📝This novel is being corrected. Sorry for the misspellings

Trying to ignore something for a long time only makes you feel worse than you are.

That is more or less what was happening to me until today. I still don't move too much from my house, I still don't feel like anything and I am still worrying my mother, who has already started going crazy.

Even Jules came to my house to see what was going on. He has been the only one who has decided to approach to ask and worry a little more about me. The others, have passed like me of them. He already knew everything that happened. And, today, who has decided to do something, has been me.

That is why, after having to reassure my mother that I am not hooked on drugs, alcohol or anything else, I have decided to leave:

"Mom, let me change things." I have told her, with the support of my father, who knows full well that I am not making anything bad."

But I'd rather be alone, in my room, not go out or go through everything, than tell my parents that they beat my best friend because of me.I   already had to explain to them a long time ago that we fought and that's why he had stopped come home.

To change things, the first thing I have to change is myself. That is why I am at Kensington Palace Gardens, so close to my home, so close to him... to the home of my best friend Taylor, where I have spent so much time so many times. I am driving in my Lamborghini, with the roof on because I don't want to just leave it on the street like that.

I have not combed my hair, I have no put on any cologne... I have not even dressed well. I go out now because, the decisions I make at the moment, I have to go out now, before I change my mind.

And I'm scared. I am afraid to see my friend and not know what to say, fear that he will not accept my forgiveness, fear that the door will close in my face.

And it would be in its right...

But when I park the car at the door, even though I feel the trembling pulse and my racing heartbeat, I feel a strange calm.

I have done it. I am in front of the door of his house. So, I put the keys in the pocket of my beige shorts and open the car door, getting out and making sure to close it securely.

It doesn't take me long to walk to the door, because I do it at a brisk pace, and when I stop before him, I took a breath, breath, and try to calm down.

Only when I think I'm ready, do I ring the doorbell several times in a row.

Taylor: I am alone at home. My parents left a while ago to decide whether they should go to Sydney for a few days of vacation, or instead opt for Punta Cana as they always do.

I have the TV on, but I'm not watching it, that's why I have the volume turned on very low, which does not prevent me from hearing the insistence with which someone rings the bell.

I swallow hard feeling my heart race, because that call seems like an urgent call, and I quickly get up from the sofa, walking the distance to the door, and then the long hallway. When I get to the hall, I stop at the door of my house, and I don't ask who it is as I usually do, because that way of calling has worried me, so I open quickly, being paralyzed when I see you.

Jack: For a moment, while I wait, I close my eyes tight and have to put my hand on the door. I almost feel like leaving as fast as I've arrived. I have rushed to ring the bell very quickly and now I feel the speed at which my heart goes because of the damn nerves. But I end up breathing again to open my eyes and take my hand away.

I do not hear anything on the other side, nor a voice that warns me that they are going to open or steps. I just hope it's not his mother or father and Taylor is alone. It wouldn't be weird, either. But when I see the door open and I look up I want to disappear.

Your face is full of blows and wounds. The largest of all, on the cheekbone, with American dots.

I can't help the pain I feel and the guilt, the shame, the helplessness, they make me look down by pursing my lips because I don't want to cry, but I already feel my eyes fill with tears. I don't even know what to say, but I can only say something feeling my own distressed voice.

"Tay..."

Taylor: For a moment I'm scared to see you and I'm about to close the door, but I seem to see that your eyes are full of tears, before you look down at the ground.

I remember all the times you came to my house as a child, all the times we did homework together or played a thousand games in my room.

That fact, those memories that hurt me so much, fill my eyes with tears of anger and pain, and I clench my jaw, determined to close the door, something I start to do by pushing it forward, but then I hear your voice. And it's not your voice what makes me stop the closing of that door, but the way you call me.

You call me «Tay», as you did during all those years that our friendship lasted, which I wish had been many more, and then after swallowing hard, I open the door again to see you.. I need to listen to you, see why you came to my house. I look at you in silence, biting my tongue in rage as I look at you.

Jack: I am not able to look you in the face. I don't want to see those blows that you have because of me. I did not give them to you, but they are mine.

And, when I see the door close while I keep looking at the ground, I feel like I've lost.

But you open it again. I look up.

Again, you have tears in your eyes, but I can also see anger. And I don't know what to tell you. I came to talk to you, like you went to talk to me the other day in Hyde Park and, I have no words. I may even be a coward for that too.

I don't know what would be the most appropriate right now. I don't know if I should assume that I have been wrong in everything I have done and say nothing. But I end up finding the courage to go one step further.

"Sorry..."

Taylor: I hear your silence. The absence of words from one of the people you love the most in the world is one of the things that hurts the most.

