My One

I sip my steaming cup of coffee, as I look out from the window of the cafe.

The backdrop of skyscrapers is artificial and comforting at the same time. Trying to touch the sky may be metaphorical for us puny humans, but for those huge buildings, it is their life choice.

The people look like they are ready to become popsicles in this freezing winter. The tips of their noses are pink as they wrap their scarfs tighter around their necks and rub their mittened hands together in a desperate attempt for warmth.

Children chatter wildly, making snowmen and snow angels, throwing snow at each other in pure joy. Their parents look on, some proud, while some are rapidly popping aspirin into their mouths.

Two men who look like a couple hold on to each other while taking a walk in the park opposite the café. The trees provide beauty to their romantic walk as they huddle behind a few bushes to taste each other without anyone’s unnecessary judgement.

I stop looking, suddenly feeling like I’m invading on their private time together and look down at my notepad. My messy handwriting stares back, reminding me that I have to finish editing a manuscript by the next two days.

I finish drinking my coffee and scoop up my belongings. As I walk towards the door, my mind goes back to the couple in the park. As I open the door, hearing the chime of bells behind me, I feel a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.

I was jealous.

I always thought that coming to New York would be the big break for my career as an author. Instead, I was stuck editing manuscripts of authors who didn’t deserve to be famous. But no one ever got what they deserved.

I walk rapidly, trying to reach my office without becoming an ice sculpture. I spot a crying woman sitting on a bench, while an awkward boyfriend rubs her back to comfort her.

I look away once again, chuckling at the universe teasing me left and right. I was trying to forget, but the world had made up its mind to make it as difficult as possible.

Today was Mark’s first death anniversary.

I had heard enough of ‘Sorry for your loss’s and ‘I think you should move on’s. I knew they were secretly popping open bottles of champagne in celebration of me losing him. Because they hadn’t found their one yet.

I had found my one and I had lost him.

Mark was…well…Mark was.

I knew that I was different, from that moment when I was twelve. I had felt something a boy shouldn’t feel. That day was crystal clear in my memory still.

I was sitting on that comfortable worn leather sofa, shifting my weight just to hear it squeak under me. I had a bowl of chips in my hand and I was watching Captain America. There was only one light on because I and my sister were the only ones awake.

When Chris Evans came on screen, my fifteen-year-old sister moaned, “He’s so hot!”

I couldn’t help but agree.

I started to have crushes on men. I knew that it was something forbidden, something terrible to like someone of your own gender in that way.

I got on the subway, blinking fast to adjust to the lights. I smelt a sting of Dettol in the air. I held on the pole in the centre of the carriage, politely nodding at the man sitting on the seat in front of me. He nodded back and went back to reading the book in his hand.

Mark had loved to read. I had started writing because of him.

He had come into my life one hot morning in July, barging into my dusty room on the first day of university. I had just finished unpacking and had been adjusting the blue bedsheets on the mattress. He had triumphantly announced himself as my roommate and declared that we would become best friends in a matter of days.

He wasn’t wrong.

We started hanging out a lot, discussing the movies and television shows we loved and hated, and he introduced me to various authors and various genres of books.

I started to write stories and poems.

I started to have a crush on him.

It happened one day a few months after our first meeting. He had come into the room, strangely fidgety. I started to feel nervous. Other people fidgeting made me tense.

He came up to me, and said, “I need to tell you something that I’ve never told anyone before.” I just nodded, gesturing him to continue.

“I’m gay.”

I just blinked. Was it shock or relief I was feeling? I didn’t know.

He then rapidly tried to explain himself. “I know that you probably think I’m this weird kid and you’ve probably never met anyone else who’s gay and this might be confusing but I’ll keep my hands off you, I promise, I – mmph!”

At one point in the conversation, I had suddenly stood up, walked over to him, and kissed him. I drew apart and whispered, “I don’t think I can make that same promise.”

His eyes widened, and that was all I needed. I pulled him closer and kissed him harder. It was perfect. It was exactly as I had imagined it to be, my first kiss with a boy.

He wrapped his hands around me and deepened the kiss. I moaned in pleasure.

He quickly pushed me on the bed and started to take off my clothes, not taking his lips off me for a second.

That night, that small bed. We didn’t let go of each other.

I am quickly jolted from my thoughts by the loud screech of the subway train halting and my body falling forwards with it.

I get out of the subway and reach the publishing office I intern at. I enter the building and am struck by the familiar feeling that I should be bossing these people around as an author instead of me being bossed by them.

“Richard! You’re three minutes late!”

I missed you too, sir.

People are walking around with files threatening to burst open and spill their contents, holding their phones in their other hand as they talk at a deafening volume. I receive a few nods and a few superior looks, which I’m accustomed to. As I go to my small desk, I’m greeted by the layers of papers and the smell of ink.

I rub my hands in anticipation of the enormous pile of work I have to do.

Only one more manuscript left. I rub my eyes and check the time. I’ve been working for six hours. I can’t stop now.

I finish editing the final manuscript and leave the office.

As I walk out, I see an author talking to the publishing manager about one of his books. I walk faster before I lose it.

I’m on the subway again, when I’m faced with the truth I have denied for so long: the real reason why I moved to New York.

I think that it should have been obvious to everyone who had ever known me.

I didn’t leave for my big break, I left because my town was filled with Mark.

There were posters everywhere with his face on it. The funeral and wake were at the local church. That was my last time at a church and in that town.

I remember that day. It had been rainy. We drove to the church, me and Rachel in the back seat with my mother driving. I remember wanting to throw up in that cramped car. But I held it in.

I remember that church. It was peaceful and airy on the inside, and on any other day, I would have admired its beauty. But that day I felt suffocated.

I reached my small apartment and took out my keys. As I unlocked the door, I received the familiar punch in the gut that reminded me once again that Mark was gone. Tears were already falling by the time I opened the door and turned the lights on.

I sat on the floor, leaning on the wall, and started to cry. I brought my knees up and put my face in them, unable to hold its weight up.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Minutes, hours or days. It didn’t matter.

I sat there and recalled every single thing about him. His sparkling blue eyes, his messy brown hair, his raspy voice in the morning, waking up on his chest every day and smiling up at him, wheeling his bloody body into the operation centre on that night a year ago…

He had been coming to town. He hit a tree. That was it.

I remember the blaring sirens and the humidity. I remember how it was all blurred around the edges, and me dumbly wondering if it was sweat or tears that was blurring my vision. Now it comes back to me and it looks like an old film, yellowish and dreamlike.

I remember falling to the ground when the doctor came outside and shook his head sadly. I remember my mother and Rachel holding me tight.

I remember it being white and black at the same time in the hospital, a polaroid.

I remember running outside, tripping over stairs and plants, and screaming without making a sound.

I ran home that day, packed my bags, left a note saying that Mark had wanted me to go to New York because he had loved my writing, and I left.

I didn’t speak to my mother or Rachel for almost five months after I moved here. I ignored all their calls and sent it to voice mail. They wouldn’t understand. One day I called them back. I talked to them for hours and realised that even though they didn’t understand, they’d try their best to.

I hadn’t written in so long. That was going to change.

I got up and walked over to the phone. I called Mr Roberts and said that I was quitting.

I went over to the table and took my laptop. If I wanted to become an author, I needed to do it on my own. I needed to do it for Mark.

***************

As I sit in the bookshop, signing copies of my book, I’m astonished at how things have changed. I wrote my first book in a few months and took my old boss’s help to publish it. It was about Mark. I think he would have liked it.

Now as I sit here, author of over fifteen books, I still get the same question from inquisitive readers.

“Who is Mark?”

And I still give them the same answer.

“He is my one.”