Victor had managed to make it almost halfway through the second semester of his freshman year of college, the time breezing by in comparison to the previous semester. He was busy enough with his course load, along with his anger management and regular therapy, as well as with his volunteer work. And he turned nineteen quietly without a fuss, spending the day in therapy rather than throwing a party.

Luckily basketball season was over, so that was a load off his back, and his just-packed-enough schedule didn't allow him enough time to wallow in his own pity. Plus, his leg was also fully healed, so he no longer had to deal with the challenges of other people driving him around or doing basic things for him and making him feel like an infant. It was good to be back in control of his own life, even if he did somewhat miss the lack of responsibility he had when he was recovering.

What he didn't miss, though, was over-medicating with weed to get to sleep and to numb the infuriatingly frequent thoughts of Benji that would pop into his mind in those rare instances when he had too much time on his hands. The days he had spent in bed depressed and simultaneously trying to figure out how to use his left hand to jerk off (he'd gotten a bit better at it over the course of those few months) - he wasn't sure if it had been a worthy tradeoff. Doing nothing, his life stood still as if trapped in a glacier, which would break off from a shelf and come crashing down into the sea as the planet warmed, taking a physical breather while the thoughts careened through his skull, or doing so much he didn't have the chance to think, gaining a psychological reprieve from the repeated stabbing he would get whenever he saw Benji's face? Both had their pros and cons.

At least when he sat in bed, he didn't have to pay attention to the painting on his wall above his bed, its presence a reminder of his own lunacy. Isabel had asked him why he didn't take it down, and he didn't have an answer.

It was Sunday, the evening of Valentine's Day, and for the first time in many years, Victor stayed home. Alone. He sat at his desk, his books strewn across the polished wooden surface as he prepared for his midterms, which were starting in the coming week. But instead of studying, he sat with his back to his work, eyes trained instead on that dreaded painting… He couldn't bring himself to unglue his pupils from it. In any other situation, he would tear it from where it hung, smashing it against the ground before he stomped on it and set it on fire. But he only imagined this scenario, and outwardly, all he could do was sigh.

He thought about how much time it must have taken for Benji to paint it, and Victor imagined him sitting on the floor hunched over his canvas and paints, mixing the acrylics on a palette with his love for Victor before smearing them across the surface to create what would become Victor's most treasured possession, worth a million times more than all the property of the wealthiest men on earth. It would be a crime akin to slaughtering his own family to destroy it or even to hide it away. And so he didn't.

In that moment, Victor craved a blunt, knowing it would help him take the edge off. But he had been trying to cut back lately, to give himself a bit of a much-needed tolerance break, and being back on Adderall made him a bit hesitant this time around. He hadn't told his therapists about the Adderall, but they knew about the weed. Perhaps he could mention that it helps him focus and he could get a prescription for it, and the real stuff, not just something one of his schoolmates cooked at home in their garage, which probably wouldn't be acceptable for distribution in any other setting. He knew what he was doing.

Realizing quickly that he wasn't going to get anymore studying done that evening, Victor stretched and rose from his seat. He needed a distraction, and one that didn't come in the form of smoke or pills. After spending the whole weekend cooped up in his room, (which in comparison to the months he had spent healing there, was not so bad), Victor needed to escape.

When he opened the door, he spotted Pilar standing before him, mid-knock. She lowered her hand slowly, eyes wide.

"Hey, I was about to ask if you wanted something to eat," Pilar said. "Naomi and I made some cookies and they came out kinda ugly but they're still really good."

"Yeah, I'd love some. But… I don't think I've met Naomi before. Is she a new friend?" Victor asked, following her down the corridor. He knew all of Pilar's friends, since there were so few of them that he could count them on one hand.

"Uhh… about that," Pilar replied, pausing her step and grabbing Victor's wrist to pull him into her room, shutting the door behind her. She kept her voice low. "I haven't told anyone else about this, but I've been thinking about it for a while now. And I think I understand why you were so hesitant to come out."

Raising his eyebrows, Victor couldn't control the smile that spread across his face. "So you're gay, too."

Shaking her head, Pilar shushed him. "No. Bi. I still, unfortunately, like boys, too."

"That's amazing," Victor breathed, wrapping his arms around her instinctively.

"Gross," Pilar said as she hugged him back, a small smile on her lips.

"How did you figure that out?" Victor asked her once they had pulled apart.

Pilar padded over to her bed and sat down, glancing at the door and motioning for Victor to sit beside her. "When I met Naomi, I felt like… a spark between us. Sorta how I felt with Eric when I first met him. I thought it was just because we're meant to be good friends but like… then I started thinking about what her lips felt like and I just wanted to be close to her, like more than I ever felt with any of my other friends who are girls. It was so weird. Then I did some research and… voila. I'm bi."

Stretching her arms out emphatically to punctuate her statement, Pilar shrugged before dropping her hands back into her lap.

