CHAPTER 94 94
Samuel and Albert - In the white
Björn was thirteen years old, and almost transparent irises.
boundless blue irises - that smooths ice the sky and sleeves are too long to cover the wrists. Brittle bones, under the wool coat.
And earth beneath your feet - the cold ground.
water rippled by the wind and a horizon full of snow on lighter hair - in the distance and index finger touching the smile of a child. Smile of light.
Vivian is small, so small that you wonder if he can survive the winter.
so small that if you ask him how old he looks at you with the concentration of those who must respond to a complicated question, before raising his hand, and when he stretches his fingers three times you think it is not right. That the wind should calm down or risk scratching the skin and the night should steps to stop or wrap it in the dark. That the immensity of the sky is a cruelty, if he does not even fifty centimeters, and that if you have to stoop to his knees, to speak with him the ear, should also be able to call everything with a new name. A name that is just for him, never used for any other in the world and never tainted by fear. Stripped of solitude and silence - small items like her hands and simple as a snowflake.
"Do you see them, Viv? Do you see them, the ducklings? "
bread crumbs floating in the water and Vivian laughs, Björn holding it there only that fragment of earth, all around - the lake and sky and ice. White.
The white wall, in Portland - a stormy sea of profanity and the look still there.
The look that he always returned there, always. Without being able to see. Without
reach them.
look blind.
And too many words - crazy wind that cracked lips and smooth, while the lexicon like a stone thrown into that lake. To throw in the white. Now it seems that Samuel
in his twenties who have not been a desperate race against time, a stubborn abrasion process to be able to give those two their children in simple language.
not claimed to save anyone then, it was not for what they dug up the core of the words to rip the skin from his body, but the gap was there - a point of pure white plaster of the wall. The North deeper.
It was all wrapped up in those mm mortar, the sense of breathing - whatever you choose and never dealt with the excruciating difficulty of each step. The beauty and horror - the sound.
There were nights of furious winds - Fifteen years is not enough for learning to take the helm balance when the current pushed in different directions so that even the sky could no longer indicate the route.
And there have been days of dead secret - flesh and blood and nerves to beat vainly on the corpse of a core property. The slow agony of compromises, Logan's firm hand to maim entire page as a scalpel on flesh.
And the very clear perception of the blade - feel it sinking. Hear record.
did not help.
It did not because now it's raining, outside the room, and he looks down on the glass drops in long trails of tears. Hold still.
did not help. Why his eyes were missing
children Vivian, to complete the picture - because it is exactly in the blue of those eyes that silence Björn has taken shape and every word whispered will never be enough, never enough light. The snow will never be white enough to freeze the pain of having to open arms and reliable in the world, the fifty centimeters of boundless tenderness.
Björn's voice did not sound when the light declined in a foreign language too, and he did not understand, could not hear. Nor were they able to recognize it in the heartbeat, his presence, because when Vivian was sleeping against his chest was Björn himself on the skin to breathe. Because while he was busy imagining the weight of his body between his legs Björn melted in the breath of Vivian, however, and the hair slipping into caresses that were not and were not sex but were simply meat him - he in the one reality that has never belonged.
He who has never been an angel and has never been so bad - he also knows how to do evil.
Samuel has not slept in almost paralyzing awareness that he had never really looked at the man she loves. Seeing him for the first time only when he discovered the blue Heartbreaking Vivian, when he could only imagine the inability to protect him and regret that every continuous silence must have dug into the soul. He has always believed that
Björn hidden deep wounds, never to forgive sins.
have never failed to forgive himself - the most heartbreaking. The most difficult and painful, the only one that really can not share with anyone in the world.
I thought I knew everything and knew nothing - had thought they knew.
And he did not know Vivian.
still has no idea what his face as a child - is back in the cafe to talk about him with Albert and can not even imagine some kind of relationship between them.
View them together is difficult - difficult to believe that they have a common language. Who have spoken, and perhaps even talk to each other, which have shared feelings and experiences.
Only now he realizes that he would never come back to that place had it not been a concern for Vivian to bring it back - perhaps exactly what was missing piece to stop the drain and turn it into courage. To put their backs to the wall, forcing him to clench his fists and face the horror.
raining, and Björn is in every drop of water sliding on the windows - it's all breathe in and smell the tea that goes along the wrist, too cold in anxiety. In wet hair. And
edition of Spoon River that Samuel has placed on the table, that he had bought in an antiquarian bookstore that day the sky was colder and stung his face like ice - a winter day in which you could expect from one moment to another, he fell the snow, and snow in the footsteps of Bjorn became tracks. Alphabets silent of a language as her white hands, a language without sound.
They had stopped on the street after him, and he had read the epitaph of Dillard Sissman the sole purpose of giving him horizons properties. She whispered the lines with the hope of hanging up his kite to the moon and show that peace was possible - prove useless theories.
Now the time seems to knock at the door, though - chasing shots that beat in my temples and the hardwood back against your back. Against the bones.
Albert's arrival is not the final step over the threshold never crossed a border - the man approaches the table by closing his umbrella dripping rain, and he hears the knees bent and pushed the chair to stand up and shake hands. While mesh slip the cuffs on the knuckles and the close is muffled in the fabric - while hiding inside. A
breath.
