his insides.

Someone, somewhere, amidst the crowds, uttered a comment about how they thought it was going to rain. Matty grinned - all whimsical and fiendish, and stared up at the skies, but then the clouds moved on, as if just to tease him, and Matty found himself staring up at an awful lot of grey nothingness.

Adam wasn't there yet. It bothered Ross more than it did Matty - as most things did. But still, Matty bade it as yet one more reason to give his lip grief, although it was certainly much more of a nervous habit than a conscious thing, and Ross was yet to ask him to stop, so things didn't at least, appear in dire straits.

Matty didn't like Adam's girlfriend's friends. And yet they surrounded him. And yet he let them; he let them think he was cute; he let them think he was straight. Ross glared at him - it seemed phrased as some sort of warning, although Matty reckoned it was much more to do with the fact that he was jealous.

Rain. Matty repeated to himself, expectantly. When would it rain? He wanted freedom, he wanted an excuse to go inside, to find a boy to smile at, to dare to court with his eyes. But no, they were waiting for Adam. And Adam's girlfriend - it seemed.

Although Matty wasn't one to admit it, he wasn't entirely confident he could pick out Adam's girlfriend amidst a line up of vaguely pretty, dark-haired girls. They'd been dating for six months; Matty was an abysmal friend.

Someone was turning seventeen. Matty wasn't entirely sure who; he wasn't good with birthdays - he'd never been. He was instead growing tired of girls who stared at you like you were some type of god the moment you lit up a cigarette.

Time dwindled. And Adam arrived. And Ross set out to do some serious glaring. And Matty laughed and laughed until the world around him disappeared; the girls were nice, but this was a party, and certainly had set out to treat it like one.

Drink. A word repeated like a prayer, like a mantra, like an oath, like a promise. Drink. Muffled cries, mumbled words to direct his feet through the hall, through the bright lights, through smiles and pretty dresses, through the kind of mess one of those girls had organised.

There was cake, though. That certainly brightened up Matty's day. There was booze and there was cake, and Matty had never claimed to be a good man, so he grabbed a bottle of red and a slice of Victoria sponge and headed off into the backrooms. He traced the words 'No Entry' with his fingertips, a smirk quirking over his lips, in truth, all he owed himself was the honour of discovery.

Part of him had expected to find some sort of eighth world wonder or some desperately hidden secret tucked away behind the backdoor, but had instead stumbled upon little more than the disabled toilet and an empty meeting room. He filed the location of the disabled toilet away for future knowledge and set out to fiddle with the bolt lock on the meeting room door.

It seemed stupid, really - to lock it from the outside - it sorted of implied that there was something to be kept in, and not the world to be kept out.

Matty saw why soon enough. This was the part of the town hall that lay obscured from view: hidden by countless layers of shrubbery and shrouded in rumour and delight. Again, Matty had expected magic, or indeed wonder, and couldn't contain his disappointment at derelict abandonment.

Still, he made his way across the wooden floor, scraping layers of dust from neatly arranged chairs as he laid his gaze upon broken windows, and tall shadows cast across the floor by the last few glimpses of sunlight. He caught the breeze, and stood still, stood alive, and breathed.

With his head a little more in check, and the sounds of the party and the rest of the world long drowned out behind him, Matty placed the wine and the cake out neatly upon the table, dragging out a chair and sitting himself down to inspect his surroundings.

He rolled himself a joint, and let his fingers fumble around in his pocket, brushing over familiar words, over words left forgotten. He glanced the cracks in the walls; there'd been a house like this once. In another world, in another universe, a boy would have sat beside him.

As Matty's body froze over, he wondered if he should have stayed out there with the girls; if he should have forced himself to make polite, heterosexual conversation, as he resisted the urge to run off with their boyfriends.

Being gay in 1986 was sort of, troubling. In fact, the more Matty came to learn about himself, the more he cause he had to worry, to chase thoughts out of his own head. That afternoon, however, such a notion was not his concern. Instead, he finished his slice of cake, and threw his feet up onto the table, and watched the way his skinny, little legs seemed to waver in the breeze.

Yet as the moments ticked by, Matty's world was forever drawn back into his pocket, into the world contained in it, into the world he'd left behind, the world that had once belonged to two. He lit himself a cigarette - just to pass the time, to put work to his fingers, to busy his mind.

He took a couple of drags before he grew tired with the prospect, and pressed the cigarette down into the wood of the table: seeking to burn a hole into it. The blackened mark he left almost made him smile. It was needless to say, Matty didn't work at the bookstore anymore.

