SquidgeWorld Archive

Holding you I held everything.
For a moment wasn't I a king?

I woke in the wee hours of the morning. Woke to find you gone. I was cold...groggy, my hand flopped out to verify what I already knew. You weren't next to me. That's when I sensed movement in the room. I could see, the light from the moon showed me enough. There you were in the middle of our bedroom. But you weren't just standing there.

You were dancing.

I was mesmerized. I watched you, unmoving. One hand was raised as though on someone's shoulder. The other hand was low in front of you as though on someone's waist. When your movements turned your face toward the bed, I saw your eyes were closed. You were dancing. Dancing in the dark with some invisible stranger.

It was slow. Sensuous. I sat up and watched for another thirty seconds before my feet touched the floor. Of its own volition my body moved to you. When you turned again I slipped beneath your hands. Now it was my shoulder you touched. Now it was my waist. Our faces mere inches apart. Your breath brushing my lips.

Your eyes opened and I half-expected you to back away, but you didn't. Instead your eyes crinkled at the corners, and I saw that drunken smile I live for. Your hands tightened in their positions and we moved together. I mirrored you in perfect time as you led me around the bedroom. Our eyes remained fixed together. I pulled you closer, our bodies touching chest to groin.

It sounds ridiculous even to me, but in those minutes as I breathed you, felt you, moved in what seemed to be the most graceful of all dances...I was reminded that it was what I'd always wanted. In spite of my actions to the contrary I have always been a desperately romantic soul, I suppose, and what could be more romantic than dancing in the dark with the man you love?

And when our feet slowed, as though somehow we could both hear the same silent music change...when they finally stopped and all that existed was our bodies swaying together, you laid your head on my chest. I couldn't believe it, but there you were. In my arms. No pretense. Vulnerable.

You were my world, Denny Crane. And for that moment, you were completely and totally mine.

If I'd only known how the king would fall.
Who's to say? You know I might have chanced it all.

You were already on the downslope then. I knew it. You knew it. Sometimes I wonder if that wasn't why you let me hold you. We stood there for so long. I don't know how long, exactly, I only know that by the time you fell asleep against me standing up, by the time I got you back into bed, nearly two hours had passed since I first woke to find you dancing alone.

You should have known you didn't have to dance alone. Maybe you didn't want to wake me, or maybe your damned pride and stubbornness wouldn't let you ask for that moment. But it didn't matter because I was there, and you let me have those two hours with you. I think I knew it meant something had changed, at least on some level.

But I didn't know it would happen so quickly. As I look back on it that night might have been the turning point. It might just have been you letting go. Making your peace. Giving me something you hadn't been able to give me before because maybe you knew it would be the last time you'd be able to.

I've thought about it over and over again. I've wondered...if I knew before what our friendship would cost...God, Denny. Having to take care of you really wasn't a big deal. It was having to watch you forget everything. Everything. Your legal knowledge...no big loss, really, I suppose. Your law firm. Again, no great loss.

But when you forgot your name...even now my heart feels like ripping in half. You forgot everything except me. It was only two weeks ago that you finally forgot me. Well, I guess you didn't forget me, really. You just forgot my name. But whenever you reached out, I was there and it comforted you. When I sat on the edge of this bed touching you, my hands working to soothe you, you looked at me with trust in your eyes even though you weren't sure who exactly I was.

In spite of the physical impediments you were suffering at that point...in spite of your inability to do even the simplest tasks, perform the simplest thought processes, I still loved you. Or maybe it was just my memories of Denny Crane I loved so much.

When I woke this morning, the last vestiges of my friend were gone.

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end. The way it all would go.

We spent most of our hours together over the years in laughter or quiet contemplation and conversation. I think I thought as you did - that somehow, in some way you'd beat this damned disease. I think I believed that right up until the dance. And I'm glad I believed it because I was able to treat you as the remarkable man you were instead of constantly being afraid of the future.

I don't know. Maybe I would have done more to help you if I had faced it instead of joining you in denial, but we both knew nothing could really be done. I'd been through it before. You were too goddamn proud to admit to anything but the idiocy of mad cow. And so we walked the road together side-by-side without knowing...or caring...where that road led.

Damn.

I lived life by the seat of my pants for so long. Shooting from the hip, I've heard it said. Everything was a crapshoot: taking the job with you, befriending you, falling in love with you, moving in with you. Everything was, but you know what? It was all worth it, Denny. It was worth every last precious minute because even as you woke for the last time, even as you lay there confused and lost, when your eyes met mine I knew you knew me. And I heard the silent question you asked. I put my hand on your cheek. I know I was crying, I remember the warmth of the tears on my face. I can still feel them now.

"It's okay, Denny. It's okay, you can go now. You can rest."

You smiled. You smiled and there was a flicker there, a nanosecond where I heard everything you'd never said to me. Volumes and volumes of what was inside you shot over to me just before you closed your eyes for the last time. The last breath. Your grip on my hand loosening and then gone.

And I sit here, alone now. Alone with the empty shell of a man that used to be my best friend. The man that used to be Denny Crane. All I can do is sink to the floor, my head on your chest, and remember that night a month ago. The night when I held you. When I loved you. When I knew for two tiny hours what it was to have it all.

Maybe Fate brought us together, Denny. Maybe it was just luck or coincidence. I don't know and I really don't care. I feel like crying, but I can't. I feel like yelling and throwing shit, but I can't. I feel like shaking my fist at the heavens and asking why whatever God is there had to do this to the most amazing man that ever walked the Earth. I swore I would never allow myself to feel this deeply again. Never allow myself to feel enough to get hurt like this again.

Our lives are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance.

If I hadn't, though, I never would have had those moments spent in the quiet joy of our friendship. Those moments with you in my arms. The man that I loved. The man I will always love. I close my eyes and feel you there again, your body pressed to mine, dancing silently in the dark. No, I wouldn't have had to feel this pain. But I also wouldn't have had you. I wouldn't have had...Denny Crane.

And that is worth it all.

Yes, my life is better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance.