Lucien - Stroke of Midnight

Lucien had gotten used to not having you around in the same way one would get used to missing a limb. You have no choice but to cope, yet the phantom pains linger.

His house was quieter, darker, he felt like he had to tiptoe around to not stir up his mother’s wrath. She was kinder when you were here; not because she changed who she was, no, but she softened her razor edges so you didn’t see. She has no reason to do that now.

He adapted, per usual. His mother was angry before you arrived, and she’ll keep being angry now that you’ve left.

Still, as a new year began to roll in, he missed your presence fiercely. You were the first person he’d ever celebrated with in truth; his mother used to force him to go to charity galas or holiday parties, and eventually had you do the same. New Year's Eve was simpler, though. It always was.

His mother, unwinding from the busy Christmas season of manufacturing the perfect family image, typically retired before midnight to her room with a bottle of wine. His father would make food for him, and you during your years here. Some simple junk food he’d never get to eat any other day of the year; pizza rolls, or taquitos, or something similar. 

Before you arrived, he used to watch the ball drop with his father in the living room. When you entered his life, however, the two of you would camp out on his balcony and watch the fireworks as the clock ticked down. When you inevitably gravitated toward each other as you grew older, eventually you shared a kiss at the stroke of midnight. It had been his very first, and now…

Now he was alone in his room. His television was turned off, a plate of cooling cheese sticks on his night stand. His father offered to watch the ball drop with him, just like they used to. Lucien just…didn’t want to. Couldn’t, perhaps. He just wanted to crawl under the blanket and sleep through the entire night, trying not to recall the soft press of your lips against his.

There was screaming downstairs. His parents were doing more of that since you left. It’s almost as if his father intentionally incenses his mother so she leaves Lucien alone. He appreciated it, but he wished it wasn’t necessary. He wished he had a different mother, any other mother, was born to any other family and lived in any other house.

He wasn’t, though. So here he would remain, missing you and what his life could’ve been. He’d dream about better times, about you, until he lost any sense he had left. That wasn’t much, after all, so it was a short ways to go.