It was then, as he sat in the room with broken windows that the skies opened up and finally began to rain. That said things about Matty's life that he didn't care to contemplate. Instead, he traced his head back through the months, back through his every breath, until his fingers grew cold and relentless as they curled in around the note. Kept in his jacket pocket. After all this time.

Except it wasn't really his jacket at all. It was George's - or at least it had been. But Matty didn't let his mind wander there anymore.

Except then there was a great clap of thunder and Matty glanced down at his feet. He breathed. In and out. In. And Out. Like he knew nothing else but the steady rise and fall of his chest.

"George." He'd said it before he could stop himself.

And then it came down with the thundering of raindrops. "George. George. George. George. George." Over and over again like he'd forgotten how to say it. Like the name had held no place on his tongue, like all they'd once had had simply never once been.

Matty whispered his name until it felt right and downed the bottle of wine.

It wasn't until he'd finished every last drop that he dared to drag his fingers back into his pocket and retrieve the note that had sat there, for month after month.

He folded it out onto the table, to sit amidst the dust - for George's words to rot away in the abandoned room. Almost dilapidated, it seemed.

Dilapidated to the tune of 'I love you' scrawled in messy cursive.

Matty shook his head. He'd wished for miracles, for change, for the eighth wonder of the world amidst this mess, somewhere, but instead, he sat between meaningless words and broken windows and sought to make sense of his head.

He locked himself inside the disabled toilet for a good twenty minutes and allowed himself a well deserved little cry. Matty pulled his hair up into a bun, letting loose curls roam free, as he rubbed his face with cold water, and had a quick piss - very much on the basis of might as well. He gave his dick an odd kind of drunken, depressing glance before shoving it back into his pants, then washing his hands for a good six minutes and striding, under a glorious facade of confidence, out of the toilet.

Back in the hall, Matty spotted Ross instantly - he was, very, very drunk. The kind of drunk that made Matty smile in a way he hadn't for a long time. He considered striking up conversation but instead kept to the walls as he tried to avoid catching anyone's eye.

He could go for another bottle of wine - that seemed like a very viable option, on the basis that this was definitely not the kind of party where he could get anything stronger.

It was then, however, as he concluded that this party had nothing left to give him, a girl - a little different from the others - placed herself between him and the drinks table. She gave him an over confident smile; one that Matty took as a challenge.

With a million words drifting aimlessly around his mind, Matty was instead simply left to watch in silence as she retrieved a little bag of pills from her coat pocket. She grinned at him. With her eyes. Golden in the light.

And with fingers curled around his wrist she uttered, "Come on. Outside," as if there was no element of uncertainty to it.

Matty wondered if he was supposed to know her, but her face was unplaceable, as she dragged him out onto the back wall outside and lit up a cigarette. She then flashed that same smile and Matty felt heavy under the weight of questions in his head.

The air was cold. She puffed breaths broken like promises. He cast shadows that grew taller than he could ever try to be.

They didn't speak a word, but still they smiled. Matty let her curl his fingers around a cigarette; she seemed to know what to do with him despite their lack of acquaintance. He racked his brains, continuously, wondering if perhaps, under some long forgotten circumstance, they had, in fact, met.

Curiosity got the better of him in the end. It seemed, as if it always did.

With a narrow, hesitant stare, Matty chanced the sparking of a conversation - it was either flames or ashes, and either way it seemed as if he might get burned. "Have we met before?"

She smiled at him, all perfectly straight, white teeth: a gesture too perfectly orchestrated for Matty to decode.

"No. I'm Dalia." She carried a tone of elegance, status, even, in her voice that simply hadn't been present inside - as if she'd masked it in order not to scare him off. "And you're Matthew." No one had said his name like that in a long time.

"It's Matty." He corrected: short and curt.

"I know." She passed him a smile, watching the way cigarette smoke carried on the breeze. "I was hoping to find you here."

"Why?" Matty contemplated her, in all of her wavering, small town glory.

"I wanted to see how you're doing." She spoke as if she was an old friend, and yet as if she knew Matty wondered if she was more than a stranger, but seemed to only regard that information with the task of teasing him.

"I"m doing fine." Matty told her, not very truthfully. "Why? How do you know me?"

"I know everyone." She asserted it like a fact, with confidence, as if it was even obvious.

"Small town?" Matty sought to fill in the gaps in his own head.