"You definitely handled that better than me," Victor admitted, scratching the back of his head.

"I mean, it's easier knowing that you're not straight, too," Pilar replied, pointing at Victor. "Like, everyone already knows and whether they like it or not, they've accepted it. So I don't expect anything bad to happen because people are used to it already. What's one more kid in the family who's queer? It might be a surprise for everyone but like, I don't have to worry about being disowned or anything for it. You're the OG, Victor."

"Awww, that's so sweet!" Victor cooed, pinching PIlar's cheek, which earned him a smack on the hand and an almost-hidden smile. "So, wait. Is Naomi your girlfriend now?"

Clapping her hand over Victor's mouth, Pilar shushed him again. "It's the plan but I need a grand gesture or something. I mean, I already invited her over on Valentine's Day, so I feel like that's a bit more than subtle. But I also, like, I don't know how to bring it up; I don't even know if she's into girls. How did you figure things out with Benji?"

Victor exhaled, covering his face in his hand. This must have been how Simon felt when he had messaged him asking for advice. Speaking of, he hadn't messaged him in a while… The torch was in his hand now. But his heart knocked against his chest when he thought about Benji. "Okay, first of all, thanks for trusting me and for asking me for advice. I'm honestly touched. But also, do I look like I know how I pulled things off with Benji? It's a mystery to me, too. And I fucked that up in the end, anyway, so."

"Okay, fair. He is outta your league, as I used to say," Pilar said, stroking her chin. Victor gave her a weak smile. "But you still succeeded in actually getting him to date you. That counts for something."

"That's rude," Victor said, holding his finger up and bobbing his head dramatically. "But yeah, he kinda is outta me league, isn't he… Anyway! He just… told me how he felt. 'I wanna be with someone who doesn't make me feel anxious all the time. Someone who makes me feel like I can just be myself, and that's enough. That's how you make me feel, Victor.'"

As he recited the words that Benji had said to him, Victor felt his eyes well with tears. He wiped them away with his sleeve. Pilar patted his arm. "Okay… that sounds easy enough, I guess. And Benji didn't know you were gay at that point, so he really was going out on a limb, huh."

Swallowing the rest of his tears, Victor nodded. "Just speak from the heart. It can be hard to tell if someone likes you back the same way, so the only way to know is to ask. But before you do that, it might be good to maybe ask her who her celebrity crush is or something to find out if she would even be interested in a girl. Although I think the fact that she's here today of all days, baking cookies with you, is a telling sign. Just talk to her. Then once she shows interest, you can ask her on like a real date. I might not be as good at this as Simon but I hope my really pitiful attempts at advice prove useful."

Chuckling to himself, Victor sighed. He thought about the night he and Benji had confessed to each other frequently, and lately, it's done nothing but make him feel empty within. How could they have let things fall into such disarray? At least Pilar had her shit together. What was worse, was that he wished he could take his own advice.

"Thank you," Pilar said, hugging Victor quickly one more time. "I just gotta… do it. Wish me luck! Oh, but first let me get you some cookies."

Pilar ran down the corridor and returned a few moments later with a plate of cookies piled high like a jenga tower, giving it to him with a broad smile. He slipped out of the apartment and into the cool air, sitting on the stoop with his plate and nibbling on the cookies as he stared off into space, sober.

A few moments later, Victor's pocket buzzed. He withdrew his phone and read the message that Pilar had sent him.

"We're going on a date! I owe you one ? "

Pocketing his phone, Victor closed his eyes with a smile blooming on his lips.

Realizing he had never at least acknowledged Benji's message, he went to the special folder in his email application, finding the most recent message he had received from Benji all those weeks ago.

"Take your time. We can talk properly when you're ready.

Te amo,

Victor".

It was one of those rare occasions when Benji had the entire flat to himself, the rain cascading from the sky serving as a good reason for him to stay inside. His flatmates had all gone out with their partners for Valentine's Day, and he had to absorb the acridity that accompanied the knowledge that he was still, in fact, unattached. He was working on being okay with that, but the constant sensation of waiting for nothing that he would notice while awake, which was becoming more often now since he started trying to taper his medication, was slowly driving him mad. It was going to be okay in the end, or at least, that was what he kept telling himself. Even if Victor's response had thrown a bit of a wrench into his plans.

He'd moved himself into the living room, because he spent enough time within the walls of his room normally, and having a bit more space would do him good. Reclining on the couch with the book Victor had given him, Love in the Time of Cholera, hovering above his face, Benji stared at the page, trying to focus. He didn't remember what had drawn him to it all of a sudden, perhaps it had been the message from Victor, but he had a bit of leisure time that evening since he had already finished his homework for the coming week. His lack of other reading options didn't help, either, and even though he knew he could always download an e-book, he was trying to cut down on the amount of screentime he'd been having lately.

Eyes glossing across the matte beige pages and foot tapping, Benji forced himself to focus on the words, their cadence dripping with honey.