I swallow, feeling my eyes burn because of my tears, remembering with anger your words the other day, your laughter, the laughter of your friends, and their mockery, but above all your «no longer».

But then you say two words that can cope with the rest, two words in which I find my own peace, as if I were asking forgiveness of myself. Still, I can't help but feel that rage, and I bite my lower lip to keep from crying, even though it's too late, because I'm already doing it. I run out of air as I part my lips to answer you.

"You left me, Jack ..." I say looking at you as I cry, pursing my lips for a moment. "You left me alone..."

Jack: I realize I can't look you in the face for more than five seconds without feeling ashamed. I'm still a damn coward... I try my best not to cry in front of you.

I don't want to hear your silence, I prefer any word, any insult, rather than not knowing what you are thinking. Although I doubt very much that I will know.

And yet, there is nothing I can do to keep the tears from falling down my cheeks when I hear you say that I left you because it's the truth. I cover my face with one hand, resting the other on the door frame.

It can't be that he's crying in front of you. I don't look at you, but I hear your tears in your voice. You're angry. I have never felt so hard before even if you are still the opposite. But it is that, the truth, is hard. And I have no excuse, that's why I don't defend myself. But there is something I can tell you, something I want you to know. I swallow hard and take my tears with my hand to look your eyes:

"You are my best friend, Tay..."

Taylor: I wait for your words but can't hear them, you just fall apart.

Jack Dempsey, the tough boy who is not impressed by anything, the same one who seems to be iron instead of flesh and blood, is crying in front of me... All human beings end up being human sooner or later. Seeing you like this, with one of your hands covering your face, crying with so much distress, breaks my heart in two.

I swallow hard because I want to be hard on you, I want to be able to kick you out of my house, to say you a thousand things, but I can't do it...

I swallow hard again, seeing how you wipe the tears from your face, that face that I fell in love with one day without realizing it, and then I hear your words, words that surround my heart, making it beat very quickly again. I think until then, it had been stopped, but you started it again, you put everything in order, and for a moment I don't remember anything else.

I should say «no longer», give you those same words so that you lie down in them and get up in them daily, so that they stir your consciousness forever, but I cannot do it, it is impossible, because you are my best friend, that's why I cry with you, and I push open the door, opening it wide for you to come in and talk to you. I bite my lower lip to stop crying, unable to speak to you right now.

Jack: It seems eternal. The silence seems immense, strong, enormous. I don't hear noise on the street, I don't hear anything but my own breathing, the beat of my heartbeat because I'm still nervous, and a long silence after my own words.

And you do not tell me anything. You just look at me crying and making an effort not to cry, even in vain.

Instead of closing the door, you open it all the way. And that gesture is what makes me hate myself. If it had been the other way around, if you had had the courage to go to my house, surely my door would have closed completely. Or maybe not... Maybe then, I wouldn't have been wrong and you wouldn't have all those bumps on that face that I've seen change over time, along with mine. And I don't care if you don't say me anything because I can't either, I go into your house and close the door before hugging you.

Perhaps, the best thing is not to tell you anything, but hugging you as long ago did not hug you. And with the novelty that I am crying as I have never cried.

Taylor: The two of us are face to face in silence. I'm in my house, the house I have welcomed you into so many times with a huge smile on my lips. You on the street, the street you have walked down many a time, also smiling. We are very close to each other, but we are both very far, until you enter my house and hold me with a lot of strength crying heartbroken.

I stay still for a moment, because I feel fear, fear that you will hurt me, fear that you will break my heart much more than you already have, but it will not be like this, this time, you have come to stay and I can't do anything else but close my eyes and wrap my arms around you pressing against me as I cry.

The door of my house is closed, that means that your friendship will never run away again. I cry, hugging you whilst reminicsing about us. Memories in which we share our toys, our clothes... Memories in which we run together through the streets of London without fear of anything.

You have returned to my life, because you have always been in it, and no one can leave the life of the people in whom he lives.

"Don't cry ..." I say because I don't want to make you cry, I don't want to hurt you. I have never wanted, not even when I felt those blows as if they were yours, but now that you have told me that I am your best friend, your tears hurt me even more.

Jack: I hug you and I'm not afraid. But I'm worried that you won't respond, that you're not hugging me. Until you do it and you surround my back pressing against you.

I don't know how many times I've hugged you. Many times I have celebrated a small triumph that, for us, was very large. We have hugged each other when we have won games, when we have scored goal playing in the park, when we have fallen and gotten up together, and when it was our birthdays and we were always both. Your gift was the one I always liked the most, and I even got angry if you ever missed class.

I still haven't forgiven myself for you dropping out of college. And instead, this is the first time that I am hugging you knowing how you feel about me. But now, all I want is for you to know that I'm with you. And you tell me not to cry...

