There were no calls today from work.
Usually, he wakes to one or two, asking him for input, but the message banks on both the home phone and his mobile are empty. It only takes a moment for his eyes to flick to the calendar to find out why and he knows his axis will be off for the rest of the week.
His boyfriend kisses his cheek, just like he does every morning before he goes to work, but today, Charlie doesn't reciprocate, just watches the Autumn leaves as they float down from the trees that surround the stone cottage they live in, hearing the door close safely behind him before he sinks lower into the windowsill, still wrapped in his dressing gown.
If it had been a normal day, he would have been dressed by now, but it's not a normal day. It's September 4th. Charlie's no longer 17, but 26 and it's been seven years.
How had it been 7 years already? He almost shudders to think that's how much time had passed when it still felt like yesterday to him. He can still close his eyes and see himself as a teen, still that lanky, depressed and frankly asinine young boy with a life ahead of him.
Now he's in that life, but he hates it. If younger Charlie could see him now, he'd think all his dreams had come true. The picturesque country lane house nearby the biggest city in Britain which was a steal, the two university degrees hanging on the far wall, a Dalmation named Toulouse at his feet, the live-in boyfriend, the office with a view, it was perfect…
…at least for Charlie before Nick, that was.
When Nick appeared in his life, a placeholder for the world he was passing through in shades of grey and monochrome, he hadn't expected that he'd have such an effect on him.
He didn't expect to fall in love with him, go on seaside dates, late-night sleepovers, hookups in the school library that he didn't feel guilty about, he didn't expect to suddenly…he didn't expect a lot of things when he fell for Nick, it seems.
Speaking of expected, he waits until he can see the last drop in his teacup before he finally rises, Toulouse following behind as he dumps it in the sink and writes a note to tell his boyfriend where he is in case he's not home when he gets back before he pats the goofy spotted gatekeeper of the house and goes upstairs to change.
The look he gives him back almost reminds him of Nellie, in a way.
The train station's crowded when he gets there, but he doesn't mind too much, adjusting his glasses as he boards the Southeastern line and settles in for the almost 2-hour ride down to Herne Bay. Usually, he would have driven as it's not that far away from his place, about the same distance, but it's been too hard the last few years to come back when he's there.
The sky is a pale shade of blue today that almost sends him into the back of his mind to a place he desperately doesn't want to visit, eyes squeezing shut to prevent the course it's on and most likely making him look like the biggest idiot to everyone around him as he gasps and holds onto the seat like he's about to tear out of it.
Most of them probably think he's just afraid of trains, given it all. He lets them think that.
The fear is still clutching at him even as the train finally rolls into the station and he shakily gets off, shoulder bag still under white-knuckled fingers as he leaves the station just before Herne Bay, known as Whitstable and walks a very familiar, but strange path down the hill from it, already traced in his brain and head for the last 5 years or so, but no less daunting.
When he was younger, still present in the town over and not untethered like he feels as he looks around the still unfamiliar streets, he would have fled and run off to go home, to his mother and bury himself in her arms, forget about all of this.
Today, however, he swallows and turns left like he needs to, not stopping in case he hesitates and keeps walking past a lot of things that he could use to abandon the path he's on before he automatically slows, his feet stopping in front of the thick hedge fences and gravel driveway that surround Whitstable Cemetery, heart racing in his chest as he wills himself to move forward and not stand there and do nothing.
Sticking to the side of the road so any passing cars could get by, he can feel his mouth going dry as his steps get heavier and heavier, the crunching sound becoming louder and louder like a roar in his ears and head as he stumbles, a loud sob leaving him as he finally reaches the reason why he's here, the reason he has an annual, terrifying breakdown every year.
Nicholas "Nick" Luke Nelson
September 4th 2005 - November 25th 2023
Son to Sarah and Stéphane, brother of David and beloved boyfriend of Charles.
Never forgotten, always missed
Charlie's knees wobbled before he lowered himself in case the grief that tore through him suddenly like a bandaid being ripped off a still-fresh wound would make him fall and collapse in the dirt (it had happened more than once and usually ended badly), chest hyperventilating as the memories come back of what happened.
He could still see it happening in front of his eyes and it made him want to scream still. He'd been visiting for the school holiday break over at Leeds University just before Christmas festivities would kick in, staying with Nick in his dorm, sleeping in his single bed. To Charlie, it had been paradise, better than any holiday he could ever think of, despite its cramped quartered nature. Nick was worth it still though. He always was.
They had been dating for a year and a bit at the time and they were saving their money together to pool it into a "first home together" fund of some kind, even getting in a few house showings while Charlie was staying with him to narrow it all down.
The days that followed were filled with cuddles in pyjamas most mornings, followed by ice skating, present hunting, snowball fights, walks, meeting new friends, taking in the historical sights (or making out at them) and even a sneaky sip of mulled wine here and there.
Even though it really wasn't Christmas just yet being the tail end of November, it seemed that it felt that way to most of the students and he was looking forward to when he and Nick went back home for their individual family celebrations and of course, their first Christmas together as a couple before Charlie graduated and moved up to be with him for the time being.
