Life is a puzzle piece with undefinable edges, like a deep ocean with both darkness and light. Any swimmer may take a leap into the deep end but hope is with those who can breathe and drown all at once. It is a delicate balance between living on the edge of declension and ascension.

Nate was floating. He'd been sent back to wade- no drown -in the crashing waves of his unstable psyche and emotions when he received a postcard from an old flame, whose burn marks still seared him..

I'm coming back for our anniversary.

Nate had passed the stage where he'd get excited. He was afraid; afraid that he wouldn't be able to convince himself that he was a good man, that he wouldn't be able to convince himself even at his worst, love was good- that life was worth living for more than the affections of a monster.

"No matter where you stand he can't hurt you. You do not bend to his will. You are light. Light does not bend even to the darkest parts of the universe."

Nate remembered the words of his stepfather who'd always been fascinated by the unflinching will of light and its persistence even at the greatest of odds. It could illuminate a black hole even when bent out of shape.

"Light is independent. It comes from the soul. Yours is somewhere there," he said pointing at Nate's chest. "All you have to do is stop hiding it. Where's that electric smile of yours that could charm the pants off a moose?!"

"I- I can't, dad," he wailed, "It's not working. He's not listening to me. Why can't he be happy with me?" His father refused to console him with the physical touch of a protective father but rather the words of a distant guardian, determined to bless the mind and the soul in an indirect way.

"Time's a funny thing, you know? It doesn't quite tell you just how fast or slow some things are. It chooses without your knowledge to expand the worst of times and shorten the best of them. All you have to do is beat time or work with it. As they say, 'When the time comes, let it happen.'"

Nate had been too tired to question his step-father, George's sanity or general understanding of his dilemma. He wanted his boyfriend to be happy at the same time he was. What the hell did it have to do with time as a general concept?

Nate had no clue.He let it go thankful to have an ear to funnel his desires into. He wished he'd had George's ear for just a little while longer.

Cancer was a disease that gave no bearing to whomever or whatever it destroyed. George was his rock that  slowly weathered away until he was too soft to keep away the water determined to dissolve him into oblivion.

Nate decided to take a walk, sick of his memories, sick of dispersing George's ashes into the ocean. The deep blue sea had become less of an inspiration for him and more like a place one found themselves when they were feeling lost and never wanted to be found.

It was a shame he had blue eyes.

He always seemed to lose sight of his beauty when in a blue oblivion.

***

The park was quiet save for the summer wind.

It reminded Nate of the sound of waves knocking at his eardrums in the body of a seashell. It gave credence to the tears in his eyes, music to sound out his sorrows. It was a harsh, grating score, raw and tumultuous; painfully slow.

Sadness was numbing.

Nate could no longer feel his fingers; so much so that he hadn't noticed the postcard slip from his grasp.

"You dropped this," a voice came from behind him, shocking him out of his dream-like state. He turned to find a dark-haired boy with eyes powerful enough to pierce the soul and a face worthy of stormy expressions standing in front of him.

He hesitated to take it back but did so anyway without thanks.  His excuse: don't speak to strangers. Wasn't that how his monster came to him; as a charming stranger with honey on his lips? This one looked similar but without the same animation.

"You look like Atlas."

"The god?" Nate questioned, a shock to his efforts to remain silent and unnoticed while dragging around his pensive thoughts. "Please, you look more like one."

Standing tall and magnificent without seeming to try or care, the stranger was magnetic without need, impulsively attractive and repulsively relaxed. His ease was a detriment to Nate's unease.

"Gods can be tested," he murmured, glancing at another figure, who was shying away from a flock of birds. "Gods can have the world on their shoulders and no one would notice. Apparently . . . we are too shiny to be broken, too mysterious to be real and too beautiful to suffer the consequences of real life."

"Is that a compliment?" he asked.

"Dante!" came a distant plea.

"Take it as you like but I doubt you listen to strangers. You don't seem to know how to thank them either."The warm look in Dante's eyes lessened the blow of the scolding.

You sound as crazy as George but oddly truthful, Nate thought.

He watched the man take quick steps to his companion. Holding hands, they stiffly guided each other out of the way of the birds.

Odd.

* * *

There was nothing shiny other than the constant gleam of water in Nate's eye, nothing mysterious other than the depths of his tortured mind and nothing beautiful about his angelic features.He wasn't quite sure why he couldn't shake off the stranger - Dante's words.

