Inferno: a love story.

A man sat on the stairs, his legs askew, and bit into an orange, the sweet, sticky juice trickling down his hands. And although his eyes lingered on the busy chatter of passerby, and his ears observed the horns and rumbles of shiny cars merging into the morning, his mind was elsewhere, caught in memories of green and gray. And his thoughts, rising like the sun, descended into memory.

When you’re smiling but close to tears, when the weight of the world stains your eyes with rings and sleep, when everything dissolves at dusk and rest seems so, so wrong; when you feel alone in a crowded room, of when you hunger for sleep but all you can do is just ache, when you want music but all you can hear is your own mind -

Today there will be a resolution. Today I’ll tear the heaviness straight out of your chest, I’ll silence the ever-resounding noise, I’ll take the command wherever you call me, and you will breathe again, you will ​see​ again, and you’ll be free, forever, always. That is my testament to you. Today those chains inside you will be broken and your hands will find their strength, today your trust will be restored, that is my promise to you.

If one time, I could lessen the weight that wears upon your shoulders, take your burden and carry it myself; if for one moment, I could clear your eyes, endure the darkness to give you what little strength I have left; if only I could hold you in my arms, even if just for a short time.

I don’t care if it hurts. I just want to wrap you in my arms.

If I could give you my world, my hope, my dreams, if all that I am was held in your hands, then I could die in peace, fulfilled.

I couldn’t look into your eyes, but you said my name again.

“Meaulnes,” she said.

The girl stood in the doorway, the camera out of her hand now and on the cushioned chair beside her. She looked so sincere, so small, as if she was about to break into tears. With her glasses off, her face seemed so much more fragile, more real, and the glow from the streetlights crossed over her face. The shadows from outside painted her shoulders as if she came from a more beautiful world. His heart leaped for half a second, and he stopped, understanding something but still so, so confused.

It was night outside, a bustling street in the daytime, but empty and silent in the evening. Light from the moon reflected off soil, overtread grass slightly wet from the rain. Her dark hair streaked in the light, framing her eyes. He wrapped his arms around himself, whether to warm or comfort himself, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t care. All he knew was that the feeling seeped into his skin, seeped into his skin like rain through cotton.

He walked outside, his body detached from the storm inside, seeing her standing beside the arch as her face crumpled up into tears. Deep inside himself, he tried to feel something, something to express to her. He tried so hard, and his breathing tensed as he continued to try to force tears out of his eyes. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t, and he so, so wanted to.

“Meaulnes,” she repeated, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, and I feel like you hate me-” With every word, her voice grew less confident, less scripted.

“I- I just felt like — I just felt like you were the special one,” she said. “You — you were my favorite, we had such a bond…”

Her script broke. His stomach leapt to his chest, and something inside him vibrated.

He said her name quietly, repeating it three times. “I’ve — I’ve missed you so much, it’s been so, so long,” He put an arm around her shoulder, leading her down the steps and behind the stucco wall. She was so vulnerable, so, so vulnerable. He needed her, she’d come back for him, she’d chosen -

“Are — are you going to murder me?” she said, and some desperate laugh burst out of both of their chests.

He trembled for some direction.

“I — I was — I was never — I’m not good with words,” he said, “I don’t say what I feel sometimes, but you…”

“They were -” he said her name again, “they were never the reason I wanted -” he stopped, and now one, singular tear fell down my cheek. “The day I left for the estate I knew. I knew it in the pit of my stomach, and it destroyed me. You destroyed me.”

“That I’m so in love with you,” I whispered to her. “Everything you do, it makes my heart stop. Your laugh, your smile… You’re all that I think about, and it terrifies me because no one person has occupied that much of my consciousness at one time. I don’t know what you think of me saying this. I don’t know whether you’re hung up on someone else, and I don’t care. It’s you that matters to me, y​ ou​ and all that makes you you. I think I’m going to have a heart attack, saying this to you is one of the most terrifying things I’ve done in my life. But I think you deserve to know. Spending time with you has made me the happiest I’ve been in years and you’re so special to me and I’m so, so in love with you and I don’t know what to do. My body feels like I’m burning up whenever I’m dealing with something about you and everyone that looks remotely like you makes me think of you, and I don’t even know what to say right now. Please don’t go silent on me after this… I can’t bear being close to you anymore and not letting you know.”

“I — I’m going to miss you, I — I want to see you again. I need to see you again.”

