Chapter Text
I can’t believe I’m here again.
I sat on the edge of his bed. There was this big and heavy feeling within me that I couldn’t describe. Was it confusion? or longing? I felt like I messed up the concept of time by being in this room. My mind was all over the place, it went with such a speed that I couldn’t even keep up with.
He was not here.
I was.
There was a tiny surge of relief, almost like a permission to breathe again. So breathe him in, I did. All years of his presence in this room without me. A high that was also contradicted simultaneously with waves of memories of our last few nights together that makes my chest tightens in pain. I felt so close to him, to us but yet he was so far away.
I kept in touch with Professor Perlman 5 years ago when I left to go back to my life in the United States. Even after I told Elio that I was getting married. He was always kind to me. He never judged me or question my action, always had been so understanding. He had been more of a father to me even more than my own. He always could see right through me, he would talk about Elio, keeping me in the loop on how he was doing in life. Answering questions that I would never have asked him. I would never have been brave enough to ask because I felt so undeserving, Professor Perlman should have let me be tormented with my own self-blame and curiosity. But no, he was not a person like that, he was generous, even sometimes it felt like he did it out of his pity to me. Sometimes I had a feeling that he knew that I was hurting too, and not see me as a monster like Elio would have.
So after Elio had a taste of college life, he rarely went back to spend summer in Italy. He really loved New York, Mr. Perlman said. It took everything in me to restrain myself from driving to New York and lurking around his campus just to catch a glimpse of him. Samuel also said that he would go play piano in bars on the weekend or auditions for orchestra concerts, throughout the years he had made quite a name for himself. I kept thinking I could just randomly go into a bar or watch a classical concert and I would just see Elio, pouring his heart out to his music. Baring his soul to the audience who would never know how lucky and privileged they are to be even in the same vicinity as him.
He had not been home for three years now, Samuel and Annella had to fly to New York to see him from time to time. What can we do? He is trying to find his place in this world, was all he said when I asked if that bothered him at all.
So that was the reason why that I came here again. Aside from taking a break of my hectic life. I took the comfort in knowing that he would not be even though a little part of me always wished and wanted to see him. It wouldn’t do any good. Elio probably hated me for hurting him like that. Whatever I do wouldn’t change anything. I reminded myself. We never really talked after that phone call. I couldn’t bring myself to write him or phone him after that because I know nothing will fix him or me. We were both victims of a cruel fate and I sure hoped that one day he would realize why I had to do it. I prayed that the life that he lived happily would be the evidence of my strong affection for him. That was enough for me.
Maybe I was selfish by coming back here. But I couldn’t help myself, I needed to. Life without Elio was becoming harder to bear and I needed just a fragment or a trace of whatever we had to prove to me that it was real. At one time, he did want me. We shared something miraculous, something that was not meant to be had by everyone. I shared my name, impaled it on him as if it was his own. In this very room, he became me and I became Elio. Then when I left him, I left my soul.
And I would never ask him to give it back.
I let my body fell to the mattress, my hands mindlessly caress the sheet underneath me.
I am home, Oliver.
I am sorry.
I closed my eyes.
Just come home, Oliver.
With that prayer, I fell into a slumber.