Sasha Martin Stanford (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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dreamlikenewyork2017-09-18 03:24 pm
beautifulday) wrote in dreamlikenewyork2017-09-18 03:24 pm
"'Cause I have been told that salvation lets their wings unfold..."
Who: Sasha Stanford and Justin Campbell
What: I'm loving angels instead...
Where: Boston, MA
When: After this
Justin did exactly what he didn’t want to do on the drive to Boston… fell asleep. He only realised when he was being woken gently by Sasha giving his hand a soft squeeze and stroking his cheek. He had been planning on talking to Sasha about Will on the drive but here he was, waking up groggy and disoriented with creased up the side of his face from the sweater Sasha must have wedged between his head and the window so he didn’t get a sore neck. “Shit…” he mumbled, looking around with a stretch and a yawn, peering out the window and seeing they were parked at the cemetery. “I thought we were going to see her folks first? Is there a bathroom here?”
“I don’t know, baby. You might need to find a tree,” Sasha told him, smirking a little. Justin had crashed about fifteen minutes out of New York after they made plans to hit a McDonalds drive-thru to get something to eat. He wasn’t really surprised when he noticed Justin go quiet and his eyes were drooping. Although Justin did sleep the night before, it wasn’t a settled sleep. Sometimes, his brain just didn’t cooperate with switching off and that meant even if he did sleep, he didn’t get rest. You could usually tell when that happened because Justin woke up and didn’t speak to anyone. You might get a grunt and he might clear the brain fog a bit with a shower, but he didn’t usually perk up until he had breakfast and tea. He was always content with letting Justin sleep, as Justin was with him when his head was mucking up on him. This time, it gave him some time alone with his thoughts, trying to process what he was feeling going to Boston for this visit. “I just felt like I needed to come here first. I don’t know why.”
Justin rested his hand on Sasha’s thigh and leaned in to give him a kiss. “Do you want me to wait here? I know you weren’t sure if you wanted to visit her yourself or not. It’s going to be hard either way. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I was going to try to distract you a little.” He looked out the front window towards where he knew Andi’s grave was. Even parked back here, he could see the purple in the distance. Not only had Andi had a purple coffin, her family also arranged to have her grave painted a beautiful purple with butterflies and a heart-shaped headstone. Surrounding the grave was a little rivulet of purple stones. Justin would never forget how distressed Sasha had been not having anything purple to wear to her funeral. He had known it was one of her wishes, for everyone to wear purple, but she died so quickly, he hadn’t prepared. Justin had taken over and brought him something really nice to wear. “I can see the light shining off it from here. It’s pretty.”
Sasha was looking to where Justin was, nodding. “Can you come? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, but I know I don’t want to do it alone. You needed the sleep. It gave me time to think. You know what I’m like with thinking.” He reached over to the backseat and collected the large bouquet of purple roses and blue forget-me-nots he had ordered off Lorenzo and collected on their way here. He had done an amazing job. There were diamantes in the centre of each rose, glitter butterflies threaded through the arrangement and a sparkling net-looking thing holding it all together. Some of the petals were even sprayed with a light soft glitter and it all sparkled in the sunlight. It was perfect for Andi. She would love it.
“Of course I can,” Justin murmured, smiling at the flowers. Lorenzo had outdone himself. He had come over to visit them the day before and Jamie had a ball playing with Holly. It was a special thing for Sasha, so Justin knew buying a bouquet of flowers at any old florist wouldn’t do. Personalising them would mean everything to Sasha, and he told Justin lying in bed the night before that it meant a lot to him. There was also a beautiful crystal angel that had sat on their dresser for months now, catching the sunlight that streamed through the window when they opened the curtains on a sunny day. Sasha had bought it online the day after he heard about Andi’s death and even when it arrived, it sat in the box unopened for a long time. He ended up opening it the morning after he had the dream about Justin suiciding with his belt at the theatre. He hadn’t had another dream like it since. But he wanted to leave it at Andi’s grave now.
They got out of the car and Sasha waited while Justin ducked behind a tree to take a pee after the sleep in the car. He would have been drinking a lot at his training session to keep his throat lubricated. Sasha kept watch to make sure no one happened to wander by while he was relieving himself. He absentmindedly stroked the petals of the flowers nursed in the crook of his arm and pulled his baseball cap off, leaving it on the hood of his car to get when they got back. He had always been taught to take it off as a sign of respect. If ever there was a time for that, it was now. Even if he knew Andi would probably be laughing at him if she could see him, and laughing at his hat hair. “Better?” he asked when Justin came back and took his hand.
“Better. Probably going to hell for peeing in a cemetery, but they can add it to the growing list on my one-way ticket there.” It had been a hell of a day already, and even if there was lingering thoughts at the back of Justin’s mind about Will randomly showing up out of the blue, it was pushed away for now. Sasha was his priority and being here for him today was important. There was nowhere else in the world he would be. They were going to spend the night at Andi’s parents’ place and then head home the next day. They talked about stopping halfway home and having the night in a hotel too, but they were going to play it by ear. Sasha hadn’t been sure how he was going to feel after all this. If they did that, he would Skype with Caden on Monday afternoon to talk to him about the other auditions.
