I rolled over as the light began to peek in through the gap in the curtains. Blindly, I felt around in the cold side of the bed. Breathing a sigh I cracked my eyes open, once again, to the bitter reality of life after losing Cameron. It had been almost a year since I had lost Cameron but every morning, when I woke up, it felt as fresh as it had the day that we made the decision to turn off the life support machine.

We had been inseparable, as much best friends as lovers. From the day that we were paired up in our senior year science lab we grew to love each other. And love each other we did, I loved everything about him. The way his cheeks had dimples when he smiled, the pitch of his voice, the thousands of colours in his eyes. The day he left the world everything became frivolous. Nothing seemed worth it any more, I couldn't imagine doing anything without him. It felt like I was re-learning how to be without him around me.

Rubbing my eyes, I swung myself to the side of the bed and pushed my feet into my slippers. The digital clock on the bedside cabinet flashed 6:04am. I was running kind of late, but I didn't care, I planned on calling into work sick again, anyway. I heaved myself off my bed and headed for the phone in the living room, picking my diary out of my satchel as I passed.

I punched the number for Personnel into the phone without looking at what I was doing, I'd called them so often recently that I didn't need to look anymore. I pushed the phone into my ear and flicked through the pages of my diary.

"Good Morning, Blaine." Mary chimed on the end of the line.

"How did you know it was going to be me?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"Blaine, don't mock my intelligence. You've called in every morning for the last week." She was, of course, right. It was coming up for Cameron's birthday - the first without him - and I'd not really felt like being around anyone but myself.

"Well then, you'll know what I am going to say to you, too." I breathed, fast losing the little patience I had at 6am.

"Yes. But I think that you need to be careful, honey. Mr Dexter isn't very happy that you've called in sick for most of this week."

"I don't imagine he is very happy, Mary, but I don't plan on coming in today."

"You might get a call from him, sweetie."

"Tell him that he is happy to call me. Tell him that I will be in bed, crying myself sick because tomorrow is the first time I am going to have to suffer through my dead boyfriends birthday. The first time that I am not going to wake up to him propping himself up on his chin and blowing on the tip of my nose until I wake to sing him happy birthday." I'd already said too much to a woman that I only spoke to over the phone, but I was furious at no one in particular and I needed to scream at someone. "The first goddamned time that he is not going to be around to wish a Happy fucking Birthday to."

"Oh." I clicked the phone off and threw it across the room before I could listen to her empty apologies. I was so tired. Tried of listening to people I barely knew tell me they were sorry, tired of being the subject of pity, tired of not being able to do a damned thing about any of it.

I caught my breath and managed, almost unsuccessfully, to stop myself crying after a few minutes. Remembering where I was, I looked down into my lap at my diary.

Thursday 30th September
1 Year Decision

I felt sick looking at the words. To anyone else it meant nothing, but to me it held the future. September 30th last year, three months after Cameron's death, I decided that I was going to give myself one year. One year to see if I could make my life work without my soul mate. One year before I would kill myself.

On Friday I woke early, as usual. I had put the phone by the bed the previous night and reached over to grab it from the bedside cabinet. I dialled the number for Personel without opening my eyes and put the receiver to my ear.

"Morning, Blaine." Mary said. Her voice wasn't as chipper as it had been yesterday. Maybe she remembered what I had said to her or maybe the monotony of answering phones at 6am everyday was catching up with her.

"I won't be coming in today, Mary." I responded.

"I didn't think so, sweetie. I spoke to Mr Dexter personally yesterday."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I told him about your situation. He said that he remembered last year when it happened and he was okay with allowing you some time out to arrange your thoughts." I sighed audibly into the phone. Honestly, I wasn't sure what I felt about that.

"Thanks, Mary." I put the phone down and rolled into my pillow. I wasn't thankful, I didn't want special treatment. That felt like I was trivialising Cameron - using him to my advantage. I just wanted to be a normal guy calling in sick everyday for a week. If that meant getting disciplined then so be it.

I tried my best to forget the conversation with Mary as I got up and made myself be normal. I managed to get to the bathroom before I broke down. Cameron and I had this stupid tradition of writing a birthday message to each other on the bathroom mirror in toothpaste. It was ridiculous, it made a mess and wasted toothpaste but it made us smile on the morning of our birthday. Staring at the mirror from the doorway I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. The kind of tightness that always prefaced a vicious onslaught of tears. I braced myself against the door frame but slipped down to the ground anyway. My heart pounded, my breathing was short and shallow and tears were streaming over my cheeks uncontrollably. I pulled my knees to my chin and leaned my back against the smooth door frame to ride the wave.

"I miss you." I whispered to the empty room. Just as a second wave threatened to hit the phone started ringing. I tried to pull myself together as I headed back to the phone, glancing at the clock as I did so - 6:45am. A phone call at this time was either bad news or...

"Hello?" I answered.

"Morning, Blaine. I hope I didn't wake you." Cameron's mother knew better than to worry that she had woken me.

"Don't be silly, Lillian. You know that I'm up at this time." I let out a breathy laugh.

"I just wanted to speak to someone who knew how I was feeling. Derek is away on business so I'm alone." How Cameron's Dad could leave Lillian alone on today, of all days, I didn't know. Lillian and I had always been close, our personalities were pretty similar so we were naturally drawn together when we lost Cameron. We had promised each other that we would call each other, no matter the time, when we felt our lowest.

"I'm glad you did call, Lillian." My voice cracked. "I was hoping you would."

"It's stupid, especially because he hadn't lived at home for seven years, but I went to his room this morning when I woke up." I could hear the sadness coming from her heart. "We used to wake him up by singing Happy Birthday. I did...I sang it this morning." After this we both just sat on the phone crying. It was hard to know what to say because who was I to try to inspire hope when I barely knew how to go on myself?

"Lillian?" I coughed when it seemed like neither of us would even speak again.

"Yes?" She whispered.

"Can I confess something to you?"

"Of course you can, honey." I had no idea what I was doing, what had made me decide that this was the right time to confess something that had been my best kept secret for almost seven months. All I knew is that the words were tumbling out of my mouth before I could even consider them.

"Last September, three months after we let him go, I decided something." I stopped for a moment, almost managing to reconsider. "I decided that I was going to give myself a year to figure out a life without Cameron. A year to fix myself before I..."

"Blaine," her sentence was lost in a blur of muffled, pained sobs. How could I have just said that to a woman who had, not a year ago, lost her son? My finger was on the button to hang up the call just as Lillian spoke again. "Blaine. Please, please get some help, baby."

Authors Notes: This is my first serious fic so I hope this goes over well. I'm super self concious/ self critical so I was so cautious of putting it up. I'd love honest reviews so don't hold back!