It had been the day before they were about to set off, bags already packed and laid out on Nick's tiny bed, that Nick had a rugby game scheduled that morning. It would be one of the first that Charlie had been both present for and not playing in since high school, given over the last year, they only could see eachother over Facetime or on break.
That morning had been cold and blowy to what memory he has left of it before it's cruelly split in two and he can remember Nick, running his way through the other team like a wild rabbit in a field and his throat being hoarse from cheering.
That's where the good part of the memory ends as suddenly, in the middle of the game and originally heading for the goalposts of the opposite team, Nick's stopped and is swaying before the battered ball he'd been holding drops from his arms along with Charlie's heart and breath as he just falls to the ground, pale and limp.
The world is gone for him after that. He knows there are medics and the coach and his teammates as well as a screaming, buzzing pool of a thousand voices around him as he hops the grandstands like a bomb's about to explode and runs towards the too still boy in tunnel vision, but it's the memory of seeing Nick on his back, his lips blue as the sky above him in the present that seared into his eyes and head forever.
It's also the start of him yelling and screaming at someone holding him back to let him go and fighting his way through to his side before trying to shake the elder boy awake, hands coddling his freezing cheeks and kissing him like he's trying to breathe air in his lungs before breaking down in sobs when the paramedics turn up and try to bring him back to life.
He watches, arms around himself as they perform CPR and inject things into Nick's lifeless body, watches as everyone around him does the same and unlike them, howls when they finally call time and leave Nick's now tortured body alone, a blanket covering him from Charlie's now cracked view as he sobs like he is now, 7 years later and still not over it.
25-year-old Charlie's hands are in fists, almost mimicking his 17-year-old self at that moment before he reaches out and while trembling, smooths a hand over the rough stone and its craving in front of him. A cache of flowers and a new rugby ball nearby tell him his mother and brother have already been here, most likely yesterday.
He knows how hard it is for them on his birthday, same with himself.
Nick should have been here right now, not the ghost of a past that Charlie never wanted to carry into his future. He should be 26 years old and alive, graduated, with a job, with David, with Sarah, with him, not barely 18, and six feet under the ground and staring up at the destroyed remains of his ex-boyfriend.
"Hey you-" Charlie's voice shakes as he addresses the ground directly. Fuck the gravestone, Nick was underneath him. He deserved the respect he had in life as well in death. "-I'm here, once again, like always. You didn't miss your nerd too much, did you?"
He doesn't get a response, but he knows Nick would roll his eyes at that. Go figure.
"I'm sorry I'm…not good again." He sniffles, shaking his head. "Every time I try to come here collected, I fall apart all over again. I really miss you. It's…it's like I told you last year. I'm doing…decently. No new scars, No relapses since a few years ago. just the same old life, same job, Toulouse is doing well…it's still not right though. Without you."
He sits back on his legs as he keeps talking. He can talk to Nick for hours and never get bored, even like this. "I mean…I like him, I love him, ish, maybe, I'm sure I said that last time as well, but…he's just not you, Nick. He'll never be you. No one will." The last part is said in a whisper, like it's too horrible for a thought to mention even though it's been so long.
As he sits there trying to think what to talk about with Nick next, the breeze whips through the countryside and along with it, the smell of the sea and Charlie's eyes close as he savours it, the other's face a perfect picture in his mind as they are hand in hand underneath the pier as the sliver tide comes in or even, while he's being carried on his rather broad shoulders after they've been playfighting on the sand, golden colour burying itself in Nick's same shaded hair.
He doesn't know when exactly he ends up lying on his back in his coat and trousers looking like an absolute dunce, but he likes to think when he looks over at the grave that Nick's next to him also on the ground, staring back at him with that signature tired but cheeky grin like the morning of his death, brown eyes squinted from the light, but still open, bright and full.
He can also still see the light from the ticky tacky lone window in Nick's bedroom he'd attempted to clean a few times streaming in and creating a halo around his face that makes him almost reach out to brush his fingers against his cheek, but he already knows he can't and he retracts his hand disappointingly as the image fades away to leave the quiet street and the vision of the sun starting to set in the distance.
He knows that means he has to go.
Pulling himself up, he sweeps the grass strains from his body and bag as best he can before, pathetically, he kisses the top of the grave (and almost breaks down again at the feeling being similar to Nick's lips), before he steadies himself and breathlessly walks back down the driveway, stopping at the gate to look back up at the hill where the sun is starting to take on the glimmer of the environment around it while it sinks below past the houses, the whole cemetery bathed in it. It's peaceful. He's thankful.
He waits for a few more moments, just watching the sun flicker off the grass and the ocean in the distance before he shuffles his feet and murmurs "Goodbye, love. Be back next year, wait up for me." and turns his back to be on his way, his stride a little lighter than when he came as he moves to pike it back to the train station before the next train leaves.
If he looked back, if he /really/ looked back, he might have seen Nick covered in the sunshine up there, standing in his rugby uniform with his hands in his pockets and ball under his arm, almost as if he's alive, like he's really there again.
Maybe any other day, he could be okay with that. For September however, Nick's a just ghost from the past, in the present and that's how it's always going to be till Charlie joined him.
And he's perfectly fine with that.
