~Three Years Later~

~~Christopher’s POV~~

Three years… Christopher thought. Three years, yet not a thing. He listened… Christopher was held back so he would be graduating next year. He didn’t know how Paul was, and his mom didn’t know anything since the last thing he had sent her was, “I know…”

Christopher wiped down the tables, watching as everyone else left, their shifts over. He sighed quietly, seeing that the place was now empty, leaving him behind. Every day he was to open and close the restaurant, but he always liked to stay a few hours after work so he could get some time to himself.

He saw someone from the corner of his eye in front of the glass doors, and he looked over, seeing a boy maybe a year or two older than him outside. His hair was bright blue and lovely. He had on old brown shades with the metal frame, and he wore a leather jacket with blue ripped jeans. Christopher beckoned for him to come in, and he did, slightly confused. “Isn’t this place supposed to be closed tonight?” His voice…it… sounded familiar.

Speak, dumbass! “O-oh, yes, it is! But… I stay here a while after hours just in case… You never know.”

The boy nodded. “The name’s Christian.”

Christopher stepped behind the counter. “Your name is close to mine. All I can do here is manage the soda machine so…” He laughed nervously, and the boy smirked.

“Fine by me. A Coke would be fine. So… I’m gonna guess your name is… Chris.”

“Nope.” Christopher smiled, filling up a cup, attaching a lid, and sticking a straw through.

“Christie?”

Christopher laughed, and covered his mouth, playfully scorning him. “Ha, funny.”

“Christ...iana.”

Christopher smiled and shook his head. “Think of Winnie the Pooh.”

“Oh! Christopher. Ah, how was I so stupid.” He acted like a dope, and Christopher found it funny.

“Finally, you figure it out,” Christopher said, giving him his drink, which in exchange he got $1.49 for the drink, and a 10.

“Keep the change.” He said, biting down on the straw before taking a drink.

Oh, my god, fucking end me! Christopher became a ball of stutters, and he choked out a “thanks”, putting the bill in his pocket, and the other money in the register. Christian laughed, smiling. Christopher sat on the counter, blushing. Then Christian’s look turned into a thoughtful one.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Christian put a few fingers next to Christopher’s eye, and Christopher flinched. “The person’s eye does say a lot about someone.” Christopher only nodded faintly, and Christian put his hand down. “Ah, sorry… I have a bad habit of doing that.” He chuckled softly and looked at the watch on his wrist. “I should get going.”

“So soon?” Christopher looked at him, and he smiled softly.

“Well, it’s late. You should be getting home too.” Christian took another drink, smirking a bit. “This town doesn’t get pretty at night. The lights are just a facade.”

Christopher got off the counter and nodded a bit. “That’s the truth.”

Christian laughed, biting his straw. “See ya later.” He pulled down his shades, showing hazel eyes, and winked, before striding out.

Christopher nearly lost his mind. He stumbled back as Christian went out of sight of the windows, and grabbed the counter for support. “Oh, my...god… Someone call an ambulance.” Christopher said, hitting his chest a few times to cough. He wasn’t being serious, but his mind was turning into mush, along with every bone and muscle in his legs. Christian sounded familiar, and his eyes looked like someone else’s too… Paul? No, that’s ridiculous… He’s still away… Is he? Christopher pulled out his phone as he closed up, but stopped, shaking his head. “No. I’m not doing it… I can figure it out. I’m smart!” He didn’t sound confident.

He put his phone away, and walked out, locking up; and beginning his long walk home.

~~Paul’s POV~~

Paul put his drink on the table, pulling off his shades. He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up, grunting. “Damn you, alter ego.” He said, looking in the full view mirror in his living room. He looked at how he dressed, pulling the jacket off of him, showing a plain white wife-beater. He flexed his arm, smirking. “Gotta say though… No one will know who it is.”

Paul felt proud of himself slightly but realized what he was doing had a slight wrongness to it. He was fooling people, and he hated what he had done. Three years and this is how he falls? He found it pathetic that he had become like this without Christopher, and he frowned in his reflection. You’re supposed to be the man never phased by a kid, but… here you are.

He walked away, and plopped on the couch, turning on the t.v., flipping through the channels, trying to find anything that was able to catch his eye. Nothing was able to, and he turned off the t.v., turning on Pandora on his phone. He sighed quietly, laying back on the couch, laying his phone on his chest as he put in his earbuds. Paul relaxed, closing his eyes. On most of the songs, when he hugged his pillow, he imagined Christopher sleeping with him, but he knew it would never happen… Christopher probably felt nothing for Paul, accepting the fact that Paul was a complete waste of time… Paul was still in a bad place, and he hated that he was.

He wished that he could just… get better. He knew that it wasn’t going to be happening as fast as he wanted it to. As he realized that, he was already on the brink of sleep, and he finally fell asleep, hugging the pillow.

The dreams he had were ones of nightmares, all starting out as good dreams.

Christopher was looking up at him, and he realized it was him as a child. Paul, however, was unchanged. Christopher looked happy, and Paul smiled. Christopher then frowned and screamed, and before he knew it, Paul saw the younger version of himself breaking Christopher’s wrist. Paul couldn’t speak, and he opened his mouth to yell, but he made no sound.

