Will You Stay With Me When I Collapse?

This is an excerpt from my newest novel, Moonchildren.

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They say if you love someone, you should let them go. But nobody ever talks about what happens if they don’t come back. When Ivo was younger, he played sports like hockey and soccer with a small group of neighborhood kids. But he was an angry and insolent child, and after a while, none of the other kids wanted to play with him. Rio makes him feel safe, and no one else ever has. That’s the scary part, though. Getting close to people means they can leave, and it will hurt, and you can scream and beg them not to go, and it won’t make a difference.

It’s cowardly to leave the people who love you without saying goodbye. It’s cowardly to leave the people who love you without thinking about how their lives will be fucked up because of it. Even if you realize your mistake, it’s too late. It’s too late the second you shut the door behind you. It takes years to build up a person’s trust. It takes a single second to break it completely. If you trust nobody, there’s nobody to let you down.

“I’m not afraid.” The burning always starts in his feet, and then shoots up his legs and up to his chest. Some days, it feels as though he’ll burn alive from the inside out. “I don’t need your pity, or to be taken care of like a fucking baby.” He turns, and stumbles, falling hands-first into the snow. It hurts, far more than it should. It makes Ivo’s fingers tingle and buckle.

Rio touches his shoulders, squatting in the snow. He always smells good. He can make Ivo feel weak simply by touching him. “I think you’re afraid of getting hurt. You’re scared that if you get too close to someone, they’ll get tired and abandon you.” Rio is smug and vain. If he weren’t so hot, Ivo would have left ages ago. “Don’t you think, if I was going to get tired of you, I would have done it by now?”

It’s too bright outside. No one means a single thing, least of all Ivo.

“What makes you think I haven’t gotten tired of you?”

Ivo feels chilly, and tired. Rio touches his face, probably closer than he needs to be. He has thick hair that tickles Ivo’s arm, and holds him by the shoulders. “No one ever gets tired of me.” He’s an arrogant dick. His voice is low in Ivo’s ear, and makes him weak.

He frowns. “People only like you because you’re a jock, but you’re not even good at hockey, you know. If you weren’t an athlete, you’d be no one. Sports are all you have.” He’s superficial. He puts on a facade of being high and mighty because he can’t bear to be alone with himself for a single minute. And this makes a person weak. Maybe Ivo pities him. Maybe that’s why things changed.

Rio is very close to him. He claims not to care what other people think, but obsesses over being liked, as though it matters. “Is that why you like me? Because I’m a jock?”

If he’d never gotten involved with Rio in the first place, none of this would have happened. He’s probably never been criticized once in his life. Once you get close to someone, there’s no way for things to ever go back to the way they were. Ivo could insult Rio a hundred times, and nothing would change.

“I have never once said I like you.”

“You’ve never had to.”

Ivo’s tired. He sits on the ground, and can’t feel the chill of the snow underneath him. People like to say that feeling is important. Juno said that having feelings is how you know you’re alive. “You think everyone likes you because you’re popular and attractive. But you’re insecure, and you refuse to ever be alone so you don’t have to think about it, and people feel bad for you. All of your relationships are superficial and forced, all because you’re too scared to think about your life for two minutes.”

Though it was suggested by the medical team he keeps one on him all the time, Ivo won’t use a cane. He never used one before, and won’t now. It’s quiet. For the first time in a long time, Ivo misses home.

“Marry me.”

Pim used to say falling in love was for idiots and fools. He taught Ivo to be angry and hateful, and then he became the type of person he hated most. Ivo didn’t hate Pim. He pitied him, and this might be worse.

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

There’s no sensation left in Ivo’s toes. They drag when he walks, and can’t feel the ground. Sometimes it feels as though his foot has fallen asleep, and then the sensation lingers, until all of his fingers tingle. The sun hurts his eyes, even in the dead of winter. Pim had tinted glasses, too. When Ivo was a little boy, he thought his father was the world’s bravest man - and then he grew up.

Ivo has never really wondered what the world looks like. He sees things in detail inside his head, and doesn’t give a shit about anything else. Ivo never hated being blind until he met Rio. “Why the fuck do you think?” It’s getting dark. Ivo could sleep for days. “Because this is the only relationship you’ve ever had that makes you feel like a human being.”

Your heart can’t be broken if you don’t have one. This is something Pim used to say, and it stuck with Ivo through the years. Maybe there’s something worthwhile about being human. Maybe letting yourself feel something once in a while won’t kill you. It’s doubtful. Life means nothing, anyway. Nothing means anything. Ivo pitied his father, but he’s grown up to be just like him. Maybe in a way, Ivo pities himself, too.

There are no locks on the shed. No one ever comes out here.

“Okay.”

What did you like about my mom, anyway?

Nothing, really. She was just some girl, and I was lonely.

You can’t ever let yourself develop a relationship with anyone. Everyone always leaves, and then it’s like no one was ever there at all.

What a miserable life that must be: completely devoid of meaningful relationships, with no one but yourself to keep you company. Most people hate being alone. Most people would rather set themselves up for betrayal than keep their own company.

At one point in his life, Ivo cared to know about the lives of the people whose one-night stand led to his existence. At one point, he was convinced love had to exist for sex to exist. Children are stupid and unrealistic, and most don’t grow out of it. The problem with loneliness is that if it goes on long enough, your self-respect will disappear, and it will leave a big mess.