It was about 8 pm when I got back home after my shift at the antique shop was over. Chadwick had insisted that we should eat something for dinner, but I wasn't hungry. So when Mr. Jordan told me I could leave, I did.

I was waiting for the bus at that moment, searching in vain for the image of the dark boy in the denim jacket on the streets, on crosswalks, and in any kind of mirror or glass that reflected my image. But I did not find it. Not even on my phone, not even in the bathroom where he'd shown up earlier.

The thing was, I really wanted to know who he was. I already knew that this connection wasn't trivial and that it had a meaning I didn't understand, much less seem to remember. I wandered through life, missing something like forgetting a favorite coat at a party and no longer remembering the address. I knew my coat existed, I just didn't know where exactly it was. And that ended me.

When I noticed the bus coming near the bus stop, it started to rain slowly. It was a light rain, the kind that wet your face with a gentle touch. I made my way into the bus, and when I went to swipe the card, that's when I saw it. My heart sank, and my eyes didn't seem to know how to look elsewhere. He was there, sitting on the penultimate seat of the bus, looking directly at me.

My body locked up, and I couldn't move. His honey eyes were the only thing I could see in the silver bus corridor. It was as if the tunnel was naturally calling me to go to it, blinding everything around it, carrying all the light in the room just for him. I walked slowly to where he was. In his presence, I didn't feel the rush of the clock running out of time. It was always as if time decided to stop and make room just for the two of us. As if every second went backward while we were together.

He smiled at me when I sat down next to him. He had a cigarette in his fingers and inhaled the smoke right in front of me as the bus started to move again.

“You smoke?” I asked, finding it weird that smoking was allowed on the bus.

He chuckled at me softly, sarcastically, as if it were obvious. He was there beside me, smoking in a forbidden place, and yet, I was the one who felt silly asking the question.

“You know, Noah. I'm more and more surprised by you.”

I squinted, confused. What was he talking about?

He took a white earphone out of his pocket and offered me the left side. I hesitated for a moment before accepting, because that situation was rather unusual. Part of me felt so comfortable doing this with him as we had already done this over and over and over again. I realized that maybe this was something we should do together, but for some reason, I didn't remember.

“Press play,” he said, glaring at me as he puffed on his cigarette smoke.

I hit play, and I wasn't surprised when "As Flowers Bloom and Fall" started playing. I stared at him, not understanding what that meant. He kept looking at me and smoking. That damn cigarette, which I didn't understand why irritated me so much.

“You're going to die, you know? If you keep smoking like that.”

He smiled wide, inhaling once more.

“Like what?” he said, before erasing the remaining on the metal edge of the seat in front of us.

I was bothered by that.

“What are we doing here?” I finally asked, trying to get him to talk.

It was important that he speaks because I knew that part of him knew a lot more than I did. And if so, it was now the time for him to start talking.

“We do not have much time,” he said, taking something out of his backpack.

Only later did I realize it was a pizza. No, that damn pizza. He was eating the pineapple pizza, the one from the restaurant I went to with Chadwick earlier. At that point, I just gave up on understanding. I just stared at his profile, chewing the pizza with all patience in the world as I watched the sunset over the horizon, through the bus window.

"Time for what?" I asked, not understanding.

He shrugged, not caring.

“You always hated my cigarettes, but you said this was also my charm.” He started to speak, and then looked at me "Maybe that's why we didn't work out. What do you think?”

“You don't make any sense.”

He smiled, shrugging.

“You also do not. Maybe that's where we complete each other.” The boy pointed out the window, and I could see that the trip was already somewhere far from the city “We're walking a bunch, huh?”

“But to where…? I was supposed to be going home now!” I protested.

The boy smiled and bit into his pizza again. He didn't care about my issues. It seemed like he really just wanted to talk about things I didn't understand. I even wondered if there was anything real.

“Is this moment… real?”

“Yes, of course, it's real!” He looked at me "But only in your head."

I shut down, trying to understand what that meant. If it was real in my head, it meant it was a dream. Or maybe… something like that. Would I be dreaming while he invaded my head? If so, then why?

“Why are you here?”

“You're the one who should know, not me.” He shrugged, biting into the last bite of his pineapple pizza. “Maybe I'm here because you don't want me to go away. Not really.”

“I do not understand.”

“It doesn't surprise me. Your mind was always a little complicated”, he wiped his hands with a cloth he took from the pockets of his jean jacket. He undressed it too, leaving only the brown and white plaid shirt he was wearing underneath. “You'll have to decide, Noah. You can't keep a bond with me if you're trying to tear me away from you.”

Those words shocked me. He was talking, for the first time, about something. The music, I ended up realizing, was on repeat on the headphones. It felt like a combo of memories was struggling to stay inside me at that moment. Memories about moments like that on the bus, about the smell of the cigarettes he smoked, and the way he ate his pizza by licking his exact right thumb. All those details were not strange to me, but they were not common to me either. It was a gray memory. I didn't know if I had made it up, or if I was there, experiencing those moments in that very moment.

“I feel like my head is going to explode,” I confessed.                

He stared at me, saying nothing. The music played in the background like a distant but constant melody. The bus moved farther and farther away from the city, and the view from the window was changing to a somewhat rural area. I felt a feeling of calm hovering in my heart as if someone were holding it with their bare hands.

The boy looked at me again with his deep eyes. He smirked, shaking it with a disbelieving nod. He pointed to the window, biting his upper lip before speaking:

"I didn't expect you to take us here."

I was confused by his words because I didn't know what that place was. Looking out the window, I could see it looked like something seaside. Which didn't make much sense, since the beach was closed that season. So I didn't even know how the bus was allowed to go around there.

“Why are we here?” I asked, trying to understand.

The boy shrugged as if he didn't know either.

