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  A Purple Winter

  By Mel Bossa

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2017 Mel Bossa

  ISBN 9781634865289

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  A Purple Winter

  By Mel Bossa

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Split by Mel Bossa

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Prologue

  The rain is turning to sleet and I’m driving too fast.

  Need to calm down. To slow down.

  But something warns me. Don’t reduce speed too fast. Don’t.

  When I hit the deep puddle of water I’m aware I’ve lost all traction. The tires have no grip. The moment for caution is behind me, I’m nothing but flesh and bones straddled over machinery, and my hands gripping the bike handles won’t stop the panicked steel stallion under me. I’m skidding at a speed that will only be controlled by a collision and now I know I was once an imaginative child with a stutter, that I grew hardened but never hopeless, that I read, watched, listened, learned, ingested, digested, drank, slept, worked, studied, ran, walked, jumped, ached, cried, laughed, observed, questioned, doubted, believed, fell, stood, lied, cheated, forgave, begged, pleaded, bargained, wrote, played, toyed, envied, made love, got drunk, high, down, and that I was, have been, and will be. But everything I thought was important is useless to me now, in this instant. All I have, as I hit the puddle of water, is myself. The mystery is revealed. The lucidity is like the sound of metal over pavement. Loud and unstoppable.

  I understand. I understand. I understand.

  The force of the hit knocks the air, thoughts, sanity out of me and I’m nothing but a piece of cloth in the hands of pain. The speed of this moment wrenches me off the wheel of time and I spin and tumble through the air, but when my body is propelled from the Ducati’s seat, my mind is still hitting that puddle of water—still waiting for impact.

  Then there is an earthquake and the walls of my cranium come crashing down into my brain, every window of my mind shattering all at once, as shards of glass and dark matter meet somewhere under my eyes in colors so brilliant they wipe out memories and feelings.

  All there is left is your name, my love.

  Like a chant. A pulse. An incantation. An omen.

  A promise.

  Nicolai…

  * * * *

  I’m dreaming?

  Lost in my own imagination?

  Or am I deep in the rooms of my subconscious mind?

  There’s a door ahead of me.

  Have to see what’s on the other side. Someone is waiting for me behind that door. I can feel it.

  Funny, the moment I thought of doing it, I was already at the door. It’s only in my mind. I have to remember that none of this is real. All a figment of my wild imagination. I was never any good with reality. Ironic how my name is O’Reilly.

  Oh, really?

  I wish Nick would elbow me or something. What if he hasn’t come to bed yet? What if he’s having one of his sleepless nights? My husband—Nicolai Lund, the incurable insomniac. If he doesn’t come to bed soon, I’m going to be trapped in this lucid dream for hours.

  Derek.

  Someone said my name.

  I had too many whiskey sours tonight with all that salty cheese. I’m probably lying in bed, on my back, mumbling.

  Derek. Come in. Come here.

  Where?

  Across that threshold you’re standing in.

  I glance down at my feet. I’m wearing white Italian leather shoes. They look expensive. They’re not mine.

  Baby, we don’t have all night. Get in here, will you?

  No, wait. I know that voice. I know that voice. Aunt Fran?

  Bingo. Get in here.

  This is going to be one of those dreams where I wake up crying in my pillow case. I haven’t heard my aunt’s voice in almost a decade. The last time I saw her alive, I was twenty-nine years old.

  The year I met Nick again. The year my whole life turned blue.

  Yes, my little enchanter. And I have an offer you can’t refuse.

  Suddenly, I’m sitting face to face with Aunt Fran.

  We’re seated on two white chairs I can’t quite make out against the white room surrounding us. She’s dressed in a long white tunic. Young again. I must be remembering her before the lung cancer took her life. She’s smoking a thin white cigarette. I’d forgotten how beautiful she really was. Those long red nails—I missed seeing them. Her green eyes are like to mossy stones catching a light I can’t trace. The light seems not to have an origin here. It just is.

  Her dark red hair is tucked into a chic white silk turban. There are tiny golden bells sewn into the turban, and when she moves, they jiggle. She’s always been an eccentric. God, how I missed her. Tears sting my eyes as I reach for her hands.

  No, don’t touch me, baby.

  But why?

  Because I’m not really here.

  I know…I’m dreaming.

  Derek. You’re not dreaming. Look, I don’t have much time. You know, you stood by that door for six hours.

  Six? I’m sorry. It’s almost morning then.

  Forget morning. Forget that for now. Listen to me. I don’t know how to break this to you, but you’re in a coma, baby. You’re lying in a hospital bed. You’re not breathing on your own yet. There’s some encouraging activity in your brain, but you’re not responding to light, touch or sound.

  Why do I always have these stupid bloody dreams? Why can’t I have a nice dream where we’re having a picnic or something?

