“See you later,” Erik calls out and closes the store door behind him. The sun beams down on him, hits his forehead and tickles his skin. His hair - more of a tangled bird's nest than a hairstyle in recent months - now falls neatly and shorter across his forehead and the sides are well shaved. In a spontaneous move, he had cut his own hair that morning - a rather uneven Mohawk, but at least the bangs were no longer as badly tousled as before.
He blinks in the bright sunlight and then looks at his dog. “Sasha, come,” he mutters in an uneasy tone. He turns on his heel to the side and starts walking. Despite the warm sun, despite the cheerful birdsong that announces spring, the world is nothing but gray fog for Erik.
The period from Christmas and New Year to spring is always particularly difficult for him. Memories of his old life torment him, they come up suddenly, without warning, and cloud his already shaky mood. He had hardly slept in recent nights.

He knows that this is a problem.
Especially for Gustave. He finds it difficult to adapt to Erik's constant mood swings - sometimes the young man is full of energy, as if he could conquer the world, and then he collapses at the slightest mistake and sinks into himself.
He remembers how he once forgot to lock the store. For Erik, it was like the biggest mistake of his life, the final proof that he couldn't do anything right. Even though nothing bad had happened, because Gustave had noticed in time, for Erik a world collapsed. In the days that followed, he kept checking that the door was locked properly, as if he was obsessed. As if it was the only way to undo the mistake.
But nothing was enough.
Not enough to banish the feeling of emptiness that always accompanied him. And it is precisely this dogged perfectionism that Gustave cannot cope with. He can't understand why Erik kept disappearing into himself, why he was so hard to reach. Nothing he tried could break the silence that enveloped Erik once and for all. It wasn't Erik's intention, not any kind of anger or rejection.

It was just... Silence.
The state in which Erik so often lost himself. And the more he tried to get out of this silence, the more he collapsed.
It wasn't as if he had chosen this. He had never talked much, and no one had noticed when he withdrew on the street. But now, now it felt different. Now that he was part of something - a home? - it felt constricting. It meant being in communication, even if sometimes just breathing made him feel overwhelmed.
Gustave frequently asked him for answers, trying to reassure him that he wouldn't be angry. But it was as if there was an invisible, huge obstacle between them. Whenever it came to his own shortcomings - be it a mistake or a noncompliance - Erik fell silent. Because it had all been talked about far too often. Too many times.

He knew what he had to do. He knew he had to try harder, adapt more, work harder.

Do more.
Give more.
Be more.
More.

So much more to finally earn the love he was never allowed to experience.
I have to give everything. Even if I have nothing more to give, he often thought. But in reality, it was never enough. And the emptiness gradually consumed him.
As he strolls through the streets, he passes the familiar, almost endless wall. The gate he passes through is ornately decorated, the angel figures reminiscent of a bygone era. The graveyard is old and venerable, and somehow he feels less crushed by the world here. Nature is reclaiming its place. The animals have found their refuge. Here and there is a bird, a little way off in the bushes, small hares. The cemetery is a place of silence, of solitude - a place that is familiar to Erik. He has returned here many times when he was feeling particularly bad. Once he had come in the middle of the night, climbed over the wall and simply lost himself in the shade of the trees.

Maybe, if I were dead, I would at least be free, he thought at the time. Maybe then all the voices and all the accusations circling in his head would finally be quiet.
But today he had not come to escape. Today he had come to speak.
“Hey, Mom,” he murmurs as he sits down in front of the small grave. He pulls Sasha closer to him. “Sit,” he whispers to the dog, and then slowly removes the surgical mask.
“I know what you're about to say. Put the mask back on, no one wants to see your face,” he says, his voice rough from all the suppressed emotions. His hand automatically runs over his jawline. “But to be honest, I don't care anymore. I only wear them out of habit, I think,” he continues, a triumphant smile creeping onto his crooked lips. The mask was never just a protection. It was a constraint, a shell that allowed him to survive in a world full of stares and judgments. It was a prison. One of many.

“Yeah yeah... now I'm the little stubborn devil again, I know. Ah...” he reaches into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulls out a small grave candle, ”It's big enough, don't complain. Yes, it was expensive, believe me.” He lights it and places it on the small gravestone. Then he simply stares at the cold, pale stone. Not many people around him can understand what it's like to lose a parent at such an incredibly young age as Erik. He is glad that at least Christine had exchanged a few words with him. Even if he is still ashamed of his emotional silence in retrospect.

He still looks at the cold gravestone. “I... miss you all the time...” His voice softens, and a painful lump forms in his throat. “I'm sorry I wasn't there... at Christmas and New Year's Eve. I know you're used to it... I am too... somehow...” His voice breaks and he has to swallow before he continues. “I should have come so you wouldn't be so lonely... lonely... you always have been, actually... I... wasn't good company either, was I?”

Tears well up in his eyes and words are difficult to say. How much he had wished that his mother had been different, that she had shown him what it felt like to be loved. But she never did. It was always indifference, always rejection.
“But... Mom... I... I think I've finally found a home. I just don't know.... how to handle it...” his voice shakes, ”You never showed me what it meant to be part of a family. I was always just your... Evil... I'm... I'm sorry.” He angrily runs his hand through his thick shaggy hair and a small tear rolls down his disfigured cheek. “Shit. Why am I apologizing? Did you know that people eat together at the table? Or if I break something, you don't have to hit me... or do something wrong? ... I've never been hit once so far... and no matter how many times I mess up, these two are... so... so terribly nice to me.” he reaches out to pluck some grass next to the gravestone ”They're so good to me that sometimes I can't stand it. Sometimes I want to puke, it makes me so sick when...” He hastily draws in his breath and almost chokes on his spit.

“Gustave says I have talent. I'm reliable. A great help. Mom. I am a help. You never... you never said that. You never told me I was good enough. All you ever did was put me down. You said I was a freak. Ugly, stupid... a problem...”
His right hand strokes his cheek, which is marked with scars. A faint spark of anger flares up inside him, but the feeling of abandonment weighs him down. “I'm sorry it all didn't work out between us, Mom. But... I think I could get used to being alive. Maybe... With the right family.” A desperate tremor in his voice. “But... I don't know how to do that.”
His heart almost breaks. What did he know about family, about love? All his mother's bad words are echoing in him, an echo from the past. And the wounds she had inflicted on him physically and mentally were deep.

The silence inside him was once her silence.

He stands up, mask in hand, and looks once more at the gravestone. “And still I miss you, mom. I really miss you... you and the wish of a mother as she could have been...” Trembling, he unfolds the surgical mask and pulls it over his face. His left hand grips Sasha's leash tighter.
“Oh, and Mom?” His voice is almost a whisper.

“I think... I'm in love.”