A not so-happy New Year ficcie --- attack of angst holiday muses
Title: Living For Him
Author: Sel selene_vidae
Pairing: Eric Bana/Orlando Bloom
Summary: One year's gone, and here's another one. When you're all alone, who do you kiss at the stroke of midnight?
Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, do you think I'd only be writing about them?
Warnings: *hangs head* Implied character death. More angst during the holiday season.
A/N: I'm still a mean person. But you all love me anyway. *sticks tongue out* This comes after Coming and Dying, Leaving and Living, and Christmas Silences. I did contine this story arc, which I'm officially going to call Vidae et Mors, which means Life and Death. Big table here. Words total to 2,820. Written for New Years (95) prompt.
London was covered in several inches of snow. Everything was white, still sparkling though from the Christmas decorations still left up, string after string of coloured lights. And there - the dark sky lit up by a multitude of fireworks. Swirls of green and showers of violet. Shooting stars that exploded with a bang and rainbow flowers that bloomed against a backdrop of black.
It was beautiful. It was magical.
It was New Year’s Eve.
And he was all alone.
There would be no one to kiss at the stroke of midnight. No one to hold him close as a Happy New Year was whispered into his ear. No one to dance with, music or no music. No one to fall asleep next to or wake up with at the start of a whole new year.
There were no more new years for him. He just wanted this last year back. He wanted everything back.
Stopping the unbidden sob from coming out, he clamped his hands over his mouth and closed his eyes, favoring the darkness beneath his eyelids for the bright, bright sight in front of him.
“Are you all right?”
Breathing in sharply, nodding quickly and just trying to get back the much-needed balance.
“Are you sure? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“All right then. But we’re here.”
Orlando took another deep breath, looking out the frosted window of the cab. The house that loomed outside was large, all the lights on with music he could hear from where he was.
“Are you going to get out or do you want me to drive away?”
Startled, he looked back at the cabbie. “What?”
“You don’t look very happy to be here. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to force yourself.”
He smiled at the cabbie - slightly surprised at how nice the man was when drivers were notorious for not being so nice - and shook his head slowly. “No, I’ll be all right. My mates are waiting for me, and I promised I would come.”
“All right then.” The cabbie actually got out of the car and opened it for him, Orlando sliding out with a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” he whispered, handing the man a fifty-pound note. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you! And Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” he replied, before pulling his coat tighter around him and walking up the path that led to the front door, snow piled neatly at either side of it - someone had been busy shoveling. That thought brought another smile to his lips and he soon found himself at the door, hand curled in a fist, poised to knock but finding himself unable to do so.
He bit his lip and breathed in deeply again, the scent of snow and of pine trees in the neighborhood filling his nostrils.
He could do this. He could.
But before he could knock, the door swung open, light and music spilling out and strong arms around him - arms he had come to depend on and be familiar with all too well.
“Thought you weren’t coming, lad,” a gruff voice whispered in his ear.
“I almost didn’t,” he whispered back, holding tight and burrowing his head in the warmth he found.
“Hey! Hey! No molesting the Prissy Elf! Don’t we get hugsies, too?”
Orlando moved away from Sean with a laugh, opening his arms to hug Elijah, then Sblomie and Bills, noticing how tight they held him before letting go.
He laughed a bit more. “You don’t have to hug me so tight, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
They all exchanged looks and he resisted the urge to sigh. They were worried for him - they had every right to be - but he hated those looks. He really did.
“Orli!”
Smiling, he enveloped Kate into a tight embrace, “Hey, Kate. Missed you.”
“Missed you, too, Orli.”
“Sorry about Christmas Eve.”
She pulled away, smile genuine and the wetness in her eyes not from any allergy she might have had. “It’s all right, Orli. We understood. You needed some time alone. We’re just glad you’re here.”
And he wanted to say that he was glad to be there, too - because his friends were the reason he was still sane, still there, still living, and he owed them so much and a bag of chips. He wanted to say he was glad to be there with them, but he didn’t say it.