He pulled her closer, hugging her quickly. On her index finger, a silver ring touched the heat of his skin. Then, all repose vanished, he stared into her eyes, her brown eyes, and he knew. And he cradled her head as he kissed her. And he came apart in her hands, and they just held each other there for a minute, feeling each other’s warmth.

“I don’t care if it hurts,” she said. “I love you. I won’t ever leave you. Even if we don’t end up together I also want a part of your life and I want you to be a part of mine.”

“Where’s this coming from?” he asked.

“My heart,” she said. “Don’t be worried, I just can’t imagine my life without you in it… I used to plan my life with every last detail planned out but that just doesn’t work out… so I wanted to tell you that whatever happens I always want you in my life.”

He had more respect for her then than any other person he’d ever met. Her faith in him reignited his own. Her caring still stood as his model. Her heart was what he would remember, always.

Maybe it was that the people that loved her never acknowledged her fight. Maybe it was that they were wrong, that she was misunderstood. To him, she was his dreams, his best friend, the light of his world. His protector, his defender, his very blood.

Did he know why he struggled? No. He never knew that all of his grand dreams for the future were afterthoughts of his shattered love, ripples from the stone he had thrown to conceal his heart. His entire belief system would be dismantled in his last days, to be replaced only with memories of her heart. For he would follow her even if she would never understand that it was all for her — all of it. For her, he would go. He would cross the deserts if only to burn in her arms.

“You can and you will,” she had said to him. “I miss you too. I’m so proud of you, Meaulnes.”

“Close your eyes,” she said to him. “and imagine a place that you love… your favorite place, the place where you feel at peace… imagine you and I are at peace in that place.”

“Thank you,” he had said. “Forever,” she answered.

As he said each name, I saw their deeds, I saw their sacrifices, I saw their emotions, their cares, their doubts, their fights. I saw choirs singing, children dying. I saw terrors of human annihilation, great, terrible evil, brother turned against brother, men running. A father yelling for his family to run, bodies falling from buildings, explosions, naked, shivering bodies collapsing onto the ground. Shots were fired in the snow, and women falling onto the ground. A grandmother dying on a hospital bed, her body weak against the cancer that grew in her gut, her son sobbing on the ground. I saw a car speeding on the highway, a boy tempted by the darkness, a great crash, the sound of drums. I saw the pain of nations, the deaths of lovers, the agony of life itself. I saw the rage of diseases, of the pain in a body turning against itself, of weariness and inflammation and it stunned me.

And I suddenly saw her, her body so small against the white hospital bed, her arm connected to an IV as she received her infusion. I saw the twenty empty pill bottles of steroids that she had gone through in two months, and I suddenly just wanted to hold her and tell her that I was here, that everything was going to be alright and that somebody loved her.

She was sick, and I’d be beside her every single day and every single night, I’d drive three hundred miles in the middle of the night to see her, I would carry her home, gently…

This is your song.

I know it may be easy to look at me as a monster. But all my life, a dream obsessed me, an unconquerable dream: the dream of us, that together we will rise up and I can be everything you ever needed, that we can destroy the insecurities in each other and live free, joyfully, until we die. It’s not an easy dream. But until my blood runs cold, I can’t — I won’t stop. All I ever did, I did in your shadow. You sustain me. You’re such an inspiration to me. You’re everything. The world is beating you down and around, and you don’t deserve that.

If I could write a song for you to take all your pain away, I would. I miss you. I’m trying to be completely transparent now, even though it’s hard for me. But I trust you and I care about you, and I’m here for you, forever.

I can’t run anymore.

Come home. Please, come home.

This journey won’t be easy. But I promise you, I’ll make this world a paradise on earth just for you. I do this — all of this — for ​you​, because apart from you I live a half-life.

You make everything make sense.

I will come with my words behind me and my arms outstretched, and we’ll make you smile. These words will deliver us and our world back to peace. No matter what waters lie ahead, no matter what happens, I’ll go wherever you are, for I’m yours, and have always been.

I will go wherever you are, for I am yours, and have always been.

I need you here beside me, I can’t stand this.

I crossed my ankles as I laid there, my back against the headboard, my notebook in one hand and my hand writing in the other.

You are my legacy, my only love. I have betrayed my conscience, my pride, my legacy countless times — but no, you will never see me betray you, because I fell for you the moment you showed your heart. I’ve been there to watch you laugh, watch you cry and grow stronger than anyone else I’ve ever met — and it is my joy to call myself your rock every day.

