Eddie should be asleep. They both should, really. The hour is well past late, and neither of them has said a word in over ten minutes. But the lamp beside the sofa is still casting its warm light across the room, and Eddie’s missed Buck. And he thinks, maybe, that Buck missed him too.
He studies Buck, tracing the slope of his nose and the curve of his jaw with his eyes. It’s nothing he hasn’t memorized before, but he finds he never gets tired of looking. And he gets it now. God does he get it. Eddie doesn’t know how he missed it before, but he understands now.
And he wants– there’s a lot that he wants, actually. Which Frank would probably call a long-overdue realization. Or maybe not, actually, because Frank’s usually nicer than that when Eddie’s making progress. And this, he knows, is progress. He wants Christopher to be happy, yes, but he wants himself to be happy, too. He wants to be a firefighter. He wants to sleep eight hours straight and wake up refreshed. He wants to make a frittata in the morning, because Linda sent him a recipe and he thinks he might actually be able to make it taste good.
And he wants Buck. Eddie wants everything with Buck.
They’re not there yet, no, because Eddie got back from El Paso not even four hours ago, and Buck broke up with Taylor while Eddie was on the plane. But he thinks maybe they will be, eventually. For the first time in his entire life, everything Eddie wants feels like it’s in reach.
It’s that thought that makes the words that have been percolating in his brain all week finally tumble from his mouth.
“Do you ever wonder what it would have been like?”
Buck blinks at him slowly, frowns a little, clearly trying to push through the haze of exhaustion for the context Eddie hasn’t given him. It makes the corner of Eddie’s mouth tick up in the smallest of grins.
“If we’d met before, when we were kids,” he clarifies.
The confusion clears from Buck’s expression, and his eyes drop away from Eddie’s. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’ve thought about it.”
“Me too,” Eddie confesses. “All this week, I’d drive past the places I used to know and imagine you in them.”
“I missed you,” Buck says quietly.
“I missed you, too.”
“Sometimes,” Buck starts. He pauses to bite his lip. “Sometimes I think I’ve been missing you my entire life. Like a part of me knew you were out there and was just waiting for you to find me.”
Eddie closes his eyes and reaches out blindly, trusting that Buck will catch his hand. “I wish I had,” he whispers. “Or–”
“I get it,” Buck says. “I wouldn’t change it either. We sure would’ve raised some hell, though.” He squeezes Eddie’s hand, and Eddie can just imagine the smile that follows. He opens his eyes and is rewarded with the sight of it, small but genuine, and maybe just a little bit sad.
“Yeah we would’ve,” Eddie replies. “I think there’s a lot I would have figured out sooner, too,” he admits quietly.
“Like what?” Buck asks. His expression is soft and curious, and god, Eddie loves him. He really loves him.
Eddie swallows, throat suddenly dry. “I’m gay,” he says. “Or- or bi, maybe. I’m still figuring that out. But I’m not–” he cuts himself off with a huff.
Buck’s eyes go a little wide. “You– Eds,” he breathes. “I’m so proud of you.” He pulls Eddie into a bone crushing hug that kind of maybe a little bit makes him want to cry.
“For what?” Eddie mumbles into Buck’s shoulder.
“For everything,” Buck says. “For– for therapy, and for learning how to cook, and for talking to your parents. For being you. You’re my favorite person, you know that?”
Eddie settles his arms around Buck’s waist and allows him to take his weight. “You’re mine too.”
An essay on why I keep rewatching Heartstopper even though it is literal trauma...
Apparently, masochism has become my strong suit. Staring at a screen of rolling credits, the eight episode realization hits me: it’s over. A whole season drowns in a cauldron, bubbling with envy, despair, anxiety, and regret. It’s almost as if every conflict wrapped my small intestine around my chest, constricting my lungs, while every release whipped my digestive tract back down, pulling my heart with it. There’s nothing left in my chest and an extra five pounds sitting in my stomach. This was the violent response of a body watching Heartstopper.
Honestly, I feel terrible. It is 1:34 am on a night I cannot afford restlessness. I couldn’t stop. Each “Next Episode” button pushed me towards self assured destruction. By the end, the final montage flashed, displaying the highest points of a tumultuous season. Snowball fights. Secret kisses. Holding each other in the sunlight of an English beach.
Each time they’d hold hands, it was so tight they’d feel the other’s pulse. Nick would wrap them so confidently, as if to ensure Charlie’s continued existence in this plane. The sweetest request for that moment to last forever. Or the next. Or the following. Expressions became livelier, more sentimental, as if their conversations of passed looks and wrapped fingers invented an entirely new language in an entirely new world. Only available to two residents. And so warm. A breath of life would climb up the length of their forearm before the mind could even comprehend the satisfaction and safety. An arm feels heavy without that. Lost as it tries to remember what it can even do anymore.
And why did Nick’s hands move like that? Cupping a face so gentle and firm. It’s almost as if Charlie was a bird with flight risk written all over. Feeling the rugby boy’s palms on his chin, Charlie’s eyes shot fireworks, letting every ounce of light in the establishment reflect in his irises. The joints would mold, creating the lightest cast across the boy’s skin. It painted glowing hues of red, leaving behind growing ponds of blush. It was like Charlie never knew the soft press of a thumb could make him even meeker. Cheeks stay marked like that for a long time. Whenever retraced, you remember the first. Or the last. Or the middle. But Charlie won’t have to. The hands of a ghost are only truly felt by the nonfictional.
