Ethan and Jacob: Wish You Were Here
by SalientLane
Chapter 15
The corridors of my new school in Chicago were a maze of unfamiliar faces, each one blending into the next like fleeting images in a dream. I navigated through them, a ghost among the living, feeling the weight of every step as if trudging through an invisible swamp.
"Hi, Ethan," the girl in the hallway said, her voice lilting with a flirtatious undertone that should've sparked something inside me. She twirled a strand of hair around her finger and smiled. But her charm was lost on me; it dispersed like mist against a mountain of memories.
"Bonjour," I replied, courteous but hollow. Her eyes, bright with interest a moment ago, dimmed slightly. I could see the gears turning in her head, trying to decipher my indifferent code. She probably pegged me for heartbroken, hung up on a girl from Québec City. And oh, how close she danced around the truth, unknowingly waltzing over the lines of my concealed reality.
I thought of Jacob—his laughter, the way his nose crinkled when he found something genuinely funny, the soft cadence of his voice when he whispered secrets meant only for my ears in the dead of night. Those nights we fell asleep, holding each other, limbs entangled and breathing synchronized, in a world where only we existed, though by morning we wouldn't mention it. Boys who are just best friends don't do that. They don't ache with absence or yearn with such quiet desperation.
"I miss you," I muttered under my breath, not for her but for the void left in me, filled with echoes of Jacob's name.
"Are you okay, Ethan?" she asked, her disappointment morphing into concern.
"I'm fine," I lied, painting a smile that felt more like a grimace.
She nodded, unconvinced, and walked away, leaving me stranded in an emotional wasteland. It took losing Jacob to see the truth emblazoned in neon lights in my mind: We loved each other. Not just as friends. Love that digs its roots deep into your soul and doesn't let go. Without him, it was like living underwater—distorted, suffocating, endlessly drowning.
Jacob must have stared at the same date in his history book for twenty minutes, the words blurring into a jigsaw puzzle of letters and numbers. Formerly one of his best subjects, now a stage for failure. His focus shattered like glass under a boot heel.
"Teicher, you're up next," the teacher called out, dragging him back to the present—a present without me.
"Right," he said, his voice betraying none of the turmoil underneath.
Later, at gymnastics practice, he pushed himself harder than ever. The parallel bars became the outlet for unspoken fury, his muscles screaming in agony, hands blistering, but he couldn't stop. Each dismount was a fierce howl against the emptiness gnawing at him.
"Careful, Jacob. You're pushing too hard. That's how injuries happen," his instructor warned after noticing the barely restrained aggression in Jacob's routine.
"Got it," he grunted, brushing off the concern as he chalked up for another round. His body ached and burned. Pain was better than numbness. Anger was better than despair. At least they were something.
In the hallways, conversations happened around him, but he was untouchable, intangible like morning fog. Laughter pierced through the grey veil of his existence, but it sounded hollow, alien. He missed the sound of our shared laughter—genuine, warm, ours.
"Hey, Jacob," someone said, a hand on his shoulder snapping him back to the cold reality.
"Hey," he responded, the word tasting like ash.
His world had lost its color, the vibrancy washed away by distance and the absence of us together. Québec's winter chill bit deeper, frost creeping into the spaces between his ribs where warmth used to reside.
It wasn't until the nights grew longer and the stars seemed duller that he admitted it. He loved me. Loved me with a ferocity that both terrified and consumed him. Every cell in his body ached for our reunion, for the return of his missing piece. Living without me was akin to walking through life incomplete, a shadow desperate for light.
"Je t'attends, Ethan," he whispered to the darkness, hoping somehow, somewhere, I'd hear him.
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