nick reminded me of my brother audrius a little bit; in how he dressed and in the way he moved when he was walking down the street and the things he joked about. i could weave strands of memories of my brother into nick to make up for the parts of him that i hadn’t yet discovered, and it fit seamlessly. but i don’t think that’s the reason why being around nick felt like home to me.
‘nick?’
‘yeah?’
‘thanks.’
‘you’re welcome.’ he mumbled without looking up from the stove continuing to stir the weed dust and melted butter concoction. nick’s kitchen was tiny, just enough room for two people to orbit each other, and it was almost as messy as the rest of his apartment, but i thought that chaos was beautiful. sometimes places that are too neat make me feel, well, misplaced.
every time i was over at nick’s he would repeatedly apologise for the mess, but i really did love it. i think it looked exactly the way i feel most of the time, even after nick got a little black kitty named pluto and vowed to keep the place clean-ish. i think my favorite thing in there was a big framed picture of two lions that someone had sharpied moustaches and glasses onto.
‘wait, what for?’ nick shook off his absent-mindedness with one glance at me.
‘for listening to me the other day. and for taking me to that shooting range. you know, for being my friend, that sorta thing.’
‘oh. well, i take it back then, you’re not welcome…’ he scrunched up his face and giggled; he had this little giggly laughter – and i can’t really explain this coherently – but it could have been used as a barrier between the nick that says ‘aw’ a lot and makes fried eggs at one in the morning and talks about plants and herbs endlessly, and the nick that keeps a handgun loaded with 9 bullets, and gets out of the car to beat someone up, and says ‘damn hippies’ a lot. his laughter was like a barrier keeping the two sides from contaminating each other. ‘i mean… you don’t have to thank me, so i’m not gonna say you’re welcome. i want to be your friend.’ he explained a little awkwardly, caught off guard, and tossed me a beautiful smile. i always thought that his laugher didn’t quite sound the way his smile looked and vice versa.
i don’t remember the first time i saw nick, but i remember the first time i really looked at him. we were drinking beer in a balcony bar, leaning our backs against the edge of the bar counter, greedily gazing at the mountains in the distance, because as i later found out, both nick and i came from flatlands. i had my old broken green ukulele in my backpack and quinn was sitting on a stool to my right, talking to a guy that i’m pretty sure had a beard. later that night i found out that nick already had his will written and that it said he was to get a viking funeral when he dies. ‘you need to hike up the perins peak,’ nick said to me and pointed at a breaking wave of a mountain. ‘we’ll have to do that.’
i think i made a self deprecating joke about how i wouldn’t make it all the way up there and nick whipped out his phone to google some numerical proof that it wouldn’t be that challenging. i looked over at the little white device in his hands just when he was entering the password. four ones. i don’t know why it’s always the stupidest, smallest, most unimportant, ridiculous, nonsensical things that make me actively look at people with zealous interest, but it always happens.
‘nothing gets past you, miss whiskers,’ nick grinned at me after i made a sarcastic comment about his password. ‘you notice things, you really look at people,’ and that was the first time i really looked at nick.
we eventually did attempt to hike up the perins peak. we did get lost a couple of times, stopped three, and never reached the top, but it was nice nevertheless. at some point we got to talking about our families, and about how nick had a 19 year old brother and about how i had a 19 year old sister, and about how nick had spent the bigger part of the past few years living away from his brother and about how i had moved to a different country when my sister was 14, and about how much nick always missed his brother and about how much i always missed my sister. that wasn’t the first time that i talked to someone about my sister like that, but it was the first time when talking made me feel lighter, more transparent almost, more clear, like i didn’t have to try so hard to be understood, because nick surely felt every single word that i was saying. but i don’t think that was the reason why nick felt like home to me.
nick would always say he was only friends with me because i had an accent, and i would always respond with ‘and i’m only friends with you because of the free coffee.’ nick would call me little instigator and carry whiskey shooters and rocks in his pockets, and he gave me a stolen lighter with michal menert written on it. instead of ‘great minds think alike’ nick would always say ‘thinking genius’ and he would add a shitton of sugar to his black coffee. he always wore a beanie outside, even if outside was in his balcony, and he always had ice cold hands, and he listened to country songs about stoners in his jeep. nick was the most sarcastic person in town, i couldn’t be more sure of that; possibly in the whole state of colorado. and indiana. but nick’s also one of the most gentle people i’ve met in my life; regardless of whether he’d believe/agree/object to that.
he always acted as though he was completely sure we were bound to meet again after i left america. he’d always say it like it would and could never be planned, but that it’s sure to happen. we were standing outside quinn’s apartment door one night, smoking and talking about how strange it was that a single different choice in one of our pasts could have lead to a totally different present and how very fragile the future was by that same logic, or, you know, something along those lines, the usual young adult topics slightly tinted with pretence, and nick said, ‘but we will see each other again.’ just like that, with a calm, reassuring look painted all over his face, as if he was saying ‘people will celebrate christmas on december 25th this year.’
and i said, ‘i like how certain you sound.’
and he said, ‘because i know we will.’
‘i believe you,’ i said, and i did, and i do. it’s more of a feeling than knowing; it’s a trust thing. like anticipating a sunrise when the night hours are running out. but i don’t think that’s why nick felt like home to me either, i don’t think that’s the reason.
‘why do you have to leave, whiskers?’ he whined when we were driving in his car one night, and his voice sounded like it was crawling up to his lips from the very bottom of his heart. i remember what street we were on at that moment (college drive), but i don’t remember what i had just said. admittedly, it must have been something good. ‘you should stay.’
‘that’s illegal,’ i reminded him. foreigners aren’t exactly welcome in america.
‘if we elect donald trump, you can stay. he really hates mexicans, but he won’t care about you. he’ll probably give you a house and money, and let you stay.’
maybe i don’t need a reason. maybe there’s never a reason, not a real one anyway. maybe there’s no explanation for all the times we anticipated each other’s answers to questions that hadn’t necessarily been asked. maybe i already knew nick when i first saw him. maybe the rocks in his pockets were exactly what i was looking for to build a patio for my home. maybe his words were the cement to hold the bricks that other people had started piling up together.
i never told nick i love him, but i did tell him about how i was talking to my roommate at the time, or rather arguing, or discussing, whichever one of those, and exclaimed ‘i love nick! nick’s fucking precious!’ in the middle of that conversation. i sincerely hope that sufficed. i threw up in his car once (hello, internet!) and told him the next day that it was a friendship test, and he asked me if he passed, and i said, ‘well you’re sitting here with me right now, so it seems like you’re still my friend,’ and he said, ‘of course i am.’
i only ever find home in people. never in places.
long eyelashes and crooked teeth 