"Thank you for coming," he says, and crosses his eyes when he thinks that there is no connection between facial features and that preserves the memory of man. Among the countless times he imagined that second meeting and the perception of a reality which imposes its own laws instead. Read unknown.
The feeling of being out of time - out of place.
"Do not worry," comes the reply, while the other rests on the table, cigarettes and cellular Samuel and count the breaths, meanwhile - count the heartbeats. One by one.
"He said that I need to talk?"
"I met Vivian," then announced, because he needs to say so immediately. Block any possible escape route and leave only one path to be in front of him.
has learned not to trust their resolutions, over the years - when the frailty is part of you so deep you have to take breath and throw almost without thinking.
Even Albert does not seem to expect much direct approach - or maybe just had not brought to account to hear him say that name. Samuel sees it just stiffen - dissolve for a moment that his calm composure. Impenetrable, always.
"Really?"
looked down at the table, he does not answer.
"And may I ask how?" Added the man, who instead continue to keep the look on his face. He feels it slide along the cheekbones, Samuel - and stopping off on the lips on her throat.
returning along the jaw bone, slowly.
"Not to sound pushy, but I never thought that you two could go to the same environment."
"I met him by chance one evening in a restaurant in the center," he says, wetting his lips. " I offered him a piece of cake and then we left, we walked. "
would be difficult to explain that in reality have not walked down the street - that the feet did not touch the ground and the city looked like a lump of light colored button, above. Hard to tell someone what it means to discover angels drifting wind and feel the presence of the other only through solitude. A link
impalpable.
"The air was cold," he continues, while the steam of the tea caressing fingers. "I laid my coat on his back and we took a taxi, we went home. Vivian has stayed with me that night. "
hostility, suddenly, is the look of the man who becomes glass. Which becomes blade - the cutting edge of a razor down on the lips.
"That's what he wanted to talk to me?"
"I have established a very intimate relationship with Vivian, in recent months," Samuel nodded, moving his eyes over his shoulder. Sliding along the perspective of the room - people and voices and rain.
open umbrellas as the sky, behind the windows.
"Then he told me yesterday that he and Björn are brothers," he murmurs, miss hearing the voice tone. Feeling their way in the soul and the white tips of the fingers touching the snow as if freezing. As if the structure of this wobble, surely.
"It was poignant, in many ways. In many ways, heartbreaking, but ... "
" I understand, "Albert scans, but it is clear that the conversation does not like.
Samuel hears the rigidity of words - from the harshness with which he adds after a moment of silence: "I can not imagine what this point might want from me, though. Advice? Acquittal?"
"No," he says, because if there is one thing that has always been clear is that for him there can never be absolved. That the time allowed to pass without being more alive is seriously hampering not only the conscience but also on the opinion that others should have let him. On their opinion, and trust.
man had a story to tell - had offered him something very precious to only a few months earlier. He had to swallow the pain and stay to listen to the end - being able to accept the fact that Björn would have a life independent of what he had sewn and admit once and for all that he had never been part of his past. Unable to influence the future and did not know anything - they have nothing to give him. Only himself, after all.
words. Yet
clenches his fists on the armrests of the chair, while the discomfort grows, because this time is exactly where I should stay. What wants to stay - no matter how could hurt the consciousness of guilt or disapproval of his party. No matter how difficult, how hard costs.
"I just need to know if what happened to Vivian Björn has also involved," he says slowly, forcing us to raise our sights on the human face.
requiring the item to remain firm - the breath to not break.
"And I would like to know how. Up to that point. "
breath for a moment, swallowing.
"I know that this is my personal matters and that any question about it may seem pretentious, but ... I can not help it," he continued, looking straight into the other eyes.
"Of course I realize that I put in an awkward position and I apologize from now. I do not usually get a straight leg in the lives of others, believe me. I never wanted to be forced ... "She stops
, move back to look elsewhere. Trying to focus on the actions of the bartender, on the bracelet that reflects light with every movement of your wrist.
Albert can not understand - it would be useless to explain.
would need years to soften the words to make them as embracing the silence - as sharp as ice. Inject the white in small doses every day now. After
hours.
not possible.
Can only hope that he responds to the unconscious, or maybe just to break that expectation of flashes that will soften in the steam. Cups lined up on the counter and water that flows between the fingers, the red button on a dishwasher. Seconds that you slow gin cotton as a rosary, heart pounding. Apnea.
The rubbing of the chair on the floor is a violent shock - Samuel looks away when Albert has just changed its position and is breathing plane is about to speak.
"I can not give a definite answer," marks, while the lips bend on syllables like a slow motion slow. Terrible.
"Vivian has never agreed to talk about anything and Björn did not know - he never knew."
Building, Samuel closed his eyes.
"In my opinion, for what it's worth, is that it has not suffered physical abuse at first but has still deeply affected by the environment in which it grew. I can not tell what he was aware of the situation of his brother - I do not know when he is conscious now. But it is almost inevitable link with the dysfunction in the sexual lives of all that, "says the man, not so much the aseptic tone of voice to hit the nerves. It is not even the icy grip of panic - a feeling that the world is digging a hole and irreparable damage that the past is like a poison seeping into this old. Bitter taste burning mouth, nausea.