Because no matter how much he loved them, and no matter how much he owed them ---
There would always be something, someone, missing and things would never be the same.
“Let me get your coat, lad. In fact, I’ll bring you upstairs and you can put it there.”
And Sean was tugging him away, gentle hand on his elbow as he was guided through the crowd, everyone a drink or two shy from tipsy. Most of his friends were there. Viggo inviting him to the ranch. Johnny clasping his shoulder. Kirsten hugging him hard. Ian placing a kiss on his forehead. He smiled at them all, hugged briefly, promised to talk longer, more, later.
But he could finally breathe easier when they were in a bedroom by themselves, somewhere upstairs, away from the people and the noise and the bright lights. No longer surrounded by people and no longer feeling like he couldn’t breathe.
They all meant him well and he appreciated every heartfelt hug and affectionate kiss, every whispered word and hand in his. He appreciated everything but apparently, he wasn’t as ready as he thought he would be.
“You all right?” Sean asked quietly, helping him out of his coat and holding it in his arms.
He nodded and smiled wryly. “I was trying to be normal. It didn’t go as well as I planned.”
Sean sighed and sat down next to him on the bed. “You don’t have to be normal.”
“I want to be.”
“Sometimes, we don’t get what we want.”
The pain slicing through Orlando’s chest was real and sharp and just as wounding as it was months ago. “Yeah, sometimes we don’t.”
“Fuck it. I just sodding messed that up.”
“No, Sean. It’s all right. It is.”
“Orlando…”
He reached out and took Sean’s larger hand in his, intertwining their fingers together. “Fine. So everything’s not all right. But I think I’ll get there. Eventually. And I’m hoping sooner than later because all the crying is starting to drive me mad.”
Sean laughed and tugged him closer, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing a kiss to his curls. “You’ve always been mad.”
“Not this kind of mad. This is the kind of madness that comes from grief.”
“You’re going to be all right, remember?”
“Yeah. I really do hope so because I hate waking up thinking that he’s going to be there beside me. But I hate waking up knowing that’s he’s not there beside me even more.”
“I thought you were strong.”
“Not as strong as Eric. He kept me going. He kept me wanting to push a little bit farther, give a little bit more, just…”
“He was your everything. I get it, Orlando. You’ve told me millions of times and I saw it all the time - I still see it all the time.”
Orlando looked at Sean in slight confusion, unable to figure out his friend’s tone of voice. It was something he never heard before - or maybe he did, but he missed it somehow. “Sean?”
“I loved Eric, Orli. We all did and we know you’re hurting. We all are. But I look at you and it’s like you’re trying so hard while wishing all the time you weren’t.”
He swallowed hard, Sean describing perfectly how he felt every day.
He made an effort to wake up, to get out of bed, to brush his teeth. To eat three meals a day and take a bath. To answer the phone when it rang or open the door when someone was there to see him. To crawl into a horribly-empty bed and go to sleep, crying once in a while, hugging Eric’s pillow close to him always.
Everything he did, he had to do and he remembered it every single time he did those things.
He breathed because he had to, lived because he had to, existed because he had to.
Never because he wanted to.
He never really lost the will to live - just the reason.
“Sean, please…”
“No. You have to hear this. You do.” Sean reached out and cradled Orlando’s face in his hands, “I love you, Orli. I love you so much it hurts to see you like this. You were so beautiful - and you still are. You just have to remember that. You have to find that man that Eric fell in love with and be him again.”
“I can’t. Don’t you understand, Sean?” Orlando cried, grasping Sean’s hands in his. “I can’t! But it’s all right, because I know that I’m going to be all right. Somehow --- I’m going to be all right.”
“You can’t say that to me. You’re --- ”
Cutting Sean off, “All right. That’s as far as it’s going to get but I’m fine with that. I’m happy with that.”
“Bollocks. You’re not happy. You don’t even know how to be happy anymore. You pretend to be and you’re so fucking good at it that you fool yourself into thinking you’re happy but you’re not. You’re not.”
