The Neonprint

    “C’mon, B. Take a seat.”  said Ace.    Just how that letter confused me in ways that would cause my brain to freeze. He probably knew exactly what he was doing with it. He played with that damned consonant, sometimes he would stress the last “E” sound to make sure my ears caught the signal. He would elongate it, lower it and growl it. All that mattered was hearing it from him.    The rain dared to disrupt the dinner held by his parents, the Cotremos, where I was invited as a guest. Still in my head from a nightmare I had a night before: Ace was married to a girl and had zero memories of me. He came into my apartment uninvited and like a whirlwind he disturbed my peace. He played hard to get, uninterested, I felt like his slave, he was the master I could never please but would do anything for. He would talk to me, enough to make the dream feel as vivid as burnt coal on the skin. It seemed like days passed, and on the last one which was the third, he sat himself on the bed with me. Even after that, there was still no response. He was on his phone looking at pictures of what seemed to be what I feared most. Why would you do that? is what I asked myself in a compulsive manner. Compulsion is what God cursed me with, the kind that crawls inside your ear and eats its way to the heart. We had a short dialogue.     “I think I’m going to leave now.” he said.     But why, why would he tell me that? If he didn’t speak a word for 2 days, why would he hurt me with that sentence? Seeing him walk out my bedroom door was excruciating, I knew there would be no color in my life without his icy eyes.  Still in a haze but suddenly woken up by Ace’s father, Obie:       “Cervo, I heard about your new job as a songwriter.” he said, “That’s amazing, my boy!”     Maybe he would’ve considered me less than a nobody if he were aware of the feelings I had for his son. He had a robust body, bald head and a long and swollen nose, thankfully Ace did not take anything from him. “Thank you.” I said while putting my fork down pretending that Ace’s mother’s food was edible, her name was Lilith. “Lilith, this chicken was absolutely delicious!” I lied in a smooth voice trying to avoid Ace with my gaze from across the table.      ”I’m so glad you’re here, Cervo!” said Lilith while collecting the plates from the table to put them in the sink. Something about the crimson red lipstick that she always wore without any style was disconcerting. Her red hair, slim figure and the blue eyes that Ace inherited were just a facade.     I did anything but look at him, I just wanted my ignorance to hurt him as much as that nightmare hurt me. How could he? Maybe he saw me just as a friend, or maybe he saw me as everything. But I did see him as a c***k in my neck artery that night because I was quaked by the thought of him disappearing. And as much as I wanted to lash out at him for just existing and making me feel miserable for not ever tasting his alluring lips, I never did. Last thing I needed was him hating my volatile nature and fulfilling my worst nightmares. I asked Ace to pass the salt, he did and we touched hands. I wanted to ask him to pass me the pepper, the sauce, the knife Obie never used but Lilith still put next to his plate. If I could only touch him by asking him for things, I would’ve asked him to pass me every object in the world that he could possibly lift. But, of course, those strong arms of his could do anything. The way his veins trailed his biceps like he was struck by a lightning bolt haunted me. And like in any scary situation, you want to go and examine, see what quivered you, everyone wants the adrenaline until it’s too much and you give into the temptation. He was the only existing thing that could’ve made me give in.     “B, you alright?” he said.    From how my hand stopped in the air for a minute, not taking the grip off the salt cellar, he must’ve thought something was wrong. I snapped out of it, “Yeah, I’m alright.”      Ace smiled...crushingly upon my broken soul. “Let’s see what’s going on in this town.” said Obie. He picked up the remote control and turned on the TV on the news channel.     There he went again, probably looking for a reason to start an argument. Obie loved to watch the news and just talk his frustrations out, but he never engaged in anything that would’ve probably changed the situation he was so mad about. Since the Rift in our universe which changed the laws of physics and everything we knew about the world, enhanced people started emerging from everywhere. I thanked God every day that I didn’t transform into anything, and Ace neither. Obie hated them, but I knew in the pits of my consciousness that the world needed a resurrection. And I was a little bit relieved, finally people drifted away from my kind and hated something new, the enhanced people. The whole world called them “Outcasts”. It wasn’t given by the government that protected them, but by the people that feared them. What was there to do? They took the name and ran with it, I enjoyed it. It reminded me of myself, about the stories of my parents leaving me. It was like a reminder that some are destined for loneliness and pain.     “They deserve to be put down like the criminals they are.” said Obie.     