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“I’m going to be the world's greatest inventor yet! Just you wait Campbell. I’m telling you, once I make it, I’m getting us outta' here. Now how does that sound?”
“Picture this: a small apartment somewhere in New York, just the two of us. It’s summer, the automobiles fill the city with noise, we have a picnic in Central Park, we’re happy.”
“Life is good, we’re doing better, no more what if’s. Doesn’t that sound relieving?”
“We’ll finally be free!”
***
Norton Campbell hates liars.
A breach of trust to those who barely have enough of it to give, tend to forget what it’s like to have faith. Yet the experience is always trifling. One he could never get used to.
In the end, he always feels like a damned fool for hoping that someday a lie would turn out to be true. It was the least someone could offer, especially to someone who had mostly lived their life bleeding in the dark.
He watches as Luca stands trial. Poor thing is quivering, one eye widened in horror while the other paints itself in violence. His hands grip the desk, the defense attorney is losing their composure.
From the side, the victim's wife cries white woman tears. Her eyes are vicious, accusatory to the highest degree. Her children are with her, they’re too young to understand what is going on. They cling to their mothers arms, mouths turned downwards as they tear holes into the one who had taken their father away from them.
It was cruel, utterly cruel. To lose someone so young. Memories fade the more they grow older; how does youth recall a second to a lifetime? Norton sinks into his chair, hat covering the wetness of his eyes, button up hiding away the ache of his heart. He’s furious.
Luca would never do such a thing. He knew the man like the back of his hand, could map out the smooth flesh of his skin— understand the curling of those hands that tore at his shoulders.
Luca Balsa is not a murderer.
They’ve promised a multitude of things together and it was not this.
Norton heaves a sigh, the attorney is given a moment to explain Lucas' brief future and his life ahead of him. The jury is busy deciding the young one's fate.
The hollowness that consumes the weight of his ribs strangles him inside out. The dryness of his mouth causes the itch in his throat. Not once does Luca look at him. Not once does he return to the shell that used to be him— to what could’ve been them.
“Picture this: a small apartment somewhere in New York, just the two of us. It’s summer, the automobiles fill the city with noise, we have a picnic in Central Park, we’re happy.”
Bullshit.
The jury’s representative stands above court, face to face with the lady of justice; a metaphorical silhouette of a blindfolded woman, who peers down at all of them.
“Life is good, we’re doing better, no more what if’s. Doesn’t that sound relieving?”
The juror speaks their verdict. The victim's wife sobs along with her children. The audience sigh their breath of relief. Norton is left to himself, to wallow along the misery that had taken Luca away from him.
The jury paints Luca a guilty man, the prosecutor goes on with their conquest. They plead the death sentence.
It is granted.
“We’ll finally be free!”
***
“Yer not a guilty man, balsa.”
Luca perks up at the mention, eyes squinting; a contrast of uncertainty painting his face a pale color. He shakes his head, eyebrows lowering to a frown, teeth biting into his lower lip, I don’t believe you .
Norton looks up for only a moment, swallowing thickly, the gap in chest seems to grow bigger. Fingers curl to form knuckles, the rapid expanse of his rage soon coils around the metal bars. They’re cold, a firm reminder of what they are to come to terms with in the near future, but Norton only grips tighter— eyes refusing to meet what splays in front of him, afraid that this image will be one of the very last memories he’ll have.
Hands soon find themselves atop of his, Norton doesn’t flinch, doesn’t cry at the touch. Instead he submerges himself in the loss of his everything
“Ya don’t believe me yeah?”
The movement of chains rustle to the sound of agreement. Norton tries not to fall to his knees. He’s sure of it now that Luca could hear the labor of his breaths, could see that he was falling apart.
He lets go of the bars, untangles the still soft hands of his lover from his own, and mourns the loss of the future, for how their story will end.
Luca whispers a low octave, a mere second for the fraction of time that they have left.
“I’m sorry.”
Norton cannot bring himself to accept it.
“I’m going to be the world's greatest inventor yet! Just you wait Campbell. I’m telling you, once I make it, I’m getting us outta' here. Now how does that sound?”
***
He rubs his eyes, calloused palms roughing up the sensitive parts of his face.
Far from his reach, Luca sits lazily on his bed, pen in hand— sprawling empty thoughts on a page almost full. He continues, nonetheless; regarded it as a couple things he didn’t want to forget .
Sometimes he catches a few glimpses, he recalls birthdates, his name, the time they had considered fleeing to the golden state. Then when Luca catches him, he sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.
“Doesn’t hurt reliving the best moments, right Norty?”
Norton does not respond. Does not look at him. Instead he goes back to rubbing his eyes, the tired nights finally catching up to him.