That sounded like such a conspiracy theory, convoluted and twisting but too real and too true that it frightened him and made him want to lash out. “How the hell would you know that then if I’m so good at it?”
“Because I’ve seen you when you’re happy. I’ve seen you when you’re really happy. I’ve seen your eyes light up and people can see them bloody twinkling or shining or whatever! I’ve seen that smile of yours that completely blows away. That amazing smile that just has us staring and thinking that we’re the luckiest bastards on earth to have that smile trained on us.”
“Sean. Don’t do this…”
“Don’t do what? Tell you how much of an idiot you’ve been? Tell you that there are people who love you that they would die for you? Tell you that you’ve driven us mad with worry because we can see that we’re losing you day by day and there’s nothing we can do? Don’t do what? Tell you that Eric loved you more than his entire life and he would have hated to see you this way?”
The sound of a slap filled the room.
Orlando covered his mouth with his hands, utterly horrified. A red palm print was forming on Sean’s face.
“I guess I deserved that, huh?”
“Oh, Sean. I’m so sorry.”
Sean just pulled away, hands dropped on his lap. “No. I’m sorry. I thought I’d be able to make you see what I was seeing. I see this beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed person I’d lost my heart to the moment I saw.” Shrugging his shoulders, “But I guess that’s not going to happen.”
He shook his head dumbly. “No, no. Don’t say that, Sean. Please, don’t.”
“Don’t say what? That you’re beautiful? Intelligent? Strong-willed?” A pause. “Or don’t tell you that I love you?”
“Don’t say any of it. None of it’s true.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it can’t be true.”
Orlando could read the brief flash of hurt in Sean’s eyes and he reached out, trying to make it better, but his hand was batted away. “Yeah. It can’t be.”
Sean got up quickly, making as if to leave, but he realized that he was still holding Orlando’s coat. He turned to give it back but stopped, holding the coat to his face, inhaling deeply.
“This is Eric’s jacket, isn’t it?”
He nodded, whispering, “It smells like him.”
“It does.” Sean looked at Orlando for a long time before finally saying quietly, “You’re never going to stop loving him.”
“I know.”
“I know that, too. I’m not telling you to forget him. I’m not telling you to give him up. What I am telling you is to live. Orli babe, just fucking live.”
And then Sean was on his knees in front of him, hands gripping his knees. “Just fucking live.”
“I don’t know how to anymore,” he whispered.
“I’ll show you. Eric was one of my best mates and he loved you so fucking much and I don’t have to keep saying it but he did. He would have wanted you to live. Live like tomorrow was just tomorrow and yesterday was a day behind. Live every day knowing that somebody loved you and you loved him and it was the forever kind of love that lives on no matter what. Orli babe, live. If not for you or for me or for anyone else - live for him.”
Orlando was crying now, again, tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping down his chin, salty on his lips, on his tongue. “For Eric.”
“Yeah, Orli babe. For Eric. For Eric. For Eric. For Eric. If you have to say it every single moment of every single day for the rest of your life, say it. But show me that you honestly, honestly want to live the rest of it. You deserve better. He deserves better.”
He threw himself in Sean’s arms, crying harder now, sobbing and getting tears and snot and who knows what else on his friend’s shirt but Sean didn’t seem to care. Sean just held him tighter.
“I’m scared, Sean.”
“It’s all right to be scared. I’m going to be right here.”
“That’s what he said, too.”
Sean’s hold on him grew tighter for a minute. “Do you blame him for not being here then?”
“No. Yes.” The tears fell harder. “God, yes! I’m so fucking angry at him for not keeping his promise. For not being here for me when I need him. For not coming home when he said he would. I’m so angry that he loved me but left. I’m just so angry at him and I’m so angry at me for being angry at him, because I know it’s not his fault. I know he would have come back if he could have. I know he would have made it better if there was any way. But there’s none, there’s not and that makes me so angry that I can’t think. It makes me so angry, but I’m too tired to be angry. All I can do is cry and even then I’m angry because I’m afraid one day I’m going to stop crying when I think about him or when something reminds me of him or when someone mentions his name, and that would have meant I don’t love him anymore.”