“My stomach hurts,” Sasha mumbled, realising it was in knots about this. It could be an unfounded anxiety, but seeing the grave and knowing Andi was in there was something he was finding really hard. Anxiety wasn’t unusual for him, it was just morphing into a different form. He was missing her so much right now. Missing talking to her. Missing telling her all the amazing things he was experiencing with Justin. Missing talking to her about how it felt to be in love. Missing crying with her when things hurt. He knew he had done well with his grief up to now, but grief didn’t have a time limit and it was turning a circle on him, coming back the more he missed her.
“Yeah?” Justin said softly, checking Sasha over in concern. He put his arm around his shoulders and gave him a kiss. “Just feeling worried or like a sick hurt?” He could see sadness in Sasha’s face. Not really torment or stress so much as he just looked sad and a little lost. This was one of the times it was his turn to take care of Sasha, and he cherished these moments of give and take. He was rubbing his hand softly up and down Sasha’s arm as they walked across the parking lot towards the cemetery, feet crunching in the gravel. And if Sasha wanted to stop, turn around and ultimately leave, he would be there for that too.
Further up the path, Sasha could see Andi’s grave. The purple stuck out a mile amongst the greys and charcoals of other memorial stones. Andi picked her own burial plot. He had come with her and her mom to check the place out, and even if it had been a heavy subject, you would have thought they were shopping for a house or a car. They laughed a lot, Andi making jokes about wanting a room with a view and not being anywhere birds could shit on her. He didn’t know why all this stuff was coming back to him, but it was and he had to feel it. He had never been one to bury his head in the sand about his feelings. Not since the trauma of his dad’s accident when he was a child and didn’t speak for many months and was diagnosed with something called Selective Mutism. Again, a condition born in anxiety so it was classic in him. But it was no mental illness like Justin. He didn’t need to be medication for it. Just some days, he felt anxious about things, he suffered the stage fright and anxiety about being in the spotlight. He had days where he was just a worry wort, and things seemed too big for him to reason through all in one go. But in a lot of ways, that equipped him for helping Justin, because he understood the challenges Justin had. “I’m just nervous. Sounds stupid, I know.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Justin promised with a shake of his head. “Hey… this is me, remember? I get this stuff. You miss her and she’s not really there. Not in the ways you need her to be. That’s probably going to be hard for you for the rest of your life, and then when your time comes, she’ll be over there… wherever there is, waiting to give you a wedgie.”
Sasha couldn’t stop a little laugh escaping at that, because it was probably an accurate deduction. “She’ll probably be waiting for you too, you know. Or maybe she already has and told you piss off back here to me until we’re done with you…” That still played on his mind. Not long after they started dating, Justin had that suicide attempt where he sliced his wrist on the train. He also had this bad drug reaction. He thought about this stuff. Thought about the things in the universe you couldn’t understand. Thought about the fact maybe Andi had a higher purpose, as Justin’s guardian angel or something. Like, she auditioned before it before her time came, and was picked for a reason. There were those weird dreams he had that he couldn’t explain. Dreaming about Justin hanging himself with old costume belt in dressing room, only to discover he nearly did exactly that before the Bondi incident but had never told anyone. He had these feelings sometimes like someone was there. Not in a creepy way, but a peaceful way. When Justin returned back to the stage after his wrist healed up, a pile of their family and friends were there, Sasha had this distinct feeling like Andi was standing behind him. She wasn’t, of course. Or was she? Was that why she used her special wish for him instead of for her? All this stuff, he would never have answers to. It wasn’t haunting him, it was just this lingering presence, like someone was there watching over them.
There was soft breeze in the openness of the cemetery. It made the edges of the paper around the flowers flutter softly. Justin nodded at Sasha’s words. “Maybe she has. If I remembered, I’d tell you. Bring you messages or something. Maybe if all that’s true, she really could hear if you talk to her here? Are you sure you don’t want to sit with her alone? I can wait back here. Or I can just sit with you if you don’t want to talk at all.” They got to the row where Andi was and soon came to be standing at the foot of her grave. It was immaculately kept, fresh flowers of different sorts, other little ornaments or toys. He was glad there wasn’t a picture of her on the grave. For some reason, that freaked him out about graves. He didn’t think seeing how they were alive at the place they were laid to rest was a nice thing. It was just more emphasis on how they were not longer living. His hand went to Sasha’s hair, where he started to stroke it for comfort.
“I want you to stay. She would want you to too.” Sasha stepped up and knelt down by the grave so he could place the flowers at the base of the headstone. He exhaled in a soft sigh and put the crystal angel beside a little statue of a bunny sniffing flowers. He rested his hand on top of the gravestone, already feeling the tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t try to stop them. Tears were inevitable. “If she could be here, she would be so asking me if her butt looked big in this. I had so much left I needed to talk to her about,” he said with a teary laugh. He shook his head and wiped his finger thumb to the corner of his eyes to brush away the dampness.
Justin sat down beside him, crossing his legs and settling in. He started to rub Sasha’s back softly. It was always hard to see him crying. You didn’t face something like this without needing a cry, though. “Talk to her. She might be waiting to hear it.” He kissed Sasha’s hair, just wanting to show him he wasn’t alone. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing to help, but he was still trying to do it regardless.