Somehow I understood him, but it still bugged me.    “At least none of us were affected by the outburst.” he continued.  Lilith shrugged her shoulders and tried to calm him down. Whatever she whispered in his ear worked, they went straight upstairs to the bedroom. She gave the heads up that she wasn’t coming back until the sun rose again and Obie was fast asleep. Ace continued looking at the TV screen that was on his right. With his head tilted I could stare at the prominent veins on his neck. The colors reflected on his left iris made the ice upon his eyes melt into hot purple. He turned around so quickly that he caught me staring.    “So, B. Any new projects in the making?”    He knew what he was doing but I took it as bait, couldn’t have let my guard down and have him think I enjoyed him.      “Yes, a couple of love songs I wrote.” I said while reading the nonsense on the TV.     “Cool, who is she?” he asked.      I felt like the ceiling fell onto my head. Was I absolutely bad at giving and reading signs or was he just messing with me? I told him there was nobody so we would finish the conversation and I was deeply embarrassed by the fact that I trusted him with my life, but I couldn’t trust him with my feelings due to my fear of disgusting him.      “So you’re really not going to tell me what’s going on with you, are you?” he insisted.      What do you want me to do? Get on my knees and beg you to never find somebody, to show you that we are in more proximity than a binary star system? I said inside my mind following through some twisted thoughts to see what would be the best to reply with. Intimidated to the point where I felt as uncomfortable as a school boy feeling himself that just got walked in by his mother, I got up and hurried to leave.     “Stay for more, B.” he grabbed my hand and held a tight grip. “I have cake in the fridge, I don’t want to waste it.” he said. “It’s chocolate, your favorite.”     “It’s Cervo, Cervo Ignis.” I said   The pressure on my chest made me feel guilty for treating him with indifference, but I was way past getting hurt because of my corrupted naivety. There was so much to say yet my vocal chords tangled together into a ball of ‘things that were better left unsaid.’      “I got to go.” I said while furiously opening the door. “See you.” Though, I was never hurt enough not to say a goodbye to him. The rain, sure, in all its glory, just how I loved it. I was angry and my heartbeat was audible in my ear which made me run so I could only hear the howling wind, hearing heartbeats was my least favorite thing. The water splashing from beneath my feet scattered everywhere, perhaps a metaphor for my incomprehensible thoughts. I passed the Central Black Chapel and walked down the Repulsus junction to arrive in my neighborhood, Flagro. I had thoughts of moving out of there, I knew I could, writing songs paid well at that time. It was a busy street and I couldn’t handle any more of that polluting sound, the people weren’t that nice. Only if I had a coconut for every d*******l I heard from my window maybe I would’ve opened a place called “Coconut Land”, with ‘How much coconut powder can you consume?’ as the motto. Then the dealers would find their dream job. The doorknob for my apartment was rusty and squeaky, it always needed a push with momentum to open. Funny it didn’t break from how much rage went into that banging against it. I stripped myself of any clothing upon my body and jumped into bed, but not before opening a small window that was above a bigger one. I didn’t have to worry about people seeing me naked, the big glass wasn’t see-through, only the small one at the top. I used the old iron radiator as a trampoline to propel myself high enough to open or close the windows, it would rattle and I would take cover quickly, just in case it would explode. It was silly, but the compulsive behavior and anxiety sure made its presence known.     Taking my clothes off made me feel liberated. I couldn’t be myself around the guy I wanted the most to see the shadows that I inhabited, so I had to find an alternative. The bedroom was huge, with a mattress sitting on the cold wooden floor. The only thing that would light the room up were some pink and purple fairy lights that I bought from a thrift shop. They would flicker sometimes and scare the crap out of me, but every time that happened I would think of Ace and my mind would calm down. I hated how much of my mind he occupied. He would sleep, eat, brush his teeth and play videogames there. The only time in the past 2 years where he wasn’t there was when I fainted from a heat-stroke from an evil Outcast attack a few days ago. He was fighting RedStrike, a highly skilled fighter that I really admired. He had abilities, but would often only use hand-to-hand combat. I don’t know how I ended up in the middle of a fight between a man on fire and another maneuvering his sword in the air to ricochet the flames.     