Written Into Love

by Joe Lechene

  When I woke up, Tristan was gone. As I looked around the room, I noticed that the urn was also missing from the coffee table. I didn’t want to freak out right away until I had a chance to look around the apartment first. As I walked down the hall, I noticed that Tristan’s bedroom door was a jar. Slowly pushing the door open, the light from the hallway dimly illuminated the bed. That’s where I found Tristan, lying in bed with Erik’s urn laying on the pillow beside him. He almost looked at peace laying passed out on the pillow. I guess that’s what he really was waiting for, to have his lover back in bed beside him.

  I slowly pulled the door closed behind me and walked the rest of the way down the hall to my room. Taking my clothes off and throwing them on the floor, I crawled into bed naked for the first time in three days. As much as I was enjoying the sheets against my nude body once again, I was immediately missing the man that had shared my bed for the past few days. Right now, he needed to deal with his own demons and apparently, I had to deal with my own.

  VII

  Over the next six months, our lives seemed to somewhat return to some sense of normalcy. At least as normal as our lives were going to get. I went back to writing my gay smut novels, cranking them out as fast as my fingers could type. For a while I was barely sleeping, just taking a little nap before going back to work. I knew that I was overworking myself instead of dealing with my issues directly, but it was working for me, so I just kept on doing it.

  Tristan went back to work the week after the funeral. Only his time around, I made sure that I was waiting for him every night when his shift was done to walk him home. I knew that he was annoyed with it for the first few weeks, but after a while, he seemed to enjoy the company. Or at least, he was putting on a good front. I didn’t really care if he liked it or not, I wasn’t taking a chance of anything happening to him.

  Instead of Tristan giving me money for food, we went grocery shopping once a week on one of his days off. He would pay for half with his tip money and I would put the rest on my debit card. I would still make lunch for us every day, mainly so I could make sure that he was still eating. He had lost some weight over the funeral that he couldn’t afford to lose and I was trying to make sure that he put it back on.

  There was only one thing still worrying me about him, he was still sleeping with Erik’s urn on the other pillow. I knew that it made him feel better knowing that he was there, but even after six months, he had to come to terms with it eventually. I let it go though, not really sure how else to deal with it. Getting him into a shrink was the logical choice, but I knew that he would never go willingly.

  …

  One night after walking him home from work, he went into his room right away like usual. Normally I would just let him go and resume my writing, but tonight I kind of wanted to talk to him. After waiting about ten minutes for him to get situated, I went to his room and knocked on the door. It was a good two minutes before he opened the door. He had changed into a pair of basketball shorts and a long sleeve hooded t-shirt. Plus, he didn’t really seem that thrilled to see me.

  “Hey, can we talk for a few minutes?”

  “I guess,” he replied.

  I led him to my office and we sat down on the futon beside the door. He sat across from me on the futon, looking right at me. Actually, not right at me. He was more interested in watching his hands as he twiddled his thumbs. I could tell that he was nervous for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  “How are you doing?”

  He replied, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you look like shit, you live like a hermit, and frankly, you stink.”

  A tear started running down his cheek. “I miss him, Ian. He was my everything. I feel like I’m just going through the motions without him.”

  I took his hands in mine and looked him in the eyes. “Tristan, Erik would be extremely pissed if he knew that you were just wasting your life away like this.”

  He tried to pull his hands away from mine, but I held on tight. After sniffling, he said, “I know he would, but it’s so hard.”

  Glancing down at where our hands were joined, my gaze wandered up to his arms. Even though he was wearing a black shirt, I could see deep red stains forming right above his wrists on his forearms. I had a feeling that I knew what the stains were coming from and it was making my blood start to boil.

  “Tristan, pull your sleeves up.”

  He shook his head ‘no’ at me and tried to pull his hands back again.

  “Okay, let’s try this again.” I let go of one of his hands and tried to peel his sleeve up the other. He resisted, trying to pull his arm back from me.

  “Alright Tristan, since you won’t honor my requests, we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

  I let go of his other wrist and grabbed the bottom of his shirt. I had it pulled over his head and on the floor beside us before he even knew what hit him. Just one look at his forearms told me everything that I needed to know. There were faint scars going up the lower half of his forearms. I wish that I could have caught on to his cutting before it got this far. But, by the looks of it, he had been doing it for quite some time. The fresh cuts right above his wrists were still oozing blood. I grabbed his hands again and held them tight.

  “Tristan, what the fuck?”

  He started crying again, this time in full force. Whatever anger that I was feeling quickly dissolved and I pulled him into a hug. As I wrapped my arms around his bare back, he rested his head on my shoulder.

  “I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “But nothing else would take the pain away.”

  “Cutting doesn’t take the pain away Tristan, it only masks it.”

