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“Can’t stand the silence. Need to speak to you.”
“Grow up. See you at midnight.”
The crumbled piece of paper with the then unexpected message had escaped Elio’s diary and was now carried further into the garden by the wind.With a soft curse, Elio put down the box full of his belongings he had been carrying to the car in front of the villa and from which the piece of paper had escaped, and hurried alongside the soft breeze to catch up with the papery note.He had no idea why he was still clinging on to those memories. It had been more than a year since he had slipped the note under the door to Oliver’s room, then had found the reply on his desk when he had come back up to his own quarters after breakfast. A lot had happened since then. Elio had fallen in love, got his heart broken, no, shattered into pieces, had picked up the parts and glued them together (in his imagination, his battered heart looked as if someone had poorly patched it together with duct tape and bandages, with some pieces missing because they could never be found again), had thrown himself into studying and practicing the piano, had graduated on top of his class and had received acceptance letters from various prestigious universities, and was now about to move out to start a new chapter of his life. Like Oliver had done when he had decided to get married and forget about him. Them.The wind had picked up and was still playing catch with Elio and the crumbled piece of paper, and with an annoyed huff, Elio chased after it, reaching out to catch it and coming close several times, until his final attempt left him out of breath but successful. He looked at the offending memento and drew in a deep breath, then closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Elio realized that his hunt had lead him into the part of the orchard where he and Oliver had once settled under the cooling shade of the apricot trees, translating poetry, laughing, exchanging brief touches and kisses, shy first, then demanding more, enough to make them get up and quickly make their way inside and into what had become their bedroom.Elio pursed his lips and shook his head, refusing to let the sting in his eyes grow into something else.Oliver had chosen silence, after all. Or maybe Elio had first, when he had stopped writing him. Because what was the point in carrying on their correspondence? Even if they had been friends first and lovers second, Elio didn’t feel he could go back to being friends.He was aware that his father had kept in touch with the tall American, but Elio stubbornly refused to inquire about his life across the ocean. His refusal to even acknowledge the existence of the whole continent had gone so far that he had almost rejected an acceptance letter from Julliard. It had probably been the only time both Perlman parents had put a foot down and demanded to know if Elio was out of his mind.Elio knew they had been right, that it was insane to jeopardise his own career because the former love of his life happened to live in New York, too. Thus, he had accepted, plane tickets were booked, accommodations arranged, and he had packed his belongings into boxes to have them shipped to America. His diary with the note had been one of the things Elio felt he couldn’t leave behind.But what if he should?What if he should let go and start anew?He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. The wind had picked up again, rushing dark clouds of rain along the quickly darkening sky.Elio breathed heavily, closed his eyes, and opened his fist. The wind immediately picked up on its papery toy, threw it up into the air, twirled it around like a dancer moving to a silent melody. Elio felt his shoulders sink, and the wetness on his cheeks might have either been tears or the first drops of rain falling down on him.“…where is Oliver…?” he quietly mumbled to himself, remembering an evening when he had sat outside on the stone steps, waiting for the one his heart was longing for, but only seeing Mafalda returning to the villa with a basket in her arms.Elio brushed the palm of his right hand over his face, then turned around to run back inside. He would continue to carry boxes to the car once the rain had stopped.
