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Grief has five stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance).
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Alex reminds Ross of spring. In the way, he seems to shine as bright as the sun. The beauty of nature and a smile. And how whenever Alex takes him along for the ride, he feels like he’s reborn.
Spring is the month of rebirth, Ross knows, but he pays no attention to it.
Not until the point where Alex laces their fingers together tightly and presses his thumb against the back of his hand. It’s the light pressure (of the mist settling outside in the morning) that leaves him grinning. Not until Alex presses a kiss to the skin behind his ear and whispers words into it during sunrise.
It’s the slow realization that settles in the pit of his stomach. The realization that together with Alex, he wouldn’t mind being reborn (again, again, again, again until they finally reached the end of the line – together, sated, happy). He doesn’t tell Alex his thoughts, merely puts his other hand above their intertwined fingers and squeezes (somewhere, he thinks that words aren’t needed).
Alex reminds Ross of spring. In a way, he smells of fresh cut grass and pinecones. He rises early like the sun and he carries energy and positivity with him like rays. He leaves a warm spot on Ross’ bed sheets and Ross can’t help his fingers from tracing the dip in the mattress.
Alex reminds Ross of spring.
Spring with its sunny days and early rises.
Spring with its newborn animals and fresh cut grass.
In the way, that Alex is in and out of his life as quick as spring goes by.
(Too quick).
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It’s a car accident, they tell him. Two hundred and six bones with too many broken, they say to him. It’ll be a wonder if he awakes from the coma, they repeat to him (he won’t, they whisper but never say out loud).
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Grief has five stages.
Ross has read the books and repeated the words.
Grief is merely a process to allow you to let go of the things that were and to be ready for the things that will be.
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Ross isn’t ready to let go, so he denies till his palms are stained from the blood he draws with his own fingernails (one).
He watches the sheets on the bed, but he doesn’t reach out to smooth them down, doesn’t put the pillow straight or moves anything at all. He only sinks to his knees on the carpet next to the bed and wishes it isn’t real.
It can’t be real, he tells himself (but it is). He can still see the shape of Alex in the mattress and his pajamas are still hanging half off the bed.
Ross heaves himself up (his bones are heavy; they rattle and he’s so, so tired, but he can’t go to sleep – can’t disturb the bed) and drags himself to the bathroom. It can’t be real, he tells himself again, he sees Alex’ toothbrush in the cup next to the sink and he sees his cologne, without the cap on it, balancing on the edge of it.
His eyes travel upwards until they cross with the mirror on the wall. Ross doesn’t recognize himself in the weary, pale man who looks back at him. He doesn’t know what happens next, all he knows is that it can’t be real. That can’t be him and the next moment he has smashed the mirror and shards fly everywhere and his hands feel numb.
Ross knows it happened, he can’t avoid it, but his heart aches in his chest when he realizes (truly, really realizes) that the person he loves (wanted to share his life with, grow old together with) won’t ever walk through the front door again.
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Chris comes to him that night with open arms and careful words. He doesn’t tell him ‘it’ll get better’ or ‘he wouldn’t have wanted you to be sad’, Chris only wraps his arms around shaking shoulders and lets Ross press his face into his hair without complaining.
He lets Ross cry into his shoulder and offers a listening ear, but doesn’t make him talk. For a long time, the only sound that breaks the silence are soft, heart shattering sobs, that Chris wishes wouldn’t come from Ross.
He bites his lip, doesn’t say ‘I’ll be here for you’, instead he tightens his grip around Ross’ shoulders, in the hope to show: here I am and you’re not alone.
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Ross isn’t ready to let go, so he screams till his lungs burn and his throat has gone hoarse (two).
Ross puts his head in his hands and looks at the sky. The sun shines bright and it doesn’t seem to notice that someone’s life has just turned upside down (bruised and battered, nearly shattered – ruined). Nothing around him is changed and everything just keeps going (like it should).
The world keeps turning, the earth keeps spinning and time doesn’t stop (but for Alex it has). Ross looks at the lines on his hands, kicks pebbles with the toe of his shoe and can’t help but feel like that is unfair.
(It is).
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Ross doesn’t notice Chris entering his (their) apartment that night until he stands next to the couch with takeout in his left hand and a notebook in the other. He doesn’t look like he’s judging Ross for wearing the exact same outfit as yesterday or for not having washed his face since.