"Yeah." She watched him part the sea and the rode the path he'd made for her. "We all know everyone, really."

"Do you know then?" Matty managed a grin. "Whose birthday party this is?" He gestured vaguely back to the hall.

Dalia watched him. All wide eyes. Careful smiles. Yet somehow like he'd still managed to surprise her.

"You don't?" The notion seemed to amuse her, in very much the same way that it would irritate Ross. "Emily's."

"Who's Emily?" Matty stared at her, lost up in a cloud of smoke.

"Fucking hell... 'who's Emily?'..." She shook her head in disbelief. "I thought you came for more than the free booze?"

Matty wasn't at all sure as to how she'd managed to draw such a conclusion but shrugged it off regardless. "Cake too. And because my friends wanted me to."

"Ah." She gave a sigh, shaking her head - at what, Matty couldn't quite explain.

"I'm not alright, really." Matty wasn't entirely sure why he'd said it; the words had left his lips without permission. "I'm just sort of... floating. And sometimes you get so fucking bored with floating you want to make yourself sink, but-"

Matty stopped and looked Dalia in the eye. He smiled.

"Death." She produced the word with vigour, in all flying colours, as if it didn't scare her at all. "Death." She repeated it, perhaps just to memorise the way it sounded aloud.

Matty looked on impatiently, expectant of more, of the great conclusion to everything, for that great turbulent moment when everything finally started to make sense. Instead, however, she reached into her jacket pocket and produced a little bag of pills.

The conversation that followed was all in looks and glances. She waited until a pill was on Matty's tongue before continuing; she wasn't waiting long.

"They say, you know, that death is the brother of fate." She swallowed. Matty stared at her throat, at fingerprint shaped bruises upon it; he didn't ask and she didn't tell, but in another life he would have killed the one that put them there, in another that one might have been himself.

"And love, she's the mother of everything." Dalia filled the silence she'd created, as if she truly cared not what Matty thought of her. And for a moment, she seemed to glisten in the sunlight, as if she wasn't even real.

"Who are 'they'?" Matty quirked an eyebrow: skeptical.

"Now that's... that's a very good question." She kicked at the grass with her feet, in a playful manner that seemed so very out of place in their conversation.

Matty snorted, chancing a glance up to the skies. "So who's the dad then? In this 'family tree'." He stressed the mocking emphasis to his words; Dalia didn't appreciate it, but she wasn't one to comment upon it. "Who falls in love with Love?"

"Hate." She told it like it was simple. "Because love can make the whole world fall for her, but she's cursed to chose the only one who could never love her back."

Matty dug his teeth into his bottom lip. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

"So," She was quick to change her tune, "Love, goes off and has an affair with Kindness. But it's like... two magnets, you need opposites. Love doesn't love Kindness, not really."

"So Kindness? Does he love her back?" Matty wondered if it was the drugs or just her way with words.

"Yes." Dalia gave way to a sigh. "She does. And it kills her in the end."

Matty raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. "Who told you this story?"

"My brother." Dalia smiled. "He's around here somewhere - looking for someone. This guy owes him something."

Matty finished his cigarette, stubbing it out into the pavement. "You wanna go back inside? I need another drink."

She shook her head. "I'm done, I'm going when my brother's finished."

Matty watched for a moment: extended and yet so very brief. "I'm gonna go back inside. Nice to meet you - maybe I'll see you around." He cracked a smile; she seemed more interesting than Adam's girlfriend at least.

Dalia cracked a smile, knowing look in her eyes. "We'll see."

-

'Dear Matty,

I don't love you anymore. That's not the nicest way to start a letter, but I spent a lot of time lying to you and I don't want to spend anymore. So I don't love you. I don't love you. As much as it looks wrong all written out. I don't. I just love the idea of you.

Would it make sense for me to ask not to let that hurt you? I mean, cry if you want to. Punch the wall if you want to. But... don't be sad for the sake of being sad. Because you feel like you should be.

I think we were always kind of like the weeds growing in the cracks of the pavement of life. Where a dandelion can look like a rose. I don't care if that doesn't make any sense - it doesn't have to.

I met this girl, you see. I think we're going to be happy. Her name's Lily, and I don't love you anymore. And I want you to know that.

I don't know why. I don't want to hurt you.

But she's beautiful, and I think we're in love the way they are in movies. She laughs at my jokes, for a start. And she's a proper nice girl, and I'm not going to ruin her - not like I ruined you. I'm sorry. I'd like to say you would have liked her. But I don't know. I don't know what I made you into.