But it is mainly the awareness that reassurance on that point will never offer to condense into doubt all the horror possible. To demand more courage and other force, the will to devour.
is like a hungry monster, an unequal struggle. A bottomless vortex that swallows in her womb and frustrates any attempt to lift any effort ever made.
always seems that there should be any more pain, just under the surface explored, as if the pain itself is not sufficient to enclose all that white. Vivian and Björn as if they were really unattainable in their world of muffled sounds and colors of liquid. A parallel dimension
that holds them prisoners, and that anyone who tries to touch surrounded elsewhere. To approach.
"The last time we met I presume to know everything," Samuel whispered, closing his fingers around a cup now cold.
"Now they are ready to listen," he continues, his voice hoarse from relentless feeling of powerlessness. By the certainty that even knowing it will not serve to change the reality or to share it - that will not help.
Nothing.
"Help me understand how I behave with Vivian, please," he adds, but the other is an impenetrable wall - fingernails scratching the stone without a scratch.
"What can I say?" He says, severely. "I'm not a therapist Vivian, I've never analyzed his case to a clinical point of view. I know that kid since he was six years and if I thought that sex may be a solution - something that I would not say under any circumstances - certainly would not give her the go-ahead anyway. "
"I do not want no green light, no ..."
With difficulty, he swallows.
"It's not the sex that interests me," ends, but nothing heavier than the knowledge that that statement does not make sense if you have never been able to think without Björn want his body. If white is a stretch unique, and if you turn toward the colder horizons would have required rather than a still greater.
An absolute delicacy. Yet
skin ripples chills even now, even with that tight knot of pain in her throat and looking into the eyes of Albert planted.
Even in a situation like this.
clutching his forehead differs hair back - feel his fingers tremble. "Bjorn told me that her mother is dead," he insists, with an obstinacy that I hardly recognize as his own. That can not quite manage - to support. "Vivian who he is, at the time?" Application again, while Albert change position again.
"He lived with Björn, now I live with him."
"You?"
"Yes"
"And the father?"
Silence.
"The father did not have permission to view it. It is in prison," the answer is unreal. Unexpected like a punch in the stomach, no meaning in that first sudden impact.
Samuel blinked - he hears the voice crack.
"In prison?" he repeats.
But he may have guessed, there is no need to clarify that the other: "For what he did to Björn." No need to compose the picture to see - every card missing at the right place. An order chilling in its consequential perfect in its simplicity.
He tried many times to become familiar with the concept of repeated abuse , Samuel - slowly, day after day, he tried to imagine the siege of something that always came back. He cautiously approached the man's face - it is required to view the eye to be able one day to hear him must have felt like Björn. To understand at least a little - only a little.
And then he placed his figure in the neighborhood, in the circle of relatives or family friends. In the next apartment.
But the horror has a structure too elementary - Is not that this has always taught his students?
"Christ ..." she whispers, and the syllables in the die throat without even the lips move. From that point forward there is nothing there - the mind stops there.
It is heartbreaking, having to leave both.
Björn and Vivian. Why
any pain does not count - can not count if the person who has failed for years was the same that moved into your house at all hours of day and night.
If it was your mother's partner - the father of your baby brother. The father
.
And Vivian, which may not be conscious. Perhaps it is fin troppo.
Forse.
Non c’è più tempo – pensa.
Pensa all’inverno ormai finito, all’estate smisurata dei grattacieli e alle strade gremite di gente – alla musica degli stereo portati a braccio e al vorticare del mondo, ai mille venti.
All’aquilone immobile che appassisce nell’aria.
"Samuel?"
Sente i nervi contrarsi in un sussulto violento – solleva gli occhi di scatto.
Albert si è sporto in avanti, gli ha chiuso la mano sul polso. Per un attimo – senza motivo – è come morire. Frantumarsi in quella stretta - spezzarsi.
“Si sente bene?”
Potrebbe rispondere qualunque and what would be a lie - if it accounted for a moment before nodding.
That question makes no sense, simply does not make sense and the smell of coffee is poured from the bar. It makes no sense that cold - the incessant beat of rain against the glass.
"Thank you, Albert," she whispers, while the man loosens her grip letting the arm. "For availability. And patience. "
not even know what he is saying, and yet paradoxically, he seems to have never been so shiny. He feels his ears buzzing. Yet the voice of the
comes through loud and clear - an alternation of sounds that glides over the skin without touch or affect.
"Do not thank me, the very fact that it is concerned about Vivian in a way I am heartened. It is not a mere boy, to be managed, "Albert admits - his lips moving slowly.
Slowly.
"And it is fragile, though it may strive to conceal it. I ask you only to remember that. "
" I'll keep in mind, "assures Samuel, but even those words are meaningless.
The cup of tea is still full - the surface ripples slightly when he pressed his hand on the edge of the table to push back his chair.
And the head becomes light, after - he stands up and blood seems to fall down.
"Just one question," he murmured, almost in a whisper. As if speaking plan could still serve - serve some purpose.