He only looks sympathetic, so much that it fuels the fire of anger that has started burning in the pit of his stomach and it isn’t fair (because Alex is Chris’ friend too, because Alex doesn’t deserve this, because no one deserves this), but he feels the urge to scream again.
His throat, however, protests and he settles for leaning back against the couch and not taking the offered takeout. Chris looks at him, but doesn’t say a thing. He just carefully sets down the takeout on the coffee table before he places the notebook on Ross’ stomach.
Ross doesn’t look at it (too lost in the anger that threatens to consume him) and burns holes into the ceiling with his glare. Ross doesn’t look at anything else, until Chris’ speaks (from his place on the carpet, because Ross took up the entire couch – guilt).
‘’I’m going to visit him tomorrow.’’ And it’s not a downright invitation if you judged by the words, but Ross knows better and accepts quietly inside his mind (Chris knows too).
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Ross isn’t ready to let go, so he prays to a god he doesn’t believe in and smashes a plate when no answer comes (three).
Ross has never believed in a god, but for a moment he wants to pretend he does. He wraps his hands together, twists his fingers to the side and closes his eyes. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for exactly (he does, he does, he does) or who he’s directing it to (he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t), but he tries.
No answer, plate (and a cup, and a bowl) smashed, he doesn’t try again.
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Chris puts light fingers on the inside of Ross’ elbow to tug him along. His vision is slightly blurry, but he blames the rain. He tries to not step on his own feet and he tries to keep his head clear (he stumbles and he doesn’t know where he is going really).
Then there’s Chris, who just nods when he asks for a moment to regain his breath (because there’s a weight on his chest and it’s getting hard to breath) and waits on the curb even when the rain keeps falling and soaks them both to the bone.
(Ross thinks later, later when he lays in the warmth of his bed – that somehow still feels cold without another body next to him –, that maybe god answered and gave him Chris).
In that moment however, he just presses a hand to his own chest and feels the rapid beating of his own heart.
When Ross sees Alex (somehow so tiny, despite his well over 6’0 frame, swallowed by the white hospital sheets) in his appointed room. It’s not the first time he sees him (it won’t be the last), but the way he just looks already gone still manages to take his breath away.
It leaves his heart beating louder and harder than before. He presses his fingers against Alex’ chest and feels a slow and steady (barely there; fading, fading, fading, dying) beat beneath his palm.
Chris stays back more, lays a hand on his shoulder and Ross can imagine the brunet’s heartbeat, fitting somewhere in between the rapid of his own and the steady one of the man he loves.
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Ross isn’t ready to let go, so he stares at the sky and pleads with the stars to return his own to him, he cries (four).
Ross takes a shower until he can see his skin turn red from the scalding water. Then he steps out and lets the air give him goose bumps and he runs the tips of his fingers along his arms. Something drips down his face and he wipes it away (he pretends it’s just wet hair giving off water drops – it’s not).
Someone (maybe Chris or a doctor) told him someone in a coma is alive, but just can’t wake up – stuck. Ross wonders if coma patients dream. He wonders if Alex is tangled up in a wonderful dream or a terrible nightmare and doesn’t know how to feel about either scenario.
A dream would mean that Alex could pretend to himself that everything is alright, let his life play out behind his eyelids and miss nothing that his brain doesn’t want to skip.
A nightmare would mean that Alex has to sit through waves and waves of terror and help me, please, with no help coming his way, no matter how much he begs or how hard he screams.
(He doesn’t want to consider the third option of just, just– nothing).
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Chris finds him sitting on the floor with the TV rerunning some show neither of them knows or cares about. He has another batch of takeout with him and when he offers it this time, Ross takes it.
The brunet sits down next to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders (they don’t shake any longer, but it still feels wrong to have Ross so still) and digs into his own food.
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Ross doesn’t mean to fall in love with Chris, but he does. It’s a slow, gradual fall and he knows when, why and how.
It’s different than with Alex, because there are no fast paced kisses and no hard fall; face first, for Ross when he realizes he’s in love. There’s only Chris who doesn’t push and doesn’t press, but loves and gives and gives and helps.
It’s different than with Alex. With Alex, Ross wasn’t able to stop himself from falling. It was hard, quick and unstoppable (young, eager tongues and fast learning hands).
