Smallfandom Big bang, Say something, Part 1
Title: Say something
Summary: Roman Wilde, ice skater, has died, on the ice he loved so much.This is the after.
Denial
Refusal to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion
or to admit it into consciousness, used as a
defence mechanism
~
“Say something…”
“Everything will be fine, you hear me….”
“Everything will be fine.”
~
They’re the only ones here.
It makes sense, really, considering the late hour, and yet, for some reason, Roman had almost expected someone else to be there. He’s not sure why, but then he’s not sure about anything anymore. It’s not like it matters. That is something that dying has done for him: it has shown him the things that truly matter and all those things that never did. (All those fights that never mattered, all those worries that seem like nothing now.) Now that it’s all too late, now that his life is slipping away, now everything is so much cleared. Now that there is nothing he can do to change it, everything seems so simple.
It’s too late, he knows, but he’s glad for the knowledge anyway.
Despite the silence, Roman swears he can actually hear them all around him. All of his fans, all those strangers that cheered for him over the years. He can hear them shouting and clapping and celebrating. Maybe he’s finally lost it, maybe he’s starting to hallucinate. He doesn’t care. Not anymore. He knows - he’s always known, deep inside, but he’s never been quite ready to accept the knowledge - that he will never hear it again, so memories are all he has. Despite all of his protestations, despite all of his promises, despite his wish to win first place just one time in his life, he has always known that he doesn’t have the strength to live that long. He doesn’t really have the strength for anything.
Perhaps he should be resting, perhaps then he’ll live a little longer.
But this is where he belongs.
Right here on the ice. Right here where he’s always belonged. And he remembers it, that first time he stood on the ice. His knees had been shaking and he’d been convinced that he would fall the second he stood on the ice, but he did it anyway. And he instantly felt like he finally found something he hadn’t even known had been missing. Like he’d come home. He knows that probably won’t make sense to anyone that hasn’t felt it too, but since he’s never going to have to explain this to anyone, it’s another thing that doesn’t matter. And he thinks that if he has to die - not that he wants to, but it’s not like he actually has a choice - then here on the ice, where he’s always belonged, seems to be the right place. If such a place exist of course. He suspects it doesn’t.
It’s all over. He knows that now; hell, he’s known if for days.
He’d hoped for a few more days, at least one more, so he could spend it with Florian and Deniz. But this is the end. Here on the very spot where he spend so many hours of his life training. Here where him and Jennifer once soared across this ice, where he and Deniz fell in love. In a strange, abstract way, it completely makes sense that he’s going to die here. He doesn’t want it to make sense; why would he want that, after all? He supposes that’s another thing that no longer matters. He wants to make it just a little bit further, just across the ice, to where Denis is standing. He wants to be by his side when he dies, but his legs have finally - finally - lost all their strength, and suddenly, he’s lying on the cold, cold ice. (He remembers how afraid he’d been that first time on the ice, so afraid that he was going to fall. If he’d known then what he knows now, oh how different his life would have been. Or maybe he wouldn’t have changed anything. He doesn’t quite know.)
And then Deniz is holding him, telling him everything will be alright and Roman wants to say something, something meaningful as last words, but all the strength has left his body.
He used it up skating across the ice one last time.
‘I love you.’ He thinks.
‘I want to stay. Please Deniz, I want to stay.’
‘I love you.’
At least, it doesn’t hurt anymore.
~
‘Everything will be fine’
~
It’s cold.
It’s freezing.
This, of course, is something that makes sense. He is sitting on the ice, after all, so cold is pretty much the most logical thing he can feel in this moment. (He’s on his knees, shaking, though not from the cold. Unmoving, Roman is lying in his arms.) This place is supposed to be this cold, it has always been this cold and it will always be this cold. It’s the only normal thing about this situation, the only thing that is as it should be, and he takes comfort in the fact that there is at least one thing that is still the same.
Because everything else has changed.
And he’s not ready for it.
(Not that he ever would be.)
It is cold.
It is freezing.
And that’s normal.
It’s a good thing because it means that no matter how much he has lost - and he has lost it all - some things won’t ever, ever change.
Not that it matters.
It’s freezing. But he can’t feel it. The numbing cold means nothing to him anymore. All that matters, all he knows, is that Roman is no longer here with him, and yet he is still here in his arms. Roman is still close enough to touch but no longer there by his side, and he never will be again. Everything else in his life - the ice, the cold, time itself - no longer matters because all that matters, he has now lost. He can’t quite tell if he’s actually no longer feeling the cold or if perhaps he has been sitting here for so long that the cold has, or if, perhaps, he’s simply lost the will to care.
Because Roman is dead.
And that’s all that matters.
Perhaps he has been sitting here to long - although Deniz could never tell you how much time has passed. Perhaps he’ll freeze here, holding Roman. Perhaps he’ll die here by his side. The thought is random and abstract. He won’t die, he knows that, because that would be far too easy.
Besides if he actually were to die here, if he were to give up, and he’d get to wherever Roman has gone, Roman would simply kill him again. Just for giving up. So he knows it won’t happen, and he knows he shouldn’t wish for it to happen, but the thought has occurred to him and a part of him - a part of him wants to go and be with Roman.
So he won’t have to face life without him.
So he won’t have to feel this pain.
But of course that won’t happen. Of course he can’t change the fact that he’ll have to go through life feeling all this pain.
He should get up.
Get up and move, call for help, and face the world without Roman in it.
But he can’t.
He can’t.
He can’t move. He doesn’t want to move. He should move, he should get up, for himself, for Roman, for all the people that loved Roman that don’t know yet that this has happened. But if he moves, if he gets up, if he tells other people, it will actually be real; Roman will truly be dead. He knows he is, of course he does - he’s not an idiot - but he’s not ready to face it, to say it, to allow it to be a part of his life.
He’d like to pretend just a little while longer.
Even though that’s stupid and ridiculous. Because in his arms, Roman lies unmoving and unchanging. He knows the other man is gone, but as long as he sits here he can at least pretend it’s not real. He can pretend it’s nothing but a random nightmare, something he can wake up from at any moment. As long as he stays where he is, frozen in time, Roman will not be gone forever, Roman will still be by his side.
It doesn’t really make sense, he knows that.
But then nothing really does.
~
“I don’t want to die.”
“I’ll look after you.”
~
He’s aware that time passes, but he has no idea how much of it.
It’s not like he truly cares.
His phone is somewhere - he can’t quite remember where he left it. Perhaps it’s simply in the pocket of his jacket or perhaps it’s lying on the ice next to the camera. (Did he even turn the camera off? Does that matter?) He doesn’t remember. But then he doesn’t care either. He should be getting up and calling for help. He knows too much time has already passed, but he can’t make his legs move. He’s frozen in place. (Perhaps he’s actually frozen in place, perhaps tomorrow they’ll have to separate them by force.) Maybe he’ll never be able to get up. Maybe this overwhelming sadness won’t ever allow him to stand again. It hardly matters: someone will show up anyway whether he calls for him or not.
Because no matter how much he might want it to, time won’t simply stop.
Someone will come.
