Word Count: 1302

It took Chris a few more weeks and a couple of unsuccessful dates with several more people who didn’t mean anything to him before he realized that he was hopelessly lost and his life was in complete disarray.

Oh, he still had plenty going for him. He still had his family, and his grades, and his money, and his good looks (although sometimes he didn’t feel too terribly good-looking even when people gave him compliments, because no one said it better than Paris), but the longer he spent away from the previous (and, truth be told, current) object of his affections, the further down he fell into the pit of loneliness and despair.

His apartment was a mess. He’d run out of food after two weeks and relied entirely on take-out ever since (unless, of course, he happened to go out to lunch or dinner with one of his various dates), and even though he was clean enough to at least take out the trash every once in a while (he couldn’t really tolerate the smell), and even though he knew to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, that didn’t mean he didn’t occasionally have empty pizza boxes or McDonald’s wrappers or Chinese food cartons and soda cans lying about.

He started to run out of clothes, too, and had to suck it up and wear sweatpants and jeans to class for a few days while he figured out how the hell he was supposed to work the laundry machine (which, as it turned out, wasn’t that difficult, as everything was labeled and it was just a matter of turning the knob to the right setting and pushing the button for the right kind of water). He also noticed that the bathroom could probably use a good cleaning (it hadn’t been cleaned since before Paris moved out), but he took one look in the toilet and decided it was too gross and he definitely didn’t want to be messing around with that.

Instead, he switched to using the bathroom downstairs.

He still didn’t think it made him lazy to avoid this kind of stuff. Spoiled and helpless, maybe, but not lazy, because it wasn’t like he’d ever been taught how to do it. He didn’t really have much of a desire to learn now that there wasn’t anyone there to help him.

So what if cooking was little more than following a set of directions? He still managed to burn everything. And he had no idea what sort of stuff he was supposed to use to clean anything with. Once, he forced himself to look under the sink and sort through the cleaning supplies, and even though some said things like “bathroom” and “toilet” and “polish” and “surface cleaner,” he still didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to do with all of it, just what it was supposedly used for. Did he dump it in and let it work on its own? Should he wipe it down with a washcloth or paper towel? Did he really have to use the scrub brush on the toilet?

He realized later that he could have easily read the directions or even Googled it if that didn’t help, but he was already too disappointed and frustrated with himself at that point to care.

Of course, housework wasn’t his only problem, nor was it the main cause of his distress; it was simply the easiest and least painful problem to complain about. The other problem was that he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t go to class, he couldn’t go on dates with people—he couldn’t do anything—without thinking about Paris.

This issue began in earnest when Chris noticed he was comparing everyone he went out with to his sort-of-but-not-boyfriend. None of them came close to inspiring the sort of feelings in him that Paris had.

At first he was saddened by this, then he was annoyed, then he was angry, and finally he was just depressed.

He missed Paris. He missed the way things used to be between them, before he’d screwed everything up and made things so awkward it only ever felt like it used to when he was Valhalla and Paris was Ganymede. He missed the way Paris smiled, the way he laughed, the way his eyes lit up when he was happy or excited. He missed the way Paris would pout when he was frustrated, the way he scrunched up his nose when he was disgusted, the way he huffed and flopped about when he was annoyed. He missed running his hands through Paris’s hair or having Paris pat his cheek or peck his nose. He missed cuddling in bed or on the couch. He missed hearing Paris sing along to the radio while making dinner. He missed watching him twirl around in his underwear or listening to him talk about his dancing or what he did while Chris was in class. He missed holding hands. He missed making out. He missed the sex, not what it was now—a desperate attempt to hold on to something that was slowly slipping away—but what it used to be when it’d meant something. He missed the smell of Paris’s hair and his skin and his perfume, and being woken up to coffee and kisses and playful banter, and going to sleep every night with Paris’s back against his chest and Paris’s hand clutching his arm.

Hell, he even missed being called “Pooh Bear,” or “muffin” or “honey” or whatever other ridiculous pet name Paris happened to come up with at any given time.

He missed taking care of Paris—holding him when he was upset, keeping him safe when they were in danger—and he missed Paris taking care of him.

Chris didn’t remember feeling this way after breaking up with Skye, partly because their breakup had been for a completely different reason but also because he knew he hadn’t felt like this about Skye in the first place. He’d liked her and, sure, he’d cared about her, too. He even cared about her now, but that was it. There hadn’t been anything more to it than that. Not like Paris. Paris was more than that.

Paris had always been more than that, Chris had either just been too stupid or too scared to notice until now.

He spent most of his dateless nights on the couch or lounging in bed, flipping through the channels on the television and trying to find something to watch that didn’t remind him of Paris. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was damned near impossible, and then there was nothing left to do but mope around or try to focus on his summer homework—which was surprisingly even harder to do in the silence of his apartment, without Paris there making noise and keeping him company and reminding him to take regular breaks.

He didn’t know that he was any more sure of what love really was, not beyond the love he felt for his family and friends. He didn’t know if Paris had meant it when he’d said “I love you” the night his dad died, but he kept hearing it over and over again in his head—“I love you, I love you, I love you”—and sometimes, late at night when he tried to sleep but could do nothing but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, or out the window at the few stars that managed to shine through the city lights, the voice in his head stopped being Paris’s and morphed into his own.

He said it out loud one morning when his alarm turned on and played Paris’s favorite song—‘You’ve got a fast car… I want a ticket to anywhere…’

“I love you…”

Paris wasn’t there to hear it.