I'm walking home in the persistent rain, pulling my hood over my head, phone pressing hard against my ear, calling Nico again. He doesn't answer.

It's been a week since he left for Spain taking the sun with him but I'm glad. It's so much easier to sulk and be miserable in this weather. I am done with beautiful sunshine, cloudless skies, too much daylight and everyone being blatantly, aggressively happy.

Since then he still hasn't answered any of my calls or replied to my messages even though I see that he's online, posting bullshit every other day. I'm restless because I can't shake this feeling off. Feeling that something is wrong and I want to reach out to him and help with whatever it is.

I grew attached and I know I shouldn't have. Just like I wasn't supposed to love summer but I fell in love with it. Maybe it was Nico I fell in love with, his sunburned shoulders that he let me kiss and his sun-filled fingers that stripped me bare and left longing.

And the moment it happened it seems he just pulled out. How can he even think of ghosting me? That's something I absolutely hate and I know he knows that. If he regretted being with me or changed his mind then he should have just fucking said it to my face and I would be the first to walk out of that door. Sure, I'd be unpleasantly surprised, sad even, but I would get over it. I'm not one to dwell on someone who doesn't want me. The only reason I'm still reaching out is that I am worried— he went from zero to one hundred in one minute and I want to believe that I got to know him a little bit more in that week we spent together to know that behavior wasn't normal.

In the back of my mind was always this feeling—the knowing that this thing with Nico, no matter how intense and real it felt, was just a summer fling. He will end up with his own kind. So I promise myself this is the last time I will call him.

It's the middle of the night two weeks after I gave up on trying to make contact when I get a call. His name flashing bright on my phone, waking me up from my dream on the night when I very much needed it, boils my blood to an unreal degree. Important scouts and managers are coming to our football match tomorrow and I need my sleep in order to perform on the highest level.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" I growl from my pillow staring at the ceiling. Hating my lack of self control because I shouldn't have picked up in the first place.

"I'm... I'm so sorry," there's an unknown trepidation to him, his voice is broken and distant, like I've never heard it before.

"Yeah? Me too."

"Please, Jordan, just... don't hang up. I fucked up, I know. But I really am sorry. I had to leave you, it was an emergency and..."

"I don't care anymore. I called you, like, a hundred times Nico. What, you can post a picture of your stupid avocado on toast and your fucking abs in the gym but you can't type a simple message to me?"

"Because it's not that simple!"

He shouts, his accent slipping out a little more. After a few long seconds he sighs, composing himself and then continues more calmly. "I was with Sofia. Those pictures... They were taken earlier, I wasn't really going out and doing all that, I swear, I was with Sofia all this time. But I needed to provide content." He says it like he's not really proud of it."I have to do that for my followers and..."

"Jesus Nico, you don't need that shit. Who the fuck cares if there's not a picture of you on Instagram!"

I like the person he was with me— the one who is still confident but not cocky. These pictures only capture the person he was projecting himself to be. He's more humble than that, more real, I know that. But here he is proving to me that he cares more about his followers, strangers than me.

"That's what I do! Okay?!" He is the one shouting in my ear now. "That's my job. That's what I do, what I can do. I failed at everything else, Jordan, I couldn't even finish the first year of my high school," he breathes out a humourless laugh and my heart beats harder but I don't say anything.

"I'm dyslexic. I couldn't do anything in school, couldn't read, couldn't write. It was bad. A real failure. Can you imagine what that meant in my perfect family, with my super successful brother and my younger sisters both straight-A students?"

What he just admitted registers, freezing me in place and I remember that time in the museum when I assumed he just forgot his glasses.

"Nico," I say quietly, "I get how hard that is but that doesn't mean you're stupid, or a failure. You're not, you're so fucking smart and..."

"Yeah, really smart... Tell that to my dad who found out that the son who was supposed to inherit his whole business in Spain is not only unable to write and read but on top of that likes dick. Look, you can't understand any of it. That's why I just fucking ran away from you because I didn't want you pulled into all of my mess."

"But... That doesn't make any sense, you left when your sister called you, and... If you only talked to me, explained... " I say. Huffing, I manage to gather my thoughts, "Nico, you really think I wouldn't understand? You never gave me a chance, you just left. I don't think it's healthy for you to hide behind your social media profile and.."

"Stop psychoanalysing me," he cuts in firmly, "I don't want you to try to fix me."

"I wasn't... I won't try to fix you. I just wanted you to tell me you're ok, that we're..."

"I'm ok, Jordan. But Sofia isn't." I see red again at the mention of her name. I've never been the most patient person.

"What the fuck your sister has to do with us?" I'm raising my voice and I can't help it. All this happened because of her, everything was perfect until she called Nico.

"She's... I'm the only one who understands her. Who can help her when she gets in.... " he pauses, like there's a heavy lump of emotion sitting in his throat preventing him to force the words out. "We're like one person, it's always been the two of us against the world. And she needed me. And I wasn't there, Jordan. I failed her. I left her alone and went to see you. I ignored her calls because I was so infatuated with you. I completely forgot about her!"

"How is that...I had no idea that you'll be having problems at home because you never tell me anything. By the way, you're the one who insisted on coming to England, but it sounds like you're blaming me for what happened?! And what really happened? I still don't know!"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck..." I can hear him sobbing and I stand up from the bed, pacing up and down the room. I hate that my first instinct is to coddle him and make sure he's okay. It's so strong that I want to crawl inside the earpiece and come out on the other side where he is and hug him. "I want you so much. I've never wanted anyone like I want you."

I listen to his words, and flashbacks of Nico's laughter drifting across that hotel room flood my mind, his hair like wild waves on the pillow, Nico smiling like he owns the world. But for my eyes only.

"Don't cry, Nico. Nico, hey, listen, please stop crying...It's going to be ok. I..."

"But I can't let this happen. I can't... We can't.. I'll never leave Sofia."

When I hear him say those words I stop in the darkness of my small room, a sinking feeling forms in my chest. I realise I did try to fix him, but I have to admit my defeat, I can't. Whatever is happening in his head, in his family, in his life, I can't fix it, it's not on me to fix. I can barely understand it. The silence stretches for some time and the only thing I can hear is the faint noise from the street outside and quiet sniffing of his nose.

"Let what happen? Nothing really happened, didn't it? Us, this—whatever this is, was never supposed to happen anyway. Just don't call me again. We are different worlds, Nico, we speak a different language after all. So you just stay on your planet and I will stay on mine. Our worlds were never supposed to collide anyway."