He gathers up his book, heavy with words, laden with dreams, none of them real but he can pretend, they’re in his arms like lead, but he drags them along, anyway. There’s a diner down the block; he’d lock his door if he thought it would make any difference, but it won’t, so he doesn’t. His book of words goes into a tattered satchel to hold his thoughts together and the strap settles along with the world upon his shoulder.

                There’s the door.

                Open it.

Skies shouldn’t be that gray, he thinks, but the pencil is smudged between the words and it matches the sky and he thinks it fits. Oh well. One coffee, please.

                The table in the corner is dimly lit, there are scratches and stains, stories upon stories, but he covers them with his words and his world, sets the bag on top and drags a pen from the bottom. Pen this time, so it won’t smudge, it just makes it more permanent.

                There’s a blank page in front of him, words in his head but they won’t come out through the pen, so he considers the pencil again.

                He left it at home.

                He scratches at his cheek, in another day he won’t be able to define it as ‘stubble’, it will be far too long, but he hasn’t got the energy to be bothered by it. It won’t change anything. Feet scuff linoleum and chairs screech in protest at being dragged around, but his pen won’t move, his hand forgot how. He imagines the clouds are white, few but large, with the sun streaking through and lighting the ground in imperfect circles, dimming a room at intervals, but they remain stubbornly cinereous. He wants to see the horizon, to believe he can see beyond it, but the buildings get in the way and he can’t even see over the head of the person in front of him in the queue at the coffee kiosk outside the museum, not even when he stands on his tippy toes, he’s tried.

                There’s a boy in his chair, his hair is dark and dirty, nose a little red from crying, but his smile is bright when he sees you through the door. He bites his lip, tugs at the hem of his dirty white shirt and swings his little legs under the table, he’s so happy, even though it hurts. You open the door, don’t even look at him and he’s shy, he won’t talk to you, he’s happy to watch from afar, but he knows it won’t be enough soon. Little eyes follow you up to the counter, watch graceful, frost-bitten fingers point out a biscotti and hand over a few green bills, take the warm cup and little paper bag and wave goodbye. You open the door and the little boy is gone.

                Maybe he’ll come back.

                Do you even know his name anymore?

                There’s the horizon.

                Run to it.

He takes the road home. Wanders the streets until he finds a familiar place and then backs up to try again. The lights came on hours ago, the streets are orange now, and splotchy with nighttime, it doesn’t feel safe, but he never feels safe anymore, so it’s nothing more than what he’s used to.

                His words beat against his hip, swing from the world, heavy on his shoulder.

It’s three days later when you see him again, and the little boy is back, hopping between feet, smile so big it hurts his little wind-chapped cheeks but he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop; he’s too happy. You’re walking across the square, all long lines and angles, and he stands on the red steps, watches you stop at the bottom and look at your phone. He wonders who you’re waiting for. Little hands stuff themselves into little pockets.

                What kind of life have you had?

                It’s cold, it really is freezing; he worries that you’ll get sick even though you’re wearing more layers than he can probably see, but still. You’ve taken off your gloves to punch at your phone and even with the distance he can see your fingers turning red.

                Please put them back on.

                You do when someone walks up to you, hauls you into a hug and kisses you on the mouth. The little boy squirms, he doesn’t like seeing him do that to you, but what can he do? Instead, he watches you grin, and he thinks maybe it isn’t so bad, you’re happy, right? That’s all he ever wanted, but you don’t remember.

                What kind of life have you had without me?

                You walk away, his hand around your back and your head on his shoulder, and the little boy slumps in defeat and trudges off, getting a little older with each step until he’s gone again and the words are heavy again and the pen still doesn’t work.

The apartment barely fits him.

                Him, and his words, they take up too much room, there’s hardly a place to stand, so he rolls up his bed in the mornings, pushes the blankets under a cabinet to make space. He doesn’t have anywhere to sit, either, but that’s okay, because the window is large and sometimes the words make a big enough chair for a while before they topple him over.

                He hasn’t had a job in years, not a real one, anyway. Sometimes he can sell his words, people in suits who think they’re quaint, think they sound pretty, this will look nice on my bookshelf, but they don’t know what they say, not really. He can’t complain. They pay for food.

                There’s one last razor in the pack, flimsy plastic stuck behind a few rolls of the cheapest bathroom paper he could find, and it’s still too expensive for something that only exists to be thrown away. He doesn’t have gel, he uses the dried up little bar from the ledge above the bathtub, soaps up his cheeks as best he can, but it doesn’t matter. The light in the tiny room is so dismal, even if he had proper supplies he’d walk out with more than a few cuts, so it doesn’t matter.