He was rocked gently, back and forth, that soothing motion something Sean did frequently for him nowadays.
“Orli babe, I don’t know how to respond to any of that, and I won’t pretend I do. All I can say is that you’re angry because you love him. You cry because you love him. And when you stop crying? You’ll still love him. That’s the truth of it. The whole truth of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Sometimes, we don’t know but we believe.” Sean pulled away to look at his face, tear-stained with his eyes puffy and his nose red. “Sometimes, it’s hope and faith that keeps us going. Someone once told me that it’s the only thing we can hold on to. Was that someone wrong?”
Hearing his own words, Orlando felt a watery smile creep onto his lips. “I think your friend was full of shite.”
“No. He was right.”
“Does he know that he’s right?”
“I think he does, but he’s afraid to see that.”
“Why is he afraid?”
“Because people can’t help but be afraid when it comes something that could hurt them. We don’t like to get hurt.”
“What’s going to happen then?”
Sean reached out and brushed the tears away with his fingertips. “I’m going to be there for him.”
They could hear people shouting from downstairs, muffled but still audible, counting down the last seconds before another year. Orlando didn’t even realize that they had been gone so long.
“10…9…”
“How long are you going to be there for him?”
“8…7…6...”
“As long as he needs me.”
“5…4…”
Sean leaned in and Orlando’s heart beat just a little bit faster. “Sean…”
“3…2…”
“And even when he doesn’t anymore.”
“1!”
Their lips met.
“Happy New Year!”
*
Happy New Year, baby.
Happy New Year.
“I’m looking forward to spending an entire year with you.”
“So am I.”
“I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
“You better believe it.”
“You’re certainly cocky.”
“No, I just happen to have first-hand knowledge, because that’s how lucky I am.”
Author: Sel selene_vidae
Pairing: Eric Bana/Orlando Bloom
Summary: One year's gone, and here's another one. When you're all alone, who do you kiss at the stroke of midnight?
Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, do you think I'd only be writing about them?
Warnings: *hangs head* Implied character death. More angst during the holiday season.
A/N: I'm still a mean person. But you all love me anyway. *sticks tongue out* This comes after Coming and Dying, Leaving and Living, and Christmas Silences. I did contine this story arc, which I'm officially going to call Vidae et Mors, which means Life and Death. Big table here. Words total to 2,820. Written for New Years (95) prompt.
London was covered in several inches of snow. Everything was white, still sparkling though from the Christmas decorations still left up, string after string of coloured lights. And there - the dark sky lit up by a multitude of fireworks. Swirls of green and showers of violet. Shooting stars that exploded with a bang and rainbow flowers that bloomed against a backdrop of black.
It was beautiful. It was magical.
It was New Year’s Eve.
And he was all alone.
There would be no one to kiss at the stroke of midnight. No one to hold him close as a Happy New Year was whispered into his ear. No one to dance with, music or no music. No one to fall asleep next to or wake up with at the start of a whole new year.
There were no more new years for him. He just wanted this last year back. He wanted everything back.
Stopping the unbidden sob from coming out, he clamped his hands over his mouth and closed his eyes, favoring the darkness beneath his eyelids for the bright, bright sight in front of him.
“Are you all right?”
Breathing in sharply, nodding quickly and just trying to get back the much-needed balance.
“Are you sure? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“All right then. But we’re here.”
Orlando took another deep breath, looking out the frosted window of the cab. The house that loomed outside was large, all the lights on with music he could hear from where he was.
“Are you going to get out or do you want me to drive away?”
Startled, he looked back at the cabbie. “What?”
“You don’t look very happy to be here. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to force yourself.”
