"I love you so much that sometimes it hurts to breathe when you're not with me."
Jason stared up at the sky, the stars above bright without all the pollution of the cities. He’d been a few times, with his parents. His mother loved New York fashion, and his father loved the transport models they sold in Chicago. He’d never leave if his mother hadn’t rationed him to one new plane model for every trip.
He wasn’t sure how to respond. They’d just been…talking.
Jason tried to keep these evenings together casual. Like they didn’t rewire his neurons at the very roots of his brain. Every Friday night they laid there, talking, small talk he usually hated with a passion delving into something deeper and softer and lazier.
Making things harder to ignore. Things like Eddie’s — when did he stop calling him Munson? The third night? — eyes, Eddie’s hair, Eddie’s neck, Eddie’s hands—
He thought a lot, about many things, and usually while laying on the ground, a blanket beneath them, staring up at the sky. Pointing out random shapes in the sky because he didn’t know about stars and their dips and their bows like Eddie did. Eddie knew a lot of things he didn’t.
It was fine. He knew more things than him about other things. Where Eddie knew of the sky, he knew of the sea; but they both knew of the land, and they could take the time to lay on it and admire both water and sky at the quarry.
What had he said to spark those words?
Was it the soft confession that Eddie was the only person he felt he could confide in about the small and big things?
Was it the chuckle and the brush of fingers to Eddie’s chin where he had managed to smudge lead from a pencil — the knowing question of ‘campaign writing again? Or another song?’
Or was it simply because he existed solely in this moment? Because when he was here, with Eddie, he was himself, pure and concentrated. And maybe Eddie felt he could talk to the very soul of him without fear anymore? Did he forget the way they still bickered in the hallways when the sun rose? Sometimes, Jason did.
Jason stared at the sky, picking at his nailbeds, a nasty habit he never kicked. He couldn’t bite his nails, he couldn’t pick his face, but he could scratch around his nails until they bled and nobody cared. Well, except maybe Eddie. Eddie cared a lot, about a lot of things.
His heart was thrice the size of Jason’s. He made him feel like the Grinch in comparison, still stuck in his mountain side.
He turned his head to look at Eddie and noticed now his heart was racing. Quick and sharp like a greyhounds. His palms were sweating even though winter was creeping into the late fall air. His stomach was in knots.
Eddie found it easier to breathe? With him?
He felt like Eddie made his own lungs strain.
He wiped a sweaty palm on his jeans and parted his lips and failed to speak. So he closed them and looked back to the sky. Many thought him brave, but Eddie knew he wasn’t.
He was simply too caught up in his own emotions sometimes to let fear hold him back.
He hesitated before laying his hands by his side, letting his knuckles brush Eddie’s. Stilling. Letting his pinkie curl around his.
They spoke enough to each other. Some things were allowed to go on, unspoken.