I don't know how you can be like this.

"Forgive me ..." I plead, almost feeling that I am small again, grasping your clothes with my fingers. Maybe I wanted to grow too fast and I put on a cuirass that was too big for me.

Taylor: I cry hugging you, feeling how you cry, and I daresay you're crying more than me.

You are so small in my arms. I remember all of the times we were little together, all of the times we joked together, and all of the times we ran around the house chasing one another with water pistols - something that always made my parents very angry. I recall the times we went to buy school supplies, sometimes buying the same notebooks, even whilst at university. We were such good friends that we were almost one person; I'd celebrate your birthday and vice versa.

Perhaps what happened to you one day without my realizing it, is that you put on armor that was not your size and it suddenly became very large. That's what I think when I hear the way you apologize to me, holding on to my clothes with your hands. Still crying, I take you against me, although I do so smiling faintly.

"I've already forgiven you..."

Jack: I don't know when it occurred to me to get away from you. I have never felt so complete as when I have been with you. You were my best days, the cause of my biggest smiles, the first to whom I was going to teach everything new that bought me, the first person I thought of when I made plans, the one who knew everything about me and never left me alone.

Now I'm back to be the same Jack I was when you confessed your love to me. I am again that friend you left when you walked through the door of my house, the same one who started crying even though you don't know it.

I cry resting my forehead on your shoulder, slightly stooped to reach it. And you tell me you've already forgiven me. Then I realize that I don't deserve you.

You hold me even tighter, but I stand up and lean back to look at you unable to believe what I just heard.

"Really?" I ask. Me and my stupid questions, like when I asked you if it was true that you were in love with me even when you just told me.

Taylor: You rest your head on my shoulder to cry. Even the toughest man in the world ever cries...

I keep hugging you, comforting you as I'm not used to seeing you cry, even when I should have hated you. Then you lean back, and you ask me a question that makes me laugh. I take the liberty of letting you go and put my hands on your cheeks, like the best friend of yours that I am, with no other intention than that.

"Of course I'm serious, Jack." I swallow, smiling, still crying.

"You're my best friend." I say now sure that you are not going to say «no longer» to me.

Jack: Hearing your laugh again seems like the best thing I've done in a long time. Away from all those things that make me feel so good, away from the idiots of my incomparable friends with you, away from a day of partying or the feeling of driving my car at full speed. Today I am again me because I was missing you.

You make me laugh too, although you let me go to catch my cheeks and I gulp looking at you because I don't want to make you feel anything else for me even if it is inevitable.

And you keep crying even though you smile. I have never put up with that. But I only feel happiness when I hear you say that I am your best friend, nodding as I feel your hands on my cheeks as if you were healing all the tears.

"I've been a motherfucker..." I say swallowing hard.

I look at that stitched wound on your cheekbone wondering how they did that to you. And I feel a chill to remember all those blows they gave you.

I moisten my lips looking down because I don't want to keep crying.

Taylor: I laugh to hear you insult yourself, even though I keep crying. I shake my head.

"No, don't say that ..." I say and pull my hands away from your cheeks, to put them on your shoulders, lightly squeezing them with my fingers.

I wondered what you felt that day, if you'd left me lying on the ground out of fear, or just because. But that doesn't matter now... Now I only care that you're here asking me for forgiveness, that's why I wet my lips feeling the taste of my own tears and I smile.

"Don't blame yourself for this again, okay?" I say when after you looking at my cheekbone full of the American points Dolores gave me, you look towards the ground. "You didn't do it to me..."

Jack: When your hands move away from my cheeks to rest on my shoulders, I look you in the eye again. But I still feel guilty. And I shake my head at your words, swallowing hard. But I can't help but answer you.

"Yes ... Yes I did it to you." I say. "I did everything to you."

I say noticing the tears that cloud my view making me unable to see you.

"I let it all go too far, Tay." I say, feeling a chill as I remember again all those blows they gave you and the fear I felt to face them. A fear that came to nothing compared to the fear of not seeing you.

"I could have stopped it..." I confess, turning my face aside as I bite my lower lip wishing I could control all my emotions.

Taylor: You say to me that you did it to me, but I think that perhaps the greatest damage you did to me was not the one of these blows to my body, but the one I felt when you made fun of me just for telling you that I was in love with you.

No one should remove anyone from their life just because they know they love him. What is wrong with loving someone? Does love hurt? People do not choose who we fall in love with. Nobody must hurts anyone when they fall in love with someone of the same sex, someone much older or someone much smaller, someone who is married or has a partner ...

Love is universal, it is not a sin, and anyone can feel it.

