Evan looked up, his eyes wide open, words gone, but with a tangled web of emotions, both hopeful and uncertain, in his chest.
"I suppose you already know he's studying medicine. Besides, he knows the best doctors in the country. He could definitely help you. I assure you, he could do a much better job than the doctors at the hospital who treated you and only referred you to a psychologist for therapy without further testing. Even though he's still a student, he really is someone with a brilliant mind."
Maybe it was his best friend's confident smile, or maybe it was his desperation to find a cure for his problem, but the idea that Liam could give him back his memories and assure him that the rest of them wouldn't be lost filled him with faith. He wanted to hold on to it, no matter how naïve it was.
But... there was a problem.
"Don't you think it would be weird? I don't doubt Liam's abilities or the people he knows. But... don't you think it would be cruel to ask him to help someone who was once his partner and is now just someone who barely knows him?
He also wasn't unaware of the sadness that flashed through that boy's green eyes every time he saw him and pretended to be just acquaintances, nor of how painful it must be for him to be both close but avoid any kind of contact beyond what he would have with "his friend's friend."
"Well... I don't think Liam will be upset. Even if he doesn't seem like it and pretends to be cold, he cares a lot about others and always tries to help those in need."
He still felt in his heart that it would be taking advantage of the younger boy and playing with his feelings. Taking advantage of his kindness and love for his own benefit.
"Besides, they're not 'just someone I used to know.' From the way they were getting along yesterday, I'd say they're already friends."
.
.
.
He rang the doorbell next to apartment #1441, using the same sequence of knocks to play a short, four-note melody as he always did. Seconds passed, and he considered whether to knock again or wait a little longer. He decided to wait, and if the door didn't open in more than two minutes, he'd knock again. Time passed, and he was about to point his finger at the doorbell again, but he heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.
"How annoying! Who's coming at this hour?" Liam's voice sounded on the other side of the door.
Evan realized it was already 9 p.m., perhaps not the best time to arrive uninvited.
Never mind, I'm here now. Better sooner than later, right?
Liam opened the door and was paralyzed at the sight of the person standing there.
"Hey, Liam," Evan greeted with a smile, carrying a backpack on his shoulders and two bags in his left hand. "May I come in?" He tilted his head, and a beautiful sparkle crossed his blue eyes.
Liam couldn't believe it, couldn't believe that Evan was really there, in front of his apartment door, with that same smile and that same sweet voice.
"... What are you doing here?"
He raised his hand with the plastic bags.
"Do you want dinner? I brought Chinese food."
For a moment, a faint hope ran through Liam's chest that things were back to how they had been over a week ago, when Evan came to his apartment every day after work and they slept cuddled in his bed after the blond insisted that he needed to rest and not just study.
But... He knew it wouldn't be like that this time, and that he was now a mere stranger to the blue-eyed boy, keeping his distance and asking permission to enter the same apartment where he practically lived and had a spare key, as well as clothes and other belongings.
So why was he there?
He swallowed and let Evan in, having no possible answer to that mystery.
"Thanks, sorry for the intrusion." He handed Liam the bags containing two still-warm containers, a few cans of Coca-Cola, and bottled water. He walked in casually, heading for the dining room and leaving his backpack beside him. "Are you coming, Liam?"
"You still haven't told me what you're doing here."
"I told you, I came for dinner. Consider it a 'thank you' for the hangover electrolytes you made for Kyle and me."
He smiled confidently, knowing that those electrolytes had been mainly for him since he was the one who handled alcohol the worst between Kyle and him, and knowing that he was the one who drank the most because its sweet taste was too mawkish for his friend.
"Okay, thanks for the payment. Although I only mixed lemon with honey, salt, and baking soda with water, taking everything from Kyle's kitchen."
He went to get two bowls to serve the noodles and the chicken and vegetable stew, returned with the plates in hand, and they sat across from each other.
Evan happily already had the chopsticks that came in the bag in his hands. He separated them very carefully and smiled happily like a child when he managed to separate his chopsticks without breaking them. Liam, instead, grabbed a metal fork to start eating. Even though Evan sometimes dropped his noodles, it didn't discourage him from trying again. Because, according to him, if he was going to eat Asian food, he had to do it with chopsticks.
I'm sure he still has the same habit of insisting on eating with chopsticks when he's eating Chinese food, even though it's easier to use a fork.
