Page 68 of All That We Are Together

“I’ll kill you…”

I could feel lava flowing through my veins.

I could hardly breathe. And despite the rage, the blind fury, Icould hardly figure out if I was angrier with Oliver or myself. At the same time, I felt that wall between us crumble at our feet as we finally screamed out all the shit we had inside us.

“Remember what you told me the other day?”Oliver asked.

“No. No, goddammit. I can’t even think right now.”

“Axel, get ahold of yourself. Look at me.” I did, but I was lost; everything seemed to be slipping from my grasp. “I remember when you went to the exhibition. You told me that day I was important to you, but I always knew she would be more. You faced up to me; you told me to go to hell.”

The hole in my chest kept getting bigger and bigger.

I needed a goddamn time machine. “I can’t change what I did.”

“I know.”

“I failed you.”

“It’s forgotten.”

“I’m a moron.”

“You always have been.”

I snickered and rubbed my face. “I don’t even know what you’re doing here.”

“I’m here because you’re my friend. And after seeing how you looked at her, I knew you had it bad. And we all fuck up sometimes, Axel. Me most of all.”

I should have answered him with words, with some kind of deep bullshit, but I just couldn’t speak. So I went over to him, hugged him, and breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been doing that more lately, and it had to mean that a fucked-up period of my life was finally over.

Oliver squeezed my arm and pulled away. “When you fall, I’ll pick you up, bro.”

I nodded, grimaced, and took out a smoke. He did the same. For a while, we said nothing. I couldn’t stop thinking that it was true; it took everything I had to face up to things, to change, to go for it. And I was ashamed, in a way, that Oliver had to be the one to come find me two and a half years after the fact, that he was the one who missed me, the one who tried to fix things…

Like that night. Like always.

“Listen, Oliver. I love you.”

“Okay, now you’re going off the deep end.”

“You know words aren’t my thing.”

“Don’t start making declarations…”

“You know my speech will be absolute garbage.”

“Axel…” He grinned.

“Still, if you want me to be your best man…”

“Who else?”

I wound up smiling too.

55

Axel