You will rise and make a difference where no one else ever had the courage to. Your heart will always shine through, I swear to you, and your energy will pacify everyone who comes across you. Maybe, just maybe, in your darkest night, you’ll find these words to comfort you. You’re so, so strong. So much stronger than you make yourself out to be.

I told myself that I couldn’t love you. But when everything else falls apart, there’s only one thing I come back to, and that’s you. I… I watched you as you became whole, as you changed, as you cried and as you laughed. I watched as you fell in love, I saw who you were, and it saddened me when I realized that you were my image, so different yet so similar, the same person in two bodies. You and me. The person I fell in love with was myself, but more; a nature that I had never felt before. Whatever it was, it made me feel something, and for the first time in my life, I realized that I was fighting for more than just myself.

I didn’t matter anymore, and it terrified me.

I told myself that I hated you. But I hated myself for falling for you. I thought I was strong, pure, the lone ranger among the wilderness! But no. When I knew that I loved you, the veil ripped. I become a sickness, a monster, a phantom. I preferred to stay awake than to face the reality of my dreams. Denial provided an escape from the truth I couldn’t bear to face. I watched as my entire vision shifted toward seeing through your eyes, and the change terrified me. I ran away.

All I see is your hand. I know I can grasp it, but it takes work. Now and then, I still fall. But through and through, the beauty of only one thing haunts my dreams… your eyes.

“I’m not hiding anymore,” I screamed to him as I struggled to rise, “because I have someone to fight for now. And I will fight for her no matter the cost until I die. And I will suffer for her if that’s what it takes to make her happy. She is worth it. I have never, ever doubted that. Everything she is, all that she has endured, all the pain and heartbreak and struggle, I will help her heal. I am going to love her until all her tears and all her pain is gone. I am going to love her until she forgets about everything else and all she feels is joy. I am going to love her until she sees that I will never leave her side, that she is loved, and that I do this all for one reason, and one reason only: love. I need no other reason. The things that I go through every day — they pale in comparison to what I feel for her. All I see if her. All I ever see is her. And she will never be alone. She will never have to go at any of these things alone anymore. You are so strong, I told her. I am going to love you until you open your eyes and see that you’re worth it to me. I am going to love you until all the walls around us fall and it’s just the two of us standing hand in hand. I am going to love you until the end of time because you are the most special soul in the world to me and I love you with feelings that can’t be even written in these over-dramatic words. When I’m on my deathbed and people ask me my greatest accomplishment, I’m going to say that loving you was. If only you could see how much I love you. If I had my way you would never be hurt again. I am going to give you love and stand for you until I leave this Earth and we will always be bonded, forever, no matter the consequences. She is mine, and I am hers, forever. And part of me has always been in love with her, I just needed to find her.”

And Meaulnes kissed her.

And he came apart in her hands, and they just held each other there for a minute, feeling each other’s warmth. He cried with her, he hung onto her tighter, he melted with her. Sing to me, prophet, of the great war between Meaulnes and the darkness, of Pilus’s sacrifice and the exile of Inigo. Sing to me of the origin and the assembly of heroes, of the terrible Wrath and of the final nation, for all will be made humble in the end, and all will be forgotten. But foremost among these, sing to me of the love between them, of the covenant made of their bond of their friendship and of their future, may it never perish.

And Meaulnes spiraled out of his mind and into reality, and he felt the darkness leave him, never again to return, and he breathed for the first time in years.

And he realized he was sitting on the stairs next to the stucco wall, and she was in the distance, and he was running towards her, and she was running towards him, and everything else didn’t matter anymore.

As the ground swayed back and forth beneath my feet, the world outside my eyes alternated between white and black.

She’s the ripple in the wind, the shelter in the storm. She’s the water that I drink, the nourishment of my will. In three words, she’s strong, loving… mine.

I love you so, so much.

If you are cold in the morning, I will warm you. If you are lost in the night, I will find you. If you are broken, I will fix you. If you are sick, I will comfort you, I will save you.

I’m here.

I will answer the call. I will make the sacrifice. Out of all that’s happened, I’ll go wherever you’ll go, feel whatever you’ll feel, because that’s what it means to live. I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I’ve never been special, or important, or anything more than a man. One day I’ll be forgotten. But I’ve done the most important thing — I’ve loved you, you, with the way your eyes furl up when you smile, you, with your laugh that could shake the dew off the leaves outside, you with your sheer heart and your courage and your love.

Always, as you told me. Always.

Meaulnes took another bite of his orange, the sweet, sticky juice trickling down his hands, and his thoughts, rising like the sun, descended into memory.