Momentum
by athens7 as Jack (font: Courier New)
and mazaher as Patrick (font: Verdana)

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3. Needing, wanting, searching

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Patrick leaves, Jack goes to Patrick (Jack’s POV)

I don’t know for how long I remain seated on that holy spot, my legs stretched in front of me, the panel a cool blessing against my back and nape.
The ceiling has never felt so foreign and suffocating.
Minutes go by and turn into hours, hours become seconds. And I wait, for something that does not come.
Eventually I get up, straighten my clothes, try to tidy up the mess we have made with the cushions and the chairs hampering us in our frantic rush to the wall.
The door slides shut behind me without a sound and suddenly I am swallowed by darkness.

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The days go by.
The dullness of routine leaves me plenty of time to spend in company of stinging memories and erratic elucubrations.
I think about the first days of our friendship, when we were students at Portora.
I think about how we met for the first time, and how hard it was to slide underneath his armour. I am still convinced that what kept me pestering, teasing, begging for every smallest concession, was the awareness –-so strong to be almost subliminal-– that despite his feigned exasperation, his sullen retorts, his resentful demeanour, he wanted my company; he did not know how to ask, that was all. I knew it, from the few shared smiles, from the silences that stretched comfortably between us when we were tired, from the glances full of candid curiosity he couldn’t help sneaking in my direction when he thought I was not paying attention.
He was so used to be ignored as an individual, to be considered a living legacy without ambitions or desires of his own, that when he found himself to be the centre of someone else’s attention, he had no idea of which rules to follow.
In this regard, I fear he will always be an outcast, like me. But while I, since I was a little child, had to face strangers and learn how to manipulate the inner contradictions of this society, he simply never knew how to live in the outside world.
The epiphany almost makes me drop the match I’m using to lighten a much-needed cigar.
May the Devil crush my soul under his claws. Why did it take me so long to see it?
There are some things that never change.
He still does not know.
He will never come back to me.
So, I have no other choice. It is up to me to go and find him.

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The housemaid was not easy to corrupt (in all these months, she must have got at least a glimpse of what it means to disregard Patrick’s direct orders) but after an inordinate amount of compliments to her family brooch and a couple of sovereigns, I finally know where we will play our final battle against denial and refusal.
“The Diogenes Club, my man,” I shout to the coachman, as I jump inside the cab, skipping the iron step.
February has just begun; the brisk evening air tickles my senses and my mind.
Please, wait for me. Just a little longer.

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Reunion:
Tearing down the barrier,
one layer at a time