He smiled at the cabbie - slightly surprised at how nice the man was when drivers were notorious for not being so nice - and shook his head slowly. “No, I’ll be all right. My mates are waiting for me, and I promised I would come.”
“All right then.” The cabbie actually got out of the car and opened it for him, Orlando sliding out with a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” he whispered, handing the man a fifty-pound note. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you! And Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” he replied, before pulling his coat tighter around him and walking up the path that led to the front door, snow piled neatly at either side of it - someone had been busy shoveling. That thought brought another smile to his lips and he soon found himself at the door, hand curled in a fist, poised to knock but finding himself unable to do so.
He bit his lip and breathed in deeply again, the scent of snow and of pine trees in the neighborhood filling his nostrils.
He could do this. He could.
But before he could knock, the door swung open, light and music spilling out and strong arms around him - arms he had come to depend on and be familiar with all too well.
“Thought you weren’t coming, lad,” a gruff voice whispered in his ear.
“I almost didn’t,” he whispered back, holding tight and burrowing his head in the warmth he found.
“Hey! Hey! No molesting the Prissy Elf! Don’t we get hugsies, too?”
Orlando moved away from Sean with a laugh, opening his arms to hug Elijah, then Sblomie and Bills, noticing how tight they held him before letting go.
He laughed a bit more. “You don’t have to hug me so tight, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
They all exchanged looks and he resisted the urge to sigh. They were worried for him - they had every right to be - but he hated those looks. He really did.
“Orli!”
Smiling, he enveloped Kate into a tight embrace, “Hey, Kate. Missed you.”
“Missed you, too, Orli.”
“Sorry about Christmas Eve.”
She pulled away, smile genuine and the wetness in her eyes not from any allergy she might have had. “It’s all right, Orli. We understood. You needed some time alone. We’re just glad you’re here.”
And he wanted to say that he was glad to be there, too - because his friends were the reason he was still sane, still there, still living, and he owed them so much and a bag of chips. He wanted to say he was glad to be there with them, but he didn’t say it.
Because no matter how much he loved them, and no matter how much he owed them ---
There would always be something, someone, missing and things would never be the same.
“Let me get your coat, lad. In fact, I’ll bring you upstairs and you can put it there.”
And Sean was tugging him away, gentle hand on his elbow as he was guided through the crowd, everyone a drink or two shy from tipsy. Most of his friends were there. Viggo inviting him to the ranch. Johnny clasping his shoulder. Kirsten hugging him hard. Ian placing a kiss on his forehead. He smiled at them all, hugged briefly, promised to talk longer, more, later.
But he could finally breathe easier when they were in a bedroom by themselves, somewhere upstairs, away from the people and the noise and the bright lights. No longer surrounded by people and no longer feeling like he couldn’t breathe.
They all meant him well and he appreciated every heartfelt hug and affectionate kiss, every whispered word and hand in his. He appreciated everything but apparently, he wasn’t as ready as he thought he would be.
“You all right?” Sean asked quietly, helping him out of his coat and holding it in his arms.
He nodded and smiled wryly. “I was trying to be normal. It didn’t go as well as I planned.”
Sean sighed and sat down next to him on the bed. “You don’t have to be normal.”
“I want to be.”
“Sometimes, we don’t get what we want.”
The pain slicing through Orlando’s chest was real and sharp and just as wounding as it was months ago. “Yeah, sometimes we don’t.”
“Fuck it. I just sodding messed that up.”
“No, Sean. It’s all right. It is.”
“Orlando…”
He reached out and took Sean’s larger hand in his, intertwining their fingers together. “Fine. So everything’s not all right. But I think I’ll get there. Eventually. And I’m hoping sooner than later because all the crying is starting to drive me mad.”
Sean laughed and tugged him closer, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing a kiss to his curls. “You’ve always been mad.”
“Not this kind of mad. This is the kind of madness that comes from grief.”
“You’re going to be all right, remember?”
“Yeah. I really do hope so because I hate waking up thinking that he’s going to be there beside me. But I hate waking up knowing that’s he’s not there beside me even more.”