Luca continues to write, occasionally scribbling a couple doodles. He smiles like the world for him will not end.
***
Norton spends his mornings and evenings alone. He drowns in the depth of his thoughts and practices what it’s like to refer to someone as was. Though every time he seems to choke, even on breathless words that did not breach from his heart.
The coldness of the sheets envelop him, he tosses and turns, claws at the spot that should possess a body that he could cradle for warmth. Instead he is left alone.
Luca was his everything
Luca was going to be the world's greatest inventor
Luca was supposed to take him on that damned picnic.
The air is tense, he suffocates on nothing. His breaths are caught in his lungs, Luca was, was. But he is still alive. For how much longer? Norton slides his head under the pillow, face deep into the mattress, smothered by relentless thoughts, heart aching for something other than this.
He was old enough to know that in life you could not be granted everything. Even if it be the most simplistic, the universe still knows how much depth is felt for the simple. Nails curl into the sheets, Norton could only watch as he is beat down again and again. Life takes and it takes, while he stands with his hands tied, scars littering his skin the more he tries to undo the knot.
And stands he does, knees too weak to buckle, body frozen as he comes undone in their own little world they built to be paradise.
“I’m telling you, once I make it, I’m getting us outta' here!”
***
Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months.
You’re forgetting me , Norton thinks.
Luca stares at him with curiosity, one hand placed quizzically on his chin, the other on the bar. His knees are on the floor, months ago he had said it gets harder to walk, he doesn’t know why. Norton meets him eye level, his hands do not reach out like they used to.
“Norton, right? Or was it something else?”
Eyes stare directly into the window of his soul, they do not see anything. They’re curtained, the fabric a charcoal color so no one could see through. It should be better this way.
“It’s Norton, y’a got it on the dot.”
The man across from him smiles, it’s so full, so wide. Almost like a ray of sunshine. Both hands are now on the bar, Luca points to himself.
“I’m Luca. Luca Balsa.”
“That yer are.”
Luca averts his gaze only for a second, a faint blush blossoming on tanned skin. “M’sorry, you must be getting bored of this by now. I promise I am trying my hardest to remember. I know you’re someone special.”
He finally builds up the confidence to look at Norton again. He ponders the next few words he wants to say, unknowing that the more he says, the more Norton’s heart breaks for him.
“I know that the feelings I harbor for you are beyond the both of us.”
Norton’s smile is small, a tiny fracture on his face. He places his hand on top of Luca’s, the touch is soft— too timid for it to come from a man like himself. He gives it a gentle squeeze; unsure of its meaning, unsure if this is it for the both of them.
“I'm glad.”
***
Norton lives his life full of anguish. From the moment he was born, and onto the next when his family fell apart. He lived his teenage years working jobs in sweatshops, squished in tenements, eating every other week.
He remembers vividly at sixteen when his mother and siblings died of influenza, when his father collapsed from exhaustion only to never wake up again. From then on out, he lived his life on the streets. The rest of his money went to the landlord, the heritage to his name drawn out to estranged family members.
Norton Campbell was no more. A frail kid without a dime to his name, reeking of poverty, helplessly strewn along by adults that promised him a lifetime greater than what the future entailed.
As he grew older, by eighteen Norton Campbell made his way into the city's underbelly, managing to find himself a roommate willing to put up with his shit, as well as getting a not so legal job.
It had been like that for a while . The dynamite never leaves his head, all he sees is red, a swollen black that smells of dust, the boisterous laughs of money hungry men that dreamed big. At the time Norton believed such a vivid memory to be his scene, the crowd that would not clip his wings. With them, with the way he used to live, he could fly high; soar winds that a long time ago, would send him to a crash landing.
That was until he met Luca Balsa.
He was already well into his twenties, twenty five with seven years of crime and muck under his belt.
The man claimed himself an inventor, twenty three ongoing twenty four, fresh out of university with a degree of engineering and a major in science. He was an eccentric thing, always on the prowess for something bigger than the both of them. Surely a man such as him didn’t care for such things, but alas he did. With the money to his name, he could live his entire life a luxury — nothing to worry about, living comfortably.
What a dream, Norton had thought. Something about that man left him sour. Lucky bastard. So unrealistic, reaching for stars in the daylight. Displaying such foolishness so openly. And yet, Norton was so terribly drawn to him. Balsa shined a beacon that left him yearning in want. There was this need to understand, fulfill — to connect that face with feelings.
Because with Balsa, the world rewound. Bad memories were now vignettes of brown hair, creamy tan skin, a contagious smile, and a lean body. And Norton Campbell had wanted so much more.