The room is melting like wax, all around.
"He is like?"
The man looked away, in the meantime - is putting on his jacket with the usual measured movements. Sleeve.
The other, without haste.
"He is doing better," he says. "I hear it often seems more serene. He is following a program of psychotherapy for some time," he adds. "They were years that did not feel."
And then slips away quietly, leaving the mind only the image of his jacket he rubs on his neck. Dita paving the fabric positioned over the shoulders - Albert has marked and sharp bones. Fingernails very short. Samuel looks at him and go out in the rain, wondering what life will be left behind as history. What may feel right now, returning to a house not his own after a day's work. After that conversation, that pain renewed.
closes his eyes, thinking of Vivian.
Vivian that he shares with those rooms, but even he be stopped - for Vivian Björn must have been light and darkness, the greatest love. The biggest pain.
He remembers his gaze associated with purity, a day now knows that it was incorrect, it was something different again.
was the white skin of Björn, his snow and sky without his kites.
The white child murdered - silences that were never languages. Never been innocent.
And it was the limit - the point beyond which you just have to go sit in front of a cup of iced tea and pray that others are able to cross that expanse of white for you. What
hand corner of Albert we keep a snowflake on the palm without let it melt and that a therapist unknown, in some unknown studio in New York, knows how to listen with patience, your love. With courage and strength. As you
- In your loneliness deaf - you could not ever do.
Vivian has always been a mystery, Albert.
he happened to think of it already when he lived in the house of Dom and that child was none other than the boyfriend Keith - even when nothing was suspecting that his family was less than perfect, that his brother had problems even more serious than a simple shyness. When I looked at him and saw only the blond hair, blue eyes bright and sincere. The sweetness of the smiles and the smudge of chocolate on the corner of the lips - the fabric frayed jeans on the knee after a fall. It seemed
a doll modeled in every detail: Mike had been enchanted, the first time he had seen. How to have a cherub sitting at the table - the bangs and the spoon in his eyes sunk into the cup of ice cream.
You could tell any stories to listen and was kidnapped, you could make him laugh, tickle him, and rolled into the pillows like a puppy. Keith at his side was a more restless, at times - a color not decided. Looking at proximity to one another - very clear and transparent irises brown juxtaposed with other, more intense and focused - Albert was often thought that growing up would be changed by force. That his grandson would become a teenager scostante, forse, più scontroso di quanto lui e Dom fossero mai stati, mentre Vivian avrebbe forse trasformato quella tenerezza in egoismo leggero. Distrazione.
Non saprebbe dire quando si sia accorto per la prima volta che le sue previsioni erano tanto sbagliate.
Non si è trattato solamente di scoprire la verità sulla sua situazione familiare – di ricordare il volto impassibile di Herman Osvik e rivedere la sua mano appoggiata sulla spalla di Björn. Immaginarla sulla testa di Vivian.
E non si è trattato neanche soltanto di riesaminare ogni informazione incamerata durante gli anni su quella storia e quel bambino – di recuperare indizi ignorati e rivedere comportamenti, mettere in prospettiva segnali inconfondibili.
Because at some point, something had happened. Something gradual, perhaps - as inevitable as the physical growth, such as leg lengthening and thickening of the voice - or perhaps the spread in the blood of a secret hostile. Impossible to say. But suddenly happen one could see the face of that kid a new expression, you've never seen the moment after he had already dissolved in the usual smile and it was impossible to know if it was only a fleeting impression. If the shadow that her eyes were seeing in the normal sign of an adolescence that was beginning to press against the boundaries of the body, or a symptom of something more sinister.
was all already happened.
And Albert knows that they should pay more attention to them at least - at least when the secret was revealed by Björn - but the ground shook under our feet and the only thing the boy had brought with him, fleeing the house, was the certainty that Vivian had never even been touched by what had happened to him. That there was no touch too abrupt or too tentative - ambiguous. No one looked suspicious.
It was only that, he swore to keep him up all the time.
Albert will never find a way to atone unforgivable naivety - can never wash the whole consciousness of guilt of having Vivian left in that position for months now instead of persuading Björn to take the last step. Yet despite this, there remains the doubt that immediate action would still be late.
Maybe if he had read the story of Björn on his face the first time he had looked into his eyes as a child, everything would be different. It might have been able to intervene, then - or he could ask someone else, someone really adult, to act in his place. Help.
But Vivian is good at it if the nightmares do not want to admit you've had. He does now, when I spent the night wandering around the house in the morning and swears that he slept very well, and perhaps made him even then. Every time he smiled.
Whenever she wove her fingers with his, when crossing the road.
Sometimes, watching the sullen boy who enters and leaves the house without almost healthy, Albert hears a piercing nostalgia for the presence of that child. A sense of loss that is different from all others, because mixed with such a large part of guilt and with even greater awareness of their own cowardice.
Nostalgia Mike is a knot of grief that tightens the stomach, with the same consistency of panic. The inability to make a decision and go back, or go ahead: moving beyond the boundaries of that limbo.
Vivian is essentially the lack of jurisdiction, however, if he still had eight years, would simply take his arms and tell him that all is well.
