In His Mind

Colt missed him. He missed Noah with everything he had in him. A few hundred miles never felt longer in New York City on this cold September night. The raging pandemic had taken the world by storm and Noah with it. As Colt lay on his back on the floor listening to music he tried to pay attention to the lyrics.

I look ahead to all the plans that we made

And the dreams that we had

I'm in a world that tries to take 'em away

Oh, but I'm taking 'em back

All this time I've just been too blind to understand

What should matter to me

My friend, this life we live

Is not what we have, it's what we believe

As the song continued, fingers drumming to the beat, Colt thought he understood these lyrics. Dreaming about the future, imagining alternate realities. It did seem like the world was trying to take Noah away from him. Time wasn’t abundant, at least not for him. Every second passed is a second without Noah that he can’t get back. And there’s nothing he could do about it, and it scared him. He didn’t want to stop thinking about Noah. He wanted to lay there in the dark and mourn him like a lost cause until he could finally jump back into his arms and smother him in all the love that he had left to give.

At this point, Noah wasn’t sure that the idea of Noah, nor himself, that he nursed was even accurate. However, it was all that he had for now. This fleeting idea of his best friend, his lover, his boyfriend, was what he clung to for so many days in isolation.

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But the time had finally come. Noah was sprinting through the subway, racing up the steps and into the busy city of Manhattan. It had been far too long for him and he couldn’t wait a second longer to see Colt. Running flat out, ignoring the chains thumping against his thighs, he scanned the street signs. Not that he needed to, he had the route memorized, of countless days spent walking around doing nothing but eating hot pretzels and laughing with Colt. He wanted to look at the signs to keep him from knocking over some poor senior or running aimlessly into the middle of a street.

The familiar bend came and he felt a new surge of excitement as he raced to the front door of the apartment complex. It was one of the more elegant ones of the others on the street, with a canvas overhang stretching across the sidewalk.

Ignoring the doormans protests as he burst through the doors, Noah ran up the stairs to the third floor and skidded to a jarring halt in front of Colt’s apartment door. Hands on knees, panting, he looked up at the door. There was a little plaque hanging on it. A black scrap of wood with, “Apt. 3D, Milligan,” written on it with a mock gold paint. It had been in fact Noah's idea to create this little sign since people were always knocking on Colt’s door to ask which apartment was which. Strangely enough the complex had decided not to put apartment signs anywhere, instead painting every door a slightly different shade of blue. 

Taking a deep breath, he lifted his hand and knocked on the door exactly three times. Immediately from inside the apartment he heard a clatter and a running of footsteps. Noah’s heart started racing even faster and finally-

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The familiar sound rang out across the empty apartment. Colt turned around and, tripping over his own feet, barreled over to the door. As the door came open, he hurled his arms around the figure standing right outside of it. Noah wasn’t caught off guard either, and it became a sort of unexpectedly perfect embrace. Deep in each other’s presences once again, they stood there content for a few minutes, mulling over the last few months without him. Both of them were effusive in that moment, wrapped in their own perfect world.