Life for twenty five years, was grueling - an agonizing journey that had him at the cusp of his breaking point. The media had painted the world to be beautiful, children got to be children, teens got to have their fun, adults got to settle down, so on. Then there was Norton. What did he have?
The answer changed over the years, he didn’t have much. It’s bound to change every few months. Small victories were big victories, he relished in his pride for the time they lasted— until it was time to strive for bigger.
Then Luca Balsa, in his full glory, made himself to be Norton's biggest and greatest victory of all.
The vicious grip the man had on him set his heart aflame. Head in the clouds, mind hazy from the altitude, Norton fell hard. He was in love. Though that was a light way to put it.
And that was the scariest part.
***
You are taking him away from me, he writes. He is all I have. He is — He is —-…
He was.
Norton crumples the paper and starts again.
For the love he carried, for how much he has craved, Norton Campbell does not cry for Luca Balsa, for them. He figures, he has cried one too much throughout his lifetime, that at this point, he could not weep along with the ruins.
How disheartening, he thinks. To not cry for a lover, one loved and loving back in return. The feeling was acrid, dissolving the butterflies and replacing them with moths. They’re drawn to the lights of his eyes, they blind him a complete and utter fool. Norton Campbell cannot cry.
If he were to, then everything he’d worked hard for falls apart, the truth so blatantly in front of his face becomes reality, he will not be able to run any longer.
The ink drips onto the page, he writes:
Luca Balsa is was is, my everything. He is was is-..
Norton crumples the paper and starts again.
He slumps himself onto the desk, ink spilling to soak the remaining pages, some getting on his skin. He basks in this sorrow, soaks in the grief before it is yet to come.
How does one mourn a lover, if he truly is not dead? How does one mourn when tears cannot beseech the eyes?
Norton thinks back to a similar moment like this. Luca would have his hands on the broad expanse of his back, thumbs circling the shoulders in languid movements, while he whispers sweet words of encouragement.
“We’ll be okay, Norty, I know we will.”
Then he’d sink into the touch, eyes closed, brows furrowed, mouth drawn to a line as he mumbled something incoherent. Luca laughs. Trying his best to cheer him up.
But Luca never had to try.
Being with him was enough happiness to drown out the lifetime's worth of misery that engulfed him.
Norton closes his eyes and wishes under his breath, wishes that if he could just wake up - and everything would go back to the way it used to be.
***
“March nineteenth.”
Luca says one day.
It was rather befitting for what he was about to say next, the weather was cold, clouds overcast as the sky turned a sickly shade of yellow. The streetlights from a distance were ominous, the people who walked amongst the sidewalks were rather grim.
“That’s the day of my execution.”
That’s the day of my birthday, Norton thinks. Though he does not say it.
“That’s a’few months from now.”
“I know.”
So why do you smile like you’re happy? Norton wants to yell, to beg, to try all his might to understand why he’s so goddamn happy. Your life will end, we’ll end, you’ll leave me, I’ll stay here longing for you.
Luca fidgets in his cell, his fingers fiddle with the chain around his neck, lips thinned out from the ache of his eye— he breathes.
“You’re angry.”
Norton swallows.
“Of course I am Balsa! Yer dyin' and I can’t do anythin’ about it! How can I not be when our time is runnin' out?”
The inventor flinches only a little. Norton seethes in his anger, mind urging him to calm down. But he can’t. He can’t.
Every word he is to bare, the acid of it burns his tongue. He chokes on the inevitable, drowns in the lies he so desperately tries to feed himself.
“I’m gonna lose y’a Balsa.”
And when you’re gone, what becomes of me?
***
Norton started picking up part timers when Luca found himself incarcerated. They were a way to pass time, though in a sense, there wasn’t even enough time to begin with.
Seconds with Luca are treated like light years. Forever , Norton had said long ago.
“Forever is with you Balsa.”
Though the “you” had come off as awkward, he attempted a more refined accent to sound romantic. This prompted Luca to kiss his face all over. From then on, Norton had tried this trick a little more often.
And forever it was, for the short amount of time they had left.
Norton tries to imagine what his mom would say in this situation. Be grateful, she'd say. Be grateful for having him in your life for the time he was here. And he’d say, but how? How when I’ll never see him again? What then?
With time you’ll come to appreciate his worth, is her only would-be response.
But he already does appreciate his worth, every second of it. Luca Balsa is his everything, was and forever is the light of his life.
Twenty seven years on earth, twenty seven of It, twenty four spent in anguish, one spent in hope, two spent hopelessly in love, as for the rest— that was supposed to be spent celebrating the years of them.
Norton stares out the window.
He should’ve fought harder.
***
“How’d we meet?”