But for right now, for this moment in time, it’s just him and Roman, together on the ice for one last time. The silence is deafening. Another thing that doesn’t matter. For the last few years he’s spend so much time here: playing ice hockey, skating across it with Roman or just watching the other man fly over it. He remembers the first time they stood there together. How they had laughed. How happy they had been back then. He remembers feeling like he’d finally found what he’d been looking for - even if it took him many years and a lot of mistakes to accept that he had. He remembers all those moments that are now forever lost and can never ever be recovered. And there are no new moments to be created, there’s no more laughing on this ice.
Everything is gone.
And it has left him with nothing but painful memories and deafening silence.
~
And time, time keeps going.
No matter how hard he might wish for it to stop. No matter how loud he screams, or how long he begs. Time will still keep going.
Morning will come, like it always has before, and there is no way to stop it, or slow it down. He wishes it wouldn’t come. He wants time to freeze, to stop ticking away. He wants to have just a little more time. He’s not ready to get up and got outside and face the world. He’ll never be ready but if he gets just a little more time he might be able to convince himself that he is. He might get strong enough to face the world.
But time cannot be stopped or slowed down.
All it can do is keep going. Forward, because that’s the only way it knows to go.
~
“Deniz…What’s happened?”
~
Like every morning, Isabelle had her whole day planned out.
Over the years, she learned that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to, of course, but in case it does, Isabelle likes to have a plan. And she likes things to go according to plan - though very little has gone according to plan since she has gotten to Essen, but that is beside the point - which is probably why she is so annoyed to find them sitting on the ice when she gets there. They’re not skating, they’re just huddled together like they were resting for a moment - and oh, how she wishes that’s all it was. She’d like to go back and never move closer, never discover the truth, and change what she thinks she stumbled on.
Deniz doesn’t even turn when she yells.
And she knows.
She’d never be able to explain how she knew something bad had happened. Perhaps it’s the way they’re sitting there, or the silence that welcomed her, but somehow, it’s simply in the air. It hardly matters how she knows, but she does, and she doesn’t want to move closer. She realizes that once she truly knows, everything will be completely different.. She has to move closer and see if there’s still something she could do. Perhaps things could still be changed.
They can’t be.
It will haunt her forever.
For the rest of her life, no matter how hard she’ll try, she’ll never be able to remember Deniz and Roman in happier times. Every single time she tries, all she’ll be able to remember is that morning she found them. Deniz’s haunted look and Roman’s unmoving form. Deniz was holding onto Roman tightly, unwilling or perhaps simply unable to let him go. She had to find a way to make him move - there was no way he could stay on the ice much longer, she remembers thinking; it could not possibly be healthy. But for the very first time in her life, she had been completely unable to find any words.
Because it couldn’t be real.
It couldn’t be true.
That moment - Roman and Deniz on the ice, her on her knees beside them - would haunt them forever. It would hang between her and Deniz for the rest of their lives, like a ghost they could never get rid of. Somehow it would color every single one of their conversations.
There had to be right words to say in that moment. Those words surely existed. But if they did, she never found them. She should have, but they never occurred to her. She knows she got up somehow and called for help. She knows she found Deniz a blanket and stayed by his side until help arrived. She knows she helped him stand and hugged him as he cried. She knows she did it all, but she can’t quite remembered doing it. It’s like it all happened to someone else.
She wishes that were the true.
But of course it all happened to her. If it hadn’t, she’d at least be able to forget the look in Deniz’s eyes.
But she can’t.
~
The sport centre is completely silent and seems empty, which is strange because the day has already started.
There should be life.
But there’s just nothing. Normally, he would get angry but there’s something in the air, something that tells him that nothing is alright. Somehow Maximilian can tell that something truly bad happened, even if he can never quite explain how he knew. He thought, in that first moment when he walked in, that it was some kind of accident. It’s a sport centre after all. Whatever happened, it’s nothing good, because absolutely no one is where they’re supposed to be, at least not as far as he can tell. He doesn’t want to know, but he doesn’t have the luxury of not finding out; it’s his job to know after all.
Whatever happened, it happened on the ice.
(But then, he supposes, everything important always happens on the ice.)
Maximilian knows that the moment he steps into the office. Because at last he has discovered where everyone disappeared to. They’re all staring at the ice rink below them, and he has no choice but to walk closer and look too. Later, much later, he wishes he’d forgotten all about his job and just turned around and walked back home. He should have just let someone else find out for him. Because of all the things he’d thought he’d see -and admittedly quite a few things had occurred to him, including all the ice having melted into a pool for some strange reason. But Roman Wilde being dead? No, that had not been one of them.
It was so surreal.
What had happened?
How could Roman Wilde be dead?
How could this be real?
Roman has been a part of the Steinkamp centre for so long that Maximilian can’t even remember a time he wasn’t there. He can’t imagine a world where Roman isn’t a part of it, but apparently that is the world they will live in from now on. They’ve never been friends - they were always too different for that, and he never cared to try and be friends with the other man - but they worked together for a long time.
And now he’s gone. Gone, and he will never be a part of his life again, and that just doesn’t make sense.
What is he supposed to do now? He’s positive there is something he should be doing right now, but he can’t think of anything. There are many questions running through his mind - questions he will probably never get an answer to. It’s not like he’ll ever bother asking them. Because what would having the right answers change? How could it possibly help? Roman Wilde will still be dead, and he’ll still be standing here staring at him lying on that ice.
Roman Wilde should not be lying there.
He should not have looked. He should have asked someone what happened instead of walking to the glass. Because if he hadn’t seen it, then he wouldn’t be in shock, and then, perhaps, he would now know what to do. Or he would have remembered that his sister Vanessa would arrive at any moment and that she and Roman ar- were friends. (He can’t believe that all of Roman’s life is now in past tense.) And if he remembers it right - and honestly, he’s never been interested enough - Deniz is also one of her friends. Regardless of what has happened in their lives, and all they have gone through, he is still her big brother. He should have found a way to make sure that she wouldn’t have to see this.
But he wasn’t able to do that.
Suddenly, she’s just there. He does try to stop her from moving to the window, but there’s simply nothing he can do. Besides he can’t protect her from the knowledge; he has to tell her at some point anyway. There is nothing he can do for her or anyone else, nothing to say. What would saying the right things to her, or anyone else, change? This horrible thing happened - though in all honesty he has no idea what actually happened - and there is nothing they can do about it.
He can lie and tell her that everything will be alright. He can give her platitudes and try to make her feel better.
But how is that alright?
How is that ok?
At the end of it Roman Wilde is still dead.
~
A long, very long time ago - actually, it all happened just a few years ago, but in some ways, it feels like a dozen lifetimes have passed since then - Vanessa had, for a brief moment, hated Roman.
It’s the very first thing she remembers when she sees him lying there. It was during her brief relationship with Deniz. Now that she’s older and wiser - now that they’re all older and wiser (they had all been so incredibly stupid back then) - she understands that it’s not that simple, not that black and white. The entire thing was a mess from the beginning. None of it had ever been right, certainly not her and Deniz. But back then, she didn’t know that, she was convinced that she finally found all she ever wanted. At the time she had been unable - or perhaps unwilling - to see what is so clear right now. And Roman Wilde stood between her and her ultimate happiness, and so she’d hated him.