My head was placed on a pillow that had seen better days. The sound of the rain pattering on my windows would instantly make me feel safe, just how much joy I felt while watching the droplets conquer to the bottom. Like any other night, my sleep wouldn’t come to seal me away from my distorted reality. Two staggering voices coming from the streets disrupted me even more than my thoughts. I knew them, they were familiar, but couldn’t quite make them out. But suddenly it all came to me, those voices came from the twins that I had an altercation with a few nights before. Seeing them around the neighborhood made my blood boil. Hard to explain, but it felt as if we were enemies in a past life, like something in my code would awaken at the sight of them. I observed a similar pattern there. Every time someone with pale skin and dark hair like them would approach me, it would activate that hatred in me, and it started right after the Rift. It wasn’t everyone that looked similar to that, no, it was just a few individuals. It always made me think of the old tales I would hear from the elderly people of Atrox about a civilization that came on Earth way before the rupture in this dimension. It was about a war that had happened between them and another dominion. They hated each other’s blood, so in order to live a stress-free life, one of the teams had to perish. An intergalactic war sounded fun and all, also interesting enough to put kids to sleep. I never said anything. Not that I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have anybody to tell it to. Maybe Ace, but even he would’ve laughed it out and forgotten about it the next five minutes. But this whole theory I made up in my brain was merely something that would cross my mind, it was just there existing, but never coming to the forefront.   I put on the black clothes that I would usually wear for my cloak-and-dagger escapades. Tight black hoodie, black jeans and a torn piece of fabric that I would tie around my waist so it would flutter in the wind, it went below my knee cap. My emerald green eyes were impossible to hide, especially in the street lights. The hoodie had a mask sewed inside it that I would always put over my face just in case someone would see me. My intuition guided me to eavesdrop people, especially the most dangerous ones in search for any information about my parents. Even a name would have sufficed for me, I just wanted to know they were…real. I got out the fire escape and listened to what the twins had to say. The urge in me to just impale them with the iron frame that was right at my feet tortured me. All I could think about is how it was never that strong. The will, the urge, the thought, the desire to kill, to end a life, to see somebody suffer by my own hand. As I managed to snap out of it nothing made sense anymore and I dropped the iron frame right in front of them. Light headed and disoriented, I slipped on the wet iron floor and fell through the opening where I got the iron frame from.      “Now look what we have here.” said one of them.      I was gasping and searching for something solid to grab onto. Falling on my back cut my breath. While getting up one of them kicked me and all I could see was my bloody face in the pond that was right underneath me. The sound of them rattling their knives made my adrenaline go berserk. I was mouthing words but nothing came out, thinking I was screaming when, in fact, I was just vomiting blood into the shallow water. All I could see was Ace, or perhaps his ghost that wouldn’t leave me. My face was hit by punches, one after another, but my nerves were dead at that point. I finally fell down and was at an uncanny peace with my life line ending there, it felt good to let it all go. Perhaps, like that, I could’ve spent an eternity with the ghost that looked like Ace, and even if it wasn’t his, living an illusion for an eternity sounded like something I trained all my 22 summers for. Only an uproar from the clouds above made those evil clones leave my soon-to-be-corpse alone. In my uncomfortable position, my sight was fixated on the rooftops where some crows watched me and, probably, laughed at me. At least there were witnesses. Then I looked down at the water below me, my face was bleeding like a crushed raspberry, smudged with dirt and a right eye as purple as a ripped plum in the scorching August sun. Somehow my hands worked, it probably was my brain doing the job without my consent. I dialed the first number on my emergency list, Ace’s.      “B?” he asked, but I couldn’t answer, all I did was splash as hard as I could into the water so he would hear something. “What’s that? B, you alright?” he insisted.     An inhuman sound came out of me and I tried to splash even harder hoping he would understand that something was wrong. He hung up but a feeling of relief shook my body, somehow his arrival was predicted by my guts. Eleven lighting strikes later and he arrived. It felt like an eternity to just dwell into my own blood and sustain my sanity whilst the pain shattered me. “Chloe, what do I do? Please help me.” is all I heard before my hearing completely faded away.     