“I thought you were strong.”
“Not as strong as Eric. He kept me going. He kept me wanting to push a little bit farther, give a little bit more, just…”
“He was your everything. I get it, Orlando. You’ve told me millions of times and I saw it all the time - I still see it all the time.”
Orlando looked at Sean in slight confusion, unable to figure out his friend’s tone of voice. It was something he never heard before - or maybe he did, but he missed it somehow. “Sean?”
“I loved Eric, Orli. We all did and we know you’re hurting. We all are. But I look at you and it’s like you’re trying so hard while wishing all the time you weren’t.”
He swallowed hard, Sean describing perfectly how he felt every day.
He made an effort to wake up, to get out of bed, to brush his teeth. To eat three meals a day and take a bath. To answer the phone when it rang or open the door when someone was there to see him. To crawl into a horribly-empty bed and go to sleep, crying once in a while, hugging Eric’s pillow close to him always.
Everything he did, he had to do and he remembered it every single time he did those things.
He breathed because he had to, lived because he had to, existed because he had to.
Never because he wanted to.
He never really lost the will to live - just the reason.
“Sean, please…”
“No. You have to hear this. You do.” Sean reached out and cradled Orlando’s face in his hands, “I love you, Orli. I love you so much it hurts to see you like this. You were so beautiful - and you still are. You just have to remember that. You have to find that man that Eric fell in love with and be him again.”
“I can’t. Don’t you understand, Sean?” Orlando cried, grasping Sean’s hands in his. “I can’t! But it’s all right, because I know that I’m going to be all right. Somehow --- I’m going to be all right.”
“You can’t say that to me. You’re --- ”
Cutting Sean off, “All right. That’s as far as it’s going to get but I’m fine with that. I’m happy with that.”
“Bollocks. You’re not happy. You don’t even know how to be happy anymore. You pretend to be and you’re so fucking good at it that you fool yourself into thinking you’re happy but you’re not. You’re not.”
That sounded like such a conspiracy theory, convoluted and twisting but too real and too true that it frightened him and made him want to lash out. “How the hell would you know that then if I’m so good at it?”
“Because I’ve seen you when you’re happy. I’ve seen you when you’re really happy. I’ve seen your eyes light up and people can see them bloody twinkling or shining or whatever! I’ve seen that smile of yours that completely blows away. That amazing smile that just has us staring and thinking that we’re the luckiest bastards on earth to have that smile trained on us.”
“Sean. Don’t do this…”
“Don’t do what? Tell you how much of an idiot you’ve been? Tell you that there are people who love you that they would die for you? Tell you that you’ve driven us mad with worry because we can see that we’re losing you day by day and there’s nothing we can do? Don’t do what? Tell you that Eric loved you more than his entire life and he would have hated to see you this way?”
The sound of a slap filled the room.
Orlando covered his mouth with his hands, utterly horrified. A red palm print was forming on Sean’s face.
“I guess I deserved that, huh?”
“Oh, Sean. I’m so sorry.”
Sean just pulled away, hands dropped on his lap. “No. I’m sorry. I thought I’d be able to make you see what I was seeing. I see this beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed person I’d lost my heart to the moment I saw.” Shrugging his shoulders, “But I guess that’s not going to happen.”
He shook his head dumbly. “No, no. Don’t say that, Sean. Please, don’t.”
“Don’t say what? That you’re beautiful? Intelligent? Strong-willed?” A pause. “Or don’t tell you that I love you?”
“Don’t say any of it. None of it’s true.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because it can’t be true.”
Orlando could read the brief flash of hurt in Sean’s eyes and he reached out, trying to make it better, but his hand was batted away. “Yeah. It can’t be.”
Sean got up quickly, making as if to leave, but he realized that he was still holding Orlando’s coat. He turned to give it back but stopped, holding the coat to his face, inhaling deeply.
“This is Eric’s jacket, isn’t it?”
