The End.

Sounds kinda ominous, don’t it? I suppose it’s meant to. The end of a story, the end of a song, the end of a life. Never good things. It’s such a small word, end. So abrupt. Maybe that’s why it’s used the way it is.

Although, it’s a bit misleading. Stories don’t end, because there’s always a new one somewhere. Songs don’t end, because there’s always the next track on the album. Life doesn’t end because you continue.

Oh yeah, you don’t die. Well, I suppose technically you do. But you don’t just stop. You open your eyes, and find yourself in a bed, in a room that seems strangely familiar. It’s your bedroom, the one you left behind. You’re in your house, all the your clothes and belongings are there.

And so are you. That’s right - you can feel and see and taste and touch, you’re a walking, talking, breathing, kissing, eating person. But one thing will be different - you won’t be in the same body.

Sure, it’ll be you. Just, teenage you. Mostly. Some people wake up exactly the way they were. I didn’t - I woke up as the milky skinned, auburn haired, brown eyed teenage boy I had once been. You wake up and continue living in the form in which you were happiest during your life, and for most people it was their teenage years.

Yup, you don’t go to Heaven or Hell, nor are you reincarnated. You live in this place, this whole other world called The Plains (which make it sound like some Native American territory, where nothing could be further from the truth). There are houses, nameless cities that you seem to know. The only difference between the Plains and the world you leave behind is that there’s no negativity, no money, racism, hate.

It’s really quite nice, if you have friends there, or family. When I arrived at the Plains via a lethal dose of heroin (that stuff really does kill ya) I had no-one. My only real friend in the world had clawed his way back from addiction. My, and I hate to say it, soul mate, was still alive and moping.

But I survived (haha). For about fifteen years, I sat and I watched the world I had left, keeping an eye on those I’d loved and lost. I couldn’t interfere (you don’t see ghosts, sorry. Well, if you see ghosts, I suggest you start seeing something else - it’s called a shrink) in the strictest sense, but I hoped that they knew, you know? That I’d never really left them.

Aaron didn’t. Aaron thought he’d never see me again. I don’t want to start talking about him, if I do, I’ll never stop. Anyway. Aaron, well. Have you ever been so in love with someone that everything else seems to be irrelevant? Words, music, all that seems to fade to black. It doesn’t matter, does it? Not if he’s there.

I was blessed with Aaron for eight years. He loved me. I loved him. We were happy. But then I had to go and ruin it by taking the name he gave me (Deo) and running off to Seattle where I fell into the trap of heroin addiction for the second time in my short, and some would say tragic, life.

I died before I got to see Aaron again. He didn’t stop believing that one day I’d come back to him until the day he got that call saying I would never come back. Because I was dead.

Or so he thought.

I wasn’t dead of course. You know that, and I know that but the people who loved me, Matt Harris (yes, that gorgeous emo boy I know you all touch yourself over - I can see everything dears) and Aaron, Angel and Lilly, they didn’t.

Then, yesterday (yes, we do have days here), everything changed. I opened the door to my quaint little house and there teenage Aaron was, with his spun gold hair and eyes like a summer sky, smiling at me as if we hadn’t been separated for all those years.

Then he kissed me, and those years melted away. He buried his hands in my auburn curls, just like he used to. Suddenly, I was in Heaven. Those years of miserable detachment meant nothing. The fact that I’d abandoned Aaron for a life of addiction and depression disappeared.

Nothing matters when we’re together. I defined my (after) life using the pain of our separation. That pain vanished the second I looked at him. My vocabulary skills are so severely limited that I could never adequately explain it to you. Hell, even if I had the widest vocab known to modern man, I wouldn’t be able to describe my feelings at that moment to you.

Needless to say, we went upstairs and had us some sex. Sorry for being so crude, but I have this whole thing where I always tell the truth, even if it’s not pleasant, even if it makes me look like no more than a worthless, ungrateful junkie (well, if the needle fits…). If you happened to be incredibly bored one night, you may have read my earlier, pointless ramblings on my life and death. If you haven’t (you lucky devil) then you’ll just have to scrape by with the basic details because there’s no way I’m going through all that again.

So, Luke “Deo” Anderson, this is your life.

I was born to a junkie prostitute mother and her limo driving client sometime back in the eighties. My mother went to jail and my father put up with me, never really loving me but never mistreating me either. Until his psycho girlfriend came along. She thought it was fun to hit me. I personally didn’t see the thrill in it. I ended up being adopted by the wonderful (and thankfully emotionally stable) Andersons. They raised me and loved me like a son. However, when I was 15 I started dabbling in heroin thanks to the influence of the wonderfully slutty Jenny. She ended up pregnant by my best friend, and she gave him HIV (isn’t this a wonderful story?). After he killed himself, my parents decided I needed a change of scene and we moved to Glasgow, Scotland.