Sasha closed his eyes and for a little while there, he was just crying. The emotion got to him. He put his hand over his face and just sat there crying when all his brain wanted to do was feed him memories. Good ones and bad, trying to remember again how she looked the last time he saw her alive, how she looked when he saw her after she died and she was just a shell. That night Justin’s dad got them on a plane so they could rush to Boston after Andi passed. Justin had come with him and been there for him when Sasha had no idea how he was supposed to face seeing her dead and gone. He tried to talk to her that night, but he could only get apologies out through his tears. Sorry over and over again for not being there when she had to go. Soon, he realised she wouldn’t have wanted him to be. He was pretty sure with the phone message she left him that she chose her time to go.
Sasha’s sobbing was hurting Justin’s heart. He was still rubbing his back, mapping little rhythmic circles there with his thumb and rested his head against his shoulder to hold him while he cried. He had brought some little packs of Kleenex, shoved in the pocket of his jacket because they would be needed. He took one out and set it on the grass for when Sasha needed them. They might be still sitting here in an hour. Maybe more. Whatever it took, Justin had no intentions of moving. Everything else had filtered out of his brain now, falling into the ‘not important’ basket until Sasha was feeling better. All assuming he did. Sometimes when he got this upset, he ended up with a migraine, but they came prepared for that too, especially considering what happened last time. Only time would tell what the new preventative medication he was taking would do, if it would work, and how well. Sasha had already been feeling a bit off colour with side effects, but he was handling it like a boss.
Sasha knew he didn’t want to do any of this alone. He thought about it. He knew it was either sit with Andi alone and spend time with her, or have Justin come with him. There was just no choice. Not anymore. Grief was a private thing, and often he didn’t want to talk about it to many people, but he did with Justin. Justin was the exception to every rule and he needed him. That was the whole point of having a special relationship where you were a team. You had each other’s backs for this sort of stuff, where it felt too hard, but you knew you still had to do it. Or try to do it. Success wasn’t always guaranteed. He thought he would find it hard talking to Andi when she wasn’t really there anymore. She was there, but only what was left when she was gone. He really did struggle right after her death in thinking about her in the coffin, in the ground. He hadn’t been sure he would be able to face this. But he was glad he came, and somehow, he managed to just talk to her like she was there. If he kept his eyes closed so he couldn’t see the grave and remembered how she was when she was still here, it was easier.
He probably wouldn’t even remember what he talked to her about. It felt like everything and nothing all at the same time. Maybe he was just talking shit, but at the end of the day, they had always talked shit. But together. He was so starkly aware that she wasn’t answering, but it was okay, because he had a lot to talk about. A lot. Pretty much everything that had been happening since she passed away, and a lot of it was about Justin. Justin told everyone how Sasha changed his life, found him exactly when he needed it. But it was exactly the same phenomenon for Sasha, where he had been feeling so alone and isolated all of a sudden when Andi was gone way too soon before he had time to prepare for it. He had discovered so much about himself with Justin, and he fill part of the empty gap inside him when Andi vacated. He just talked, for how long, he didn’t know, crying the whole time. But it was cathartic and it started to feel like some of the heaviness he had been feeling inside lifted.
Until it felt like someone patted him on the head or tugged his hair and he jumped. Justin had been touching him the whole time, but it was rubbing his back. He opened his eyes, blinking away tears. “Did you just pat my head?”
Justin blinked, looking at him strangely. “... no.” Reflexively, he looked behind them, knowing he all of a sudden expected Andi to be standing there about to scare the shit out of them. There was no one else here. At least, not as far as they could see. Maybe some people were over the rise in the distance where the cemetery sloped down to some woodlands, but there hadn’t even been any other cars in the parking lot. The look on Sasha’s face said it all. He was doing that freaking sensing thing again that sometimes just happened, that he wasn’t quite sure he believed, but knew things in his life had happened that he couldn’t explain. Justin’s phone was vibrating in his pocket again too. It had been on and off for about ten minutes now, but he had turned it down for a reason. He didn’t want to be interrupted. This was Sasha’s time and he wanted privacy. Only this time when it started to vibrate, he jumped with a squeak because now he was on edge and pretty convinced something freaky was going on. “Are you playing with me?” he asked, hand going to his chest because it felt like his heart was racing.
“No! I swear, it felt like someone touched my head!” Sasha put his hand up to where the felt it, checking to make sure a bird hadn’t pooped on him or something, but apparently not. His own heart had quickened, and so had his breath. “Is that your phone? We should go, this is starting to freak me out. She promised she wouldn’t come back and haunt me, damnit!”
Justin’s hand covered his phone in his pocket, but he couldn’t stop a laugh escaping at Sasha’s last comment. “It doesn’t matter, it can wait. Why can I actually picture you having that conversation with her over and over while she was sick? Did you make a pact or something?”
Sasha’s hand was still on his head, but his eyes were skimming the grave and headstone. Nothing had changed there. The papers on the flowers were ruffling with the breeze, but everything else was just sitting there, watching over her peacefully. “Just see who it is. It might be important.”