                He wishes it did.

                He pats his face dry, stops the bleeding from the two nicks just under his chin and tosses some shirts in the tub to wash. With his face smooth he fancies he looks younger, but he can’t shave away the lines in his skin, the dullness in his eyes, his hair could use a trim, it’s the one thing he’s got too much of. The shirts get treated with the same dried-up little bar of soap, and they’ll dry stiff and itchy, but it’s what he has and if he doesn’t make it work, nothing will. They drape over the shower rod to hang for the night.

                The picture beyond his window changes colors.

                He waits for something else to change.

                Nothing ever does.

                The guitar in the corner he’s had since high school, a sudden shock of a reminder each time he looks at it that this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, he was supposed to be anywhere else, but it did, and he’s here. He takes immaculate care of it, keeps it safe in its locked case, if he has to sell it one day, he needs to be able to get as much for it as he can. He can’t get new strings as often as he’d really like, so he changes his tone as the guitar changes its tone and they make it work.

                He grabs the handle, shoulders his way out the door.

There’s a long walk dotted with benches around a park, busy this time of the evening, people keep bumping into him and no one apologizes, but he wouldn’t, either, so he just keeps walking, finds a spot between two benches and settles at the edge of the grass.

                He plays until his fingers are numb, then plays some more, because there are only twenty-eight dollars in his case and rent is next week. Every twenty minutes or so there’s a new gathering of people in front of him, half-blocking the walk but it makes more strangers stop to listen until they eventually wander off and new ones comes to fill in. He’s always been a performer, always a singer, it’s less fun now that he depends on it, but he loves it still.

                He tries not to look at their faces, stares instead at his fingers.

                No-one new has come by in nearly ten minutes, he can’t feel his left foot, and he’s considering packing up his forty-seven dollars and heading out when a pair of white boots stop next to his case and several bills float down into it. He expects them to move on, he really hates talking to people, never been good at compliments or criticism, but they stay right there, shuffle a bit in the cold, but don’t walk away.

                He looks up.

                The guitar is suddenly much too large, little fingers scrabble at the strings, desperate to find a place to settle, and dirty dark hair ruffles in the breeze. You watch the little boy with the impossibly bright smile, his too-big, dirty white t-shirt, those bright big eyes that cried so easily and earnestly and Why don’t you remember me?

                You’re alone this time, there is no arm around your waist and that makes him smile bigger, smile harder, look, there’s all his teeth. You shiver at the cold, but you don’t offer the little boy in just his too-big t-shirt your jacket, maybe you don’t see him, he’s sitting right there.

                “I’ve listened to you play here every week since last year,” you tell him softly, it almost gets blown away, but little ears hear more than people think.

                He nods, doesn’t understand, it was never about him, never, it was always you.

                “I saw you at the diner the other night. I wanted to talk to you, you were alone, but I chickened out.”

                He nods again, he remembers long fingers, pale skin, a biscotti, a coffee.

                You want to keep talking, there’s a person in front of you that you’ve known for a year but you’ve never talked to him, and now you don’t know how, you only know who you expect him to be, who he is in your imagination. You crouch down in front of him, the end of your scarf nearly touches the dirty ground but you pay it no mind. It’s even darker out now, the wind is even colder, and the people even scarcer. You’re so much closer now that he doesn’t have to look up at you, but you’re also scarier now, he doesn’t remember being scared, but he is.

                “Will you get coffee with me?”

                He wants to nod, he’s shivering so badly now, he’s not dressed for this, he’s just a little kid, and you should be one, too! You should be the same as him, dirty and frozen and sitting on a piece of concrete that’s iced through, living in a shoebox with a bathroom rationing toiletries and food because you don’t know when you’re going to be able to get more.

                But you’re not, and he doesn’t want you to be.

                He nods.

                There’s the door.

The diner is empty, it’s nearing midnight but the place stays open until three, there’s plenty of time. He’s still that little boy, trying to hide his grin when you buy two coffees and two cupcakes and sit opposite him at the table in the corner like you’re meant to be there, like you never left. It’s quiet to start, the coffee warms him through and he doesn’t want to grow up again.

                “Can I ask your name?”

                Your voice startles him, he wasn’t expecting it, and when he shakes his head you only get more curious. You should be scared, you haven’t a clue who he is, but right now you know you’re never going to stop being curious, there’s no point fighting it. He runs a hand through messy curls, messes them up more, almost on purpose, but it’s endearing and makes you smile.

                “Do you want to know my name?”