“I honestly thought you'd already erased that part too.”

“What?”

He pointed to the window in the direction of a yellow house, somewhat hidden by the trees. The bus stopped right in front as if that was the very last stop — but I knew it wasn't. We were both still sitting as if no one wanted to finish that moment. He wasn't looking at me at that moment, and even I couldn't face anything that wasn't that yellow house with its orange windows and full of trees in the backyard. It was like looking at a painting of what you always dreamed of seeing in the gallery, but that suddenly didn't look anything like you imagined in real life.

If that was even real.

"That was one of the best times in my life," he said, whispering without looking at me.

I didn't say anything, because the words would be trite at that point. The feeling was unique, and perhaps it had to do with parting. At the same time as I seemed to be revisiting lost parts of myself, I also felt myself holding onto all of them. Like a paradox, from all that was left of me. And part of that paradox had to do with him.

“What happened here?” I asked, feeling a strange nostalgia wash over me as I looked at the house.

The music was still playing on the headphones we shared, but it was getting farther and farther from being heard. When the boy finally looked at me, with the red eyes of someone holding his heart in his chest, he looked like he was about to burst into tears. He was so sad that I myself could feel sad just by looking at him like that.

Maybe we were both going to explode at any moment. Maybe that's why he took me there, so we could somehow meet again. Maybe he wanted to make sure I didn't linger on that endless search for something I didn't know.

“N-noah…” He let a few tears fall. They had the weight of a thousand broken loves, I could feel them.

"What happened to us?" I questioned him, already imagining what this was about.

He nodded, refusing to say.

“I don-... I need to ask you something.”

I waited, even though I felt sad about it. In reality, sadness wasn't even close to what I was feeling. I believed that this was bigger, bigger than all the weird things that were happening. Because it was about us. I knew now that somehow this was all about us.

"You can ask me anything you want," I assured him.

He hesitated. He twisted his fingers in his lap, nervousness corrupting his own senses. I could see how the situation affected him. But I couldn't reach him. I couldn't comfort him, or tell him that everything would be okay. Because the truth was, I had no idea how this was all going to end. I could no longer hear anything other than the sound of his deep whispered voice when he said:

"What part of me did you keep in there?"

The look in his eyes told me that question was important. More important than anything he'd ever told me, since I first saw him, standing at the crosswalk. But unfortunately, I already knew what my answer was.

"None," I replied truthfully. "I don't remember you."

He just stared at me, letting the tears fall. I looked at him, feeling part of my hand tingle. I was finding the feeling weird, but when I looked down, I noticed the red thread there again. It was different from the last time. The cord appeared to be a little more faded and glowing like a television hologram. I was confused, with a sinking heart. I didn't want this to happen, but there was nothing I could do.

“You…” I said, shifting my gaze to him. “What's your name?

He locked his honey eyes with mine and moved his hand up to my heart. He laid it on top of my work uniform, and drew the letters with his fingertips. I felt A being drawn slowly, while my heart also beat faster. Then his fingers made the sign of L, E, and lastly, X.

A-L-E-X. Alex. That was his name. It was what I had been looking for all this time, what was missing inside me, and what was also fragmenting as the clock ticked. Looking at me again, he took my hands. His hand, cold against the warmth of mine, couldn't seem to hold me back. The touch wasn't real. I was scared when I realized this. Very scared. Was he there or not? Where was he from?

“Please,” he begged desperately. “Please, please don't forget about me. Don't forget me, Noah."

“I do not want. Remind me, Alex. Remind me of you.”

He denied it with a nod.

“We made a bad decision, Noah. I regret. I regret it so much that…” he cried, taking his own pains in loneliness I couldn't reach. “Forgive me. Forgive me for doing this to us. I-I… I swear I didn't mean it. I'm really sorry."

“Alex…”

“You won't remember me when you wake up,” he said, looking at me as if he'd lost a war. “You won't remember me even if I try to leave my fragments in you."

“Why?”

“Because that's how we asked.” he sighed, still holding his hand in mine “I don't know how many of 'us' you still have to erase, but I will try to be in all of them. I will fight for us, Noah. Somehow, if I find a loophole, I'll remind of us when we wake up.

"What if it doesn't work out?"

He shook his head as if he didn't even want to think about that possibility. I, on the other hand, no longer felt it would be that easy. My mind struggled with the idea of losing his fragments, even though, apparently, I was the one who had chosen it that way. I just didn't know why.

“If you still want to give me a chance, Noah. If you still think you can forgive me... then we can still meet.”

“Where?”

“Let the thread guide you, and I promise you will find me.”

I looked at the thread again, already losing the vividness of the red color. I knew the legend was that no force in the universe could break it. Be it the weather, the conditions, the distance, or the bitterness; nothing could make the cold break when two souls were intertwined. So, maybe, that would work for us too. But when my gaze returned to Alex again, he was gone. He left behind only the earphone, which still played the same song he'd shared with me all the way through this place. If that had any meaning, I didn't remember. And not remembering, made everything more painful.

I decided to move and walked through the bus door, which opened immediately. I took a deep breath before walking down the metal stairs and touching the concrete floor with my shoes. The weather had instantly changed to summer, with hot sun and a breeze that felt warm on the skin. That made me smile because I felt the familiarity of the place. The problem was, I didn't really remember what that had to do with Alex. I didn't even remember his name, or when he'd met us, or if he was someone more important. All I had from Alex were fragmented memories, mixed feelings, and a summer house. And that should be enough to make me find him again.

I took a step toward the house, determined to get on with this story. Once again, I felt a tingle in my pinky, and I didn't need to check to see if the wire was there; for when I raised my arm I could see the red thread passing through the wooden door of the house. Then I remembered what Alex had told me about following the red thread.

And that was exactly what I did.