  Der, you don’t believe me? Have I ever lied to you? You’re not dreaming, honey. Tonight, after a tense dinner, you and Nick argued again. About moving back to the city and opening a new restaurant. Selling the house in the burbs. You went for a ride to clear your mind. It was raining. Your motorcycle skidded off the road.

>   I wear a helmet.

  Yes, and it saved your life. You could fully recover from your brain injury. Now…listen.

  Wait, I feel something in this fog, nearby. Close. That energy. So strong and willful. I’d know it anywhere.

  That’s your Nicolai, honey. He’s been sitting by your bed for the last hours. Hasn’t moved. He sits there holding your hand, commanding you to live.

  The room feels different. Everything seems to be thin. Almost see-through.

  I hear your thoughts, Derek. The place we are, it isn’t a place. It’s only a temporary bridge between us. And it’s fading fast. It’s my love for you, my little Red, that holds this space together. It’s what brought me into your mind. We’ve always been connected, you and I, remember?

  Yes, I remember. Of course I remember. Aunt Fran, you were like a mother to me. My spiritual guru. You were there for me in my darkest hours.

  That’s why I’m here now, Derek.

  Because this is the darkest of them all and you’re going to need all the help you can get.

  * * * *

  Minutes have passed. Maybe hours. I’m sitting in my bedroom. The one in the Verdun apartment I grew up in. That lonely basement bedroom I always hated. It smells musty in here, almost real. I know this is only an illusion. I haven’t lived in that apartment since I was a child. All my books are still on their shelves. Animal Farm. And this one, Lord of The Flies.

  My G.I. Joes are lined up by the window sill. That window still looks like a ship porthole. I feel like I’m sitting in a submarine, leagues under the sea.

  What is going on up there, at the surface? Is it quiet? Or is there a hurricane blowing across the water?

  I’ve tried climbing the stairs to leave this suffocating room many times now, but always end up right back here, sitting on my narrow single bed with this tattered paperback in my hands.

  Aunt Fran says I’m in a coma. A coma. How do I get back to my life?

  You don’t. Not for now, at least. Will you listen to me?

  From the bed, I glance up to find Aunt Fran standing in the doorway. She’s dressed in that blue blouse that’s missing the top button. The one she had on the night Nick and I danced to Elvis songs in my living room that long-ago winter of 1987. That was the winter I fell in love with Nick, even though I was only a child of twelve. Oh, he was my whole world. I lived and breathed only for him. My Nordic prince with the icy blue stare.

  Aunt Fran’s eyes are fierce now. She means business, I can tell.

  I have to leave, Aunt Fran. I have to wake up and be with Nick.

  No, not right now. You’re still hooked up to a ventilator. Your brain is swollen but the oxygen levels are good. You could make a full recovery, Derek. You’re gonna need to want to come back.

  But I do.

  Honey…deep down inside, you’ve grown dissatisfied with your life. You need time to understand what you have. How blessed you are. There are things you must put at rest.

  Again, something is tugging at me, a forceful presence storming around the edge of my soul. Now I know it’s Nick, somewhere on the surface.

  If you want to get back to him, you’re going to have to fight.

  What? How?

  If you could return to any place in time, travel down the spine of your life, to a moment where your strength faltered, and change the story, where would you stop? Derek…without hesitation. Speak.

  1987. The year Nick left for Vancouver with David Pinet.

  Ah, that’s good, my little enchanter. That winter. Yes, that was the one.

  I’d never let him leave, Aunt Fran. I’d make him change his mind. We spent almost twenty years apart after he left that year. They were the longest and most miserable years of my life.

  Then go there. Go to that winter now and set your soul at ease.

  But I was twelve years old. A mere boy. Nick was seventeen. Wild. Angry. And he had a lover, David. They took off together. How can a twelve-year-old boy stop that kind of reckless passion?

  He can’t. He couldn’t.

  So what’s the point in going back to revisit one of the cruelest years of my life?

  Because you’re not going back as a child. You’re going back to that winter as a young man. Beautiful. Gay. And willing.

  Memories of that year, that winter of 1987, surge up like icebergs in a devastatingly cold sea. What lurks beneath? How tremendous are those memories? What power do they hold?

  The trick is, Derek, you won’t remember who you are now. Your future is the present and it goes on while you sleep in that hospital bed. And there are no guarantees on what your mind will conjure up. Some things will be the same. Others, won’t. You may have aged, while others have remained the same age as they were that year. Do you understand? It will be a parallel world in which you can’t allow yourself to linger too long and get lost.

  Get me out of this room. Get me back to Nick.

  That’s in your power.

  What am I supposed to do? How do I do this? What will happen? Aunt Fran?