Everything then became a blur, and Paul screamed, finally able to, and he fell down, out of breath as if he had been screaming for hours. His old friends, Kyle and Leroy, then appeared, and everything swirled out of control, to when Christopher was older. Both of them grabbed Christopher. Paul got up, and the image of Christopher shattered like glass, something black pouring from it.

“How pathetic.” They both laughed, dropping what was a mirror onto the ground, and walked over to Paul as the mirror shattered. “Love for a boy? You must be joking.”

“What I love is neither of your concerns,” Paul said, and Leroy and Kyle seemed to merge into one person; creating a looming dark figure.

“Oh, but you should. That boy is bad for you, and you know it, Paul. We all know it. You just throw caution to the wind, however. That’s a bad habit to have.”

“I don’t care what you think!” Paul yelled, and the figure grinned.

“Like I said. You should.” Paul felt a sudden pain in his stomach, and he looked down, seeing that the tip of a blade had gone through him, and someone had stabbed him from behind. “Paul, you wouldn’t know if you were betrayed unless it hit you in the face. In this case… Your back.” They laughed, and his voice was distorted, as it got louder and louder and louder until it drowned out all other sounds, even Paul’s own thoughts, and heartbeat. “You are a fool, Paul! You are falling for a boy who doesn’t like you! He doesn’t even love you! You’re falling for simpleton games, boy!”

Paul fell to his knees, the knife being pulling out of his back, and he found there was a gap in which blood was coming out from him. There was nothing but a burning cold feeling, almost so cold it felt like it was hot, but that was because it stung. “Sh-shut up…”

“Turn around, boy!” Paul knew not to, but he did anyway, seeing a figure that was most recognized from only the eyes. The rest wasn’t identifiable, but he knew who it was instantly.

“You hurt me, Paul.” The voice came from it, and it hurt, so Paul looked down, not wanting to face his own delusions.

Christopher.

“You’ve been backstabbed. Betrayed.” The figure kneeled down, taking something, and stabbing it into Paul’s chest, twisting it. Paul cried out, falling over onto his side.

“I-I...have...n-not…” Paul felt weak, and he used all that he could to grab whatever it was in his chest and impale the figure with it.

Paul woke up, frantically, and got up. He felt lightheaded, and he fell on the floor with a heavy thump that echoed. He felt a pain in his chest, and he heard his heartbeat echo, and he thought it was just the sound of him falling playing over and over in his head. He got back up, and wobbled for a moment, still trying to recover from his nightmare.

He’s dreamt up worse, but even then it was still slightly terrifying to him to know that he could dream up such things. “Just a dream, just a dream… Leroy’s in jail. Kyle… I… I don’t know… I don’t… know where he is, but hopefully, he has fallen off the plane of existence. That would do me a favor instead of having to worry myself with him.” He sighed quietly, popping his neck. He found his phone on the floor, and he picked it up, finding a few texts from someone who didn’t have a contact on his phone, so it was just a number.

I told myself that I wasn’t going to do this, but here I am. Texting you. Talking to you. Slightly freaking out about texting you...talking to you.

Um…? Paul didn’t recognize the number, so he stood there, looking at his phone in a rather stupid way.

Oh, goodie. You somehow got my number but now you can’t remember it. I guess three years can do that to someone.

Christopher?! Paul nearly had a heart attack, and almost dropped his phone, which he had to juggle in order not to. I thought…

Yes. It is me. Christopher. The boy who you somewhat left behind.

And I’m still sorry about that.

Yeah, sure. Anyway, have you come back into town recently? Like… Any?

Yes, I got here a few days ago, I heard you moved, and I wanted to come back for old childhood memories… The better ones. The ones where I didn’t spend my time hurting you.

*Gasp* You actually had times where you didn’t hurt me?! I’m so surprised! You get a gold star. The reason I ask is that I saw someone who resembled you. Eyes and voice mostly. Said his name was Christian.

Paul mentally shot himself in the face, biting his lip in frustration. How could I have done that?! The worst thing I could have possibly done!

Well, I don’t know who this “Christian” is, but he must have you by the heart, or you wouldn’t be this concerned.

The nerve you have to say that! I’ll show you!

Paul didn’t respond to it, and he sighed, putting down his phone. He took a deep breath, resisting the urge to let his ego get ahold of him. He did, however, let out a small laugh before pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt as though he had done something completely stupid enough to provoke Christopher, but he couldn’t undo it now. It was a bit too late for that.

Way too late for that.

Paul had only taken a brief nap, so not a lot of time had passed during his frantic nightmare. Not as frantic as he wished to describe it, but even the smallest things could terrify him enough into a panic. He sank into the cushions of his couch, sighing quietly. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep with that stupid thing still plastered in his mind. He took a deep breath, trying to relax which wasn’t working out so well.

Paul picked up his phone, unlocking it and going to Youtube to find new music… He didn’t know what to listen to, so he just scrolled through until he found something that would catch his attention. It was a song, and it was labeled as “Male version” which made him slightly skeptical. Normally if something was “male version”ed, it meant that it was more than likely a nightcore of some sort, and he didn’t really like them all that much. Some of them were okay, but he hadn’t listened to most of them in at least a year or so. The song was titled Enchanted and he shrugged a bit, pulling it up on his phone. He nearly threw it when he saw the background picture of it were two guys kissing, and he kinda screamed just a little bit.

For the remainder of the day, it was spent listening to that song over and over.