  “I know, but it helps me sleep.”

  “Tristan, you don’t need to hurt yourself to help yourself sleep.”

  “Ian, I don’t know what else to do,” he sobbed.

  “Alright, one thing at a time. First off, you are in dire need of a shower. Like with soap and all that good smelling stuff.”

  He sighed into my shoulder, “Fine.”

  Tristan tried to stand up before I stopped him. “Wait, you’re going to use my shower. And, you’re going to leave the bathroom door open.”

  He looked at me with a questioning expression on his face, “Why?”

  “Just in case. I don’t want you doing something stupid in there.”

  “Alright,” he replied almost defeated.

  I let Tristan get up from the futon and followed him down the hall to my bedroom. When he went into the bathroom, I sat down on the edge of my bed. I knew that I was going a little overboard with this whole shower thing, but I was really afraid that he would try to harm himself again. Once the shower started, I waited to hear the sound of water splashing around. All I heard though was the sound of the water running.

  Suddenly, becoming worried about him, I got off the bed and walked into the bathroom. Trying not to be too nosy, I peeked into a gap that the shower curtain left and found Tristan leaning back against the shower wall. My better judgment was telling me to go back to where I was sitting on the bed. However, I cared too much for Tristan to let him go to shit.

  I pulled my t-shirt off and dropped my shorts to the floor. Opening the shower curtain, I walked into the shower to a very surprised Tristan. It took all that I had to put the physical sight of him aside and do what needed to be done. I grabbed the soap off the shelf and started to lather him up. Starting with his armpits before moving to his nether regions as I soaped his thin body. After soaping him up, I took a washcloth and scrubbed him good. Of course, he was responding to my touch, but I completely ignored it. I was on a mission and nothing was going to stop me from accomplishing it.

  Once the major smell areas were scrubbed, I worked on the rest of his body. I probably spent more time than I should have washing his defined chest and 8-pack abs. When I scrubbed his arms, I made sure to take extra care scrubbing over the cuts on his forearms. The last thing I scrubbed was his legs. They were covered in dark
blonde hairs, right down to his feet. I even made sure to scrub in between each of his slender toes.

  Tristan was moaning and quivering the entire time that I washed him. By the time that I was done scrubbing him, both of us were at full attention. I just ignored the elephant in the room and turned the shower off. After getting out of the shower, I grabbed a towel and handed one to Tristan one as well. Both of us dried off and wrapped the damp towels around our waists. I threw our discarded clothes into the hamper before we left the room. Tristan followed me as I walked out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen.

  “Have a seat at the table and I’ll find us a snack before bed. I doubt that you’ve eaten anything since lunch.”

  He did as I asked without saying a word. As he sat down at the dinner table, I went to the fridge to find something quick to eat. Thankfully, there was still a couple of slices of leftover pizza waiting for us. After heating them up, I sat two slices down in front of Tristan before sitting down across the table from him. I sat with my arms crossed, looking at him until he picked up a slice and started eating it. I had both of my slices down before he finished his first, but at least he was slowly making progress. While he was working on his second, I decided that it was time to lay down some new rules.

  “Alright, since I already know you are going to refuse to get professional help, we need some new rules.” Tristan stopped eating mid-bite and looked right at me. I took a deep breath before continuing, “First when you’re at home, you wear either a short sleeve shirt or none at all. There will be no more hiding your arms from me. Second, you will shower every day like a normal human being. Third, if you’re in your room, the door stays open. In fact, any room that you are in, you’ll keep the door open. I know this sounds kind of controlling, but it’s for your own good. I just can’t stand seeing you go on like this anymore.”

  He went back to eating his pizza without looking at me the whole time. I’m sure that this was a lot to process for him, so I gave him the time to finish eating and to think. Either way, I wasn’t letting him get up from this table unless we finished this conversation. After finishing his pizza, he wiped the sauce off the sides of his mouth with a napkin. He looked like he was going to cry again, but he seemed to be holding it back. Then, he sat back in the chair and crossed his arms against his chest.

  Tristan opened his mouth as if he was about to speak before closing it again. Then he said, “Alright, I’ll agree to your rules. Can I make a request though?”

  “If it doesn’t involve you stinking or harming yourself, then yes.”

  He replied, “Nah, it doesn’t. Can I… Would it be okay if… Ugh… It’s just that, I haven’t slept worth a shit since the funeral. I thought that just having his ashes beside me would help, but it really didn’t.”

  A tear escaped the side of his eye as I grasped what he was asking me. Maybe, just maybe, the solution to this was simpler than I thought. “Tristan, are you trying to ask if you can sleep in my bed?”

  He wiped away the tears that were forming before nodding a ‘yes’ back at me. I got up from my seat and walked around the table, stopping right beside him. Getting down on my knees, I took the sides of his face into my hands.