"How did you know where I live?" Liam asked, unable to stop staring at him with a thousand questions in his head.
Evan, for his part, felt a strange comfort in that place. He felt safe, as if it were a familiar place where he could let down his defenses and walls.
"Our message chat still exists on my phone with a cracked screen," the blond replied, taking a big bite of noodles before they fell off his chopsticks.
The younger boy almost spit out his food, remembering the thousands of messages they'd sent each other. Since they were both usually very busy, they texted each other constantly so they could stay in touch even if they couldn't see each other. They practically told each other everything, and they also exchanged cheesy things and such, as well as taking slightly photos for when they missed each other. In short, it was the typical conversation between couples that you'd be embarrassed if someone else saw.
Just thinking about the possibility that Evan had seen all those messages made him nervous.
But Liam knew the blond boy wasn't going to see those messages if they were just two strangers, and that he was going to be uncomfortable. Because that's what they were now, just two more strangers, just two strangers with no related memories.
Besides, he doubted Evan would keep a phone with a cracked screen with all the money he had. It wasn't practical, and he had plenty of money. He could have easily replaced that phone with the cracked screen, just as he could easily replace him now that they were just two strangers.
"There's no way you could have looked up my location among the messages."
"Are you doubting me?"
"Yes, because, in the first place, I never sent you my location in text."
Evan cursed himself internally, while Liam remembered how the first time the blond went there was because Liam asked him to help him carry some things from his university lab that he'd borrowed, and he'd taken him as a ride when he found out the older boy had a car. He wasn't short of money, but as a student, he preferred to save as much as possible.
"Did you really check the messages?" At the blond's small, nervous grimace, Liam laughed, knowing what kind of messages he must have come across recently. "Yes, you've read them! And tell me, did you like the pics?"
"Shut up, I don't know what you're talking about," but the blush on his face gave him away, and the younger boy laughed even louder. "And you're right, I didn't get your location from there; I asked Kyle."
"And Kyle asked Ryan where I live, didn't he?"
"Yes."
Evan rushed through eating and began to doubt whether his plan had been a good idea.
After the talk with Kyle, he returned home and then went to therapy, where he again avoided fully opening up to the psychologist's questions, feeling vulnerable and wanting to focus that afternoon only on his amnesia and not on more personal details. In that office, despair consumed him, faced with the fear of thousands of invisible eyes knowing things about him that he couldn't remember.
The woman who was his therapist wasn't bad at her job, but she didn't inspire him with the confidence necessary to truly make the therapeutic process work. When the psychologist noticed that the boy was burdened with various traumas from his past, she tried to get to the root of those insecurities to help him with his growing anxiety and panic attacks, but that only opened a dark door that Evan preferred to burn: the story of his childhood and his past, which he wanted to forget.
In that tumult of despair, Kyle's words echoed louder in his head, and he thought again of that young college student who would become a great doctor in the future. He was desperate for help, for something to hold on to and connect his life with that missing piece of time, with the growing fear that little by little the rest of his memories would be lost, one by one, and eventually there would be nothing left to hold on to.
He left therapy, not wanting to go back, with his thoughts of asking that boy for help to grow stronger and stronger. Faced with the terror of not knowing the past that others remembered, the only thing the psychologist said that stuck in his mind was that he could gradually recover some of his memories by constantly exposing himself to places, people, and objects from that time. The one who knew him best at that time was the college student who managed to pull him out of his loneliness; he was sure of that from the thousands of loving photographs he saw of that boy with him. Liam was the one who had the answers to that past he lost, and the one who could best help him.
The problem was, he didn't know how to ask for help. It was true that, after spending the night with Liam, he no longer felt uncomfortable around him. He was a nice, honest guy. He was a good guy. But he'd also been his boyfriend, and now he couldn't put a name to their relationship.
In the end, he concluded that the best thing would be to go in person and talk to him face-to-face. Furthermore, the psychologist recommended that he be in environments where parts of the memories he wanted to recover were present, so that he could gradually feel familiar, mentioning that he might even recall certain memories by being constantly exposed. So he didn't think twice and packed a backpack with clothes for a few days with the intention of staying with Liam.
"There's a reason you wanted to see me besides having Chinese food with someone, right?" Liam asked after finishing his meal.
Evan took a sip from his can of Coke before answering.
"That's right." He turned the can over in his hands, organizing his next words. "I want to ask you to help me, Liam."