Winter looked at him. They hadn’t spoken about their past fling in a long time. “Of course I do,” he said.
“Do you remember what you told me one morning, when you couldn’t sleep?”
The description was vague, but Winter knew immediately what he meant. He had stayed the night at Dameon’s apartment, had woken before dawn and ended up on Dameon’s balcony to watch the sunrise.
Something’s bothering you,Dameon had said from behind him.
Winter had glanced over his shoulder to see the boy approach, had let him curl an arm around his waist.Something’s always bothering me,he’d answered.
Dameon hadn’t pushed him on it. They’d stood there together as the sky lightened, until the first sliver of orange peeked out from the horizon.
Aren’t you happy, Winter?Dameon had asked him then.
Winter had looked on as the sun emerged line by line.
The day I step away from this life,he’d answered,is the day I’m happy with myself.
Winter let the memory fade, let himself return Dameon’s stare now as he sat on the couch.
“Winter,” Dameon said. “You can’t live your entire life like this.”
“Like what?”
“In this half state of joy.” He nodded at the window. “I know you love being onstage—it’s like life is literally pouring out of you. I know you need your music like air. And I know you cared deeply about what you did with Panacea. But you’ve spent your entire life thriving on making others happy. You are always giving yourself away.”
Winter looked down at his hands. “I don’t know what else to want,” he muttered.
“I know what you want.” Dameon nodded at him. “I’ve never seen you more alive than when Sydney’s beside you.”
Winter looked at him. “I seem to recall being very stressed out when I’m near her,” he replied.
Dameon laughed once. “Fair.” He sobered. “But there is something so bright about you when you’re with her. It’s like you can’t bear to not see her. Your body is always turned toward her. You’re always aware of what she’s doing and where she is. And when you’re separated from her, you seem like a boat without an anchor. You seem lost. And you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because she makesyouhappy. You, Winter. Nobody else.”
“I don’t know what to do about it,” he said. “She’s not someone I can just reach out to.”
“Then maybe instead of needing to see her, you need to figure out why it is that she matters so much to you,” Dameon said. “Maybe you need to see what it is that she brings out of you, to make you so whole.”
She made him whole. It was her, not him. But Winter listened to Dameon nevertheless, trying to accept his friend’s words.
“You’ve got to find happiness in yourself,” Dameon replied. “Just you. Or you’re going to disappear into the lights.”
Winter nodded absently. Happiness in himself. It seemed like an impossible thought, but he hung on to it anyway.
“Maybe someday,” he said.
Dameon studied him. Outside, the rain continued.
“Maybe someday,” he echoed.
After Dameon left, Winter’s house settled back into a lonely silence. He got up, played a little piano, then came back to the couch and stared off into space.
He tried not to think about the fact that he might never see Sydney again.
He was okay with it. He had to be. He would endure this just as he had last time, when he’d walked away from Sydney in London and stepped out of her life for a year. He had no idea how long it would be this time. Maybe another year. Maybe several. The thought of that empty time stretching out in front of him, bleak and mysterious, was more than he could bear.
