Time is another nonsense you latched on.

When you found me on the fire escape once again, you went off about how some people were given a long time and others were not. "Who decides these things?" you asked, because unlike your parents, you did not believe in a higher power. Because if He existed, why would assholes tend to live longer while good people languished and withered away?

I did not move. I was afraid. You smiled at me as if nothing lurked beneath the calm you slathered upon yourself. As if your absence was not meant to be felt, you showed up with the sun's rays behind your head. You were always going to be there—you seemed to tell me.

But you did not.

The fact that you were opening up a conversation about the unspeakable should have made me snatch you from the higher step you sat on and knock some sense into you. I should have, but I was busy pondering your question. You were good at that—distracting me from what you truly needed by giving me what you thought I wanted. And back then, I let myself.

When I did not find an answer waiting for me, I met your eyes even though the sunlight burned my gaze to nothing but black. "Nothing?" I said. "Maybe there's really nothing up there, and the way we come and go can't be anything more than luck. Fate."

Like you meeting me, you deciding the fire escape was a perfect place to waste your time, and you keeping me in a chokehold without lifting your hands against me, maybe it was nothing but fate.

"Do you think fate controls time or is it the other way around?" you prodded.

I remember shaking my head, tired of your cyclical arguments, your aimless roam, your nonsense. I was tired of being wrapped around your finger, forever doomed to listen to your thoughts spoken to the wind. You would have stopped it if I had told you, but I did not. There were no ears to be lent in hell, and we knew it better than anyone.

"I don't think they control each other," I replied instead. It did not matter if I sounded stupid or crazy. Maybe I was both, more so than you could hope for. "What's gotten to you today? You're chatty."

"Time is meant to be felt," you said, your vocal tirade small against those who could not be reached with nothing but fists and empty words. "Not feared."

I must have flashed you a flat look. My lack of impression must have made it to my face because you sighed. "I just...I didn't know how to approach you after that stunt I pulled on you at home." You scratched the back of your head. "I'm sorry. Shouldn't have done that."

"There are other ways to make up for it," I answered, hands curling around the edge of my backpack plopped over my folded legs. The afternoon sun started going down, plunging the sky into the characteristic landscape of pastel. I have grown used to watching the colors change to midnight. It felt different when I did it without you, and that thought alone should have taught me to fight harder, to make sure you never did what you were set to do.

A transparent plastic case slid into my periphery. I turned to you to find a tape being offered to me. "Go on. Take it," you said, that fake smile you convinced me to be real plastered on your lips. It was perfect, and I should have seen through it. But I did not. I was busy being confused about the tape and why I was the recipient for it.

"The demo I promised you," you answered when I asked you what it was. "It wasn't anywhere near a proper apology, but...yeah."

I placed the tape over my bag. "It's a good apology," I said. "Because you don't need to give me one."

And I told you how I understood your reaction. You did not tell me the college kid on every TV station on your route to school was your brother. I do not need to know. He looked like you, in ways more than one. Facing the person whom you tried so hard to be perfect for in that moment was hard.

You did not have to be perfect for me, and I should have told you that. My words should have forced you to be better, not send you spiraling into a void you did not know we could create. If you knew what I did to you, perhaps you would know. I was the one who owed you an apology, and I do not think I will be able to make up for it.

I am still making up for it now.

"Let's run away," I remember blurting. You did not stop playing with the ends of my hair nor running your thumb at the base of my neck. But I said it, not because I wanted to save you. I wanted to save myself. From you. "I know a great place to crash."

The corners of your eyes crinkled when you smiled. At that moment, you were as real as the rest of us. "I'd love to," you said. "But I have things to do before I can."

I took your hand, the spaces between your fingers closer than ever when I twined mine with them. "I'll wait," I said, looking up at you while resting my chin on your knee. It was the last shred of bliss we shared, and I lived for it. Because until now, I am still waiting.

Love, I am still waiting for you, and it is the only thing I can do.