“What's the biggest show of affection you've ever seen from a fan?”

Hot tears, red lights, moldy carpet. His dirty white shoe pressed against a man’s crotch, tugging the carabiner with force. 

“It won’t mean anything…”

Glazed eyes, tender. Swollen lips, worship undeserved. 

“Hurry, Gaspard, they’re—”

It’s the eve of Gaspard’s fifth wedding.

She’s not the first.

His? Certainly not the last. 

Xavier stares into his bathroom mirror, flush-faced and tear-stained, love bites exposed on his neck. He yearns for curious hands, desperate and unfaithful. 

Gaspard looks good in blue.

“Promise—”

“Do you still dream, Gaspard?”

No, he answers. How can I?

They arrive on the 21st of May each year. Twelve tear-stained letters, no stamps. 

He burns them twice, for good measure—

—into his memory, 

—onto the kitchen floor.

Memories of ash, dreams of gold.