Right now, in this moment, standing here staring at Roman’s unmoving form, that’s all she can think about it. That once, a long, long time ago, she’d hated him. And it doesn’t matter how fleeting the emotion had been. All that matters is that that it had been real; she’d felt it.
She never apologized for it; it never seemed that important. She’s quite sure that Roman didn’t like her back then either, so it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t important back then and it still isn’t, it’s just that Roman is dead and she can’t think about anything else. She’s probably in shock. Or this is the only way she can deal with this, by thinking about other things that have actually nothing to do with this situation.
How can Roman be lying there on the ice? How is it possible that he is no longer skating across it? How did this happen? What happened?
She can’t move. She should move because her best friend is standing there all alone, but her feet won’t respond to the command. She wishes that Maximilian - who’s placed a hand on her shoulder, which his way of comforting her - would tell her what to do, or that he would do something himself. But like her, he seems frozen in place. She, not Isabella, should be the one hugging Deniz - not that the other woman isn’t as broken up as the rest of them. But she doesn’t know how to be there for him. She can barely find the strength to stand and breath normally, so how can she even begin to help him? She can only stare at the scene playing out beneath them. And remind herself that she never truly hated Roman. That she had loved him and that Roman, Roman had known that.
He did. Didn’t he?
He must have, despite the fact that they never truly talked about it.
He must have.
~
Axel wants it noted, for the record, that despite how he might have acted over the years, he truly, honestly, liked Mr. Wilde.
Oh, he had never been in love with him. Too afraid of what that would mean, he never allowed his feelings to grow beyond attraction, but he liked him. Despite the passage of the years and the many, many fights. He wonders if Mr. Wilde knew that; it’s not something he ever thought to ask. It isn’t even something he needed to know, but now the younger man is dead and it’s the most important thing in the world.
He doesn’t bother asking if they’re telling the truth. Why would anyone make this up? Even if he had thought they might, the look on their faces is enough to tell him that yes, this happened. Whatever this is, all he knows is that Mr. Wilde is dead. The details of what happened still escape him. Did he perhaps fall and hit his head? Was he ill? Surely they, or at least someone, would have known if he had been? Surely someone would have been able to tell, especially considering how closely they worked together? But now that he thinks about it, didn’t he noticed some things over the past few weeks? Didn’t he think that the younger man looked pale and somewhat weaker than he usually was? It was odd that he suddenly quit a job he worked so hard for, but at the time Axel dismissed all of that. So maybe, in retrospect, an illness makes sense, but he still think someone would have at least made a comment about it.
So, how can Mr. Wilde be dead?
How is this real?
And now, suddenly, everything that could have been, everything that was still a possibility just an hour ago, is just gone. He thinks back to all the conversations they’ve had over the years, to all those words that were never spoken. Things that were never important enough to mention, but now that it’s over - now that he’ll never actually be able to say them - he wonders why he never did. He should have told him that he admires him, that he always loved watching him skate. That he truly, honestly, believed that the younger man would win the spot of skate ambassador. That briefly, very briefly, he imagined another world where they could be together. It wasn’t important five minutes ago, but now Mr. Wilde is dead, and he’ll never know any of it. He probably wouldn’t have known if he had lived, but that doesn’t matter.
He’s incapable of thinking about anything else. All he can think about are the conversations that have long since passed, all of them lost. All of those moment that they can now never, ever, ever have. Because Mr. Wilde is dead.
And all those possibilities are gone.
~
Lena’s hands are shaking.
It’s the only thing Maximilian can focus on. There are a million things he needs to do and say, but all he can think about is the fact that Lena’s hands are shaking. He needs to leave this room and call his mother -and all those other people- because nobody, nobody should hear this on the news. (And oh God, there are going to be reporters everywhere, aren’t there?) But Lena’s hands are shaking, and for some random reason, this is the only thing that matters.
“Lena, do you want me to call Ingo?”
She looks at him like she can’t understand why he’s talking to her, but then she nods.
“Yes, Maximilian, Thank you.”
He doesn’t remember the last time she thanked him. (So, it’s that kind of day, the day that Lena doesn’t even notice what she says to him.) He knows, somewhere deep inside, that he should call his mother first, but he finds himself dialling Ingo instead. Perhaps he does it because he told Lena he would, or perhaps it’s because he believes that the other man should be told immediately. (Why does he even know his number by heart?
Does he really dial it that often? Why isn’t it on speed-dial if he does?) He can’t remember what he said, but he suspects the other man doesn’t care. He could have known the perfect words to say and it still wouldn’t have made anything better. He hears the disbelief in the other man’s voice, but this happened, and they can’t change that.
The silence is sudden, and it takes him a moment to comprehend that the other man has hung up on him.
Not that that matters.
~
They’re still eating breakfast.
It’s strange really, when she thinks about it later, that they’re doing something so ordinary when the phone rings. It feels wrong that for them it was just like every other morning, nothing to indicate something horrible had happened, until she spoke to her son and learned of Roman Wilde’s death.
Richard doesn’t believe her - not that she blames him, where she in his shoes, she wouldn’t believe it either - but he also knows that she wouldn’t make this up. What kind of person would? She’s not a saint, in any way, but even she wouldn’t do such a thing. They have to go to the centre and take care of all the logistics - and isn’t that a horrible thing to think about when someone they know dies? They have to be there for Vanessa even if she has no idea how to help her. And yet, despite the fact that she knows all of this, she’s incapable of moving, and by the looks of it so is Richard. So they sit there, staring at the breakfast they were going to eat, unable to fully comprehend what has just happened.
~
No.
She did not hear that right, she must have misunderstood. Or perhaps Ingo was the one who did, he must have. Anette has to believe that, she has to. Because if she didn’t, if Ingo didn’t, then Roman, her beautiful Roman is dead. And there is no way that that is real.
Any second now Ingo will tell her that he made a mistake, even if she knows deep down that he won’t. Because who would make a mistake like that? He never would, not about something as important as this. Besides the look on his face - a mixture of loss and pain and shock and pity - tells her everything she needs to know. But she can’t accept that this is real because her best friend cannot be dead.
She can’t be here, in this apartment, while her best friend is lying dead somewhere. She has to be with him even if he can no longer be with her.
She has to see with her own eyes what happened, if she ever wants to believe this is true. And honestly? Even when she does, she’s not sure she will believe it.
~
This cannot be Ingo’s life.
It can’t be.
This is not real, there’s absolutely no way. How did this even happen? What had happened? The very first thing he thinks is that he has to call Hasse, but of course that is something he can never do again. Because one of the best friends he’s ever had, one of the best friends he’ll ever have, is dead and no longer a part of this world. His hands are shaking. This is important somehow, though he has no idea why. He can’t believe that the last conversations he will ever have with Roman, will be about something as random as borrowed scuba gear. How can the last thing he every says to him be: ‘Ok, that’s enough hugging?’ If he could just go back to that moment, he’d never let his best friend go, and maybe then he’d be able to change what happened. (He can’t, he knows that, but it’s all he can think about.)