The bell of the door rang. Heavy footsteps followed leading to the counter behind which Nate stood debating on whether to tear the postcard apart - ignore the monster for good- or let this postcard, along with the others that had trickled in over the last few months hide in his closet or under his bed.

"I'm looking for a man by the name of Nate Roberson. I heard he owns this bookstore. Uh, Myths, Magic and Mayhem is this place, right?"

Nate jolted at the sound of that voice. The honey-toned timber that could make his limbs quake in both joy and terror.

Three years and he still hadn't turned all that sour to me.

Nate turned, careful not to make eye-contact. He didn't wanted to be reminded of the fire burning in those brown eyes. He noticed the sharp intake of air and the shuffling of feet.

Jake Peters was never nervous or hesitant. He was like a viper that could cut through water and strike where it hurts. Nate had the bruises and nightmares to show for it. Though they weren't visible they remained with him, haunting him and his inevitable need to either choose between hating Jake and forgiving him.

"Am I a horrible person for wanting to speak to you?"

"Maybe," Nate replied, traitorous tears springing to life in his eyes. .

He's here to talk.

"You tell anyone about me?"

Trying to cover your ass after all these years.

"Not really."

Just George. Mom still thinks you roughed me up in a game of football.

"Did you miss me?" Jake asked in what Nate could only describe as a half-hearted delivery.

Never. You were always here whether I wanted you to be or not.

"Not enough for the pain to go away," Nate murmured truthfully.

"Look, Nate-"

"The thing is that you're not the one hurting me anymore. It started with you but now it's just me reliving, rehashing everything you did and everything I didn't do to stop you. I want to tear myself apart just like you did. I've thought of finishing off the job you couldn't."

Going out into the water and forgetting how to swim.

"You want to kill yourself?" Was it disgust in Jake's voice or horror? Nate couldn't be sure. He was relieved it didn't sound sweet.

Nate's voice felt hoarse, his neck strained by the physical  frustration of having to explain himself one more fucking time to someone who didn't deserve his time; he had to do this though because he was sure a dip in the deep end was truly the wrong course of action.

Staying dry and living under the sun was a better option.

George was right when he'd told him there was light in his heart.

"Did I hurt you so badly?" The cadence of Jake's voice shook finally drawing Nate's curiosity and giving him the audacity to look him straight in the eye. They were two men warped by time meeting again to collide and confront the black holes of their past. "Can't I do something to make you forget?"

Jake was the hole seeking to suck out his crimes and hide them, bury them for good.

Nate was the light that although bent, resisted the force of time and space to illuminate the horrors and forever penetrate the darkness of the ocean, the universe and his mind.

They were all connected; these places with only two alternate spaces of existing matter, light and dark. And time was the mediator, deciding which of the two at whatever particular hour would dominate the cosmos.

"Forgetting is not an option," Nate griped, keeping the sneer from his face; he couldn't allow the darkness consume him too. He digressed to what Jake was really asking. "Forgiving you . . ." he began, glancing sparingly at the bouquet of flowers in Jake's hand." . . . will be something I keep to myself. If not knowing whether I forgive you or not hurts you at least now I know you have a conscience."

"Nate that's not how-"

"Don't tell me how. I won't listen to you. I won't give you the time to explain yourself," Nate spoke softly but sharply slowing draining himself of the trepidation he'd always felt of finally coming out on top, of proving himself. "When I asked you to love me, when I needed you to love me kindly, softly, properly, you didn't, did you?"

"No."

"When I asked you to understand me, soothe me, guide me, you didn't, did you?"

"No. I-" Jake tried to continue.

"You bent me out of shape and forced me to put myself back together." Nate raised his voice slightly to get his point across. "I'll return the same to you. You'll have all the time in the world to wonder about us, about me and my feelings for you. And while you're at it, lose my address." He had two options: burn or flush. He'd burn all the postcards later to ash - light up his fireplace with the trinkets of the past. Flushing torn pieces of paper down the toilet didn't seem so viable. He didn't want to risk seeing any of them float to the surface.

Nate never thought he'd believe George but he did, finally, he did.

"Time has a funny way of doing things, Jakey," Nate taunted, delighting in the wince he drew from said man. Was he remembering how I used to beg him? "Have a little patience. When it's your turn to feel good, you'll know, and you'll be nothing to me."

Thank you for reading.