Albert can not touch his adult body, however: it is a taboo that weighs in the air and poisons even more trade newspapers.
Every time I see him out, his gaze slips automatically calculate the adhesion of clothing, every time I look back, it is inevitable scramble to record the changes. Find him on the signs of what he did - what he tried. What has sold.
Sometimes when Vivian realizes it and says its inspection with the most arrogant smirk, has almost violence to keep from being hit: a smack only, dry. To find the surprise in her eyes, perhaps. To see him react.
At other times, her beauty is amazing.
And it is the emotion to close the throat - the need to stroke his hair and dressed in clothes wider, softer, hot enough to drive all the cold that is glued to the skin. Pass hands on his shoulders and massage gently, no questions asked. Without judging.
I knew before I accept the request to Björn, who would not be able to ignore the habits of Vivian. But he did not think that sex could have put it so uncomfortable. When that afternoon
Samuel Weldon admitted that he had spent the night with him - of having a close intimate relationship - the wave of anger has caught totally by surprise.
Why has no right to interfere, after all: that kid is not his, does not share his blood. None of the men who enjoy what Vivian has no obligation to it, nor realize that Albert wants him.
His disapproval is purely private affair, and he is conscious.
But Weldon had not seemed the type, the first time they had shaken hands under the smile of Björn. It did not seem the type the next meeting, when he was pale in listening the succinct summary of a story that he was not even ready to tell. He continued to appear totally incongruous for the duration of their last conversation, while he made the right questions and received answers in return too dry.
He wanted to pick a fight, Albert.
tell him who was also his responsibility, what happened to Vivian - it also weighs on his shoulders quell'adolescenza burned to chase something. Bodies are too thick, heavy limbs. A brutal sex could not do any good.
It was not easy, remain unmoved.
look into his eyes and do not ask questions - do not encourage him to add details, to tell another one of those their meetings. Understand what could have found each other so important to make periodic: a bargain repeated until it becomes a relationship.
It hurt to realize that he knows nothing, really. Nothing in the life of Vivian, of people see when not at home and is reliving his innocence in the company of Keith. The last reserves of childhood.
would like to be able to ask him.
Use the right tone, the soft one that does not attack anyone, and honestly ask what's wrong in Weldon saw that night - What have we found in his hands in his skin. Close your eyes, maybe, and we can imagine: not entangled in the bed, but the next morning together. At breakfast, or caressing her face. Smiling. As the
seems unreal.
As would be difficult, however, be supported.
standing in the doorway of the room, however, note the light of the TV wrap the boy's face - to highlight his features, lips, eyes, nose, making it suddenly more and more old baby - and already knows when he will speak will be the wrong word , to form on the tongue.
"Today I met Samuel Weldon."
Is there anything that Vivian hits his control: he's noticed since the beginning of their cohabitation, in certain moments was enough to cross his eyes to hear the tense nerves, patience, fall apart, but even now could not say clearly what it is.
When the boy turns his head toward him, is too far away to read the eyes. It has a rigid body, despite the relaxed position of artfully constructed - the lips into a smile away.
"Yes?" She asks. And you can not say exactly hostile.
Albert moves a step forward, however, the atmosphere seems to be still tense.
"I knew that I knew him," he says, slowly approaching the chair. The ashtray is still leaning on the table, next to the armrest, and he leans over to get him.
let go against the back - stretching his arm towards the pack of cigarettes.
"Not even I knew that you knew him," is responding Vivian, meanwhile, with the usual arrogant tone to what feels a fight in the air. And it is inevitable. How to surrender to the force of gravity - take a breath and feel your heart beat. Albert
triggers the lighter, with forced calm. Take the first puff of smoke - the holding in the mouth.
"presented to me your brother," said then. Deliberately. "When they went out together, you know."
There was no intent to injure, behind that statement, because even for a second believed that Albert Vivian would have provided something like this if he knew what Björn tied to Weldon. Yet it is clear that the boy has acknowledged that.
What is that, the prosecutor who is responding.
"What the fuck would you suggest?"
The change is immediate: every appearance of calm evaporated, dissolved the position languid. It was enough that Vivian is protruding slightly forward because everything in him, the announced intention of attacking.
For a moment, the temptation is to continue to provoke until it break.
Taking a deep breath, Albert instead tries to look away. He raises a hand to rub his temples, thinking that it was not like he had imagined their conversation the night.
Again, look at him the power to cross the meters that separate her chair by the sofa on which she sits Vivian to put his arm around her shoulders - strip of the sweatshirt she wears to offer it to him. Find a way to heat it.
It is comforting and perfect, but in his mind Vivian still has the eyes of a child: Albert knows that it would take time to discover grew, instead, to find truth in his eyes all the hard to admit. To see the dangers that the boy runs every time he goes out into the street and those who is impressed with him as a brand that nobody can ignore.
The distance between them is too great not to be measured in meters but in years, and perhaps even courage to face themselves. In determining that each different uses to escape.
"I'm not saying that it was your fault, Vivian," she murmurs in a low voice. "I never thought of. And I never even thought that you knew there was something between them, which ... "
" I did not know it. I do not know even now, in reality, because no one has yet said what a fucking place Björn in all this. "
Albert frowns, turning to him. "What do you mean?"
