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The first time you met him he was all twitching hands and nervous smiles. He didn’t seem like your type, yet you found yourself mesmerized by his icy blue eyes and that cute wrinkle of his nose when his glasses slid too low. Your first conversation was polite, the topic only ever being about you and your past. It didn’t bother you at the time, you felt compelled to tell the young man your story, his quiet nods spurring you on endlessly.
The first time you saw him by that piano things changed. His inherent shyness was gone, as his gloved hands slid across those ivory keys. Those icy blues focused on something beyond your perception. It was magical, yet you felt that he didn’t realise it himself. His relationship with that piano was still a mystery, it was impossible to tell whether it was a love story or a tale of life and death.
The first time you made a move you got shut down harder than an airport during a bomb threat. The usual rosy pale of his skin burning red hot, as he spluttered and gesticulated. You played it off as a joke, but on the inside there was only pain. You would learn later that the sad look in his eyes as you left was indeed from him feeling the same thing as you. You never did get to know why he rejected you.
The first time you shared a kiss it was already dark out. The trees had lost their leaves as your lips met. It was shy, hesitant, yet you felt like he was holding back. Maybe it was for the better. That way nobody could tell your puffed lips from a symptom of the cold. You kept it a secret for a while, yet in the end nothing lasts forever.
The first time you shared a bed the shyness of that first kiss was a distant memory. You only remember the fabric of those damn gloves of his and the heat of his body against yours. It was magical, yet when you awoke in the morning he was nowhere to be found. You later discovered him in the kitchen, cradling a cup of coffee, the milky white of his gloves blending in perfectly with the white ceramic.
The first time you moved as a couple was stressful, yet full of joy. His icy blue eyes shone of a happiness you had yet to see before. You could tell he was as ecstatic as you, if not even more. The day ended in a heap of limbs and crumpled sheets, something that would later become your norm.
The first time you asked about the gloves you two had been dating for half a year. He claimed it was because of bad blood circulation, that he grew terribly cold without them. When you offered to warm his hands for him, he shut you down with a nervous joke. You knew by then that this would not be the last time you touched on this subject, and you could see in his eyes that he knew that too.
The first time you woke up alone was a couple of weeks after he had moved his old piano into your apartment. He was already drinking coffee as you entered the kitchen, offering you a cup with one of those sweet smiles of his. You couldn’t help but notice his eyes, they looked tired and red, but when you asked he blamed it on allergies. It was spring, after all.
The first time you saw him without his gloves was terrifying. You were helping him out with one of his lessons as one of his students pulled one off. His calm demeanor was gone like the wind, curses and and yelling filled the room. The student was sent to the principal, yet you knew the damage was already done. You never caught a glimpse of his skin, but if you had, maybe things had ended differently.
The second time you woke up alone it was past midnight. His side of the bed was cold as you made your way out of your shared bedroom. When you opened the door a wave of sound hit you like a brick. Desperate melodies, clinging to the air as fingers pressed down on the keys of your living room piano in rough succession. He was broken, as you looked at him. Pain and tears covering his face as those white gloves fought against the ivory.
The first time you were there to pick up his pieces he was crying, holding his gloved hands to his chest as you held him. It had all been too much, he told you, the voices in his head had been telling him such terrible things. You comforted him, and in the end he fell asleep. It was probably the first time in three days he had slept, if the purple bruises under his eyes were anything to go by. You held him all night, singing sweet melodies and hoping he would be okay.
The first time you realised that he would not be okay shattered you. Those nightly ventures to the piano had been becoming more frequent, you catching him at those keys almost every night. He grew more broken as time went, and after some time your presence did hardly anything to comfort him anymore.
The last time you were too late. You found him pale in the bathtub, laying there cold as his wrists bled crimson. There was little you could do, and when the paramedics came they declared him dead. You blamed yourself for years, the bitter resentment towards yourself for not doing anything, not doing enough, only growing. Little did you know that this could never have been prevented.
From the day you met him, Trevor Johnson was already broken beyond repair.