How can this be real?
The borrowed scuba gear is lying on the couch - he noticed it this morning. Roman must have dropped it off when he was out. Roman had left him a note, he’d read it earlier, but it was nothing earth-shattering. Just a simple ‘thank you’ and ‘I’ll see you later.’ Just a simple note that could have been written at any time in their lives. It hadn’t been important when he first read it but now? Now that is the last note Roman will ever write to him and that makes it the most important piece of paper in the world. (See you later, the not reads, as if Roman had been completely sure that he would. But later, for Roman at least, would never come.)
How can that simple note be the end of their years-long-friendship?
How?
He has to stop thinking about this, he has to. Because if he doesn’t he’ll start crying and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to stop.
He can’t cry.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
~
Regardless of how it happens, death is always unexpected and harsh. Even when you know it’s coming. Even if you’ve had time to get used to the idea and to prepare for the eventuality, it is still completely unexpected. Deniz understands this now.
He might have, potentially, understood that before as well. But before, this had just been an abstract, something that would happen but didn’t seem real. He’d known Roman would die, and he’d known it would be soon, but it’s like his brain just wouldn’t accept it. It had seemed like that eventuality was so far away that he shouldn’t even think about it, even if he knew that it was coming closer every second. It’s just as horrible, just as painful as it would have been, had he not know. And now, now that it’s all over, he’s not entirely sure whether he would have preferred not to know.
Whether he knew or didn’t, whether he wanted to accept it or not. Whether he understood, in some abstract way how much it would hurt. It all means nothing now. Because Roman is dead now, and absolute strangers are wheeling him away. And everything - other people talking, thoughts, memories, all of it - is just background noise. He’s all alone now, he’ll always be alone from now on. Despite the fact that Isabelle is standing by his side and that Vanessa is suddenly there as well - when did she get here? He didn’t even see her coming. She squeezes his hand, and he can tell she is thinking of something to say, but she decides, in the end, that silence is far better. There is nothing to say, after all.
Because they’re wheeling Roman away.
And he has to let him go.
~
There is nothing strange about this morning. Nothing to indicate that something irreversible has happened so close by. He’s simply setting up the bar with Tom, like every other morning, and there is nothing to show that the world has changed. At least not until he looks up, glances at the Steinkamp centre, and sees the ambulance in front of it. But even in that moment, the enormity of what happened didn’t register with him. How could it have, after all? Why would someone you know dying be the first thing you think about when you see an ambulance?
It’s the way Deniz stands there, like a lost little boy - quite suddenly reminding Marian of that lost little boy he’d left behind when he divorced his mother. It’s strange because Deniz is a grown man and he should not look that lost, that devastated. But of course, he does. It proves to him that something horrible has actually happened, something that he cannot fix. He moves towards his boy without thinking, without considering he’s leaving his bar completely unattended. What does that even matter? What does his bar matter when his son is just standing there, lost and broken, looking at the ambulance as if it has taken the world from him.
He doesn’t ask what happened. He should, but when he finally stands in front of Deniz, the words just won’t come. Tom is the one who asks Vanessa. It doesn’t look like Deniz would have given an answer, even if he’d thought to ask.
“Roman is dead.”
There is no way I heard that right, is the first thought that jumps into Marian’s head. That can’t actually have happened. He wants to tell them to stop lying to him. But Vanessa’s voice is so filled with pain and his son looks so lot that Marian knows, even if he doesn’t want to accept it, that it is the truth. He should say something right now, something that will help his boy, something meaningful and powerful, but the words never come. All he can do is put his arms around him and pull him close, showing him without words that he is there, and that he is not going anywhere. Deniz clings to him like a scared little boy - it’s the same way he clung to him when Marian left him and his brother behind. He thinks, briefly, that even if he never manages to find the right words to say, he at least knows not to let his little boy go. Not this time.
~
Nobody thought to call him.
He’d hold it against them but Florian honestly doesn’t think they did it on purpose. (Later, much later, he’ll check his phone and he’ll realize that Lena did send him a message, but by then it will, of course, be too late.) Deniz looks lost and broken - a fact that he noticed at the time but didn’t really register until much later. Even then, he will never quite remember what exactly the look on Deniz’s face was, just a vague memory of it. It makes sense too. Because the ambulance is standing behind them, and Deniz is looking at him, and Florian didn’t pay attention to anything.
Deniz never calls him, because he’s lost and broken, and everyone else just forgot about him. He will not hold it against them. Or maybe he will, just a little, because they should have remembered him. (The only one he doesn’t blame, at all, is Deniz.) Because Roman is his big brother and he is dead. Roman, the one who promised him that he would hang on for as long as he could, that they would be spending today together. He is dead, and all of his promises mean nothing in the end. Deniz never actually tells him. Florian suspects he can’t bring himself to say it out loud. It doesn’t matter. He would have still know. It’s the look in Deniz’s eyes, because there is only one thing that will make him look that lost and broken. And
that is the fact that their Roman has finally succumbed to the brain tumour that had quite suddenly snuck up on them.
But he can’t be dead.
He can’t be.
Because he promised.
The ambulance drives past them slowly and all Florian can think is no, no, they’re wrong. This didn’t happen. This didn’t happen. Lena is there suddenly, talking to him, saying something - perhaps something important - but Florian can’t hear anything right now. He just says the first thing that comes to mind.
“I have to go see Roman…we’re going to spend the day together….”
Because Roman can’t be dead, he can’t be. Florian is not ready for that. He’d like to live in the word where his brother is still alive for just a little bit
longer.
He’s not ready.
None of them are. But then they never would have been.
~
“Everything is going to be fine.”
~
It is not until Florian is standing in front of him that Deniz realizes he should have called him.
But he’d been unable to think of anything but the fact that Roman was lying unmoving in his arms. So perhaps, in some way, he can be forgiven for not calling him. He doesn’t have any strength left - it’s like it all disappeared along with Roman - and there is nothing he can say that will help the younger man. He should do something, he knows that, because Roman is dead and he is all that Florian has now, and he’d promised.
(“You’ll take care of Florian, won’t you Deniz? You’ll make sure he’s alright, you won’t leave him alone?”
“Of course I’ll take care of him, you don’t even have to ask me that.”
“I know, but please, just promise me.”
“Okay, if it makes you feel better: I promise.)
There’s nothing he can do or say, because no matter what Roman will still be dead. He can - maybe he even should - hug Florian, that’s what Roman would do, but Deniz can’t make himself move. He’s still so cold, so numb, so lost. He can’t believe it happened, can’t believe this is their world now. So he says nothing, not even what happened, but Florian isn’t an idiot: he knows. The ambulance is moving now, and he doesn’t even think about it, he just follows it. He can’t let Roman go, not yet, even if of course the option of holding on to him is already gone. Besides he can’t follow the ambulance forever. Soon - far too soon - it will be gone, just like Roman is.
~
“Everything is going to be fine.”
(Except, it won’t be, not really. It can’t ever be fine again, Deniz knows that but he needs to say it, needs to make Roman believe it because there is nothing else left to say.)