He nodded, whispering, “It smells like him.”
“It does.” Sean looked at Orlando for a long time before finally saying quietly, “You’re never going to stop loving him.”
“I know.”
“I know that, too. I’m not telling you to forget him. I’m not telling you to give him up. What I am telling you is to live. Orli babe, just fucking live.”
And then Sean was on his knees in front of him, hands gripping his knees. “Just fucking live.”
“I don’t know how to anymore,” he whispered.
“I’ll show you. Eric was one of my best mates and he loved you so fucking much and I don’t have to keep saying it but he did. He would have wanted you to live. Live like tomorrow was just tomorrow and yesterday was a day behind. Live every day knowing that somebody loved you and you loved him and it was the forever kind of love that lives on no matter what. Orli babe, live. If not for you or for me or for anyone else - live for him.”
Orlando was crying now, again, tears sliding down his cheeks and dripping down his chin, salty on his lips, on his tongue. “For Eric.”
“Yeah, Orli babe. For Eric. For Eric. For Eric. For Eric. If you have to say it every single moment of every single day for the rest of your life, say it. But show me that you honestly, honestly want to live the rest of it. You deserve better. He deserves better.”
He threw himself in Sean’s arms, crying harder now, sobbing and getting tears and snot and who knows what else on his friend’s shirt but Sean didn’t seem to care. Sean just held him tighter.
“I’m scared, Sean.”
“It’s all right to be scared. I’m going to be right here.”
“That’s what he said, too.”
Sean’s hold on him grew tighter for a minute. “Do you blame him for not being here then?”
“No. Yes.” The tears fell harder. “God, yes! I’m so fucking angry at him for not keeping his promise. For not being here for me when I need him. For not coming home when he said he would. I’m so angry that he loved me but left. I’m just so angry at him and I’m so angry at me for being angry at him, because I know it’s not his fault. I know he would have come back if he could have. I know he would have made it better if there was any way. But there’s none, there’s not and that makes me so angry that I can’t think. It makes me so angry, but I’m too tired to be angry. All I can do is cry and even then I’m angry because I’m afraid one day I’m going to stop crying when I think about him or when something reminds me of him or when someone mentions his name, and that would have meant I don’t love him anymore.”
He was rocked gently, back and forth, that soothing motion something Sean did frequently for him nowadays.
“Orli babe, I don’t know how to respond to any of that, and I won’t pretend I do. All I can say is that you’re angry because you love him. You cry because you love him. And when you stop crying? You’ll still love him. That’s the truth of it. The whole truth of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Sometimes, we don’t know but we believe.” Sean pulled away to look at his face, tear-stained with his eyes puffy and his nose red. “Sometimes, it’s hope and faith that keeps us going. Someone once told me that it’s the only thing we can hold on to. Was that someone wrong?”
Hearing his own words, Orlando felt a watery smile creep onto his lips. “I think your friend was full of shite.”
“No. He was right.”
“Does he know that he’s right?”
“I think he does, but he’s afraid to see that.”
“Why is he afraid?”
“Because people can’t help but be afraid when it comes something that could hurt them. We don’t like to get hurt.”
“What’s going to happen then?”
Sean reached out and brushed the tears away with his fingertips. “I’m going to be there for him.”
They could hear people shouting from downstairs, muffled but still audible, counting down the last seconds before another year. Orlando didn’t even realize that they had been gone so long.
“10…9…”
“How long are you going to be there for him?”
“8…7…6...”
“As long as he needs me.”
“5…4…”
Sean leaned in and Orlando’s heart beat just a little bit faster. “Sean…”
“3…2…”
“And even when he doesn’t anymore.”
“1!”
Their lips met.
“Happy New Year!”
*
Happy New Year, baby.
Happy New Year.
“I’m looking forward to spending an entire year with you.”
“So am I.”
“I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
“You better believe it.”
“You’re certainly cocky.”
“No, I just happen to have first-hand knowledge, because that’s how lucky I am.”