Maybe I can’t cheer on these characters because they’re out of reach. Or their vision at least. My eyes don’t shoot fireworks each time I feel a hand on my cheek. My mom doesn’t gently smile like Nick’s. I can’t even remember the feeling of a hand interlocking mine. Each sincere moment feels like a reminder of where I failed. An itemized list of why my life lacks the indie pop soundtrack and walls filled with memories and movie posters.
The truth is, the whole story is fiction. I am not the main character. Or even a love interest. But for some they get to feel that series as a reality. It may not always be the stud rugby player coming out for them, but there’s someone. A person they do steal kisses with. A person they hold so tightly they can hear their breath like the ocean in a seashell. But as the clock strikes closer towards two, I look around my room with a familiar emptiness. The blank space just fills itself with the incessant typing and the Phoebe Bridgers music I use to feel something.
This space just gets blanker with each day. Piece by piece, I have burned or tossed bits of myself in a haphazard plot line of isolation and loneliness. And with each chapter closed, I learned to leave more and more behind. Phasing myself out of places where I once belonged or places where I wish I did.
Out of these, the family portrait was first to go. It slowly burned each day, with a little less of me holding on. It was like my parents and I kept holding matches, taking turns to burn one another. It started with me coming out. It ended with me telling my mother to get out. Never a lovely moment of acceptance or peace, just tension. After that final standoff, she would leave my apartment that day along with all of my hopes for us. I won’t ever have that Nick moment. The moment where we just hug and say it’s okay and move on. The moment where we remember all of the amazing memories and try to promise more. The moment where we cry and forgive each other for every nasty moment or lost connection. When we said that last goodbye, we gave up. I gave up.
After the parents, came the friends. Every mile that passed in my rearview was another name and a face dropped. Each city I moved to made me practice building walls, burrowing deeper into my temporary bedroom. Each week, I called less, texted less, until I was a ghost. Just an occasional name mentioned over brunch conversations as a “was”, not an “is”. My goofy band of misfits slowly diluted into a one man troupe. I’d never share secrets over milkshakes or watch horrible movies with hilarious commentary with them again. That was the one part I did relate to Charlie. It feels so easy to drift until everything goes silent. Let the friends try to make something out of nothing until they realize communication is futile. Even when you return from the void, the distance doesn’t go away. I always feel a gap. A tool to keep me at a comfortable distance. I’ll sit at every after party, dance at every club, and look onwards as a spectator in some attempt to keep me from faltering. It keeps me out of the storyline. One less plot device in someone’s great tale of triumph.
The final empty space is the one you saved for someone else. Staring at it, you’ll see shadows, like flickering memories of filled corners. It’s just like a funeral over and over. A memorial service where I’m the only one to even mourn. I imagine relief washing over Charlie as he stares into a similar nook to find Nick. They’d kiss, showing the same glowing skin and bright eyes of those eight episodes. I’m not sure I’ll feel that again. Why do people’s eyes light up like that? When was the last time mine did? When did I give up trying to feel that? When I started fading, it felt like I latched onto things just to feel alive. But I could never quite hold on.
Characters like Charlie and Nick make major leaps, grabbing the sky with every jump. They’d reach first with a pinky, then let their shoulders lean in until their necks were forced to close the remaining distance. Each vault towards the other felt less and less relatable. Or attainable. Maybe both. Never looking before the jump, they could trust the end. It was all in the writer’s hand anyways. But I have no writer. No warning over the edge. So I dare not even approach the edge at all. Reduced to another spectator. Afraid to ever even try. Afraid to accept there may be someone worth the jump.
My last attempt was a Summer Boy. His eyes swirled chocolate brown through his glasses. We toured the botanical garden, hues of green and blue, clashing against his white skin and dark shirt. He kept looking down at me and smiling. We talked for hours, feeling so easy and free. His stories felt like gold easily given. The colors felt livelier as he told me every world belief and random factoid with the firmest voice. At the end, he kissed me. Something came alive in me again. He’d reveal things about himself to make me feel like I could join in. Escape with him to a world of two, just like Nick and Charlie.
By the time we met again, summer lost its shine. He played some insane film built on horror, insanity, and weird twists. He held me like we’d get through it together. He grinned, transforming the tiny Macbook into a private theater. By the time the movie was done, his dexterous hand moved to my waist while the other slowly closed the laptop. He pulled me in closer for more. Turns out I wasn’t enough. My body post-surgery had grown stretch marks, grown unrecognizable from the college athlete body I’d held up until college graduation. Once my shirt came off, it was like pulling off a mask. The real monster was now on display. When he led me out, it was like he was escorting a stranger. We never spoke again. I spiraled for a week. The mirror became my worst enemy for months. Still is. Each venture into the shower is a staredown between myself and a monster.
The monster is now between me, myself, and I. It’s almost as if I refuse to open the door. To let someone know I still exist. So I remain the spectator and fade back to the bed, like Charlie. It’s safer this way, to avoid any type of perception. To be perceived is to accept judgment. To feel something is to accept that I’ll have to reveal more. I can’t do it. To be attracted to another person almost feels taboo. If I told another, the rejection comes with a reason. What if they tell me I’m the reason, that I’m not enough. A confirmation of words unspoken for so long.
So maybe I am jealous. Or hateful. Or scared. With an eight episode arc, Heartstopper has managed to round me into a corner where I must confront my issues with a happy ending. To make participation mandatory. My biggest fear. To escape perception has been my safest option for so long. But I want to feel recognition. Acceptance. It’s quite possible I’ll have to change that approach soon. Until then, I’ll most likely rewatch the series with the same masochistic tendencies.
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