But we're living this proper life, you see. With proper jobs and proper good, honest lives. And warm houses and the word 'love' out loud. I'm sorry. I think. I hope you'd understand.

I think maybe now I feel like I might make it past twenty. I think that's more important than chasing the moment with a beautiful boy in a shitty town. But still, I told you once in a letter that I didn't send, you're not my mistake, and you never will be.

Maybe there's a world in which it's 1985 forever and we don't ever fall out of love. That'd be nice. Disastrous. But nice. I miss you. I don't let myself believe it but I do. I hope you're happy. I hope you fall in love again, but this time for real. Because I think we lived like you were going to be sixteen forever. And such a thing, that's just not possible.

But she is. We are. I don't know why I'm telling you. I don't want to hurt you, I promise. But I want you to know. I think maybe I need you to.

Maybe if you know, you'll finally come off my mind.'

But the letter was in the palm of George's hand before he could finish it. He stared out at the city lights and allowed himself a moment - just one, just the one - to miss the way it had been.

He yearned sometimes, to make those mistakes all over again. And it was these late nights that he allowed himself to wonder - to entertain the possibility of what might happen if he just ever went back there. And what kind of world he might see.

-

Matty found more than just a drink inside. Matty found more to do in the disabled loo than wipe his tears. He found colours in darkness. He found silence in a crowded room. He found light burning on forever. He found confessions in languages he couldn't understand.

His name was Nathan, he was tall, dark, and somewhat out of place in the room. But he laughed and he laughed and he laughed, and had the weary weight of Ross' gaze pinned upon the both of them as they danced. And if Matty ever did anything, it was to highlight his friends' disapproval.

He held Matty close. And amidst the mess of moving bodies they didn't feel so wrong. For in another life, they'd been okay, and they'd been in love. For in another life, Matty had lived in a world where it had been okay to kiss boys on the lips. For in another life, promises were kept, and lights never went out.

"Matty." His voice was low, like a hum against his throat.

Matty let him put his mouth there. Let him move him like he was little more than words on a page. Matty let him tear him apart and put him back together again in the way he saw fit. Maybe it was the drugs. Or maybe in that world, in that moment, under those lights, they could pretend to be in love.

Matty closed his eyes and let himself be held for a little while.

He opened them again as sound flooded back into his ears and the grip around his wrists felt apart around him. It was in that moment that the world crept back up upon him, and the crowd seemed to move more as people than one great beast.

He stared through the lights and watched people move, people go throughout their lives: falling in and out of love, over and over again. Yet, one person amidst the crowds seemed to shimmer in the night.

He rubbed his eyes: swearing they had to be deceiving him, for just for a moment, amidst the crowds, Matty thought he saw an awfully familiar face.

Familiar to the tune of cracks on the wall, and forest walks, and shared cigarettes, and the river that had once seemed like an ocean. Familiar to the tune of falling apart - familiar to the tune of an 'I love you' followed by a 'goodbye'.

Matty caught his breath, as if it might have eluded him otherwise.

Yet common sense was soon to creep in: it was the drugs - it had to be. For, it had always just been the drugs. Or the drink, or the mess, or the guilt, or the grief, or the way his lip had definitely split open and began to trail blood down his chin.

Heart hammering in his chest, Matty turned to search for the familiar dark figure beside him, yet somehow, he was absent too.

That was the thing. He'd loved too much. It was his downfall, but still, there was no choice in love, for it grew like ivy - wherever it wanted to be. For if he'd ever once loved too much, he always would.

Yet love and curiosity were bade to forever stand hand in hand. Matty watched the sea from the shoreline, and between his toes, felt hundreds of tiny grains of sand.

And for just a moment, but it only took one. He dared to look back. To chase a figure down through the crowd. For curiosity got the better of him in the end. It seemed, as if it always did.

And perhaps lost up in the millions of universes out there, was a world in which the face he caught through the crowd was the one he really wanted to see.

-

there we fucking go hello everyone, as matty would say, it hurt.

hope u enjoyed this wild ride tag urself I'm knowing the pain that would be experienced all along and still suffering

votes and comments would be nice

can u also find me in my personal/rants book called two thousand and seventeen available on my profile,,, i will tell u about future writing projects in there

because u see.,,, i got a thing,,

a t h  i n g

and ,,, well,,, lets see

lov u hope u enjoyed this portion of your life.