“Everything is going to be fine.”
Summary: Roman Wilde, ice skater, has died, on the ice he loved so much.This is the after.
Denial
Refusal to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion
or to admit it into consciousness, used as a
defence mechanism
~
“Say something…”
“Everything will be fine, you hear me….”
“Everything will be fine.”
~
They’re the only ones here.
It makes sense, really, considering the late hour, and yet, for some reason, Roman had almost expected someone else to be there. He’s not sure why, but then he’s not sure about anything anymore. It’s not like it matters. That is something that dying has done for him: it has shown him the things that truly matter and all those things that never did. (All those fights that never mattered, all those worries that seem like nothing now.) Now that it’s all too late, now that his life is slipping away, now everything is so much cleared. Now that there is nothing he can do to change it, everything seems so simple.
It’s too late, he knows, but he’s glad for the knowledge anyway.
Despite the silence, Roman swears he can actually hear them all around him. All of his fans, all those strangers that cheered for him over the years. He can hear them shouting and clapping and celebrating. Maybe he’s finally lost it, maybe he’s starting to hallucinate. He doesn’t care. Not anymore. He knows - he’s always known, deep inside, but he’s never been quite ready to accept the knowledge - that he will never hear it again, so memories are all he has. Despite all of his protestations, despite all of his promises, despite his wish to win first place just one time in his life, he has always known that he doesn’t have the strength to live that long. He doesn’t really have the strength for anything.
Perhaps he should be resting, perhaps then he’ll live a little longer.
But this is where he belongs.
Right here on the ice. Right here where he’s always belonged. And he remembers it, that first time he stood on the ice. His knees had been shaking and he’d been convinced that he would fall the second he stood on the ice, but he did it anyway. And he instantly felt like he finally found something he hadn’t even known had been missing. Like he’d come home. He knows that probably won’t make sense to anyone that hasn’t felt it too, but since he’s never going to have to explain this to anyone, it’s another thing that doesn’t matter. And he thinks that if he has to die - not that he wants to, but it’s not like he actually has a choice - then here on the ice, where he’s always belonged, seems to be the right place. If such a place exist of course. He suspects it doesn’t.
It’s all over. He knows that now; hell, he’s known if for days.
He’d hoped for a few more days, at least one more, so he could spend it with Florian and Deniz. But this is the end. Here on the very spot where he spend so many hours of his life training. Here where him and Jennifer once soared across this ice, where he and Deniz fell in love. In a strange, abstract way, it completely makes sense that he’s going to die here. He doesn’t want it to make sense; why would he want that, after all? He supposes that’s another thing that no longer matters. He wants to make it just a little bit further, just across the ice, to where Denis is standing. He wants to be by his side when he dies, but his legs have finally - finally - lost all their strength, and suddenly, he’s lying on the cold, cold ice. (He remembers how afraid he’d been that first time on the ice, so afraid that he was going to fall. If he’d known then what he knows now, oh how different his life would have been. Or maybe he wouldn’t have changed anything. He doesn’t quite know.)
And then Deniz is holding him, telling him everything will be alright and Roman wants to say something, something meaningful as last words, but all the strength has left his body.
He used it up skating across the ice one last time.
‘I love you.’ He thinks.
‘I want to stay. Please Deniz, I want to stay.’
‘I love you.’
At least, it doesn’t hurt anymore.
~
‘Everything will be fine’
~
It’s cold.
It’s freezing.
This, of course, is something that makes sense. He is sitting on the ice, after all, so cold is pretty much the most logical thing he can feel in this moment. (He’s on his knees, shaking, though not from the cold. Unmoving, Roman is lying in his arms.) This place is supposed to be this cold, it has always been this cold and it will always be this cold. It’s the only normal thing about this situation, the only thing that is as it should be, and he takes comfort in the fact that there is at least one thing that is still the same.
Because everything else has changed.
And he’s not ready for it.
(Not that he ever would be.)
It is cold.
It is freezing.
And that’s normal.
It’s a good thing because it means that no matter how much he has lost - and he has lost it all - some things won’t ever, ever change.
Not that it matters.
It’s freezing. But he can’t feel it. The numbing cold means nothing to him anymore. All that matters, all he knows, is that Roman is no longer here with him, and yet he is still here in his arms. Roman is still close enough to touch but no longer there by his side, and he never will be again. Everything else in his life - the ice, the cold, time itself - no longer matters because all that matters, he has now lost. He can’t quite tell if he’s actually no longer feeling the cold or if perhaps he has been sitting here for so long that the cold has, or if, perhaps, he’s simply lost the will to care.
Because Roman is dead.
And that’s all that matters.
Perhaps he has been sitting here to long - although Deniz could never tell you how much time has passed. Perhaps he’ll freeze here, holding Roman. Perhaps he’ll die here by his side. The thought is random and abstract. He won’t die, he knows that, because that would be far too easy.
Besides if he actually were to die here, if he were to give up, and he’d get to wherever Roman has gone, Roman would simply kill him again. Just for giving up. So he knows it won’t happen, and he knows he shouldn’t wish for it to happen, but the thought has occurred to him and a part of him - a part of him wants to go and be with Roman.
So he won’t have to face life without him.
So he won’t have to feel this pain.
But of course that won’t happen. Of course he can’t change the fact that he’ll have to go through life feeling all this pain.
He should get up.
Get up and move, call for help, and face the world without Roman in it.
But he can’t.
He can’t.
He can’t move. He doesn’t want to move. He should move, he should get up, for himself, for Roman, for all the people that loved Roman that don’t know yet that this has happened. But if he moves, if he gets up, if he tells other people, it will actually be real; Roman will truly be dead. He knows he is, of course he does - he’s not an idiot - but he’s not ready to face it, to say it, to allow it to be a part of his life.
He’d like to pretend just a little while longer.
Even though that’s stupid and ridiculous. Because in his arms, Roman lies unmoving and unchanging. He knows the other man is gone, but as long as he sits here he can at least pretend it’s not real. He can pretend it’s nothing but a random nightmare, something he can wake up from at any moment. As long as he stays where he is, frozen in time, Roman will not be gone forever, Roman will still be by his side.
It doesn’t really make sense, he knows that.
But then nothing really does.
~
“I don’t want to die.”
“I’ll look after you.”
~
He’s aware that time passes, but he has no idea how much of it.
It’s not like he truly cares.
His phone is somewhere - he can’t quite remember where he left it. Perhaps it’s simply in the pocket of his jacket or perhaps it’s lying on the ice next to the camera. (Did he even turn the camera off? Does that matter?) He doesn’t remember. But then he doesn’t care either. He should be getting up and calling for help. He knows too much time has already passed, but he can’t make his legs move. He’s frozen in place. (Perhaps he’s actually frozen in place, perhaps tomorrow they’ll have to separate them by force.) Maybe he’ll never be able to get up. Maybe this overwhelming sadness won’t ever allow him to stand again. It hardly matters: someone will show up anyway whether he calls for him or not.
Because no matter how much he might want it to, time won’t simply stop.
Someone will come.