There is a brief pause of silence. Luca wastes away on his bed, eyes closed— face relaxed, ears tuned to hear what Norton has to say next.
“Y’a ran into me on the streets, y’a were too busy paying attention to your notes that y’a smashed right into me.”
Luca laughs, it’s broken by the dryness of his throat.
“Hopefully you don’t regret it!”
“There will never be a day that I will.”
A sigh escapes that of the inventor's lips, there’s a fondness to it.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Norty.”
Gray eyes meet the color of oblivion, they’re the saddest they’ve ever been.
“I know.”
***
He's angry. So angry.
The wall is dented, wood splinters on his knuckles, blood trickling to the fingertips. His mind begins to feel like fragments, memories merging to compile one last replay before the film runs out.
He punches and he punches, blood continues to trickle in languid movements, the open wound of his hands wailing for it to stop.
He doesn’t. Can't until he is at ease.
The wood is crying.
Luca balsa is not a murderer.
It creaks, dozens of splinters lining in defense to pierce through flesh. He ignores how it seeps deep into the muscle of his arm, how the bleeding only gets worse.
“Forever is with you Balsa.”
The expanse of his arms ache, his shoulders begin to spasm. The splinters swim in his veins.
"We’ll be okay, Norty, I know we will.”
“I know that the feelings I harbor for you are beyond the both of us.”
“I’m going to be the world's greatest inventor yet! Just you wait Campbell. I’m telling you, once I make it, I’m getting us outta' here. Now how does that sound?”
“Picture this: a small apartment somewhere in New York, just the two of us. It’s summer, the automobiles fill the city with noise, we have a picnic in Central Park, we’re happy.”
“Life is good, we’re doing better, no more what if’s. Doesn’t that sound relieving?”
“We’ll finally be free!”
“I’m sorry.”
Norton wishes he never met Luca Balsa.
***
“Say Norty, if I weren’t in prison right now, what would we be doing?”
Tomorrow Luca Balsa will be executed. Norton is far too exhausted to think anymore, he figures to indulge his lover one last time.
“We’d be somewhere in New York City, just like ya said. We’d be having a picnic, free of burden, free of it all.” His next few sentences carves a hole right through his chest, “then we’d talk about how to get from there to the golden state. I’d—”
Norton breathed in harshly.
“I’d propose to y’a.”
We would have finally had the chance to leave everything behind.
Luca is grinning from ear to ear, although frail, he scrambles to the bars that separates them. His eyes have a sheen to them, glistening with such a profound fondness that it makes Norton's stomach whirl nauseously.
His hands look bony as they tug for Norton’s collar, his frame so light, the tanned tone of his skin turning sickly. But all Norton could see was perfection. A beauty so alluring it had him at his knees.
Norton does not think about tomorrow when Lucas lips press so delicately onto his own. Does not think about the end when he wraps his hands around the lean waist that presses so eagerly against iron bars. Does not think about anything else other than how much he loves Luca Balsa.
“I love you, Norton”
“And I you.”
***
Moonlight filters from the upper cell window, it’s bars sectioning thin slices of pale white reflecting onto that of the floor.
Norton leans on the bar as Luca does the same, though a few inches away so they could link hands. He savors the calluses of chalked up palms, tries to engrain every inch and every nook and crevice of the man that was his.
I love you, he wants to say, fully, completely. But that was too hopeful, one sided - saying that to someone who would not be able to return the answer with bated breath.
So instead, he lets silence carry the memories of them in dust; particles fluttering in the air, escaping out the window and into the night. Free as can be, a freedom that could only be lived out in dreams.
“Norty?”
Luca squeezes his hand, there’s a strong grasp to it. Reciting the man's will as he burns it into his palm.
“Yeah?”
“Let’s meet in the next life.”
Norton brings Lucas hand to his lips and kisses it softly.
“I promise you darlin', when the time comes, we'll meet again.”
I am sorry they’re taking you away from me.
***
Twenty eight years.
Twenty four spent in anguish, one spent in hope, two spent hopelessly in love, as for the rest— that was supposed to be spent celebrating the years of them.
Twenty eight years, only for the rest of it waiting to be spent in mourning.
It’s a sunny morning when Luca Balsa dies.
Norton watched as the casket was lowered six feet under. His heart is stiff, the blood that pumps throughout his body is freezing.
He stands alone, body shrouded in the dew of the morning. The sun casts an uncomfortable heat towards his back while the wind buffers against his skin, it’s cold.
The priest says God's will, is sure to accentuate the part where he prays that Luca’s soul was pure enough to reach heaven's gates. Then, he closes his bible, pats Norton on the shoulder and bless’s his soul.
