“Kaj...”
He winced. “Don’t.” Shaking his head, he reached for Noah’s neck and brought their lips together in a lingering kiss that tasted like a last goodbye. “I’m sorry.”
At that moment, with their foreheads touching and their bare souls exposed, Noah broke into tears. He belonged to Kaj, always had, and always would. But he would never be entirely his. It was obvious in the emotional distance he kept. In the emptiness of his beautiful gaze. In the invisible scars that were impossible to hide. Kaj was broken and wanted him to know, but he wasn’t ready to let him in again.
They were drowning in the things they never said. And while Noah still loved him, while the sole idea of separating from him physically hurt, he couldn’t stay to see him annihilate whatever good memories were left of them.
“Me too.”
After that, they re-dressed in silence and Kaj walked out of the house, leaving Noah behind with an irreparable heart.
They never saw each other again.
Until they did, eight years later.
Epilogue
October 2023
The lights were distorted,slanting and spinning before they contracted, only to expand in a blinding ray.
That was the first thing Kaj noticed when he snapped back into the real world.
Exhausted beyond imagination, he was dragging his feet, walking through the white concrete corridor with no destiny in mind, like an automaton. His bandmates were right behind him. He could hear them casually chatting under the strong beat of his pulse. There were also a few security gorillas. He knew, not because he could actually discern their presence, but because it was always the same. For the last five months, days and nights had blended in one, becoming a thundering turmoil of drums and harsh vocals followed by dizzying numbness.
Clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, Kaj twisted his neck to make it crack. Although he was only twenty-six, somedays he felt like an eighty-year-old man. Everything in his body hurt. Most people would blame it on the excess of alcohol and drugs running through his veins twenty-four-seven, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. What pulled him down, weighing on his chest like a corpse tied to a rock and thrown into the ocean, was something entirely different. Not to mention they had played for over an hour tonight.
“One more and we’re done,” someone said, but Kaj couldn’t even recognize who it was anymore. Probably Niels, their manager.
Cold sweat was gliding down his temples, his back and arms. His heart was beating faster than ever, making him feel sick, but he had to keep moving forward; toward what looked like the exit. His sight was blurry though, so he couldn’t really tell if it was the end of a tunnel or the mouth of a wolf.
An irrational wave of panic fluttered behind his ribs at the thought of being swallowed whole, crashed bones and skin in tatters.
Kaj wanted to laugh at his own stupidity—as if a building could do such a thing—but the susurration outside distracted him. Buzzing. Steady. Discordant. He’d fed on that sound for the past few years, surviving between meaningless sex, lines of coke, and bottles of bourbon thanks to it. It was their raging crowd asking for more, wanting that night to last a little longer so they could say the price they’ve paid to break the monotony of their lives was worth it. Kaj couldn’t blame them. If he’d been granted the possibility to ask for a bis in his life, he would have taken it, no matter the cost.
If he could rewind time... There were so many things he’d do differently, starting with staying away from his stepbrother—still in jail—and ending withhim. Noah Sørensen.
It’d been five years since they’d last seen each other. He should be over him and what they’d had by now. But, obsessive by nature, Kaj had failed at trying to get him out of his mind.
As frustrating and infuriating as it was knowing Noah was most likely happy with someone else, Kaj was aware that the only glimpse of real joy he’d ever experienced since his father passed away was beside that man.
After Noah, nothing had ever been the same.
He hated it, and him.
For making him fall so desperately in love.
For forcing him to see how poisonous he truly was.
For letting him walk away.
Although he couldn’t acknowledge what he truly felt—wasn’t even sure anymore—ifthatnight Noah had asked him to stay instead of choosing his own sanity, Kaj was sure he would have given him everything he had. The good and the bad. If Noah had said that he loved him just once, he would have never left.
It was better this way, though. For both of them.
A sharp pang of pain drilled into Kaj’s chest, making his knees wobble.
Before Artificial Suicide could make it out on stage, time froze inside this narrow passage as he stumbled over his own feet. Oxygen and something that tasted like vomit jammed in his throat. His heart writhed through every beat. His vision fogged up. His strength faded.