But for right now, for this moment in time, it’s just him and Roman, together on the ice for one last time. The silence is deafening. Another thing that doesn’t matter. For the last few years he’s spend so much time here: playing ice hockey, skating across it with Roman or just watching the other man fly over it. He remembers the first time they stood there together. How they had laughed. How happy they had been back then. He remembers feeling like he’d finally found what he’d been looking for - even if it took him many years and a lot of mistakes to accept that he had. He remembers all those moments that are now forever lost and can never ever be recovered. And there are no new moments to be created, there’s no more laughing on this ice.
Everything is gone.
And it has left him with nothing but painful memories and deafening silence.
~
And time, time keeps going.
No matter how hard he might wish for it to stop. No matter how loud he screams, or how long he begs. Time will still keep going.
Morning will come, like it always has before, and there is no way to stop it, or slow it down. He wishes it wouldn’t come. He wants time to freeze, to stop ticking away. He wants to have just a little more time. He’s not ready to get up and got outside and face the world. He’ll never be ready but if he gets just a little more time he might be able to convince himself that he is. He might get strong enough to face the world.
But time cannot be stopped or slowed down.
All it can do is keep going. Forward, because that’s the only way it knows to go.
~
“Deniz…What’s happened?”
~
Like every morning, Isabelle had her whole day planned out.
Over the years, she learned that life doesn’t always go the way you want it to, of course, but in case it does, Isabelle likes to have a plan. And she likes things to go according to plan - though very little has gone according to plan since she has gotten to Essen, but that is beside the point - which is probably why she is so annoyed to find them sitting on the ice when she gets there. They’re not skating, they’re just huddled together like they were resting for a moment - and oh, how she wishes that’s all it was. She’d like to go back and never move closer, never discover the truth, and change what she thinks she stumbled on.
Deniz doesn’t even turn when she yells.
And she knows.
She’d never be able to explain how she knew something bad had happened. Perhaps it’s the way they’re sitting there, or the silence that welcomed her, but somehow, it’s simply in the air. It hardly matters how she knows, but she does, and she doesn’t want to move closer. She realizes that once she truly knows, everything will be completely different.. She has to move closer and see if there’s still something she could do. Perhaps things could still be changed.
They can’t be.
It will haunt her forever.
For the rest of her life, no matter how hard she’ll try, she’ll never be able to remember Deniz and Roman in happier times. Every single time she tries, all she’ll be able to remember is that morning she found them. Deniz’s haunted look and Roman’s unmoving form. Deniz was holding onto Roman tightly, unwilling or perhaps simply unable to let him go. She had to find a way to make him move - there was no way he could stay on the ice much longer, she remembers thinking; it could not possibly be healthy. But for the very first time in her life, she had been completely unable to find any words.
Because it couldn’t be real.
It couldn’t be true.
That moment - Roman and Deniz on the ice, her on her knees beside them - would haunt them forever. It would hang between her and Deniz for the rest of their lives, like a ghost they could never get rid of. Somehow it would color every single one of their conversations.
There had to be right words to say in that moment. Those words surely existed. But if they did, she never found them. She should have, but they never occurred to her. She knows she got up somehow and called for help. She knows she found Deniz a blanket and stayed by his side until help arrived. She knows she helped him stand and hugged him as he cried. She knows she did it all, but she can’t quite remembered doing it. It’s like it all happened to someone else.
She wishes that were the true.
But of course it all happened to her. If it hadn’t, she’d at least be able to forget the look in Deniz’s eyes.
But she can’t.
~
The sport centre is completely silent and seems empty, which is strange because the day has already started.
There should be life.
But there’s just nothing. Normally, he would get angry but there’s something in the air, something that tells him that nothing is alright. Somehow Maximilian can tell that something truly bad happened, even if he can never quite explain how he knew. He thought, in that first moment when he walked in, that it was some kind of accident. It’s a sport centre after all. Whatever happened, it’s nothing good, because absolutely no one is where they’re supposed to be, at least not as far as he can tell. He doesn’t want to know, but he doesn’t have the luxury of not finding out; it’s his job to know after all.
Whatever happened, it happened on the ice.
(But then, he supposes, everything important always happens on the ice.)
Maximilian knows that the moment he steps into the office. Because at last he has discovered where everyone disappeared to. They’re all staring at the ice rink below them, and he has no choice but to walk closer and look too. Later, much later, he wishes he’d forgotten all about his job and just turned around and walked back home. He should have just let someone else find out for him. Because of all the things he’d thought he’d see -and admittedly quite a few things had occurred to him, including all the ice having melted into a pool for some strange reason. But Roman Wilde being dead? No, that had not been one of them.
It was so surreal.
What had happened?
How could Roman Wilde be dead?
How could this be real?
Roman has been a part of the Steinkamp centre for so long that Maximilian can’t even remember a time he wasn’t there. He can’t imagine a world where Roman isn’t a part of it, but apparently that is the world they will live in from now on. They’ve never been friends - they were always too different for that, and he never cared to try and be friends with the other man - but they worked together for a long time.
And now he’s gone. Gone, and he will never be a part of his life again, and that just doesn’t make sense.
What is he supposed to do now? He’s positive there is something he should be doing right now, but he can’t think of anything. There are many questions running through his mind - questions he will probably never get an answer to. It’s not like he’ll ever bother asking them. Because what would having the right answers change? How could it possibly help? Roman Wilde will still be dead, and he’ll still be standing here staring at him lying on that ice.
Roman Wilde should not be lying there.
He should not have looked. He should have asked someone what happened instead of walking to the glass. Because if he hadn’t seen it, then he wouldn’t be in shock, and then, perhaps, he would now know what to do. Or he would have remembered that his sister Vanessa would arrive at any moment and that she and Roman ar- were friends. (He can’t believe that all of Roman’s life is now in past tense.) And if he remembers it right - and honestly, he’s never been interested enough - Deniz is also one of her friends. Regardless of what has happened in their lives, and all they have gone through, he is still her big brother. He should have found a way to make sure that she wouldn’t have to see this.
But he wasn’t able to do that.
Suddenly, she’s just there. He does try to stop her from moving to the window, but there’s simply nothing he can do. Besides he can’t protect her from the knowledge; he has to tell her at some point anyway. There is nothing he can do for her or anyone else, nothing to say. What would saying the right things to her, or anyone else, change? This horrible thing happened - though in all honesty he has no idea what actually happened - and there is nothing they can do about it.
He can lie and tell her that everything will be alright. He can give her platitudes and try to make her feel better.
But how is that alright?
How is that ok?
At the end of it Roman Wilde is still dead.
~
A long, very long time ago - actually, it all happened just a few years ago, but in some ways, it feels like a dozen lifetimes have passed since then - Vanessa had, for a brief moment, hated Roman.
It’s the very first thing she remembers when she sees him lying there. It was during her brief relationship with Deniz. Now that she’s older and wiser - now that they’re all older and wiser (they had all been so incredibly stupid back then) - she understands that it’s not that simple, not that black and white. The entire thing was a mess from the beginning. None of it had ever been right, certainly not her and Deniz. But back then, she didn’t know that, she was convinced that she finally found all she ever wanted. At the time she had been unable - or perhaps unwilling - to see what is so clear right now. And Roman Wilde stood between her and her ultimate happiness, and so she’d hated him.