  “Tristan, you were always welcome to sleep in my bed. I thought you were content sleeping with the urn beside you. I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

  He replied, “It’s not your fault. I never told you. It just fucking sucks.”

  “Well, if you’re ready, I could use a good night’s sleep.”

  He nodded back at me and I slowly stood up, pulling Tristan up from the chair with me. He walked back down the hall behind me, following me to my bedroom. Tristan climbed into bed with me following right behind him after I turned the lights off. Still wrapped in just a towel, he laid on his side with his back pressed against me. I put my hands above my head and closed my eyes as the emo beside me started to lightly snore.

  VIII

  Upon waking up the next day, I immediately realized that I had made a mistake the night before. Tristan had rolled over during the night and his completely bare body was now resting half on top of mine. As I felt him pressing himself into the side of my leg, I started to freak out. I knew that he was doing it unconsciously and any other time I wouldn’t have complained. However, right now I was feeling a desperate need to remove myself from this situation. I slid myself away from him and got out of bed. Since I managed to lose my own towel while sleeping as well, I retrieved a pair of boxers and slid them up my legs before leaving the room.

  Once I was safely in the serenity of my office, I started a pot of coffee. With my piping hot cup of black goodness in hand, I sat my ass at my desk. After making sure that I didn’t have any hate email from my publisher, I opened the file for my latest novel. After last night, I decided to take my feelings out on my characters. I was just starting a smut scene, so, it seemed like the perfect time to have them ravage each other.

  Just as my characters were approaching their climax, Tristan walked into the room. I averted my attention from my computer screen for a minute to look at him. He was now wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a loose black t-shirt as he poured a cup of coffee. After fixing it, he sat down Indian style on the futon. I smiled as he blew on the hot drink before returning back to my work. I was hell bent on finishing this scene before I did anything else today.

  Once I finished one of the steamiest sex scenes that my fingers ever produced, I saved the file and slowly stood up. I went to the coffee pot and refilled my mug before sitting down beside Tristan on the futon. As soon as I sat down, Tristan leaned into my side. I ran my free hand through his shoulder-length hair as I sipped my coffee.

  “Thank you for letting me sleep in your bed,” he said. “I think that was the best I’ve slept in months.”

  “You’re welcome. I told you that you were always welcome. Next time though, we need to wear something other than towels before going to bed.”

  I could feel his skin start to flush against me. The heat from his arms was radiating right into me. I didn’t even have to look at him to know that he was blushing.

  “I’m sorry,” he quietly whispered.

  “It’s okay, it happens. Hey, since you’re off today, how about we get cleaned up and hit the grocery store? The fridge was looking pretty empty last night.”

  He replied, “Yeah, that sounds good.”

  After finishing his coffee, Tristan got up and left the room. He walked into the bathroom across the hall and I heard the shower start. True to his word, he left the bathroom door open. Plus, I even heard water splashing around this time. Once I was satisfied that he was washing, I went into my room and walked into my own bathroom. After washing off, I got dressed and waited for Tristan in the living room. When he came back out in his skinny jeans and a long-sleeve shirt, I knew that we were ready to head out to the store.

  …

  Unlike our usual weekly shopping experience, this week seemed a little different. Tristan followed behind me, occasionally throwing miscellaneous grocery items into the cart. Any other time, he moped along behind me not adding anything that he wanted. This time though, he was getting cereal, snacks, and even some frozen dinners. When we got the personal hygiene products, he stopped and looked at the hair color. I knew that he liked to dye his hair jet black, but his roots were growing in and I happened to think that his natural color looked better on him.

  Just as he was starting to pick a box from the shelf, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Tristan, why don’t you consider letting your natural color grow back in? I know that you like it black, but I think that it’s time for a change. You never know, it might be good for you.”

  “Eh,” he replied, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I'm just so used to it.”

  “How about this? After we get the groceries put away, we’ll go to a salon and get your hair dyed back to your dirty-blond. If you end up not liking it, you can go back to dying it black?”

  He hesitated f
or a few seconds before responding, “Yeah, I think that I could handle that.”

  “Alright, a little trim wouldn’t hurt ya either.”

  Tristan suddenly looked like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. I ran my other hand through his shoulder-length hair. “Relax, I said a little trim, not cut all of it off.”

  He relaxed under my touch and put the box of hair color back on the shelf. We finished our shopping in this area with Tristan picking out a different kind of body wash and a new puff. I was kind of shocked when he went to get it, however, it made me happy at the same time. At least he was trying to uphold his end of the agreement. When we were finished, we went to the register and checked out. I even made Tristan put his purchases with the rest of our order and split the bill like we usually did.