I swallow hard, shaking my head again, although I feel a chill. I'm sure if you had gotten into that fight, I would have been more hurt by the blows they would have given you than the ones they gave me.

"I would never have forgiven myself if you'd been beaten too, Jack..." I say squeezing your shoulders, when you look somewhere else where I'm not.

Jack: I could expect anything... I could imagine you saying yes, that I am right, that it was my fault, that I were hurt you a lot, and that I have broken your heart too many times without ever having loved you. But, if I imagined that about you, it wouldn't be you. I think you are the only person in the world incapable of hating.

You squeeze my shoulders and I look you in the eye again. I have never been too able to express what I feel and I think I have felt few things in life. But you leave me speechless.

I feel a tear fall down my cheek because, while I blame myself for everything that has happened to you, while I feel more pain for those blows than for anything in the world, you only worry if they had hit me.

I don't know what to do with you now because I don't want anything to serve you to love me more. The last thing I want is to hit you again where it hurts the most and where we arrive sooner, even though we don't know it. Because you don't have to touch a heart to reach it.

But I end up putting one of my hands on one of yours on my shoulder.

"I ran off like a damn coward." I reply. "If I had stayed, at least I would have picked you up off the ground, put you in my car, and taken you wherever you wanted." I say remembering how different everything was. "And I would have healed those fucking wounds, Tay."

Taylor: You stay silent as you cry and put one of your hands in one of mine on your shoulder, which I squeeze gently. In your words I make sure what Dolores told me, what I thought myself ... You were afraid, and that's why you left me back there, but here you are, you have returned to my life that you never left even if you wanted. Because when we love a person, we make them our own, whether they want that person or not.

I bite my lower lip trying not to cry although I see you cloudy because of my tears.

I swallow hard.

"But you're here ... And ..." I say wanting to say something to you. "And you're never going to leave." I feel my voice tremble inside my throat.

"True...? " I ask because somehow I still feel fear.

Jack: I don't know how I'm going to do now to be by your side without hurting you. That is the last thing I want. But I also want to stay forever. I hope to be able to do my best and be when you need me, to remain as we were yesterday and to think of nothing but everything we deserve.

I can't love you the way you want me and you can't love me the way I love you, Although I will try to put aside any shell with you.

I squeeze your fingers tightly with mine, trying my best not to fall apart again now that your eyes are back to tears and your voice is shaky.

I think you are afraid. Maybe you think that I am going to leave, that this is not real, that I just want to take the blame off and leave you alone, but it is not.

"I'm never going to leave." I affirm more sure than myself and all my mistakes. "Because I should have always stayed..." I say then smiling because that's what I think and I don't have to keep it now.

Taylor: Your silence hurts me, your silence scares me, but the force of your fingers on mine gives me relief and hope.

When I hear your answer, I feel a smile cross my lips. A smile that fills my heart with joy as I look into your eyes.

You are here, at last you have realized that you hurt me more while being away than being close, at last you have realized that I am your best friend. I swallow smiling even though I cry again, now because of a mixture of sensations, and I moisten my lips.

"It's that you've never left..." I say and take you against me with your eyes closed, to hug you again.

Jack: I don't know what you think. I also don't know if I want to know. I never stop to think too much about what I do. Maybe that's why I'm more of a mistake than I am a person. But you smile again.

I believe that not remembered how it is nice to see you smile. In a memory, nothing seems the same. And it hurt too much to have to remember you, that's why I spent all my time on my friends, even if they were not the same as you. I often had my friends, girls and good times. But there was always one day that I had nothing to do and with you, that never happened. You tell me that I have never left and I think that somehow you are not wrong.

And, for if I have any doubt, you takes me again with you and hug me with all your strength. I think I've been keeping all those hugs too long.

"Neither do you ..." I say for to let you know that I've never forgotten you. And I close my eyes because I don't want to cry, but I can't help it.

Taylor: You hug me and also tell me that neither do I. You kicked me out of your life almost unintentionally, because you didn't kick me out completely, and it is that when we really love someone, it doesn't matter how hard we try to kick him out of our life, because he ends up staying.

That certainty makes me smile intensely even though I keep crying holding you even tighter against me. I know that now everything will be the same as before, that I will never let anything change us, that the evenings of laughter will return, the fights for the video game we are going to play when we do not agree, the movie evenings, the nights in some pub, the afternoons at your house drinking beer, the one that makes me feel so bad, when your parents are gone ... That our life will return, the one that we should never have lost and therefore we never losed completely.

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*This traduction is mine and I don't speak english. Please excuse me and, if you see an error, say me!Coment, vote, and follow me if you like this!

I am working hard on the translation so that it is good, readable and as faithful as possible to the original story, written in Spanish.*

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