“I think I know who it might be. It’s not important. It doesn’t matter.” Justin was assuming it was Will, maybe getting cold feet about meeting up on Tuesday for coffee. Then again, maybe not. Maybe Will had grown up enough to know that when Justin said he was going away with Sasha, that also meant he was going away for Sasha. At this point, he wasn’t sure how Will would process this stuff if he really was back here to stay permanently. Justin wasn’t prepared to dilute his relationship or his closeness to Sasha so it didn’t feel awkward for Will. In saying that, it had felt different when they spoke, like it did seem Will had grown up in the things he had been saying. It seemed genuine, not force. Justin really hoped it wasn’t forced. He hadn’t being paid lip-service, because lip-service was just a fancy name for bullshitting.
Sasha didn’t know what Justin meant by that. “Are you the psychic one now, huh?” It was a joke, but there was a shaky edge to it. He was a bit thrown by this head thing. Maybe he imagined it because Andi was so front and centre on his mind and she used to ruffle his hair a lot. It had felt real, though. “Who? Just answer. It might be urgent.”
Justin wet his lips, but instead of answering, he took his phone out to check the display. It wasn’t Will, and he felt a twist of guilt in his gut for not telling Sasha straight away that he was back. Instead of talking, he fell asleep in the car and slept the whole way. He frowned, but the phone stopped ringing before he could answer. “It’s Dad. Nine missed calls. Fuck.” He immediately hit call back, dread and panic filling him quickly. He put it on speaker so Sasha could hear too, if something was wrong. His dad answered. “Dad? What is it? What’s happened?”
“Justin! Oh, thank fuck. You’re okay? You and Sash, you’re both okay?”
“Yeah. We’re at the cemetery. Has something happened? Are you sick? Nine missed calls!” Justin cried. Something had to be wrong.
“There’s been a massive crash on the freeway out of Boston. Six car pile up, two fatalities. It was the exit road you were taking to get to Andi’s parents’ place. I called them, they said hadn’t arrived yet. I thought it was you. Fuck... thank fuck you’re okay, I’ve been worried sick. It’s all over the news.”
Justin could hear the panic in his dad’s voice and now he was looking Sasha, horrified. Sasha was staring at the screen of Justin’s phone, just shaking his head, looking teary again. “N-No, we… Sasha wanted to come to the cemetery first…” In fact, what Sasha had said was I just felt like I needed to come here first. I don’t know why. “Shit…”
Sasha stood up, tears dripping down his cheeks. He had to walk away from the grave. He was shaken and overwhelmed, not even sure of the confusing mix of feelings tearing up inside him. Yet, he wasn’t scared. It wasn’t a fear. Just a lost confusion, a desperate desire to explain or have direct answers. It had been a distinct feeling inside that he wanted to come here first. It hadn’t even been on the agenda. They were going to Andi’s parents’ place to drop their bags off and maybe have a cup of tea to freshen up, then going to the cemetery either later in the afternoon closer to sunset (Andi loved sunsets) or the next morning. He flipped the plans on their head without thinking about it, just feeling like he wanted to do it first. Now this? What the fuck did it all mean? He was crying again. Those deep sobs that took over his body and made it difficult to catch his breath. In trying to alleviate the ache of missing her, he was now just missing her so much more and it hurt hurt. It hurt so much.
“Dad, I have to go. Sash’s really upset. We’re fine, okay? He’s just shaken. We’re nowhere near a crash, we’re safe,” Justin assured his dad quickly.
“Okay, kiddo, but call me when you get to their house, yeah? Let me know how it’s all going. Love you.”
“Okay. Love you too.” Justin ended the call and got up to hurry after Sasha. Sasha was tall, like Justin, so he had long steps. Hearing his cries, Justin’s heart hurt so much. Sasha was already back at his car, but just as Justin got there, a stronger gust of wind kicked up and blew Sasha’s hat off the hood of the car where he left it. It landed a few paces from Justin’s feet, so he went over to grab it before it blew away again. It was a hat from his dad’s old racing team, so it was special to Sasha. But when Justin picked it up, lying beneath it, caught between the fronds of grass, was a small pink and white feather, about the length of his little finger. “Sash…”
Sasha wanted to leave. His head was starting to hurt, his eyes were stinging from the crying, his throat was sore from the uncontrollable sobs. He wanted to lie down and either cry more or sleep. And he wanted cuddle with Justin until it felt better. “What?” It wasn’t snappy, it was just tired. He just wanted to get in the car and go. Justin couldn’t drive, so he wanted to get back before a migraine hit, if that was what his brain was warning him off. Justin was crouched down, looking at something on the ground, so Sasha went over to him. When he saw what it was, he just shook his head and put his hands up over his face. Feathers could be significant, if you believed. “Okay, Pandi. Got it. You win. I love you too,” he murmured and then gave her a thumbs-up towards the sky. “Can I just go home and cuddle with my man, now?”
Justin picked the feather up. He didn’t know what they could do with it, but he knew Sasha would want to keep it. He put Sasha’s hat back on his head for him, tugging it softly into place, and then pulled him into a secure, warm hug. He didn’t say anything. Sasha was emotionally drained, it was written all over him, it was in his voice. He didn’t know what Andi’s parents had planned for the visit, but he was pretty sure they would know Sasha well enough to understand. Maybe Sasha would want to talk to them about this stuff, but he wouldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t even talk to Justin about it, and that was okay. Whatever it was, Justin would be right there with him until he processed this and worked, once again, through his refreshed grief.
