“There was nothing to deny!” He says while chuckling in his own special way. “You didn’t mention anything about obsessing it. You just said that I’m into it. I’m just as into the 90210 re-runs, ya know.”

He’s right. He is.

But what I’m looking for is something that can take me off the hook from my prior statement. Anything that wouldn’t force me to actually explain why I so eagerly believe that all his troubles will suddenly disappear if he changes the color of them. That something so difficult lies inside something so simple. The years of disappointment and regret that lives inside those strands of hair upon his head.

”Whatever. You love it.”

”Whatever makes you happy.” he says with all the strength he can muster up at this moment.

”Oh, it does. I’m almost thrilled.” I tease.

A murmured ”good” hurries out from his chest and I’m almost positive that I felt the vibrations from his dark voice. I’m almost sure that the juddering in those words was the only thing that made me hear how he ended yet another conversation, really. A conversation that too could lead us to a place where we never put our feet down upon.

A place where I would be obliged to clarify what I meant just for the sake of it. A written sheet in the history books that could be retold to whom ever wished to hear about it. About how I openly speak about the way I think that his dim and dark hair dyes a way too beautiful heart with a blackness it doesn’t deserve.

A place I really don’t want to visit this time of day or in this moment and inside those fatigued eyes I see how he lets me off the hook. In those briefly dejected eyes I see how he knows exactly what I’ve been talking about. And how he won’t open those doors I don’t know how to close.

So we just keep sitting in our own silence, with beer bottles and cigarette-butts all over the pier, watching the world coming to life. Watching the world meet and greet a day we will soon hide from. A day we will soon slumber away with.

And as I tilt my head against his thin shoulder I feel him lean into the contact instead of flinching away like he normally does.

“Hey, Spence..” His rough and throaty voice that makes my head bounce up slightly when he says my name interrupts our recent stillness.

“Yeah?” I whisper back from my temporary resting spot. Breathing out a weak yes when all I want to do is say no. When all I want to do is to stop this dropping ball of promises that’s heading for me. Promises I don’t know if I can keep.

“Don’t ever go away.”

And I can’t stop it. I just can’t.

‘Cause as I glance up towards the outlines of his strong cheekbones and see the person who tries with all his might to carry the weight that this pier we’re occupying can’t finish off for me, I can’t help by try to give him a answer I really don’t know if I’ll be able to hold on to in the end.

The answer that was whispered in his ear long before I’ve even said it. A response that he accepts with everything that is him, because he knows that I’ll do anything to keep that promise alive even if I might not succeed.

“I won’t, D.” A shaky breath circulates between two longing souls. “I won’t.”

“Good.”