                He already knows your name. He’s known your name longer than you have; he was just a kid and you were just a baby, a lump of a thing that cried every night except when he was there to rock you back to sleep. A few years later you shared a room with him, had your name stenciled above your bed until the day you left and he stayed there. He kept the stencils, lined them up when he got lonely and pretended you were there with him, but you never were, no matter how hard he squeezed his eyes shut.

                He nods.

                “It’s Kurt. My name is Kurt.”

                He nods again, and you scrunch your nose the same way you did before you knew your name, the same way you did when one of the older boys took your blanket, the only thing you had that was your own, and ran it through a mud puddle. You cried that time. He knows that your eyes turn green when you cry.

                “Did you… do I know you?”

                He has to think about it, he really isn’t sure. Do you? It doesn’t sound like you do. Do you know that he cried every day for nearly two years when you left and they took the letters off your bed? And that, when another little boy tried to sleep in your bed, he pushed them out until they let him sleep there instead, with your pillow, and your letters under the mattress?

                He shrugs, looks at his coffee, swirls it around.

                It’s late, and you need to go home.

                The little boy grows up again, watches you walk down the street, disappearing between street lamps only to be illuminated by the next one until they run out and you’re gone.

                It hurts going down, but he eats the cupcake anyway.

Sure, it’s good to feel things, and if it hurts, we’re doing it to ourselves, or so the saying goes, but there should be a different music here. There should be just one safe place in the world, I mean this world. People get hurt here. People fall down and stay down and I don’t like the way the song goes.

It’s four months later and he doesn’t even have his shoebox anymore.

                At least it’s warmer, he can play for longer, and he can sleep behind the church where the wind never seems able to reach. He could have sold his guitar; he really should have when the words stopped, but he couldn’t bring himself to, part of him thinks it might bring you back. He’s picked a different spot, but it’s the same him, the same muddy jeans and wrinkled shirt underneath a hoodie with more holes than fabric, perhaps, but it keeps out a bit of the lingering chill. The park is a lot greener now, there are more children and dogs and people in general, and he might be able to get his shoebox back soon, for a few months, at least.

                A semi-circle of bodies hogs the walkway in front of him, a few feet away, and it’s bigger now than it ever was during the cold. He plays songs he’s heard through the overheard speakers in the diner, and the ones he remembers from his school days, and sometimes he makes one up on the spot when no one is around to hear him fumble through it.

                He’s doing just that when scuffling feet bring his head up.

                “Your name is Blaine.”

                You’re standing there with your hands in your pockets looking almost offended, and he wonders if it’s because he hasn’t properly bathed in a long while, but then you sit yourself right down across from him, the guitar case open and in-between, and you drop in a slip of white paper.

                He looks confused.

                “Your name is Blaine,” you say again, like it warrants repeating, but he knows his name is Blaine. He’s known it longer than you have.

                “You had the bed next to me.”

                He nods his head just a little. It feels different this time. This time it’s now, this time it’s here, and maybe the little boy never existed at all.

                “They told me, when I went back, that you used to stay up all night with me when I was a baby because you were the only one who could get me to stop crying.”

                He nods his head again. Of course he remembers, he was there! Why are you telling him this, what can you tell him, what could you possibly tell him that he doesn’t already know?

                “And when I was little, you’d hold my hand if I had a scary dream, or if the older boys were especially mean that day.”

                He’s tired, impossibly tired, he doesn’t want to be there anymore but he can’t make himself move. He’s been that little boy his whole life, he’s been waiting his whole life, but nothing’s changing, he’s still here, and it still hurts, but somehow it hurts more.

                “They said you never got adopted.”

                You’ve been staring into the guitar case, at the little slip of white paper you put in nearly ten minutes ago, it’s hard to reconcile the person sitting across from you with the child in your memories, and looking at him now will only make it worse. You prefer to remember the child. He looked much happier.

                He starts collecting up the wrinkled bills and tossed coins from the bottom of the case, some of them got stuck at the edges, and you watch him fold them up and tuck them into the pocket of his jeans. He takes the paper separately and puts it in the other.

                You want to help him when he places the guitar into the hollow case, but the look on his face is serene, so you don’t. He snaps it shut, digs a little key on a chain from around his neck and locks it up, slips the key back under his shirt.

                “I don’t know what happened after I left, Blaine, but I’m here now.”

                He rests a hand on the handle of the case but stays sitting across from you.

                “I wanted to visit you, to come back for you, but we moved to Ohio, and my parents never wanted to come back to the city.”

                You’re tense now, shoulders up, and you’re trying not to cry because this boy was your everything for seven years and you forgot all about him and you don’t know if it can ever be that way again.

                “I wrote letters to you for years after I left. Apparently, my father didn’t think it was healthy for me to be so attached, so he never sent them.”