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The rain, however, had decided to pour down on the Italian countryside until deep into the night, and Elio had taken this as an excuse to hide under the covers of his bed, lying on his side, looking out of the window, thinking about everything and nothing.He didn’t want to forget, yet he didn’t want to remember.He wanted a new beginning, yet he wanted it in a way that would forever remain a dream.At some point, he must have fallen asleep, because when he woke up next, the sun was shining brightly, tickling his nose with warm rays. With a sigh he stretched his arms over his head, then rolled out of bed to get downstairs for some coffee. Elio yawned and slowly walked down the staircase, passing his father’s study on his way to the kitchen.“Elly-belly, you are up early. Come join me for a minute?”“Of course.” Elio followed his father’s voice who greeted him with a good-natured chuckle upon seeing his son’s sleep-dishevelled state, albeit looking a little tired himself.Usually, Elio would sit next to his father on the old leather couch, getting comfortable in the cushions while talking to each other. Today, however, he found the older man standing at his desk, pointing at something.Elio rubbed his sleepy eyes, then froze. On the wooden surface, the piece of paper he had released into the forces of the wind yesterday afternoon was now lying there in an even more crumbled state. So much for letting go of old memories when they decided to turn around like a boomerang and hit him in the chest full square.“I assume that belongs to you?”Elio drew in a shuddering breath and nodded, silently waiting for another explanation other than a lecture on how littering was bad for the environment.Instead, his father hummed and nodded. “May I also assume it partly belongs to the certain someone who brought it here while you were asleep last night, shivering and almost breaking down on the doorstep?”“What?!” Elio couldn’t believe his ears. It was impossible.His father smiled warmly. “Don’t worry. Your mother and I put him up in the other guestroom, gave him hot tea with honey and wrapped him in some warm blankets. He should be fine once he wakes up.”Elio’s whole body was trembling, and he shook his head in disbelief. “No.”He watched his father weigh his head with a heavy sigh. “You never asked about him, but surely you must know we have exchanged letters and phone calls ever since Oliver left. He is not in a good place right now, which is why we suggested he should spend some time here until he has figured things out. He scheduled his flight for next week but had to change his plans and arrived unexpectedly early.”“…next week… I would have been in New York by then,” Elio whispered.“And we all thought that was what you wanted,” his father nodded. “But now I’m not so sure anymore.”Elio’s legs gave out under the weight of those words, and he let himself fall heavily onto the nearest chair with a huff.“Elio?”He raised his face to wordlessly look at his father. He didn’t know what to say, let alone what to feel and how to act. His head was swimming, and he was so confused he couldn’t even cry.“Promise me to talk to each other. Whatever happens next is totally up to you, just…it’s always better to speak.”As if his heart hadn’t died already…Elio got up and was about to walk out of the study, when his father held him back and placed the dilapidated piece of paper in his hand. Elio wrapped his fingers around it with a heavy sigh, crumbling it even more in the process. The state it was in now might have easily resembled how he felt on his inside.Coffee forgotten, Elio climbed back up the antique staircase, taking every step slowly. Was he stalling? Or were his feet simply heavy with emotional exhaustion?On the top floor, he stopped and looked in the direction where he now knew Oliver was sleeping. As if his feet had been drawn in by a silent curse, Elio moved closer, his bare feet cold on the wooden floor in the early morning. He clutched the hand that was still holding the paper to his chest, then raised the other to knock his knuckles against the door.There was some rustling, then the sound of footsteps being tiredly dragged from the bed to the door, and Elio bit his lip, feeling already bad that he had woken up the other man. They should both be fully awake to process their talk, not just come face to face after a draining night. But before he could turn around and run back to hide in his own room, the door was slowly pulled open, and two simultaneously shocked gasps interrupted the silence of the empty corridor.Oliver looked thinner and paler than Elio had remembered him, almost sick, not resembling the exuberant display of life from last summer at all.“…Elio…”Many things happened all at once, and Elio thanked his quick reflexes that he reached out to steady Oliver just in time before his tall frame almost collapsed on the floor, then helped him back into bed, wrapping all the blankets back around the shivering body.“Good Lord, Oliver, what happened to you? Are you sick?”“Mmmh, just nerves. My doctor says it’s a classical burnout. It was either coming here or being committed to a sanatorium. Sorry.” His voice was slurred. He closed his eyes and curled himself into a ball, and Elio instinctively held him close.“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here while you were still asleep. I just talked to my father a minute ago and thought…. Well, I probably didn’t think at all. Rest now.”“But I need to speak to you,” Oliver protested weakly.“Shh,” Elio raked his fingers through the blond streaks. “We will, once you feel better.”“…the note…”“Yeah, I know. It’s here, see? You saved it from the rain.”“…I’m sorry…”“Nothing to be sorry about. Go back to sleep. I promise we can talk whenever we want and don’t need to wait until midnight anymore.”“We didn’t talk much that night,” Oliver mumbled, already half-asleep again.“Well, now we are wiser; so maybe we try talking first this time,” Elio said with a hint of a smile on his lips. He felt Oliver sigh against his chest, then his breathing even out.Elio swallowed hard and inhaled deeply, then let out the air on a long, slow exhale.He had no idea what had happened for Oliver to end up in this state of physical and mental despair, but if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he would never let go of this man again. Carefully, not to stir Oliver, Elio stretched his arm to place the piece of paper on the nightstand, then settled under the covers next to him, keeping watch over his sleep. Whatever their talk would reveal, those words, feverishly scribbled down over a year ago, had brought them together once. And for whatever reason, their power had brought them together once again.