"Sam is in love lost. Just ... lost. And Björn? I did not even have thought of meeting him, Albert! "
There is something in the look of Vivian, which resembles more the indignation and the sense of guilt. The sign of silence - the deep wound of insecurity that are looking for roots.
For the first time since he took up the profession of Weldon, Albert is also considered the experience of Vivian, in all this. To think how he must have felt to learn that the man was part of the life of Björn - some never imagined. Must
have been a betrayal for him, perhaps: the awareness that his brother had kept secret an important thing, and that his misstep was at least partly due to its omission.
"Björn is not used to dealing with certain issues," he says, quietly. "You do not talk because he did not know what to tell you, Vivian. You and he have too many ways to experience the same things. "
" Why? "Replies the boy, standing up. "Just because you do not believe that the purpose around which I can understand? That Björn can trust? "
" This is not trusted. I'm sure that if asked, would be more than willing to tell everything. "
The other shakes his head turned to the window.
Television is still on - a background hum that is almost comforting, because it prevents the silence of sediment. Even the arrangement of the shadows would be totally different if there was only the street light to illuminate the room.
everything seem more intimate, perhaps. Or maybe just more cruel.
The Brave Vivian has always made smaller. More fragile.
moistened his lips, Albert pressed the cigarette in the ashtray.
"You tell him, now that you know," murmured then, almost reluctantly. "You can not remain silent on this, Vivian. It is not fair. "
" I know, "is the answer, still.
He takes a deep breath before continuing.
"You're going to see him again?"
The voice sounds almost alien, out of his head too hard, again, too dry.
seems covered opinions and prejudices even when he wanted to ask a simple question: even if it was the only concern, and sincere desire to understand. When Vivian turns around, his movements seem even more abrupt. His features more angular, the senses more alert.
"Why would not I want to see more?" Question, as a challenge. "Only Björn know why? There's the exclusive? "
" Vivian. "
" No, really. Explain. Who do you think you are? "
The boy moves his head, moving his hair catch the light.
reflected cold, blue aliens and almost white, and maybe that's bothering him since he set foot in that house to live - since Vivian decided to elect him to the enemy and gave him the face that throws in his face at all.
The child who took his nephew by the hand was warm and clear eyes: ten years later, that blue has turned to ice and it is almost painful to watch. Almost an insult.
"Do not know anything about me, you never wanted to know. You had ready answers to any questions you did, right? There was no need to listen. You just look at him, to get your diagnosis. "
" You're the one who insists on holding up a mask, Vivian. As if I were one thing, that's all. "
" And what would I be then? A whore? "The boy laughs, taking a step back. "That's why I do not want near Samuel? Are you afraid that contaminate , then that is no longer the height of Björn? "
" I'm afraid of how Björn react when it knows that the first person they found the courage to get involved has spent the last few months to bring his brother to bed, "he replies frankly. "And I am even more afraid of how it might react if I should have known that person and his brother continued anyway. Even after learning. "
For a moment, Vivian is not no answer.
It is immobilized, but the muscles do not seem as tense as to prepare for the attack, his eyes are fixed on him, but do not seem to see him and his face is expressionless - the barest of what Albert has ever seen, perhaps - and even the breathing is slow.
calm.
"You are not even passed through the hall of the brain, is not it, that maybe we were not having sex, "then says, in the same tone of everyday conversations. "I'm not saying I could not try, but he could not be interested anyway. Who may have other reasons to keep me around. I think not, sex. "
It is as if the words had no meaning at first. Not because it is impossible to process them, or give them credit, but because all attention is focused on understanding the change of tone. Understanding why the sudden quiet of Vivian is most alarming of his anger - the sense of betrayal that was apparent from his words when he spoke of Björn. The moment
following the meaning of the speech finally takes the body, though - and it is as if a weight is raised suddenly from his shoulders, and a punch in the stomach sank sharply.
"He said you spent the night together," she whispered, incredulous.
"I slept with him. He never touched. "A half smile. "Sam is convinced that I am the embodiment of innocence, for some absurd reason."
It's strange how the world suddenly seems to be incomprehensible and at the same time go perfectly consistent: Albert recalls the look of Weldon while she and Vivian finally able to find the right name for the emotion glimpsed. Guess the kind of fear, the kind of love.
The man who fell in love with Björn without ever having been able to tap - the fool who has the illusion that it can be cured only by writing the story, suffering pain in his mind - would never have to touch hands with the strength that Vivian the boy seems to ask. He could not articulate the contempt order him a position.
And for a moment is sweet to know that maybe he was still possible to see the warmth in the eyes of Vivian. Strip of the form to find him a child.
Soon after, the same thought bring envy. And the stomach, back, back to close around his guilt.
"What What? This new information is too unlikely to get stuck in your perfect diagnosis, doctor? "Asks the boy, biting tone again. And maybe it's his voice - that laughter in the throat that stops at other times would turn into sobs while vents in this just for fun macabre.
Maybe it's the look - bright and outraged, too proud to admit that it was wrong of yet another betrayal. Or maybe it's just
quell'epiteto. Doctor . And all the bickering that has accompanied over the years - every time Albert if you felt him hurl an insult.