                He looks like he wants to run away, his knuckles have gone white on the grip and he’s shaking where he sits. You take a good look at him, try to find the little boy again, but it’s hard to see past the dirt and the clothes and the years between them. You used to love his eyes because they were never anything less than wide with wonder at everything, but you’ve hardly seen them now, he hardly looks up from the ground.

                You clear your throat. You try not to cry.

                “That paper is my address. If you need a place to stay, please come.”

                His hand twitches towards his pocket, the one he stuffed the address into, and for half a second you let yourself believe that he’ll come right over, he’ll stay the night and be better in the morning.

                “I honestly loved you back then, Blaine.”

                He finally looks up, looks right at you, but it’s not with wide wonder-eyes, they’re far too narrow, too judging, and you’re thrown for a moment because now you’re not sure if that little boy ever really existed. But when you look a little longer, you’re positive they’re the same color, and the same shape, they’re just not in the same face anymore. It grew up.

                “I’m not going to say that I still love you, Blaine, because it’s been sixteen years and I don’t know who this Blaine even is, but I want to. I want to know you again, Blaine.”

                He’s still looking at you, but it’s softer now, and when he nods you start to hope again, a little less fervently, but it still makes you happy. Grubby fingers run through his curly hair before he stands up, bringing the guitar with him. He sends you a little jerky nod and a finger-wiggle wave and then he’s walking away, but you still have that hope, it’s still there.

                There’s the door.

You, the moon. You, the road. You, the little flowers by the side of the road. You keep singing along to that song I hate. Stop singing.

You see him at the diner sometimes.

                Sometimes he looks okay, sometimes he looks dead on his feet, sometimes someone might mistake him for being happy. No matter what sometime, whenever you see him you buy him lunch and wave away his disapproving pout.

                It’s raining, and it’s been raining for a week and you want to think it’s refreshing, but it looks just as miserable as you feel. You kick at a half-packed box while you stare out the window of your apartment. There are more in the other room, some of them are taped, some of them will need to be shipped, but all of them are leaving. A key rattles in the door and your boyfriend comes in, silently resumes packing, tapes up a few more boxes and leaves his key on the kitchen counter. You’d oversee the packing, make sure he got everything, but you’re too busy watching the rain fall and wondering if Blaine’s alright, you haven’t seen him all week, the weather’s really been horrendous.

                The man you’ve lived with for a year piles his boxes out in the hall. He’s already called the moving company; they’re taking them to his friend’s flat until he can find a place of his own. He grumbles about the inconvenience, and you’d feel bad about it if the other day you hadn’t seen him in your bed with another man down his throat, but you did, so you don’t.

                It’s late when your ex-boyfriend is finally gone, the kind of late that bars close at and decent people sleep through, but you’re watching horrible television and nursing a bottle of wine though you’ve never liked alcohol and have no desire to get drunk. It’s mostly something to do. You have work in the morning, after all.

                So you’re surprised when the doorman buzzes you and tells you that a man is here to see you but he won’t give his name, just pointed at yours on the mailboxes, and you don’t even think, you tell the doorman to send him up. Three minutes later there’s a timid little knock on your door and you’ve got it open before he can finish. He’s dripping on the hallway carpet, his guitar slung over his back and a small satchel hanging from the other shoulder.

                For a moment you’re stunned motionless, but then you realize Blaine is absolutely soaked through and sniffling there in the hallway, so you drag him inside and straight to the bathroom. You have him leave his guitar outside the door, push him toward the shower and tell him to take his time; you’ll have clothes waiting on the sink for him. When you poke your head in with the little bundle, you snatch up his old jeans and shirt and hoodie and toss them in the kitchen garbage. For good measure, you pour the old coffee grounds from that morning on top.

                The shower shuts off and you wait anxiously for him to come out, but he takes a long time, and you’re wondering what he could be doing but then he’s there and you’re just happy to see him safe. There’s leftover lasagna in the fridge that you heat up, and he eats enough for three, but you don’t mind. He needs it.

                He looks sleepy, you show him the guest room and make him promise not to bolt in the morning, but he won’t look at you when he agrees, just slides under the covers in his borrowed t-shirt and flannel bottoms and you’re considering sleeping outside the door just to make sure.

                But you don’t. You sleep in your own bed.

                And if, come morning, you’re smiling more than usual when you see him making coffee like he’s lived there his whole life, you keep it to yourself. You need to talk to him, and he needs to talk to you, but surely that can wait until after breakfast?

                And if, after breakfast, he smiles at you over the rim of his coffee mug, clears his throat and says, “I never stopped loving you, Kurt,” you’ll bite back your happy tears and nod like you’ve known all along.

                Maybe you have.