“May God have mercy on your future journeys, young man. I pray your path does not tread along the shores the same way as your friend’s did.”
He looks at the fresh dirt slotted between the both of them. No flowers commemorate the life his love once had, no gifts, no visit from his family members. The ground that harbors Luca Balsa is bare.
Norton continues to stand there looking at nothing. You’re a liar. He thinks.
But so am I.
He's home alone. The sunlight that peaks through the window makes his fist curl in anger. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The day shouldn’t be sunny, it should be raining. Droplets should be berating angrily against windows, Norton should be on his knees, tears mixing with the sweat and rain as he cowers in front of a ghost.
Instead he sits in their living room, eyes blank, body completely still, as he figures out where to go from here. He should be sad. He should be sobbing, mouth open wide spewing out incoherent wishes that would never be answered.
Instead he is doing absolutely nothing.
Seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours. The day passes in a fleeting moment. Norton doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. In the passing of his breaths, Luca Balsa doesn't walk through that door. He doesn’t come to kiss Norton in greeting, and doesn’t smile. He no longer exists.
Luca was, he was .
There are so many things I wanted to tell you darling. So many things I wanted to apologize for, but you’ve moved far from here. Why couldn’t you stay just a bit longer?
When Norton goes to sleep that night, he is reminded of the previous years he spent alone. He remembers the sounds of bodies collapsing to the floor, the shrill screams of his mother as she dies, the wails of his siblings as they succumb to the same sickness. How his father’s voice sounded when he apologized so early on before his own demise.
Poor Norton Campbell, alone once again. Left to remember the look on Luca’s face when they dragged him ruthlessly out of the cell. He had still been smiling, the rosy blush of his cheeks radiating in the warmth of their shared I love yous.
Norton dreams of nothing.
Pictures of them are left to rot away on the shelves. He cannot bear to look at them.
***
You took him away from me , he writes. He was all I have had.
Days go by, they seem like a mighty long time. Not once does he leave my mind. I am swallowed by regret, I find it hard to say goodbye. Maybe I am not ready for that yet.
If I say goodbye, he is gone forever. He is gone. Though I have already accepted that, yeah? I spent the rest of my days with a ghost trying to let go. But the more I find it hard to do so.
I did not cry for him. I do not cry for us. I should’ve said I love you more often, maybe he would’ve stayed a little longer. Though that is wishful thinking.
The days contradict his passing. The sunlight presses on, I am cursed to see a shadow of my failure tail alongside me. I should have freed him. I should have done something.
Luca Balsa was not a murderer. He was my everything, my inventor, my life’s devotion.
What will become of me? You’re gone and I am still here. If we had never crossed paths that day, would you still be alive? Would you survive that trial and get bailed out? In another life, would you still be here?
I had cast my regrets to the side, for the short time you enraptured me, I learned to let them go. But you’re gone. And I am still here.
You’re gone, what will become of me?
***
Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to a couple months.
Norton is angry. Though, at this point in time, he always was. His skin heats to an unsettling degree. He’s mad at everything. Mad that he is alone. Mad that everyone left. Mad that he cannot get down on his knees and rip out his chest.
His heart aches.
He wants to pry open his rib cage, take his heart out and destroy it. He mourns. He swims in an ocean with no end point. He drowns time and time again, with no one to save him.
It’s okay to cry, Luca would say. It’s okay to not be okay. You’re not alone anymore, you have me!
Once I make it, I’m getting us outta' here. Now how does that sound?”
Norton screams at nothing.
***
“Ay Norty?”
“Yeah Balsa?”
“I know my memory is out of tune, but if worse comes to worse and I completely forget you, Know that now or In the next life, I will fall in love with you again.”
Luca squeezes his hand through the bar so he could thread a couple fingers through Norton’s hair.
“My heart is enthralled by you, my love. There will never be anyone else but you.”
“Even if time and time again we do not get our happy ending, loving you is enough to give me a lifetime's worth of happiness.”
***
It’s a sunny day, as like the rest, when Norton Campbell collapses in front of Luca Balsa’s grave. The Lilies in his hand are crumpled as he brings his hands to his face.
It’s a sunny day when he cries.
I love you.
It’s a sunny day when he cries for him, for them. And for the life they could’ve shared. If Luca just had a bit more time.
It's a sunny day when he cries for the day that would never come, where they would have that picnic, enjoy the new victories of an old city.
It's a sunny day when he cries for the ghost of a ring on his hand, where he’d take Luca’s and propose underneath the city's moonlight.
It's a sunny day when he cries for Luca Balsa, the love of his life.
And it’s a rainy day when Norton Campbell finally says goodbye.