The therapists called my crazy after I lost Rude. I told them that sometimes, on nights like these, when the rain fell in sheets and pelted my bedroom window, I could still here Rude talking to me, the way he always used to.

He hardly ever talked, Rude. Only around me, and when he was around me, he had a lot to say. It was one of the hundreds of things that made me fall in love with him.

So that earned me the fish-eye from the therapist Rufus sent me to see. Rufus was getting fed up with me sulking all the time, so I just stopped going to work. Easy enough. The phone rang at least 20 times a day, and I knew that someone was calling me from work, but they didn't care. They didn't matter to me. The only person that mattered to me was gone, lost in the lifestream for eternity.

It's not like I never leave my apartment, because I do. I go to the bar almost every evening and get royally plastered, then spend another hour trying to find my way back to the apartment. I don't get hangovers, I never have, but when I get drunk, I get pissed drunk.

So now, here I am, sitting in front of the TV, in a t-shirt and pajama pants, wrapped in the ugliest goddamn blanket I ever had the displeasure of keeping in my house (it's the only one that keeps me warm), a bottle of fire whiskey in one hand and a remote in the other, flipping through the channels until I find something remotely interesting. I don't always just sit around and watch TV and drink myself comatose. Sometimes I'll pop in a movie and smoke the shit out of a few packs of cigarettes. Anything that'll distract me from the sad realization that the other man who used to live here with me, the man who slept with me in my bed and kept me warm, was gone.

I hated that. I would do something to avert my attention from the problem at hand, and then when I was done paying attention to that one thing (these days it was just the TV, or deciding if I was gonna get up of my lazy ass and get some food or do laundry or something) I'd come back to the realization I want to avoid, and it would make me cry. It would make me sick to my stomach, and it would make me cry.

Laugh all you want, yo. I don't find it funny one bit.

I came upon the eleven o'clock news, and by that time my thumb was sore from flipping the channels so much I decided to stick with it. Hell, what harm could knowing what's going on in the outside world do, huh?

I stopped, and took a swig from the bottle of fire whiskey. It burned my throat like hell. I caught sight of my home phone, which sat on the end table. That fucking red light had been blinking for 3 days, and it annoyed the piss out of me.

I had 13 messages. Thirteen! Hah! What luck. What fucking luck.

I'd listened to all the messages as they were being left. I hadn't left the apartment in three, no, four days? Maybe. I dunno. I don't give a damn. I stopped leaving the apartment after that appointment with Dr. What's-His-Face with the hair and the shirt and the glasses.

He wanted to send me to a home. He said I "wasn't mentally stable enough to continue working or mingle with society." He was a bastard. And so was Rufus for sending me to see him in the first place. Anyways, I had listened to all those messages because I'd been sitting here when the people who left them called, so I didn't need to play them back. Some part of me wanted to, though. My brother had left over half those messages, filling the tape with things like "Where are you, man? You still holed up in your apartment?" and "I'm worried about you, Reno. I stopped by today and pounded on your door for an entire fucking hour! You are still alive right?" and "Hey, just calling to make sure you're not wasting away in there" and "You need to come outside or something. Hey, you should stop by later and check out my new ride."

Then of course, there were all the messages from Tseng. Damn him, he was just as bad as Rufus. Hell, he might as well be his lap dog these days.

But that one message, that first message on the machine I never got around to deleting…that's the reason I can't check those messages. I don't know what I'd do if I had to hear that voice, his voice, again.

"Hey Reno, it's me. Listen, I know I promised we'd go out tonight, but I'm still tied up here at work. I'm…not gonna be back til later, most likely, but I'll make it up to you when I get home, I promise. I'll see you when I get home. Love you."

He never got home.

It was our one-year anniversary, and we were gonna go down to Seventh Heaven and celebrate. But no. Some fucking drunk slammed the side of Rude's car, tore it all to hell, and then took off. He lived. The motherfucker lived! While Rude's life is taken on his way home to see me, to come home to me, to tell me he's sorry for staying out late, to make love to me for hours, this motherfucker is running off down the road, completely unharmed!

And it kills me inside to think about it.

So hey, I figure if I get drunk enough, I won't see Rude, just like the drunk driver didn't see Rude.

Just as the news was ending and a late night talk show was coming on, I passed out on the couch.

And then I saw him. Just like I see him every night. Whether he's really there or not, I'll never know. I just know what's real to me, and what's real to me is the love he and I had together.

"Reno, are you drunk again?"

I sigh. "Sorry, yo, it's just…I c-can't…"

And then I cry. I drop the bottle on the floor, letting it's contents spill and soak into the carpet, I cry. And Rude holds me. And nothing, not even death can come between us.

"Don't cry, Reno. I love you."

"I love you too, Rude."