LOG, COMPLETE
What: I'm loving angels instead...
Where: Boston, MA
When: After this
Justin did exactly what he didn’t want to do on the drive to Boston… fell asleep. He only realised when he was being woken gently by Sasha giving his hand a soft squeeze and stroking his cheek. He had been planning on talking to Sasha about Will on the drive but here he was, waking up groggy and disoriented with creased up the side of his face from the sweater Sasha must have wedged between his head and the window so he didn’t get a sore neck. “Shit…” he mumbled, looking around with a stretch and a yawn, peering out the window and seeing they were parked at the cemetery. “I thought we were going to see her folks first? Is there a bathroom here?”
“I don’t know, baby. You might need to find a tree,” Sasha told him, smirking a little. Justin had crashed about fifteen minutes out of New York after they made plans to hit a McDonalds drive-thru to get something to eat. He wasn’t really surprised when he noticed Justin go quiet and his eyes were drooping. Although Justin did sleep the night before, it wasn’t a settled sleep. Sometimes, his brain just didn’t cooperate with switching off and that meant even if he did sleep, he didn’t get rest. You could usually tell when that happened because Justin woke up and didn’t speak to anyone. You might get a grunt and he might clear the brain fog a bit with a shower, but he didn’t usually perk up until he had breakfast and tea. He was always content with letting Justin sleep, as Justin was with him when his head was mucking up on him. This time, it gave him some time alone with his thoughts, trying to process what he was feeling going to Boston for this visit. “I just felt like I needed to come here first. I don’t know why.”
Justin rested his hand on Sasha’s thigh and leaned in to give him a kiss. “Do you want me to wait here? I know you weren’t sure if you wanted to visit her yourself or not. It’s going to be hard either way. I’m sorry I fell asleep. I was going to try to distract you a little.” He looked out the front window towards where he knew Andi’s grave was. Even parked back here, he could see the purple in the distance. Not only had Andi had a purple coffin, her family also arranged to have her grave painted a beautiful purple with butterflies and a heart-shaped headstone. Surrounding the grave was a little rivulet of purple stones. Justin would never forget how distressed Sasha had been not having anything purple to wear to her funeral. He had known it was one of her wishes, for everyone to wear purple, but she died so quickly, he hadn’t prepared. Justin had taken over and brought him something really nice to wear. “I can see the light shining off it from here. It’s pretty.”
Sasha was looking to where Justin was, nodding. “Can you come? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, but I know I don’t want to do it alone. You needed the sleep. It gave me time to think. You know what I’m like with thinking.” He reached over to the backseat and collected the large bouquet of purple roses and blue forget-me-nots he had ordered off Lorenzo and collected on their way here. He had done an amazing job. There were diamantes in the centre of each rose, glitter butterflies threaded through the arrangement and a sparkling net-looking thing holding it all together. Some of the petals were even sprayed with a light soft glitter and it all sparkled in the sunlight. It was perfect for Andi. She would love it.
“Of course I can,” Justin murmured, smiling at the flowers. Lorenzo had outdone himself. He had come over to visit them the day before and Jamie had a ball playing with Holly. It was a special thing for Sasha, so Justin knew buying a bouquet of flowers at any old florist wouldn’t do. Personalising them would mean everything to Sasha, and he told Justin lying in bed the night before that it meant a lot to him. There was also a beautiful crystal angel that had sat on their dresser for months now, catching the sunlight that streamed through the window when they opened the curtains on a sunny day. Sasha had bought it online the day after he heard about Andi’s death and even when it arrived, it sat in the box unopened for a long time. He ended up opening it the morning after he had the dream about Justin suiciding with his belt at the theatre. He hadn’t had another dream like it since. But he wanted to leave it at Andi’s grave now.
They got out of the car and Sasha waited while Justin ducked behind a tree to take a pee after the sleep in the car. He would have been drinking a lot at his training session to keep his throat lubricated. Sasha kept watch to make sure no one happened to wander by while he was relieving himself. He absentmindedly stroked the petals of the flowers nursed in the crook of his arm and pulled his baseball cap off, leaving it on the hood of his car to get when they got back. He had always been taught to take it off as a sign of respect. If ever there was a time for that, it was now. Even if he knew Andi would probably be laughing at him if she could see him, and laughing at his hat hair. “Better?” he asked when Justin came back and took his hand.
“Better. Probably going to hell for peeing in a cemetery, but they can add it to the growing list on my one-way ticket there.” It had been a hell of a day already, and even if there was lingering thoughts at the back of Justin’s mind about Will randomly showing up out of the blue, it was pushed away for now. Sasha was his priority and being here for him today was important. There was nowhere else in the world he would be. They were going to spend the night at Andi’s parents’ place and then head home the next day. They talked about stopping halfway home and having the night in a hotel too, but they were going to play it by ear. Sasha hadn’t been sure how he was going to feel after all this. If they did that, he would Skype with Caden on Monday afternoon to talk to him about the other auditions.