But for a moment is You can almost see Mike, standing behind Vivian. Feel his anger pulsing in the air, straining to see his nerves under the skin.
Mike has always had a more intense way to manage the pain easier to hear him scream, rather than pick up whispers. Easier to see flying books and ornaments crashing to the ground, exploding into fragments impossible to muster. As their story.
But now - now that Albert found himself unexpectedly stumble into a mine, now I must admit its defeat - it's almost easy to go beyond the superficial differences to find common features, deeper. Reali.
Vivian and Mike have always resembled the ease with which they know to conquer the world with a smile - the confidence that they can not win without too much effort, without moving out of the path established. They have the same enthusiasm and the same force and he always thought that this was to make them so compatible. This, to make them go much agree - to approach them.
He had never suspected that even in their weakness, however, could be so similar. Slowly take a deep breath - she closes her eyes, shakes his head slowly.
It is strange to realize their mistake in a manner so sudden. Usually it happens gradually, reflecting - putting together the data and adjusting its conclusions.
But now everything is moving and no time to choose your moves carefully - there is no time to plan an intervention.
Apologizing is not enough, but this is perhaps an inevitable step.
"I never thought you were a whore , Vivian," he says. From
kid, just a snort in disbelief.
He raises a hand to silence him but stopped in time - it softens the gesture.
It does not attempt to give the right inflection to his voice, then - do not try to express a tenderness that knows he can not make it, to guess a word that does not exist or could not find him at least. You
part of his sentence, perhaps not ever take the right path to reach certain people. Do everything possible to stay at their own pace - try to recognize them, understand them - and end up hurting the other hand for every time he lifts a hand to protect them. Drop them when he should stretch my arm to grab instead.
opened my eyes, back to staring at the impassive face of Vivian. He puts his hands on the armrest of the chair - just tightens his grip.
"All the insults that I've put in my mouth ... I have never been mine. I do not belong. "
The other down her eyes, predictably, and he tries to imagine how Mike would react if he tried to speak with such frankness in any of the discussions that have worn out their story. He opposed the same skepticism or would have been easier recover his confidence?
would have been able to divert the path of the crisis - to put a buffer, resolve it - or any alternative route had already been foreclosed?
Suddenly, the echo of too many fights observed from the same perspective appears intolerable motionless a few feet from him, Vivian has a posture more uncertain than it is taking forever Mike in those moments, but the situation is the same. And you can not do certain things while sitting in an armchair, looking at his interlocutor as a audience. You must
alzasi standing, however, at its time.
Moving a step forward, without haste.
Without burning any chance, and let off without even having first held between the fingers.
"I mean really, Vivian," he murmured, stopping a few feet away. Slotting in his eyes, firmly, and clearing his throat.
"Every time I leave the house dressed in a certain way - every time I say what are you going to do, or that you do understand me. Every time I say something, I try to force myself. It is only because I'm afraid. "Breath, slowly. "I know that you are no longer a child. And I know that You were never the my child. But you and Björn are part of my family, and I can not avoid the urge to protect you. Both of them, not only Björn, "he adds, because sometimes it seems that the biggest problem. The first betrayal
swallowed with difficulty - the first injury that has infected their relationship.
Much has happened in the meantime - Albert has not registered immediately - but in retrospect it's happened often think that the child has stopped to smile openly when the doors of their homes were opened to accommodate Björn. Close shortly after, then, to leave him out.
"You are too different, however, Björn and if he needs someone to encourage him ... You need someone who brakes. Why is not wrong what you do, Vivian - not sin. But it does not solve anything. not care. And I'm not able to let you go straight on your way knowing that every time you take to touch someone, you're hurting. Knowingly. "
He hesitates, then, uncertain whether to stay or to add the latest specification.
Vivian seems willing to listen, though, and he moistens his lips. Lowered when the voice, makes it softer.
"When Samuel Weldon told me to have known you, this afternoon - when I thought you had that type of relationship ... I despised him, Vivian, but I never thought it was your fault. There is a reason why sexual intercourse with minors are prohibited by law. It is not the protection of adults. "
that that is dangerous ground is well aware, Albert - has spent his life arguing with people who think differently, which focused only on the erotic and similar reports justification put forward by shining exceptions to the common level of maturity of adolescents. The most overused
thesis was that there are people capable of assuming its responsibilities very soon - to assess the risks and decide whether to run or without necessarily becoming less prey already formed consciences.
But he has always been his idea - he did not like the reports Raven wove a kid with older people and could only privately disapprove of the story that his best friend had always been with a man older than thirty years.
Although Gabriel had never been a normal teenager, and Ethan was not the kind of person who enjoyed certain imbalances, its growth was still deeply marked by the difference in experience.
Adolescence is an age too fragile, poised between the contradictory and violent: put your body in the hands of another person is never purely physical experience - going over your hips, fingers of the other model also your character, your approach to sex. To life.
Vivian, on this side, presents a situation even more complex. Why
whoever touched over the years - just look at whoever he was so young that they can be considered child - gave a boost to its growth too abrupt and left a sign that the inevitable condemnation of sure, but that will never completely fade.
