Dave x John - Repetition Prologue

Dave liked sculpting.

He never admitted it though. He had a "rep" to uphold. I didn't mind. He used to get a lot of shit in school when he was younger, and he had to transfer because of it. It’s how he went to my own school eventually. Only I got to see the real him.

I liked watching his hands move. He didn't take any art classes, but after school he always stayed in the art rooms to work on things. I liked to sit on one of the tables behind him and watch those slender fingers move with grace on the wheel, a smooth figure building up by his hand.

I liked asking him to show me how. He sat on another stool behind me, hands guiding mine, his chest into my back, and his breath on my cheek as he led my fingers to create a hollow shape out of clay on the wheel. I wondered if I was the only one who was blushing. I wondered if I was the only one with a crush on my best fucking friend.

One day, Dave was sitting across from me in the empty art room, painting glaze on his latest fired project. It was painted in an array of blues, and he'd been working so hard on it.

"Can you take this out of the kiln for me tomorrow?" he asked.

I closed my book, done studying for finals tomorrow since it was the last day of school. Senior year to be exact.

"You can't?" I asked.

"I won't be here."

"Where are you going?"

"Will you take it out? And keep it?"

"I guess... where are you going? Are we still on for chilling Saturday? I got Mario Party!”

He stopped painting the glaze and gulped, and I didn't like the look on his face. It was easier to read him with his shades off too, which he only did when he was alone with me.

"I'm going to New York," he said.

"What?"

"It's a really big art scholarship. It's the only way I'll ever go to college. You know Bro and I are tight on money. This is all I've got. So I'm moving to New York tomorrow."

He went back to painting. I feel like he didn't even give a shit about what he just said. I never told him I loved him. He didn’t even know I had stupid feelings. He had other girls always swooning over him. I was just the best friend.

"So..." Shit, what could I even say? My chest was hurting. A lot. "See you summers?"

He slowly shook his head.

I was choking on tears. "Gone for good?”

He didn't reply.

"If you had the money and could stay, would you?”

"Yes," he replied quietly. "John, you’re my most best friend in the world, even though I’m a dick sometimes and pick on you. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But I'm sick of being that boy from the bad side of town, smelling like cigarette smoke from Bro, and just... being judged. I want to go to college and make art, John. I want to do something. And it's selfish. But. Yeah…"

I stood up, throwing my backpack on. "I understand." I stopped by him, not really sure how to say goodbye. “Just… be safe.”

He nodded. I turned to leave. I heard his chair skid behind me, my wrist was grabbed, and he spun me around. His cold hands enclosed my cheeks, and his lips found mine. I really didn’t have reaction time. It was just one kiss. One deep, amazing, touching kiss. Then he pulled back, staring at me with those fiery eyes.

"Bye, John."

I smiled, even though I was pained, then left the room. I wanted his last sight of me to be of a smile. He wasn't in the wrong there. But I was sobbing before I even reached my car.

Two years later, I suffered heartbreak for the second time.




I remember feeling like I didn't exist. I sat in the hospital daycare center, the building mostly dark, tiny breaths against my neck from the small human sleeping in my arms. I didn’t need anyone to tell me the bad news. I had been the one holding her hand when she left.

A nurse eventually came by to check on me. But when I didn’t meet her eyes, she carried on, and I kept rocking in my chair, holding that baby close. I shifted her, cradling her on one arm, and brushing my knuckle over one of her pale and smooth chubby cheeks.

“You sleep a lot,” I whispered. “And God, you’re so tiny. You’re so, so tiny. You’re little and petite. And perfect.”

She kept breathing, eyes closed in sleep. I gently pulled down the little pink hat on her head to help keep her snug and warm. “You have your mommy’s nose,” I told her. “And her hair. So light and soft. You’re like this little fragile piece of art.”

She snorted a little in her sleep, and it actually made me smile a bit. Before I started sobbing again, a doctor walked in the room, obviously aware of the crisis I was going through. He was a good doctor though, so I didn’t shoo him like the others.

“We concluded there was too much bleeding,” he said.

I nodded. I already knew. I saw it all in the delivery room. Everyone was yelling. She had been holding my hand so tightly, and I was so scared when I felt her grip weakening.

He asked the dumbest question in the world next. “You want to keep her?”

“Yes,” I practically snapped, subconsciously pulling the small baby closer.

He ignored that. “Have a name?” he asked more quietly.

I listened to the humming of different machines in the hospital. My chest was hurting once again. I looked down at the tiny child still sleeping her life away, having no idea what had happened to her mommy. Finally I murmured, “Lily. Because she’s a beautiful flower, like her mom.”