“My stomach hurts,” Sasha mumbled, realising it was in knots about this. It could be an unfounded anxiety, but seeing the grave and knowing Andi was in there was something he was finding really hard. Anxiety wasn’t unusual for him, it was just morphing into a different form. He was missing her so much right now. Missing talking to her. Missing telling her all the amazing things he was experiencing with Justin. Missing talking to her about how it felt to be in love. Missing crying with her when things hurt. He knew he had done well with his grief up to now, but grief didn’t have a time limit and it was turning a circle on him, coming back the more he missed her.
“Yeah?” Justin said softly, checking Sasha over in concern. He put his arm around his shoulders and gave him a kiss. “Just feeling worried or like a sick hurt?” He could see sadness in Sasha’s face. Not really torment or stress so much as he just looked sad and a little lost. This was one of the times it was his turn to take care of Sasha, and he cherished these moments of give and take. He was rubbing his hand softly up and down Sasha’s arm as they walked across the parking lot towards the cemetery, feet crunching in the gravel. And if Sasha wanted to stop, turn around and ultimately leave, he would be there for that too.
Further up the path, Sasha could see Andi’s grave. The purple stuck out a mile amongst the greys and charcoals of other memorial stones. Andi picked her own burial plot. He had come with her and her mom to check the place out, and even if it had been a heavy subject, you would have thought they were shopping for a house or a car. They laughed a lot, Andi making jokes about wanting a room with a view and not being anywhere birds could shit on her. He didn’t know why all this stuff was coming back to him, but it was and he had to feel it. He had never been one to bury his head in the sand about his feelings. Not since the trauma of his dad’s accident when he was a child and didn’t speak for many months and was diagnosed with something called Selective Mutism. Again, a condition born in anxiety so it was classic in him. But it was no mental illness like Justin. He didn’t need to be medication for it. Just some days, he felt anxious about things, he suffered the stage fright and anxiety about being in the spotlight. He had days where he was just a worry wort, and things seemed too big for him to reason through all in one go. But in a lot of ways, that equipped him for helping Justin, because he understood the challenges Justin had. “I’m just nervous. Sounds stupid, I know.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Justin promised with a shake of his head. “Hey… this is me, remember? I get this stuff. You miss her and she’s not really there. Not in the ways you need her to be. That’s probably going to be hard for you for the rest of your life, and then when your time comes, she’ll be over there… wherever there is, waiting to give you a wedgie.”
Sasha couldn’t stop a little laugh escaping at that, because it was probably an accurate deduction. “She’ll probably be waiting for you too, you know. Or maybe she already has and told you piss off back here to me until we’re done with you…” That still played on his mind. Not long after they started dating, Justin had that suicide attempt where he sliced his wrist on the train. He also had this bad drug reaction. He thought about this stuff. Thought about the things in the universe you couldn’t understand. Thought about the fact maybe Andi had a higher purpose, as Justin’s guardian angel or something. Like, she auditioned before it before her time came, and was picked for a reason. There were those weird dreams he had that he couldn’t explain. Dreaming about Justin hanging himself with old costume belt in dressing room, only to discover he nearly did exactly that before the Bondi incident but had never told anyone. He had these feelings sometimes like someone was there. Not in a creepy way, but a peaceful way. When Justin returned back to the stage after his wrist healed up, a pile of their family and friends were there, Sasha had this distinct feeling like Andi was standing behind him. She wasn’t, of course. Or was she? Was that why she used her special wish for him instead of for her? All this stuff, he would never have answers to. It wasn’t haunting him, it was just this lingering presence, like someone was there watching over them.
There was soft breeze in the openness of the cemetery. It made the edges of the paper around the flowers flutter softly. Justin nodded at Sasha’s words. “Maybe she has. If I remembered, I’d tell you. Bring you messages or something. Maybe if all that’s true, she really could hear if you talk to her here? Are you sure you don’t want to sit with her alone? I can wait back here. Or I can just sit with you if you don’t want to talk at all.” They got to the row where Andi was and soon came to be standing at the foot of her grave. It was immaculately kept, fresh flowers of different sorts, other little ornaments or toys. He was glad there wasn’t a picture of her on the grave. For some reason, that freaked him out about graves. He didn’t think seeing how they were alive at the place they were laid to rest was a nice thing. It was just more emphasis on how they were not longer living. His hand went to Sasha’s hair, where he started to stroke it for comfort.
“I want you to stay. She would want you to too.” Sasha stepped up and knelt down by the grave so he could place the flowers at the base of the headstone. He exhaled in a soft sigh and put the crystal angel beside a little statue of a bunny sniffing flowers. He rested his hand on top of the gravestone, already feeling the tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t try to stop them. Tears were inevitable. “If she could be here, she would be so asking me if her butt looked big in this. I had so much left I needed to talk to her about,” he said with a teary laugh. He shook his head and wiped his finger thumb to the corner of his eyes to brush away the dampness.
Justin sat down beside him, crossing his legs and settling in. He started to rub Sasha’s back softly. It was always hard to see him crying. You didn’t face something like this without needing a cry, though. “Talk to her. She might be waiting to hear it.” He kissed Sasha’s hair, just wanting to show him he wasn’t alone. He didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing to help, but he was still trying to do it regardless.
