Next Summer

Depart & Grief

Elio's PoV

I had stood there as the train gradually departed, carrying Oliver away from me, and suddenly I was hit by a wave of anguish. My tears flowed freely from my eyes as the gap between us widened, until ultimately the engine vanished out of sight, only to be remembered by those ethereal memories we both shared.

Still gripping onto the belief that Oliver would be back in no time at all, I found my way onto one of the benches on the station's wall and made my head comfortable by placing it between my hands, whispering softly to myself, ‘I miss him,’ even though he had just left moments before. The silence would only prolong our separation and make the wait for Oliver seem endless, but I couldn't let go of this irrational hope that he'd return soon enough.

Reluctantly, I stood up from the seat, my eyes bloodshot and puffy, and my face wet with tears. Outside, as I waited for the bus, a chill haunted me with one question that kept on tugging at me: will I ever see him again?

As the bus arrived, I lined up to take my turn. While standing, I saw how they put all our bags into the carrier. It was as if each bag was a sign that Oliver wouldn’t be able to be with me on this trip. So after a long wait, when I eventually got on board, there was that one seat waiting for me to sit down, and it felt almost like an insult: a lonely leather chair that reminded me of what had been lost forever.

Feeling tired and heavy with sorrow, I laid my head on the window and let it wrap around me as I succumbed to a restless sleep. Inside that dream, standing at the edge of a cliff, I stared down into the bottomless ravine that separated Oliver from me. In the distance, there was his outline with clothes that were not quite mine but very familiar to him, yet the details about his face were obscured by darkness and confusion.

When I woke up in the morning, my eyes swelled with tears again, thinking about Oliver’s death once more as a reality. Although I knew how he looked, the pain of my sorrow made me go blind, and I was clutching tightly to some elusive recollections that were quickly disappearing.