That's what Albert would be able to explain without leaving room for misunderstanding - without insult the independence of the child, or accuse him of being immature. Without that concern can be like possessiveness, rather than protective instincts.
"Nobody says you're doing something wrong, Vivian. But you know it, I think, is dangerous, "he finally mutters, sounding almost quiet.
For a moment, it seems that the other does not intend to respond.
He looks away, turning his face toward the window - cross your arms across your chest, sinking his teeth into the lip.
"Samuel could never hurt me," then says, convinced. "I do not know what kind of instinct you might have to think that he might be a threat. It is good that the best person I have ever known. "
" I did not know how to explain it, in fact, "Albert admits. "But I was not willing to take risks, I'm sorry." Pause. "I'll apologize to him. I have not treated very well. "
It has every intention of keeping that promise, tomorrow morning. Whatever Weldon may have thought of his attitude, certainly is far from imagining the real reasons and he allows himself a moment to mourn its hardness. To think back to certain moments - some looks.
Soon thereafter, however, this comes back to claim all his attention and he knows he can not miss the opportunity to address seriously, in soft tones and ripe, the question that underlies any confrontation between him and Vivian. Of any discussion between them.
"I should not jump to conclusions with Samuel, Vivian. You're right, "begins with firmness. "But the problem remains. Why can I be wrong in this case, but ... "He hesitates. "I have not invented anything else. And I'm really worried. "
" I know, "is the answer. "But you must not, I think. Not so much. "
He holds a sigh. "Viv ...."
"No, really." When the boy returns Sometimes it has given expression on the face - the look of this more than a few minutes before, the tone more convinced. "Things have changed now. Since I met Sam, and ... I stopped doing some bullshit. "
caught off guard, he looks surprised. "How?"
"I also left the Black Velvet," adds Vivian. And Albert drops sitting on the couch, blinked.
Incredulous, you pass a hand over her mouth.
"Since when?"
"few months."
"A few months? And you did not think to tell me anything? "
" I did not give satisfaction, " replied the other, looking into his eyes. "It was not something that concerns you. I did not because you did not want it to continue. It was my decision, and ... "
Vivian stops, and Albert can not help but regret that once again their inability to relate to characters so decided. He is natural in such cases, force the hand of pride as if it were an animal to be tamed rather than quality of care gently, leaving it free to express themselves and grow.
He made the same mistake with Mike, too many times. He should learn from their mistakes - to avoid a repetition of certain dynamics, forcing in another report a dead end.
"I would have thought that you did for me, Vivian," he murmurs, honestly. "I would not even want. The fact that it was you who decide it is much more important. "
" There is no need to turn it into a heroic act, "said the boy, however, quickly. "I just decided it was time to quit. Then, I did not want to lie to Sam. And I could not tell him ... "She stops
. He looks away.
He clears his throat.
"That's why you've stopped the rest?" Question, cautiously. "... The anonymous sex, if you're referring to that."
"No." Vivian licked his lips, uncertain.
At that moment, perhaps because of the light that touches just coming out of the window - perhaps for the expression almost absorbed, concentrated - again seems awfully young. Almost child.
"No?"
"I is not done just for that."
Albert silent, giving way to decide whether to go ahead. How to continue.
He never thought it would be easy to succumb to Vivian monitoring their conversation, just an hour ago we got out of bed determined to tackle it once and for all, but now it's only natural to wait and see what their choices. What you give to share confidences - which moves. When he sees
shrug, still, he knows that will not receive a precise answer.
Vivian turns to him and not look in the eye - puts on a strand of hair behind her ear, as to have something with which to engage the fingers.
"I did not just feel like, I think," he said finally, sounding almost light. Whatever.
It is evident in all its forms, which will not say more on that topic. That would probably not closer than any other issue - not now, at least. Not right away.
But the ease now that exhibits very different from the one shown above, as a shield erected to hide an injury. It is no longer a weapon of defense - or if it is, he is no longer the enemy.
Albert knows it and can only be grateful to him, somehow, for that privilege.
is strange, after all, because everything has originated from a misunderstanding: he spent the whole evening to reflect on that situation, trying to calm the anger and put into perspective the information collected. When he decided to attack the boy, he and Vivian have threatened to fight seriously - to really screw it up once and for all.
Now, watching from below the expression on his face, can not hope that the truce holds, however. It turns into something stable - allowing both to regain the trust of the past.
When Vivian is to sit on the couch - crouched against the opposite arm, but close enough - it's like a confirmation. And Albert
know they should encourage him to go to bed.
know that would happen to get up himself - to come back in the room, trying to sleep.
But there is something sweet at that moment, and maybe that is occasionally used to repair the damage caused by his distraction.
A shared silence, quiet breaths that overlap in the dark.
And no need to search words.
Nessun'accusa awkward to answer to, from which to defend itself.
against the wall of the room, Vivian is just a dotted outline of the light, and he exhales breath that held up for too long.
closes his eyes, then.
and supporting the neck against the back, let the night continue. Without giving dates. Neither time.
Without any hurry.
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maridichallenge (prompt: this photo. It 's a table in this story there is a table. Get it?) And dedicated to 