Sasha closed his eyes and for a little while there, he was just crying. The emotion got to him. He put his hand over his face and just sat there crying when all his brain wanted to do was feed him memories. Good ones and bad, trying to remember again how she looked the last time he saw her alive, how she looked when he saw her after she died and she was just a shell. That night Justin’s dad got them on a plane so they could rush to Boston after Andi passed. Justin had come with him and been there for him when Sasha had no idea how he was supposed to face seeing her dead and gone. He tried to talk to her that night, but he could only get apologies out through his tears. Sorry over and over again for not being there when she had to go. Soon, he realised she wouldn’t have wanted him to be. He was pretty sure with the phone message she left him that she chose her time to go.
Sasha’s sobbing was hurting Justin’s heart. He was still rubbing his back, mapping little rhythmic circles there with his thumb and rested his head against his shoulder to hold him while he cried. He had brought some little packs of Kleenex, shoved in the pocket of his jacket because they would be needed. He took one out and set it on the grass for when Sasha needed them. They might be still sitting here in an hour. Maybe more. Whatever it took, Justin had no intentions of moving. Everything else had filtered out of his brain now, falling into the ‘not important’ basket until Sasha was feeling better. All assuming he did. Sometimes when he got this upset, he ended up with a migraine, but they came prepared for that too, especially considering what happened last time. Only time would tell what the new preventative medication he was taking would do, if it would work, and how well. Sasha had already been feeling a bit off colour with side effects, but he was handling it like a boss.
Sasha knew he didn’t want to do any of this alone. He thought about it. He knew it was either sit with Andi alone and spend time with her, or have Justin come with him. There was just no choice. Not anymore. Grief was a private thing, and often he didn’t want to talk about it to many people, but he did with Justin. Justin was the exception to every rule and he needed him. That was the whole point of having a special relationship where you were a team. You had each other’s backs for this sort of stuff, where it felt too hard, but you knew you still had to do it. Or try to do it. Success wasn’t always guaranteed. He thought he would find it hard talking to Andi when she wasn’t really there anymore. She was there, but only what was left when she was gone. He really did struggle right after her death in thinking about her in the coffin, in the ground. He hadn’t been sure he would be able to face this. But he was glad he came, and somehow, he managed to just talk to her like she was there. If he kept his eyes closed so he couldn’t see the grave and remembered how she was when she was still here, it was easier.
He probably wouldn’t even remember what he talked to her about. It felt like everything and nothing all at the same time. Maybe he was just talking shit, but at the end of the day, they had always talked shit. But together. He was so starkly aware that she wasn’t answering, but it was okay, because he had a lot to talk about. A lot. Pretty much everything that had been happening since she passed away, and a lot of it was about Justin. Justin told everyone how Sasha changed his life, found him exactly when he needed it. But it was exactly the same phenomenon for Sasha, where he had been feeling so alone and isolated all of a sudden when Andi was gone way too soon before he had time to prepare for it. He had discovered so much about himself with Justin, and he fill part of the empty gap inside him when Andi vacated. He just talked, for how long, he didn’t know, crying the whole time. But it was cathartic and it started to feel like some of the heaviness he had been feeling inside lifted.
Until it felt like someone patted him on the head or tugged his hair and he jumped. Justin had been touching him the whole time, but it was rubbing his back. He opened his eyes, blinking away tears. “Did you just pat my head?”
Justin blinked, looking at him strangely. “... no.” Reflexively, he looked behind them, knowing he all of a sudden expected Andi to be standing there about to scare the shit out of them. There was no one else here. At least, not as far as they could see. Maybe some people were over the rise in the distance where the cemetery sloped down to some woodlands, but there hadn’t even been any other cars in the parking lot. The look on Sasha’s face said it all. He was doing that freaking sensing thing again that sometimes just happened, that he wasn’t quite sure he believed, but knew things in his life had happened that he couldn’t explain. Justin’s phone was vibrating in his pocket again too. It had been on and off for about ten minutes now, but he had turned it down for a reason. He didn’t want to be interrupted. This was Sasha’s time and he wanted privacy. Only this time when it started to vibrate, he jumped with a squeak because now he was on edge and pretty convinced something freaky was going on. “Are you playing with me?” he asked, hand going to his chest because it felt like his heart was racing.
“No! I swear, it felt like someone touched my head!” Sasha put his hand up to where the felt it, checking to make sure a bird hadn’t pooped on him or something, but apparently not. His own heart had quickened, and so had his breath. “Is that your phone? We should go, this is starting to freak me out. She promised she wouldn’t come back and haunt me, damnit!”
Justin’s hand covered his phone in his pocket, but he couldn’t stop a laugh escaping at Sasha’s last comment. “It doesn’t matter, it can wait. Why can I actually picture you having that conversation with her over and over while she was sick? Did you make a pact or something?”
Sasha’s hand was still on his head, but his eyes were skimming the grave and headstone. Nothing had changed there. The papers on the flowers were ruffling with the breeze, but everything else was just sitting there, watching over her peacefully. “Just see who it is. It might be important.”