  Chapter 1

  Tonight, as I crept out of my apartment, the front yard seemed bigger—the sky above dark and ominous.

  Hallow’s Eve. The night of ghosts and ghouls. Never cared much for Halloween, but determined to catch the action, I pulled my sweater sleeves over my hands and headed for Wellington Street.

  Earlier this evening, the guys had said that they were going to toilet-paper Sebastian’s house for getting Boone Lund in trouble at school this week. Problem was, Sebastian was David Pinet’s younger brother, and that made him almost untouchable because how close Nick Lund, the gang’s ring leader, was to David. But tonight, the guys had gotten the green light from Nick, and if he said jump, the other guys jumped, no questions asked.

  The gang wanted to teach Sebastian Pinet a lesson. Supposedly, the reason Boone had attacked Sebastian at school and consequently been suspended was because Sebastian had called Boone’s older brother Nick a retard.

  Big mistake. You didn’t call Nicolai Lund a retard and expect to live, no matter whose brother you were.

  It was midnight, past my curfew, and I wasn’t supposed to be out this late, but I wanted to see what they’d done to David and Sebastian’s house. And of course, catch a glimpse of Nick.

  These days, any excuse to be around my neighbor Nick was good enough for me.

  There was a thin coat of frost on the ground and I walked fast, with my head down. Most houses were fully decked out for Halloween and some of them gave me the creeps. I hadn’t brought my inhaler and I was beginning to feel short of breath, so I slowed down near Gordon Street, near David and Sebastian’s house.

  Then I heard voices.

  I stopped. Nick’s voice was the deepest of them all. I could single it out easily. “Your little cum stain of a brother had it coming,” I heard him say.

  “Boone hit my brother, Nick!” David yelled. “You can’t come over here with your posse and TP my damn tree!”

  I came up on them, walking with my hands in my pockets. As usual, none of the guys acknowledged me.

  David’s big maple tree looked like the dress little Lene Lund wore when she was a flower girl last year. I guess Nick had gotten toilet paper from everyone who would give it to him. Also, the guys had egged the front door really badly. It looked like an omelet.

  Then I saw Sebastian rolling on the ground with JF, the two of them punching each other’s shoulders and growling like mad dogs. They were tough as hell for little boys. I stayed clear of those two, whenever I could.

  A few feet away, Josh was trying to hold Nick back from hitting David. David kept yelling, “Come on, Lund! Come on, hit me! I know you want to. You’ve been wanting to hit me ever since I told you I was taking off for Vancouver!”

  David had been part of the gang, until his parents had transferred him to Loyola, an all-boy private school. Nick and David had abruptly stopped speaking last month. I never understood why. Their relationship fascinated me. They reminded me of that symbol
my Aunt Fran had shown me last year. It was called Yin-Yang.

  Nick backed away, an intense emotion heating up his arctic blue eyes. “You think you’re better than me, Davie,” he said, licking his lips and looking away at the street. “You were just gonna leave me behind, anyway.”

  “What?” David tipped his head, his face tightening with sorrow. “No…God, no. Nick, how can you believe that? I could never…” Then he stepped back suddenly, and of course, didn’t see me standing there by the curb. His shoulder came straight at my face, hitting my forehead. I tripped on the curb, falling back. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on the lawn. What had happened?

  I felt different. Bigger. Taller.

  Now…it starts, my little enchanter. You’re going to revisit your story, Derek. And come back to the present. That’s the deal. Don’t linger too long.

  Why was I thinking of my Aunt Fran now?

  Nick was pacing around me with a worried expression. “This is your fault, Davie, I swear to God. If he has a concussion or something, it’s gonna be on you.”

  “He’s fine, okay? Your little red-headed hottie is fine.”

  Had David really said that? Me, a hottie?

  I tried to sit up, but Terry, the smallest guy in the gang, held me back. “No, Derek, stay down. Sebastian’s getting some ice. You bumped your head.”

  Before I could speak again, I heard a woman’s voice in the background. It was Mrs. Pinet, Sebastian and David’s mom. “What in heaven’s name is going on here?”

  “Mom, it’s okay. We were just having a little fun and it got out of hand.” David wiped his lips and gave Nick a deep look. “We’re just fine, right, Lund?”

  “A little fun? David, look at my tree! And the door? What happened to my door?”

  Sebastian had managed to slither pass his mom in the doorway and was bringing me a pack of frozen peas.

  “Who’s that for? What happened to him?” Mrs. Pinet sounded like a baby bird. “Oh my, is that the O’Reilly boy? Derek, is that you?”

  I sat up and gazed at the front yawn. JF had bailed. Predictable. Sebastian sat on the curb with his head between his knees. Josh and Terry stood a safe measure away from Mrs. Pinet’s slimy front door.