With Chris, Ross can feel himself fall, slowly; gradually. With Chris, Ross would be able to catch himself before he is too far gone (he doesn’t).
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Sixth month in and Ross doesn’t leave the house for anything besides hospital visits and work. He has a duty to the man he loves and bills to pay.
Chris doesn’t just watch this time, he speaks up.
He still doesn’t say ‘it’ll be okay’ or ‘he wouldn’t want to see you ruin your life’, but instead he sits next to Ross on the couch, on the bed or the carpet and places a careful hand on his knee, or shoulder or elbow and nods to the window and says, ‘it’s a nice day outside’ and ‘you in for some ice cream, mate?’.
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Ross doesn’t act on his feelings for Chris, because it still feels too much like betrayal and too little like love. He just stays close to the other and doesn’t complain when Chris lets himself in unannounced at the crack of dawn, or when he rips open the curtains to let the sunlight in, or when he forces Ross to finish his plate of spaghetti.
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Ross doesn’t stop visiting Alex, but his situation isn’t changing. He doesn’t respond to anything and Ross can’t keep talking. His stories are running out and his throat has gone permanently hoarse.
At one point, somewhere in the ninth month, he goes in without a story to tell and he just sits in silence in the (too creaky, too uncomfortable) plastic chair next to the bed.
(He wishes, for a moment – a selfish second –, that for once Alex could tell a story again).
(He misses his voice).
(He misses him. Full stop).
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Ross kisses Chris the first Christmas he spends without Alex. It’s nothing more than a brush of lips against lips, but he feels betrayal spread through every limb.
He sprints all the meters to the hospital with his lungs burning and legs numb and he doesn’t stop until he reaches Alex’ room.
He presses his hands to the other’s unmoving ones and bows his head.
Ross declares his love for him like one would declare a war.
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Spring rolls around again. Twelve months, Ross feels it in his bones (a distant memory of: too many broken bones).
Chris looks at him and Ross looks back, before they enter Alex’ room. Chris has stories enough to tell and he starts immediately on one (one that Ross has already heard, but Alex hasn’t) about his new cousin. And Chris talks, and talks, and talks and Ross swears his throat should’ve gone hoarse hours ago, but it doesn’t and Chris doesn’t stop until a nurse comes to fetch them.
(From then on his hospital visits become their hospital visits).
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It’s the end of spring when the talking about ‘stopping this’ and ‘cutting it off’ starts. Ross imagines a flourishing flower growing in spring and being cut during summer (he can’t let that be Alex).
Chris lays a hand on his shoulder and there’s desperation in his eyes, but he says nothing, merely opens his arms (to say: I’m here still and I won’t let you be alone).
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It’s the twentieth of March. It’s the third spring.
Spring is the month of rebirth, Ross knows, and he thinks (maybe, just maybe – with some help), he’s ready to be reborn again.
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It’s funny, Ross thinks one day, when he sits next to Chris on a bench in the park. It’s funny how people believe that acceptance is the same as being completely cured. He leans into Chris’ form and can’t help but shake his head at the thought, because it couldn’t be more wrong.
He thinks, with his fingers dripping with ice cream (even if it’s still cold, barely on the border of winter and spring) and his heart still so heavy, that a loss of a loved one doesn’t disappear just like that, that it instead becomes part of you.
A part that intertwines with the rest of you and doesn’t just vanish because you are ready to admit to it and to accept. And sometimes, Ross muses as he hands his half eaten ice cream over to Chris, you’ll feel it more than other times.
Ross knows, because his chest sometimes still feels hollow and sometimes dinner tastes like cotton, but Ross also understands that acceptance isn’t forgetting or being cured.
He understands it means he can look at pictures and not feel a stab in his heart when he recalls good memories, he understands it means he doesn’t have to lock everything that was Alex’ up in a closet without being able to deal with it. It means that he can have pictures of him and them together on his wall and smile at them every once in a while (sometimes tinged with sadness, sometimes barely there).
Ross is done grieving, but not done remembering. He’s ready to make sense of how life was with Alex and figure out how his life is going to be without him.
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Ross kisses Chris again on Christmas (the third one without Alex, he won’t forget, but time will tell and the ache will dull).
It might be love, Ross thinks, this pure burning feeling racing through his veins, Ross hopes it is (it’s time).
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Ross lets go (five).