“I think I know who it might be. It’s not important. It doesn’t matter.” Justin was assuming it was Will, maybe getting cold feet about meeting up on Tuesday for coffee. Then again, maybe not. Maybe Will had grown up enough to know that when Justin said he was going away with Sasha, that also meant he was going away for Sasha. At this point, he wasn’t sure how Will would process this stuff if he really was back here to stay permanently. Justin wasn’t prepared to dilute his relationship or his closeness to Sasha so it didn’t feel awkward for Will. In saying that, it had felt different when they spoke, like it did seem Will had grown up in the things he had been saying. It seemed genuine, not force. Justin really hoped it wasn’t forced. He hadn’t being paid lip-service, because lip-service was just a fancy name for bullshitting.
Sasha didn’t know what Justin meant by that. “Are you the psychic one now, huh?” It was a joke, but there was a shaky edge to it. He was a bit thrown by this head thing. Maybe he imagined it because Andi was so front and centre on his mind and she used to ruffle his hair a lot. It had felt real, though. “Who? Just answer. It might be urgent.”
Justin wet his lips, but instead of answering, he took his phone out to check the display. It wasn’t Will, and he felt a twist of guilt in his gut for not telling Sasha straight away that he was back. Instead of talking, he fell asleep in the car and slept the whole way. He frowned, but the phone stopped ringing before he could answer. “It’s Dad. Nine missed calls. Fuck.” He immediately hit call back, dread and panic filling him quickly. He put it on speaker so Sasha could hear too, if something was wrong. His dad answered. “Dad? What is it? What’s happened?”
“Justin! Oh, thank fuck. You’re okay? You and Sash, you’re both okay?”
“Yeah. We’re at the cemetery. Has something happened? Are you sick? Nine missed calls!” Justin cried. Something had to be wrong.
“There’s been a massive crash on the freeway out of Boston. Six car pile up, two fatalities. It was the exit road you were taking to get to Andi’s parents’ place. I called them, they said hadn’t arrived yet. I thought it was you. Fuck... thank fuck you’re okay, I’ve been worried sick. It’s all over the news.”
Justin could hear the panic in his dad’s voice and now he was looking Sasha, horrified. Sasha was staring at the screen of Justin’s phone, just shaking his head, looking teary again. “N-No, we… Sasha wanted to come to the cemetery first…” In fact, what Sasha had said was I just felt like I needed to come here first. I don’t know why. “Shit…”
Sasha stood up, tears dripping down his cheeks. He had to walk away from the grave. He was shaken and overwhelmed, not even sure of the confusing mix of feelings tearing up inside him. Yet, he wasn’t scared. It wasn’t a fear. Just a lost confusion, a desperate desire to explain or have direct answers. It had been a distinct feeling inside that he wanted to come here first. It hadn’t even been on the agenda. They were going to Andi’s parents’ place to drop their bags off and maybe have a cup of tea to freshen up, then going to the cemetery either later in the afternoon closer to sunset (Andi loved sunsets) or the next morning. He flipped the plans on their head without thinking about it, just feeling like he wanted to do it first. Now this? What the fuck did it all mean? He was crying again. Those deep sobs that took over his body and made it difficult to catch his breath. In trying to alleviate the ache of missing her, he was now just missing her so much more and it hurt hurt. It hurt so much.
“Dad, I have to go. Sash’s really upset. We’re fine, okay? He’s just shaken. We’re nowhere near a crash, we’re safe,” Justin assured his dad quickly.
“Okay, kiddo, but call me when you get to their house, yeah? Let me know how it’s all going. Love you.”
“Okay. Love you too.” Justin ended the call and got up to hurry after Sasha. Sasha was tall, like Justin, so he had long steps. Hearing his cries, Justin’s heart hurt so much. Sasha was already back at his car, but just as Justin got there, a stronger gust of wind kicked up and blew Sasha’s hat off the hood of the car where he left it. It landed a few paces from Justin’s feet, so he went over to grab it before it blew away again. It was a hat from his dad’s old racing team, so it was special to Sasha. But when Justin picked it up, lying beneath it, caught between the fronds of grass, was a small pink and white feather, about the length of his little finger. “Sash…”
Sasha wanted to leave. His head was starting to hurt, his eyes were stinging from the crying, his throat was sore from the uncontrollable sobs. He wanted to lie down and either cry more or sleep. And he wanted cuddle with Justin until it felt better. “What?” It wasn’t snappy, it was just tired. He just wanted to get in the car and go. Justin couldn’t drive, so he wanted to get back before a migraine hit, if that was what his brain was warning him off. Justin was crouched down, looking at something on the ground, so Sasha went over to him. When he saw what it was, he just shook his head and put his hands up over his face. Feathers could be significant, if you believed. “Okay, Pandi. Got it. You win. I love you too,” he murmured and then gave her a thumbs-up towards the sky. “Can I just go home and cuddle with my man, now?”
Justin picked the feather up. He didn’t know what they could do with it, but he knew Sasha would want to keep it. He put Sasha’s hat back on his head for him, tugging it softly into place, and then pulled him into a secure, warm hug. He didn’t say anything. Sasha was emotionally drained, it was written all over him, it was in his voice. He didn’t know what Andi’s parents had planned for the visit, but he was pretty sure they would know Sasha well enough to understand. Maybe Sasha would want to talk to them about this stuff, but he wouldn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t even talk to Justin about it, and that was okay. Whatever it was, Justin would be right there with him until he processed this and worked, once again, through his refreshed grief.
LOG, COMPLETE