"Hey, how are you ?" "I'm good, drink drink ? or too early ?" "Surprise me. You look ... good." "Really ? its all my clean living." They laughed at the sarcasm. Two friends. Boys still in so many ways, but men to those watching and the bar man that appeared in front of them. They'd met for the first time in years outside and decided to take time out to catch up. "Really ? what the hell ? you guys seemed so happy - I can't believe she's gone.". "She's always with me, and in so many ways I'm always there still. I look forward now - more than I do behind, but I'm a ghost". "Casper ?" "Fuck off". "Cheers". "Cheers mate". He drank deep. "You didn't think of leaving ?" "No, I can't. I've been searching for what to do and where to go but looking in the wrong places for that answer". "Between the sheets ?" "Drink your drink man and don't ask". His glass raised, his eyes high above and as he lowered his glass his eyes caught the light streaming through across the wooden floor and it triggered a memory that he'd burried deep. He'd grown accustomed to meeting people from his past and retelling the story. Nothing ever got easier but he found himself able to tell it better. He stuck to what he knew, not what he thought. His mind had struggled endlessly searching for the answers to how his life had unfolded so quickly. This winter had been endless. The summer sun and the light and warmth of it on his body was in contrast to this blanket of darkness that seemed to cover his world and the same blanket he pulled around him each night. Keeing alive the pain and sadness was comforting. He remembered her better wearing it like a wire on his arm and he didn't want to let it go. At times he'd tighten it to remind him, self destruction through many forms and never enough to dull the mental torment in its entirity. They'd met at the wrong time, in the wrong place in their lives but for some reason none of that mattered and nature had taken them above it all. She'd made him feel like a teenager again. Her touch, her fingers reaching for his wrist and his hand as they strolled together, how her eyes had lit up his face when she turned to him and forced him instinctively to smile back at her. Simple touches coupled with the intoxicating, passion that clears kitchen tables, triggers stumbling across living rooms to sofa's or hard slams and griding of hips against door frames. Smiles looking in the mirror after a shower seeing the outlines of a bruise or scratches and a wry shake of a head followed by a laugh that nobody can hear. That light. This shade. The pain was excruciating and addictive and his. He didn't need anyone close, to be alone. He didnt want to share that part of him. Along with the other angels and daemons within him, he couldn't go there. Her whisper in his ear, her eyes and their laughter as they lay on the picnic blanket in the deserted field high in the mountains. He'd grown up here and escapped to this place as a child and knew each hollow and climb as he did old friends. These places to him felt like an extension of him and he'd wanted to share them with her. To somehow trust the parts of him that he now felt secure and safe to share with her. The warm sun had been eclipsed by a cloud that day and a cold shadow had chased across the hill, and gorse towards them where they lay. "It's going to rain" "How can you tell ?" "I can smell it and the air temp is dropping" "You really are full of shit sometimes!" "Only sometimes, my love ?" As she ran towards the carpark at the foot of the trail with the blanket above her head she laughed out loud as they reached the car. "Don't say another word". "Me ? I'm full of shit remember ?" Within the car, as the rain hammered on the glass outside and the rain turned soil to mud and streams formed, they'd stripped to change but a kiss had led to more and she sat straddling him. He adored the way they kissed, her lips were warm and tender on his, her tongue playfully exploring him, as his did hers and every now and again he'd feel her teeth playfully tug on his. He felt her cold hands warm themselves on his chest and ribs and move towards his hips. He ran hot always and enjoyed the feeling of her cold body on him. It calmed him in so many ways and the feel of her hands on his hard body below made her smile that naughty smile of hers. Each touch and taste he remembered so vividly and how his body had filled her, pulsing within her as she kissed him and ground down onto him, suckling on his neck as her fingers traced lines across his chest and nipples. As the rain storm descended on their remote shelter in this place, his place, he had felt more alive and in synch with someone that he ever had. She'd woke him from simply existing and they'd both savoured the freedom to simply be heard by another, thoughts welcomed, to be wanted, to be adored. Their hunger for more from each other, for each other was visceral and physical when bound together like this and she was free to cry out as he did, their bodies consuming each other in this space, this heat, this fire between them. Fingers gripping, teething biting down and bodies pulsing and vibrating as they arrived in unison, the thunder rolling across the hills surrounding them. Their eyes mirrored the other, green and dark and the mutual understanding without words that is between lovers as they sit facing one another, gasping for breaht, lips still searching and touching and tasting, bound and blissfully basking in the moments and feelings that follow. Hours later he staggered and swayed his way down the empty corridor. That smell in a subterraneon corridor near a mens toilet isn't the place to linger but he'd done his best to shut down all of his senses in the previous hours. Rocking back and forth, he steadied himself against the walls using his outstretched arms. He craved to feel the nails within his hands crucifying him in this position to block the pain in his chest for her. As he turned his face upwards as his lips emitted the word 'why' the warm tears ran down his cheeks. The answer wasn't in the beds or embraces he'd found himself waking in. The answer wasn't in the empty bottles and glasses he'd found himself speaking to. The answer wasn't in the coronors report or in the faces of her family as desperate as he'd been to understand. He felt her with him now, her lips kissing his eye lids and whispering comfort to him. He felt like he'd been holding his breath since she'd taken her last and he was submerged staring upwards towards the summer sun they'd shared. Her eyes, like wildflowers, that summer in that meadow in the mountains stared back at him through the mirror he tried to focus on as he washed his hands and face before leaving the toilet. "Time to live again, my love". "You alright ? it's your round ... cmon it'll do you good and you only live once mate". "Maybe ... but I die each day I continue to exist. Same again ?”