Right now, in this moment, standing here staring at Roman’s unmoving form, that’s all she can think about it. That once, a long, long time ago, she’d hated him. And it doesn’t matter how fleeting the emotion had been. All that matters is that that it had been real; she’d felt it.
She never apologized for it; it never seemed that important. She’s quite sure that Roman didn’t like her back then either, so it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t important back then and it still isn’t, it’s just that Roman is dead and she can’t think about anything else. She’s probably in shock. Or this is the only way she can deal with this, by thinking about other things that have actually nothing to do with this situation.
How can Roman be lying there on the ice? How is it possible that he is no longer skating across it? How did this happen? What happened?
She can’t move. She should move because her best friend is standing there all alone, but her feet won’t respond to the command. She wishes that Maximilian - who’s placed a hand on her shoulder, which his way of comforting her - would tell her what to do, or that he would do something himself. But like her, he seems frozen in place. She, not Isabella, should be the one hugging Deniz - not that the other woman isn’t as broken up as the rest of them. But she doesn’t know how to be there for him. She can barely find the strength to stand and breath normally, so how can she even begin to help him? She can only stare at the scene playing out beneath them. And remind herself that she never truly hated Roman. That she had loved him and that Roman, Roman had known that.
He did. Didn’t he?
He must have, despite the fact that they never truly talked about it.
He must have.
~
Axel wants it noted, for the record, that despite how he might have acted over the years, he truly, honestly, liked Mr. Wilde.
Oh, he had never been in love with him. Too afraid of what that would mean, he never allowed his feelings to grow beyond attraction, but he liked him. Despite the passage of the years and the many, many fights. He wonders if Mr. Wilde knew that; it’s not something he ever thought to ask. It isn’t even something he needed to know, but now the younger man is dead and it’s the most important thing in the world.
He doesn’t bother asking if they’re telling the truth. Why would anyone make this up? Even if he had thought they might, the look on their faces is enough to tell him that yes, this happened. Whatever this is, all he knows is that Mr. Wilde is dead. The details of what happened still escape him. Did he perhaps fall and hit his head? Was he ill? Surely they, or at least someone, would have known if he had been? Surely someone would have been able to tell, especially considering how closely they worked together? But now that he thinks about it, didn’t he noticed some things over the past few weeks? Didn’t he think that the younger man looked pale and somewhat weaker than he usually was? It was odd that he suddenly quit a job he worked so hard for, but at the time Axel dismissed all of that. So maybe, in retrospect, an illness makes sense, but he still think someone would have at least made a comment about it.
So, how can Mr. Wilde be dead?
How is this real?
And now, suddenly, everything that could have been, everything that was still a possibility just an hour ago, is just gone. He thinks back to all the conversations they’ve had over the years, to all those words that were never spoken. Things that were never important enough to mention, but now that it’s over - now that he’ll never actually be able to say them - he wonders why he never did. He should have told him that he admires him, that he always loved watching him skate. That he truly, honestly, believed that the younger man would win the spot of skate ambassador. That briefly, very briefly, he imagined another world where they could be together. It wasn’t important five minutes ago, but now Mr. Wilde is dead, and he’ll never know any of it. He probably wouldn’t have known if he had lived, but that doesn’t matter.
He’s incapable of thinking about anything else. All he can think about are the conversations that have long since passed, all of them lost. All of those moment that they can now never, ever, ever have. Because Mr. Wilde is dead.
And all those possibilities are gone.
~
Lena’s hands are shaking.
It’s the only thing Maximilian can focus on. There are a million things he needs to do and say, but all he can think about is the fact that Lena’s hands are shaking. He needs to leave this room and call his mother -and all those other people- because nobody, nobody should hear this on the news. (And oh God, there are going to be reporters everywhere, aren’t there?) But Lena’s hands are shaking, and for some random reason, this is the only thing that matters.
“Lena, do you want me to call Ingo?”
She looks at him like she can’t understand why he’s talking to her, but then she nods.
“Yes, Maximilian, Thank you.”
He doesn’t remember the last time she thanked him. (So, it’s that kind of day, the day that Lena doesn’t even notice what she says to him.) He knows, somewhere deep inside, that he should call his mother first, but he finds himself dialling Ingo instead. Perhaps he does it because he told Lena he would, or perhaps it’s because he believes that the other man should be told immediately. (Why does he even know his number by heart?
Does he really dial it that often? Why isn’t it on speed-dial if he does?) He can’t remember what he said, but he suspects the other man doesn’t care. He could have known the perfect words to say and it still wouldn’t have made anything better. He hears the disbelief in the other man’s voice, but this happened, and they can’t change that.
The silence is sudden, and it takes him a moment to comprehend that the other man has hung up on him.
Not that that matters.
~
They’re still eating breakfast.
It’s strange really, when she thinks about it later, that they’re doing something so ordinary when the phone rings. It feels wrong that for them it was just like every other morning, nothing to indicate something horrible had happened, until she spoke to her son and learned of Roman Wilde’s death.
Richard doesn’t believe her - not that she blames him, where she in his shoes, she wouldn’t believe it either - but he also knows that she wouldn’t make this up. What kind of person would? She’s not a saint, in any way, but even she wouldn’t do such a thing. They have to go to the centre and take care of all the logistics - and isn’t that a horrible thing to think about when someone they know dies? They have to be there for Vanessa even if she has no idea how to help her. And yet, despite the fact that she knows all of this, she’s incapable of moving, and by the looks of it so is Richard. So they sit there, staring at the breakfast they were going to eat, unable to fully comprehend what has just happened.
~
No.
She did not hear that right, she must have misunderstood. Or perhaps Ingo was the one who did, he must have. Anette has to believe that, she has to. Because if she didn’t, if Ingo didn’t, then Roman, her beautiful Roman is dead. And there is no way that that is real.
Any second now Ingo will tell her that he made a mistake, even if she knows deep down that he won’t. Because who would make a mistake like that? He never would, not about something as important as this. Besides the look on his face - a mixture of loss and pain and shock and pity - tells her everything she needs to know. But she can’t accept that this is real because her best friend cannot be dead.
She can’t be here, in this apartment, while her best friend is lying dead somewhere. She has to be with him even if he can no longer be with her.
She has to see with her own eyes what happened, if she ever wants to believe this is true. And honestly? Even when she does, she’s not sure she will believe it.
~
This cannot be Ingo’s life.
It can’t be.
This is not real, there’s absolutely no way. How did this even happen? What had happened? The very first thing he thinks is that he has to call Hasse, but of course that is something he can never do again. Because one of the best friends he’s ever had, one of the best friends he’ll ever have, is dead and no longer a part of this world. His hands are shaking. This is important somehow, though he has no idea why. He can’t believe that the last conversations he will ever have with Roman, will be about something as random as borrowed scuba gear. How can the last thing he every says to him be: ‘Ok, that’s enough hugging?’ If he could just go back to that moment, he’d never let his best friend go, and maybe then he’d be able to change what happened. (He can’t, he knows that, but it’s all he can think about.)