He called his sister, Chloe, which was a biochemist in training at the Atrox Hospital. What they spoke next was unbeknownst to me, but he kick-started my happiness in such an infernal situation that I just wanted to get beat up more often so he could wear me on his strong arms like in Michelangelo's Pietà. My blood was dripping all over his skin, and in that moment, I was the king of that skin. All I cared about was hitting some open wounds of his, maybe those from his thumbs from how many times he accidentally cut his fingers. I thought that going inside of him like that would change him and make him turn his face towards me, to see all the despair and desire that I had for him. Not how I planned the first entrance, though I enjoyed it much more than the picture inside my head. He took me inside his car, gracefully handling me, put my head on his lap and my legs on the passenger seat. I was facing him. The streetlights bounced off his tears that rolled down his cheeks. Again, I was being selfish, I was enjoying it, he was showing care and affection. Not that he never did, but until that point there was no sighting of his tears, tears for me, or perhaps I didn’t know anything about such an effort for me. He caressed my chin, looked at me and then burst into the ugliest cry. He kept on switching from wiping his tears away to touching me to switching the gear. I wanted to tell him to stop the car, to let me die there. His body was the perfect burial ground.     “B…B…” he mouthed while still holding back his tears. Yes? I said inside of my head. The phone rang again “Chloe? Yeah I’m outside, please send some paramedics to come and help. Thank you.” I woke up to the sounds of the machines that were still keeping me alive. It felt heavy even to have an object do the breathing for me, it was as if my body was sinking in mud. The smell of stained blood was intoxicating. Ace was right next to me, sleeping on a stool that looked uncomfortable. He was holding my hand as gently as he could, it was the first time I ever felt his hand in mine. Chloe was sitting outside with one of the doctors in charge at the Atrox Hospital. I found the burning browns in her straightened hair, her hazel eyes and princess-like allure absolutely stupefying. Chloe was of Chinese and Korean descent, truly a wonder of the Universe.  Though all I could hear from the conversation were some mumbled words about using Outcasts as experiments to reach limb regeneration. She turned her head at me, as if she knew I was aware of everything. Her shrugging shoulders were a clear sign of ‘I don’t want to do this, but it’s above me.’ I knew Chloe too well, there was no way that she would’ve tortured innocent Outcasts for some theories. It was already well established that they had a different set of DNA that was completely different from the one of a normal human. What struck me for a minute was the fact that, when I was eavesdropping on a human trafficker in Flagro for information about one of Ace’s friends that disappeared without a trace, he had one truck full of both males and females sedated. I could see their bodies just lying down on top of each other. That guy mentioned the Atrox Hospital from which I concluded that they were sending them to the morgue. Perhaps they were Outcasts before the final enhancement sent to this doctor that was right out my hospital room, her name was doctor Catherine and I hated her just as much as the twins.     One week passed and I was ready to leave. Not fully healed yet, just enough to stand on my own two feet. Chloe was kind enough to support the bill for me, though I think she just wanted me out of there. It was morning, the sun was shining upon me through the blinders leaving a pattern on me. The hues of orange and red calmed me down as I was waiting for Ace to come. I thought he had forgotten about me, I didn’t see him for three days until that point. I was always embarrassed to ask for help, but I didn’t want to go back to Flagro, I wanted to stay at his house even if that meant dealing with Obie and Lilith, it would’ve been too much for me to stay alone. I was sure that those twins already raided my apartment or were waiting for me to get back so they could finish what they started. The Atrox Police Department did not manage to catch them, therefore I was living in fear for my life. Once Ace walked through the door I could see that he was terribly tired. His beautiful oval shaped face and square jawline was marked with dark circles below his icy eyes which had red capillaries racing each other for the iris. He seemed drained and ready to sleep for days.     “Hey, are you alright? Did something happen?” I asked while absorbing his whole being with my gaze.     He started crying and Chloe wasn’t there to calm him down, I didn’t exactly know what to do. My quick instinct was to hug him but I was afraid, afraid that he would pick up on what I was feeling. It didn’t take long for him to start confessing into a stormy breakdown: “B, I f****d up big time, alright? I don’t know what to do. It’s…Lilith. We got into a fight, I can’t live with them anymore. No wonder why Chloe left and never looked back.” he put his hands on his eyes and continued crying.     In my insanity, and as sensitive as I had always been, I categorized myself as being bulletproof. But those muffled cries of his blew through everything. It sounded so beautiful, he looked beautiful, all in his most vulnerable form.     “I don’t know what to do, I came to get you out and now I don’t have a place to stay.” he continued. Is this a perfectly normal time when two people that went through hardships hug each other in the friendliest way? is what I thought.     “Hey, Ace, listen.” I hesitated to hug him, “I can’t go back to Flagro either, I’m not safe there. We can stay at the studio I’m working at. There’s a mattress on the floor there for the times I get too into my head with the creative process. Everyone is on holiday for a week. I can talk to Mike, the owner, ask him for the keys, he will understand. We will figure everything out once we get our heads cleared, all right?” I was being very paranoid, even calling Mike for a favor seemed dangerous. I was a wanted man, I accepted that, I stepped where I shouldn’t have stepped. And as much as I wanted Ace to take the charge, to show me how an Alpha does it, to feel his pores overflow with masculinity, I understood that he had hit a breaking point from where even a man could arrive below what a man desires to be. Perhaps I was afraid of my own masculine side, of taking care of something that I deeply loved. My biggest fear was not suffocating him, show him that I care about him more than myself. He was like a lion, there was no way for him to get domesticated, to have his freedom taken away from him. And, funny enough, most of the time I just wanted to enter his den with a pile of meat on my hands and let him feast. I hugged him and told him that it was time to go. I stood up and fell on my knees because I was lightheaded. He helped me get up.     “Let me carry you.” I didn’t say anything, I just stared at him trying to process what he just had said. “B, let me carry you, you’re bleeding again.” he said.     “Yeah, sure. But I’m going to bleed all over you again like last time.” I said.     “I won’t mind that, B.” he replied.     He smiled at me and confused me even more. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted for me so I just let him get us into his car while I was asking for shelter at the studio. I asked him why he couldn’t go back home, he told me that it was complicated and didn’t want to weigh me down with unnecessary bullshit. I understood he had a fight with them, but they would always make up. It clearly was something very important that it had gotten to such a low point. I insisted again for him to tell me but he knocked it off. He helped me get inside the studio and changed my bandages. The one around my rib cage kept on bleeding because of my abrupt movements.     “I might have to stitch you up, B.” he said. “You’re only a blacksmith, Ace. Maybe we should call Chloe.” I replied.     “Don’t worry, I did nurse training in those 5 years of you going M.I.A.” he continued.     There was a silence between us which made me feel embarrassed. I didn’t want to distance myself from him or Chloe. But I felt ashamed of my feelings for him, I took some time, a long time, to make myself think straight and come to a rational conclusion. So I had to distance myself from him, I wanted him gone but all that isolation did was bring me even closer to him.     “So I guess you’re going to forge me?” I said while smiling.     “Yes, but first I would have to melt silver and pour it inside your wound.”     “Why silver?” I asked.     “So you can heal quickly.” he replied.     “Cervo...reforged!”   I wanted to run out of the studio, lock him there and move out of Atrox, but I played along: “You think I need healing?” He stitched me up while I was biting onto a towel to channel my hurt outside of my body.     “Here, we’re done. And yes, yes you do need healing. You want to know why I think that? You’re such a whiny b***h most of the time, B. You say you want that, but the next moment you want the other thing. You say you’re going to do something then switch up. I’m amazed that you even got this job in the first place. How many times did you think of giving up and trying something new? You can’t just throw things out the way you do. You can’t hurt people just so you don’t get hurt first. You have no idea how much it hurt me, how much it hurt Chloe when you left. She blamed herself for being so blunt with you, but I knew this was about me. When you came back at my door with flowers for Lilith I wanted to kick you out. How did you even dare after all that mess to show up at my door? And still, I welcomed you in. Would you have done that?” he explained.     “No, no I wouldn’t. I wish you could understand.” I added.     “Understand what? That you only love people when it’s beneficial for you? I’ve had enough of that. Where are you heading once you’re healed, huh?” He got up and left the room.      I was shocked but I couldn’t be mad at him, he was right. I followed him to the bathroom and stood in the doorway. The room was huge, with pale-blue walls that were cracked at the corners and a big mirror standing right above an old rusty sink. The tub wasn’t better either, just big and with some candle handles. I remained in the dark so he could not see me and I watched him as he took his razor out of his bag and his shaving cream. He put his shaving cream on which made him look silly, I chuckled. Ace turned his head at me and I walked towards him. His eyes were connecting with mine but he was visibly angry. I loved that, seeing him rough and mad was magical. What a man. He knocked his razor against the sink to get all the extra hair down but I didn’t let him continue.     “Let me.” I said.     Still, he didn’t say anything, but he let me take the razor. I took it and moved it up and down on his cheek. His breath was slow and warm going against my lips. I was up-close and personal and everything seemed to fade away but him. He stayed there. “I’m sorry.” I said after accidentally cutting him. I washed everything off and dried him up, but the cut started bleeding again. I watched as his blood traced his cheek and couldn’t contain myself from the new instincts that arose inside of me after the Rift. In that moment I was too happy to get scared by the haunting feeling. It’s like I loved blood, and I wanted to taste it, but just his. When it got to his lip I kissed it so I could feel both him and his life force. He stepped back.     “B, everything alright?” he asked.     “Sorry.” I said.     “Don’t worry, I’m just new to this. Be patient with me, alright?” said Ace.     My heart was beating out of rhythm because he took all of it outside of me. He looked amused and I loved his face theatrics every time something inconvenient happened. His cheeks would widen and he would lift his eyebrows up.     He poured us some wine while I was playing the piano. Every thought of him unveiled another melody for me to play, and new lyrics for me to write.     “You want me to play something?” I asked.     He told me that he only wanted to hear those love songs I mentioned a week ago. I told him that there was no “she”, but a “he”.     “Who’s this ‘he’?” he insisted.     Yet again, I got petrified from the fear and was reluctant to play him the songs. What if the bathroom scene was just in my head? Or what if he was just being nice to me, because, after all, we have known each other for many years.     “Is it me?” he continued. I didn’t even have the courage to look at him, it felt like I was in a room full of people that just stared at me for no reason making me feel uncomfortable.     “B, if it’s me, then that’s alright.” he said.     I took out my notebook and started playing ‘Haze’ for him, a song I wrote in my darkest time when all I ever wanted was for him to save me. Then I played another called ‘Blood Shard’ and I explained to him how his eyes always made my blood freeze. He still had that dumb look on his face, it was deeply innocent and playful, he was treating me like a child.     “B…I just.” he laughed while reaching for my chin to make me face his way.     With his other hand he grabbed the wine bottle and emptied it in a masculine manner, he winced then wiped the wine drops from his lips. He lifted me up from beneath my armpits and started kissing my entire face. The wine taste from inside my mouth intertwined with his saliva. I wondered if he knew that he was killing me. I let him do his thing which was also my thing. Perhaps he got drunk just to imagine that I was a girl so he could kiss me.     “You sure you want to do this? It’s ok if you don’t feel the same, you know? You don’t have to pretend.” I said concerned.  “I’m not.” to which he replied.     We didn’t do anything that night but kiss and confess. “Have you ever done it with a boy?” I asked.     “No, but I always wanted to. I was always afraid of this side of me. I thought that if I give it too much power, it will overtake me. And I’m afraid of losing control, you know?”     I was shocked that someone like him would ever feel that fear, I saw him as a god.     “And on top of that, Obie and Lilith are not the ones to understand something like this. It’s hard for me. It’s like everything I’ve known in life is a lie, all the walls that I had are crumbling. You’re crumbling them, B. How about you, were you ever afraid that you might lose control if you acted upon your wildest instinct?” he asked me calmly.     I didn’t know how to articulate every burden that I was carrying so I dodged his question and answered the other one I knew he had: “I used to wake up every morning feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed. It was like you were bullying me. And no, this has nothing to do with you, it’s all on me. Because I lived in my head all my life and never had the courage to trespass into reality. I used to go to sleep and pray at night that I would never wake up from how miserable I was. But knowing that maybe one day I could be with you… it felt so farfetched and insane. I remember coming home from this songwriting workshop. I crossed Central Street and didn’t look left or right, I just crossed. At that moment I felt nothing, just emptiness. I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t judge, I couldn’t be aware. My feet were moving but I was gone. Nothing happened though. And now I’m happy it didn’t. Because if I ever get to die dramatically, I want it to happen in your arms. I wish you could bury me inside of you, I don’t want to be inside the ground. I don’t want to know an after-life where I don’t know your light. And it’s the warmest type of light. The light which awakens you when a heavy boulder has been lifted off your heart. The first ray of spring sun that lets the Snowdrop rise. You’re that for me. I hope you can understand.” “I understand, B. It’s gonna be alright, I promise. We’ll figure it out.”