"And she was glad, because she preferred to evoke her dead lover as he had asked her to the night before, when he stopped writing the letter he had already begun and looked at her for the last time.

"Remember me with a rose," he said to her."

He had only made it fifteen pages into the story about some dead old man, and yet, he didn't know what had come over him as the tears streamed down his cheeks, burying themselves in his hair as he blinked them back, damming them. They were only words, and yet when Benji thought about how alone he was, how he could die at any moment, and he wondered how Victor would remember him, if he would at all. He set the book down on the table with the spine up, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands; he knew the more he read, the more he would think. And the more he thought, the more he wanted to hurt himself.

Sitting up straight, Benji knew he needed to find something to do with his hands. Now he remembered why he didn't read - it was too idle. He felt like the skin on his hands was about to dry out and crumble from his bones if he didn't get them moving, the urge to burn himself and possibly rip his own veins out engulfing him like a field of corn.

Scrambling down the corridor, Benji barged into his room, rummaging through his things until he found his paints and a canvas, which lay covered in a layer of dust in his bag, carrying everything to the living room and all but throwing it on the floor before sitting down among his supplies. He couldn't stand the silence and allowed the audiobook version to play in the background to provide some tolerable white noise as he worked; he still wanted to know what happened in the rest of the story. Now he could understand why Victor liked this book so much.

Benji stared at the blank canvas, digging his nails into the back of his other hand as he chewed on his lip. He knew what he was going to draw even if he would hate himself for it afterward. Sighing, he took out a pencil and started sketching the face that he'd committed to memory after seeing it countless times.

"Life would have been quite another matter for them both if they had learned in time that it was easier to avoid great matrimonial catastrophes than trivial everyday miseries. But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good." (22)

Shivering as he listened to the words, Benji began mixing his paints, quickly putting them down on the canvas with a brush. He could feel his movements becoming more erratic as the colors blossomed to life. The itch to shove another cigarette against his skin was still there, coaxing him to stop and roast his own flesh instead, but he persisted through it. But the more he looked at his work, Victor's eyes sparkling up at him like little pools of brown crystal, the harder it was becoming to stop himself.

"In the din of fireworks and native drums, of colored lights in the doorways and the clamor of the crowd yearning for peace, Florentino Ariza wandered like a sleepwalker until dawn, watching the fiesta through his tears, dazed by the hallucination that it was he and not God who had been born that night." (42)

He was starting to realize that this was a bad idea. Hand shaking and covered in paint, he shut off the audiobook, shoving his phone aside. This wasn't working. He dug through his supplies, picking out a blade, staring at it as it glinted in the dim light. Heart thumping in his chest, he thought about how good it would feel to slice ribbons off himself for someone to find later. He set the blade aside after a moment and picked up one of his markers instead.

The felt tip of a market didn't hurt him the way he wanted, but it would have to do. He made a mental note to finally get rid of all the sharp objects he owned for his own sake. As he traced his veins with the blue marker before deviating into a drawing of some clouds and mountains, remembering the scenery of Gran Canaria, he could feel his pulse slowly dropping.

After a few minutes, he capped the marker and set it down beside the portrait of Victor he'd painted. It was still a bit wet, the acrylic paint still needing some time to dry since he'd layered on quite a bit of it in heavy mounds. He looked away, feeling like it was staring into his very consciousness, seeing all the mistakes he'd made, mocking him. The fact that Victor hadn't seen him in this state was a blessing.

In all his mania, he hadn't realized that somehow, this had been the best painting he had ever made. The short brushstrokes blended together so that from afar, they appeared united, like they were meant to be exactly where they were. The chiaroscuro made Victor look dark and warm, but his eyes betrayed him, their shine a facade of false honesty. Heaving, Benji picked up his phone again and took a photo of his workspace, wanting to preserve it for that moment. He would let himself be proud of it, he decided.

After posting it on Instagram with no caption, Benji eyed the painting again, its expression becoming sinister. Benji blinked a few times, rubbing his eyes with his marked up arms. When his gaze returned to it, the expression remained, goading him. End it.

The thought of plunging the blade into his own neck a few times, to let the blood squirt from his carotid artery like a red spout, felt so enticing. He just needed to feel the weight in his hand again...

With a frown etched into his face, Benji took the blade from the floor and plunged it into the canvas, piercing the painting and pulling the blade down, before doing it again. And again. And again. Until it became a carcass of wood and cloth.

Growling, Benji took the frame of the canvas, pulling it apart so that it snapped into pieces, the still wet paint getting all over him. But he didn't care. He didn't want to see that cursed thing any longer.

He slumped back to the floor, tossing the canvas aside and running his hand through his hair, streaking it with browns and blacks and greens. Sighing, he stared at his palms, eyes traveling up his arms to where he had doodled before.

For now, the itch was gone. It was time to clean up.