There, I met and fell ass over elbow in love with the gorgeous and aforementioned Aaron Coletti. We were happy together for a very long time, until my mother got out of jail and decided she wanted to see the son she gave up. I decided to at least meet her, but when I returned to Seattle I ended up falling into Jenny’s, and heroin’s, arms again. I thought I couldn’t go back to Aaron so I stayed in Seattle, living alone and working in the Pennyroyal Studios.

Enter the black haired, pale skinned and jade eyed Matt Harris, pre-fame, pre-heroin and pre-baby. He was like a light in my life, he made me happy. We were never in love, but that didn’t matter. He needed me the way Aaron had, and I needed him. I ended up dragging him into the darkness of drug addiction with me.

But Matt, being the strong person that he is, crawled out of that pit and offered to take me with him. I was going to, honest. I wanted one last hit of heroin before going into rehab and what d’ya know? That one stupid shot killed me.

And that’s pretty much it.

I moped around The Plains for a good 15 years, waiting. Just waiting, and occasionally whining. Until Aaron showed up.

I lay in his arms after all the sex (that’s one area I will not share the details of - if you’re looking for some hot boy on boy, I suggest the Lord of The Rings section of ) wondering why I had been so lucky. Then I decided to stop all the questions - they weren’t important. There’s no point questioning life (or in my case, death) because you’re never going to get any answers. It’s better just to get on, or get over it.

Aaron fell asleep, and I just sat watching him like the loved up boy does in all the best rom-coms. The moonlight made his hair look more like silver than gold, it dappled across his skin, making it bone white. For a moment, he looked cold. He looked truly dead.

I actually shivered, so I closed my eyes and snuggled up closer to him. I was asleep within minutes (he really does wear me out - and everyone thinks I’m the kinky one).

I don’t usually dream. I mean, at The Plains, you can dream. I don’t know if they’re similar to human dreams though, because I didn’t dream much when I was alive and I didn’t when I was dead. I had a dream that night though. Maybe you’d call it a nightmare, but let’s not get hung up on the technicalities.

I was alive again, in the dream. I don’t know how I knew I was, but I was. I was sitting in the room I’d shared with Aaron before I left him to become a heroin junkie. It was neat and tidy, everything was organised. Aaron had even made the bed.

He’d left a note on the pillow of the right side of the bed - the side I used to sleep on before I left. It was addressed to Lilly. Curiosity got the better of me (I’m a bad person) and I opened the pale envelope, unfolded the letter and started to read it with my tongue protruding slightly between my lips.

Dear Lilly

Don’t try to open the bathroom door. Once you’ve read this letter, go downstairs and call an ambulance. When the paramedics arrive, I want you to stay downstairs. Don’t follow them up here. I don’t want you to remember me as a body, although that’s all I’ve been these past fifteen years.

Do you remember Deo? I don’t know how you could forget. I can’t. We were a family, we were happy. He’s gone now. I don’t know where he is. I don’t believe he’s watching over me. I felt it when he died Lil. I can’t explain how, but I just knew. He’s never coming back.

And neither am I. I will offer no explanation or apology, because I do not have the words. Do not mourn for me Lil, this is what I wanted.

With all my love

Aaron

Panic rose in my throat, and I threw the note back to the bed. Aaron and I had our own bathroom just off our bedroom. I ran to it, and tried desperately to open it. I had to get inside. Aaron was in there, he was hurt. He was dead.

I threw all my weight at the door, and felt it splintering. The hinges snapped like the bones of clumsy skaters, and I found myself standing in the glistening bathroom. It looked too clean, too perfect.

Aaron was lying in the bath-tub, his beautiful blue eyes closed to the world. He had slit his wrists, and bled to death. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop myself being sick.

I was disgusted by the sight of him, the Aaron I had known and loved would never have taken his own life. He’d have known how much it would hurt Lilly, he wouldn’t be that selfish. It wasn’t my Aaron in that tub.

It was the Aaron I had watched since I died, the bitter cynical Aaron. He’d started out hopeful, just after my death. He had believed we’d be reunited. But as the years passed, his hope faded. The spark in his eyes died. His will to live vanished as if it had never been there at all.

He had been a living corpse, a robot. Doing what was expected, but never expecting to be happy or to ever live again. Aaron had grown cold. He died when I did.

The dream ended as quickly as it began. I was lying in the bed again, and Aaron was beside me. Something was wrong though. We were lying in pools of scarlet blood - Aaron’s blood.

I screamed out loud, and flung my eyes open. It had all been a dream, all of it. There was no blood on the bed, just Aaron shaking me gently with concern in his eyes.

“Hey, Deo, wake up. It’s just a dream,” His voice was the slightly rough voice of his teenage years, before it had become the monotonous tones that came from his mouth after my death.

I couldn’t look at him, this boy who had committed suicide, who’d been that weak. I didn’t know him, couldn’t let him near me until I had an explanation.

“You killed yourself, didn’t you?” I demanded.

“Deo…” He began, his tone patient.

“No! Tell me. Tell me how you died.”