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Malek’s voice was soft on the breeze, a falsetto light and airy as he serenaded Dallas from afar. He sounded so close, but Dallas knew better; it was an illusion, just like everything else had been. Malek had disappeared, and he had taken with him every thread of sanity Dallas had had left. He never loved him - how could he have been so foolish as to think that? Malek was leaving after graduation. He had already abandoned him. He was gone.
He had fallen asleep to this voice countless times before, on a handful of different beds, on the beach, once on the floor of the gazebo in the park. He’d held those hands until he knew every line and what each one meant. Malek’s heart line said he was a selfish lover. His head line said he was creative and adventurous, and that he had a momentous decision to make. Dallas had always wondered if he was a factor in whatever that decision was… Now he guessed he would never know. The lifeline said he was easily manipulated - a fact Blake had drawn upon more than once - and the break right in the middle of it said he would at some point face a sudden change in his lifestyle. His fate line attested to this by being broken and disjointed; he was prone to experience multiple abrupt changes.
Dallas hoped Malek liked college as much as Dallas liked him.
Feeling the soft grass beneath his palms made Dallas think of the beach. He could remember holding the sand, how the grains crumbled and fell like an hourglass he didn’t know was counting down to their inevitable downfall. Malek had smiled at him, backlit from the bonfire a handful of yards away, and Dallas had just barely been able to keep himself from disintegrating like the rocks that slid from his palm back to the earth. The cherry of his cigarette bobbed, tiny orange-red orbs mirrored in his eyes just like the tiki torches that distantly surrounded them. They’d just won championships and were celebrating as a team. Everyone was a varying state of drunk and/or high, and Malek and Dallas had ended up sharing a tent. Malek was a terrible cuddler, which Dallas already knew thanks to Poppy’s having wrecked his loft at camp, but the prior knowledge hadn’t done anything to sooth his nerves. While his best friend had snored so gently in his ear, Dallas remained awake, shivering from anxiety and wondering if any of this was even real.
The breeze was warm against his skin now, pulling Dallas back to the present. He was laid out on his back in the forest - the circular clearing Poppy used to pick wildflowers - and was looking up at a starry, moonless night. It was mid-August now and Malek had been missing since April. Four months of silent desperation. Four months of searching - screaming and crying and cursing the black night. Four months of a fake body rotting in the ground. Dallas vaguely remembered July fourth as the last day he’d eaten a real meal.
Poppy had watched him as he withered, turquoise hair dulling to sad fern, to pale sage, to the sickly blond that hid beneath the once vibrant color. Dallas was a plant and Malek had been his sun. She had taken it upon herself to maintain at least the undercut, but there was no response from Dallas any time she’d asked if he wanted her to recolor it. That had been their thing, and she understood why her best friend wouldn’t have wanted the tradition to change. It had been intimate for them, standing that close with the acrid stench of box-bleach burning their nostrils, Malek’s fingers buried in Dallas’ hair as he massaged his scalp to help with the slight chemical burn that came along with the impromptu salon session. Their gazes always seemed to linger a fraction of a second too long. Those weren’t the only times they had been that close face to face, but they had definitely been the most positive. The others were tainted by antiseptic and band aids - concealer two shades too light.
Dallas opened his eyes to the end of summer stars and breathed shakily, half expecting to smell chemicals he had been so deep in their past. He could still hear Malek’s dulcet voice, slow and warm like a first kiss. He wondered if Mal’s had been as awkward as his own. They’d shared so many kisses… none of which fulfilled Dallas’ ache. They were always forehead, fingertips, places easily waved off as friendly. Never lips, no matter how many times they’d asked. ”Kiss me. It won’t mean anything… It doesn’t have to be anything…” His heart ached dully in his chest as it yearned for what he knew he could never have. Dallas had loved Malek with a force that had made him stagger more than once, and somewhere deep down he had known Malek loved him back. But it had never been the right time to say it - confessions weren’t so easily slipped off the tongue as lyrics.
They’d come close the night Malek had disappeared. Dallas wondered what they could have possibly been had he not pushed Mal away.
The quiet hum of cicadas acted as Malek’s harmony, and Dallas remembered his childhood - back when his dad was alive. They’d been visiting his grandparents here in Blue Crests during the offseason.
“When I was little I really loved cicadas for some reason.”
He could feel the forest listening. The noises were still there, Malek’s voice low and lulling, never ceasing, but he talked to the air over the song. He knew he was out there somewhere, absorbed in the story before it even began. Malek had had this uncanny ability to give everyone he looked at his undivided attention, no matter what was going on around them.
“I remember one night… I was staying with my grandparents. We still lived in San Francisco, but it was off season and dad had some time off. He and mom had gone on a cruise or something.”
The wind turned cold for a moment, and he could suddenly see the hundreds of pairs of eyes that watched him. They were everywhere, surrounding him and creating a quaking void of cawing crows and hooting owls. They almost drowned out Malek’s lovely voice, but he sang louder, just as gentle but with more persistence. Dallas was thankful; this would be a terrifying experience otherwise. The night sky was dark, illuminated only by the holes of light punched through the velvet fabric, but even they were beginning to flicker out one by one.
“I was staying in mom’s old room. My room now.” His smile widened. “I climbed down the trellis like you always used to, but I fell about halfway down.” He could still remember the pain that had exploded in his back. It had frozen him to the lawn, not that he’d really intended to go anywhere anyway. “The cicadas were so loud. They sounded… so different from the ones in Cali.”
Dallas felt something warm curl into his side. Turning his face, he saw the stag curled up beside his ribcage. How had he missed its arrival? It was hard to miss, all flickering white lines and warmth. Very carefully it set it’s head on his chest and stared past his eyes into his soul. Somehow Dallas knew it was asking why he was doing this. Why was he giving up? Why was he refusing the sustenance that would keep him alive to continue his search?
He didn’t bother saying anything; he simply moved his hand to settle it on soft fur between the creatures regal antlers. He knew it was all fake - that the animal had never existed in the first place - but that didn’t make it feel any less real. “I must have laid there for hours, just listening and wondering how they did it.”
The eyes began to blink out pair by pair, as though their owners were no longer interested in the story he told. Still, the stag remained with him, a silent but attentive companion. “I’d never heard a sound like that… They were so chaotic, but so… beautiful. It was wondrous.” The memory made him think of the baseball team. They, too, had been extraordinary. Boisterous and passionate just like the insects in what must have been his earliest memory of Blue Crests, Oregon.
He could hear the sounds of those cicadas again as clearly as he could hear Malek lilting to him - baby, take me with you please. I don’t know what I’d do if you leave.
He wanted to call out to his lost friend; he yearned to ask where he was hiding and why he refused to show his face. Just one more time, he wanted to see Malek so badly. Dallas didn’t get the chance to realize he was crying until the stag flickered once more and faded from sight. Everything was blurry, hazy, and he laughed to himself as he asked the spirit he could feel but couldn’t see “it’s a little dark, isn’t it?”
When Dallas’ limp hand fell back to the grass, it pointed due north. He had been too weak to notice, but if he had just looked to his right he would have seen the pile of bones that had served as his audience. From the skull the flowers grew, yarrow and alstroemeria tumbling from between its teeth like hushed whispers for a lover - everlasting love and devotion. Malek had been with Dallas the entire time; he wouldn’t abandon him now.