Out of reasons (Boy × Boy) ✔

Chapter Twenty-eight

"Kuisma is a great kid, he's just been through a lot."

Sometimes, when you're in pain or in the middle of a crisis, you sometimes forgive you're not the only one hurting. You're not the only one who has had to move mountains just to stay alive.

When I woke up in the morning, I was disoriented. I didn't know where I was, until I realized Kuisma was still holding me in his arms.

I let myself enjoy the view. Kuisma's hair was messy from sleep and the lashes of his closed eyes looked so dense and long. I couldn't resist the urge to brush my fingers along his face: on his eyelashes, soft lips and all the way to the perfect jawline. Kuisma opened his eyes tardily.

"Morning", I murmured and a content smile spread on Kuisma's lips.

"Come here", he said and pulled me closer, so I could rest my head on his chest. Kuisma lifted his hand and stroked my arm. It was the first time I noticed something on his wrist. A wide, faded scar on his forearm. I stared at it, even if I knew it wasn't polite.

"Want to hear about it?" Kuisma asked when he noticed where my eyes lingered.

"You don't have to." Of course I wanted to know, but I didn't want to pressure him. After all, I knew where a person gets a scar like that, and there was always a painful memory behind it.

"I think I should, and I want to."

[CV: stalking, suicide, PTSD, cutting]

Eight years ago, when Kuisma was in junior high school, he got his first letter. Before that day he had been a typical, carefree adolescent and his life revolved around school, friends and video games. Kuisma had many friends and they were some of the most popular kids in his school. He didn't really care about studying and usually he just talked with his friends during classes. They weren't the teacher's favorites, but the students liked them — one more than others.

Kuisma had stayed out late that Saturday. He had been in McDonald's with his friends and some popular girls from school. The letter had greeted him at the front door, not in the mailbox like all the other mail. Kuisma had taken it, because his name was written on it.

It wasn't a long letter and there nothing too unnerving about it, except the fact there was no signature from the writer and there were two papers attached. One was a drawing Kuisma had made years ago and the other was a page from an old school book. Kuisma had trashed those years ago, so somebody had had to delve them from their garbage can.

Kuisma had texted and called his friends to know if any of them had been idiotic enough to make a prank like that, but they were all clueless about the letter.

During the next month he almost forgot everything about the letter, until he got the next one: I've been thinking about you a lot. I keep thinking the first time I saw you and how you smiled at me. Do you remember me?

Less than a week after that Kuisma got the third letter. Later there were more, so many he lost count, but he still didn't know who was writing them and he was starting to get nervous. Who was it? How did that person know him? Where had they met?

One day he got a Facebook message, from someone who had no profile picture and instead of real name there was only a screen name. The screen name was: doyourememberme. The message didn't give away anything, excluding the fact that the writer gave him an address, so they could start writing letters to each other and become friends.

Later he got a message on Instagram, and when he blocked that user, he started getting texts to his number. Gradually Kuisma started feeling more and more paranoid and it was like there was a pair of eyes following behind his back wherever he went. He changed all his accounts private.