Put ten years between any two people, no matter how great their friendship might have been, and surely, things would change. Put ten years between any two people, and no matter what was felt from one to another would surely have gone away. Ten years was a long, long time, and Lance, during all these, had moved on forward. In the first few weeks he’d broken his relationship with Justin by admitting feelings, Lance had felt a certain sort of dread in the pit of his stomach, dread that came with the hope that Justin would come back and fix everything. In the first few months, the dread only grew larger and larger and larger, certain in that way that he’d never find anyone like Justin again, while the hope that he had grew smaller and smaller and smaller. By the sixth month and thereafter, Lance had become accustomed to the pain, and it coursed through him without him feeling anything. By the first year after everything, he was fine. Or so he considered himself to be.
In the years after that, Lance had only thought of Justin when his name was mentioned, or when he popped up in his dreams, or when his mind flitted over to the things that could be. In the years after that, Lance considered himself wholly and truly over Justin, no longer wishing to be able to love him and no longer hoping to be loved in return. If one to two years could do this to a person, then what more could ten years? By the eighth year, Lance had not only considered himself over Justin, but really really really felt that he was. This manifested in certainty in the pit of his chest, in a solemn knowledge at the back of his mind. Justin was gone, and he’d come to accept that. Justin was never coming back.
So, why was it now that the man was back that Lance felt as though the ten years between them had gone away? Why was it now that Justin was here, in the flesh, that Lance felt as though ten years had never happened, and he was still the same old silly boy with a silly crush on another who could never love him back? How did time work that way? And why did souls relish in that of another’s that they once more hoped and wished and longed for something, anything should they be given the chance to? Why? Why?
It was bad enough that Lance felt this way once, but the more he hung out with Justin, and the more that Justin asked him to hang out, the more that Lance felt the years disappearing. And, with the years, his progress. It was bad enough that Lance had once loved a boy who did not love him back, but worse now that he thought he was falling for the same boy who probably, definitely still could not love him back. Lance knew, somehow, that this was all just a trick of his mind. No, no --- he wasn’t falling for Justin. No, he just thought he was. No, this was just a spillage of feelings over from his seventeen year old self.
And yet, when he sat with Justin like this, alone and undisturbed and masked in the pseudo-special feeling that Justin’s smile imposed on him, it felt so real. Too real, in fact. As he looked at Justin now, confusion and question and all, Lance could swear that his heart was doing three leaps all at once, and that his stomach was jumping over itself with the excitement of being Justin’s special friend for the meantime.
Nevertheless, Lance tried to ignore all these things as Justin’s words came. He looked straight ahead him, as though he’d never been staring at his old friend. (No, no, no, no, no! No, he wasn’t staring!) “It’s okay. Don’t worry. If I didn’t know anyone else, I’d be dragging anyone who even so much as knew my name around as well,” Lance finally replied, after he’d gathered himself. His words hurt him, but he said them with a tone that was more than joyful. How could he be anything but joyful? This was his subconscious tripping over itself and spilling out into words. “And yeah, yeah, I guess… Still feels surreal sometimes. Still feels weird, I guess. Like, I have feet? Who knew? Who could’ve known? I wish my dad were around to see this, you know? He probs wouldn’t like it, but, still wish he were here.”