How can this be real?
The borrowed scuba gear is lying on the couch - he noticed it this morning. Roman must have dropped it off when he was out. Roman had left him a note, he’d read it earlier, but it was nothing earth-shattering. Just a simple ‘thank you’ and ‘I’ll see you later.’ Just a simple note that could have been written at any time in their lives. It hadn’t been important when he first read it but now? Now that is the last note Roman will ever write to him and that makes it the most important piece of paper in the world. (See you later, the not reads, as if Roman had been completely sure that he would. But later, for Roman at least, would never come.)
How can that simple note be the end of their years-long-friendship?
How?
He has to stop thinking about this, he has to. Because if he doesn’t he’ll start crying and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to stop.
He can’t cry.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
~
Regardless of how it happens, death is always unexpected and harsh. Even when you know it’s coming. Even if you’ve had time to get used to the idea and to prepare for the eventuality, it is still completely unexpected. Deniz understands this now.
He might have, potentially, understood that before as well. But before, this had just been an abstract, something that would happen but didn’t seem real. He’d known Roman would die, and he’d known it would be soon, but it’s like his brain just wouldn’t accept it. It had seemed like that eventuality was so far away that he shouldn’t even think about it, even if he knew that it was coming closer every second. It’s just as horrible, just as painful as it would have been, had he not know. And now, now that it’s all over, he’s not entirely sure whether he would have preferred not to know.
Whether he knew or didn’t, whether he wanted to accept it or not. Whether he understood, in some abstract way how much it would hurt. It all means nothing now. Because Roman is dead now, and absolute strangers are wheeling him away. And everything - other people talking, thoughts, memories, all of it - is just background noise. He’s all alone now, he’ll always be alone from now on. Despite the fact that Isabelle is standing by his side and that Vanessa is suddenly there as well - when did she get here? He didn’t even see her coming. She squeezes his hand, and he can tell she is thinking of something to say, but she decides, in the end, that silence is far better. There is nothing to say, after all.
Because they’re wheeling Roman away.
And he has to let him go.
~
There is nothing strange about this morning. Nothing to indicate that something irreversible has happened so close by. He’s simply setting up the bar with Tom, like every other morning, and there is nothing to show that the world has changed. At least not until he looks up, glances at the Steinkamp centre, and sees the ambulance in front of it. But even in that moment, the enormity of what happened didn’t register with him. How could it have, after all? Why would someone you know dying be the first thing you think about when you see an ambulance?
It’s the way Deniz stands there, like a lost little boy - quite suddenly reminding Marian of that lost little boy he’d left behind when he divorced his mother. It’s strange because Deniz is a grown man and he should not look that lost, that devastated. But of course, he does. It proves to him that something horrible has actually happened, something that he cannot fix. He moves towards his boy without thinking, without considering he’s leaving his bar completely unattended. What does that even matter? What does his bar matter when his son is just standing there, lost and broken, looking at the ambulance as if it has taken the world from him.
He doesn’t ask what happened. He should, but when he finally stands in front of Deniz, the words just won’t come. Tom is the one who asks Vanessa. It doesn’t look like Deniz would have given an answer, even if he’d thought to ask.
“Roman is dead.”
There is no way I heard that right, is the first thought that jumps into Marian’s head. That can’t actually have happened. He wants to tell them to stop lying to him. But Vanessa’s voice is so filled with pain and his son looks so lot that Marian knows, even if he doesn’t want to accept it, that it is the truth. He should say something right now, something that will help his boy, something meaningful and powerful, but the words never come. All he can do is put his arms around him and pull him close, showing him without words that he is there, and that he is not going anywhere. Deniz clings to him like a scared little boy - it’s the same way he clung to him when Marian left him and his brother behind. He thinks, briefly, that even if he never manages to find the right words to say, he at least knows not to let his little boy go. Not this time.
~
Nobody thought to call him.
He’d hold it against them but Florian honestly doesn’t think they did it on purpose. (Later, much later, he’ll check his phone and he’ll realize that Lena did send him a message, but by then it will, of course, be too late.) Deniz looks lost and broken - a fact that he noticed at the time but didn’t really register until much later. Even then, he will never quite remember what exactly the look on Deniz’s face was, just a vague memory of it. It makes sense too. Because the ambulance is standing behind them, and Deniz is looking at him, and Florian didn’t pay attention to anything.
Deniz never calls him, because he’s lost and broken, and everyone else just forgot about him. He will not hold it against them. Or maybe he will, just a little, because they should have remembered him. (The only one he doesn’t blame, at all, is Deniz.) Because Roman is his big brother and he is dead. Roman, the one who promised him that he would hang on for as long as he could, that they would be spending today together. He is dead, and all of his promises mean nothing in the end. Deniz never actually tells him. Florian suspects he can’t bring himself to say it out loud. It doesn’t matter. He would have still know. It’s the look in Deniz’s eyes, because there is only one thing that will make him look that lost and broken. And
that is the fact that their Roman has finally succumbed to the brain tumour that had quite suddenly snuck up on them.
But he can’t be dead.
He can’t be.
Because he promised.
The ambulance drives past them slowly and all Florian can think is no, no, they’re wrong. This didn’t happen. This didn’t happen. Lena is there suddenly, talking to him, saying something - perhaps something important - but Florian can’t hear anything right now. He just says the first thing that comes to mind.
“I have to go see Roman…we’re going to spend the day together….”
Because Roman can’t be dead, he can’t be. Florian is not ready for that. He’d like to live in the word where his brother is still alive for just a little bit
longer.
He’s not ready.
None of them are. But then they never would have been.
~
“Everything is going to be fine.”
~
It is not until Florian is standing in front of him that Deniz realizes he should have called him.
But he’d been unable to think of anything but the fact that Roman was lying unmoving in his arms. So perhaps, in some way, he can be forgiven for not calling him. He doesn’t have any strength left - it’s like it all disappeared along with Roman - and there is nothing he can say that will help the younger man. He should do something, he knows that, because Roman is dead and he is all that Florian has now, and he’d promised.
(“You’ll take care of Florian, won’t you Deniz? You’ll make sure he’s alright, you won’t leave him alone?”
“Of course I’ll take care of him, you don’t even have to ask me that.”
“I know, but please, just promise me.”
“Okay, if it makes you feel better: I promise.)
There’s nothing he can do or say, because no matter what Roman will still be dead. He can - maybe he even should - hug Florian, that’s what Roman would do, but Deniz can’t make himself move. He’s still so cold, so numb, so lost. He can’t believe it happened, can’t believe this is their world now. So he says nothing, not even what happened, but Florian isn’t an idiot: he knows. The ambulance is moving now, and he doesn’t even think about it, he just follows it. He can’t let Roman go, not yet, even if of course the option of holding on to him is already gone. Besides he can’t follow the ambulance forever. Soon - far too soon - it will be gone, just like Roman is.
~
“Everything is going to be fine.”
(Except, it won’t be, not really. It can’t ever be fine again, Deniz knows that but he needs to say it, needs to make Roman believe it because there is nothing else left to say.)
“Everything is going to be fine.”