Once the sun has set, I climb to the roof of my apartment building and watch the lights of the city flitter in the darkness like angels in heaven. I don´t hear him enter through the door which leads to the roof or approach me, but I relax visibly when I feel warm arms encircle my waist and pull me to the body standing behind me. For long moments, we stay like this, until Joe´s voice breaks the silence.
"Did all go according to plan?"
"Yes, just the way we planned it," I answer, reluctant to break the spell. "I made sure of it."
It had taken some preparations to find a body which matched Joe´s to such an extent as to fool the police but I had managed it with my access to FBI files.
"What now?" At Joe´s question, I turn around to face my lover, his hands coming together at the small of my back. I had never been fond of human contact, yet somehow it seemed natural as the air I breathed to feel his fingertips on my skin, to hear him make breakfast in the kitchen or sing along to Frank Sinatra on the living room floor after having a few glasses of whisky.
"It´s time for the next phase of your life. I packed a suitcase filled with clothes which will fit you and inside there is also a forged passport and some money to tie you over until you land in place you can call home."
Joe´s hands fall from my waist. "And if I don´t want to leave?"
I frown in confusion. "It´s the goal we have been planning towards for the last few months. It´s the only solution that doesn´t involve death or jail. You agreed to all this, remember?"
"That was before..." Joe tries to frame his thoughts into words but cannot manage it. Instead he runs his hand through his hair.
"This is difficult for me too," I reply when witnessing his confusion. He doesn´t respond, but turns away from me to gaze over the lights of New York. After a pause of what seems like an eternity, he turns to me once again.
"It sure as hell doesn´t seem like it."
"What are you talking about?" I am taken aback by the fire burning within his dark eyes. It´s the first glance I have had of the dangerous man hiding beneath the seemingly calm exterior. The volcano has been awoken, will it erupt now?
"I´m the one making all the sacrifices, Ryan. Once I am gone, you can go back to a brilliant career in the FBI, fuck my ex-wife as much as you want and find someone new to chase and write a book about. It´ll be like we never existed at all."
I sighed. "It isn´t that easy, Joe."
"Isn´t it?" Joe lifted an eyebrow in question. "Something tells me you will forget me a lot quicker then I will forget you."
A part of me wanted to violently dispute this claim. How could he even consider such a thing? After all we had been through, he still seemed to doubt me. Yet, another part would feel a sense of relief once Joe was gone and no longer part of my life. Through the darker shades of Joe´s soul, I had come to know my own.
That kind of self-reflection was not my cup of tea.
A quote from Nietzche came to mind and I said it out loud. "When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
Joe frowned in confusion. "What does that even mean?"
"It´s the answer to your question. How can I cut away my own shadow? I would be sure to miss it once it was gone, like Peter Pan."
In an uncharacteristic show of affection, Joe reached out to cradle my cheek with his hand. His thumb grazed my cheekbone. "I suppose that is all we are, lost little boys, looking for our shadows, unwilling to grow up."
"Do you suppose that is what brought us together?" Had it merely been a case of us seeing something broken in one another that sealed our fate?
"What we have lies somewhere between our dreams and human consciousness, the darkness and the light, the substance and the shadow." Joe had clearly considered the matter quite extensively.