Noah and his friends had come together for shopping but he had followed an apparition to the basement parking. The apparition was calling out for Alex and then turned around and looked at Noah, beckoning him to follow.
Rene had told Alex that he can find them in the local mall and gave him Rob's number, as he wasn't sure if he should share Kay's or Noah's Number with Alex, given the circumstances. Alex had met a panicked Kay and Rob at the mall lobby when everyone was asked to take shelter from the cyclone. After almost half an hour of being lost, Alex had come looking for Noah in the basement parking of the mall but couldn't locate him in the dark and dingy place, as the cyclone raged through.
Noah's phone started ringing and he pressed the middle button and took it, the sound of static assaulting his ears, from within the noise came a male voice with a heavy accent, "Please help me talk to Alex... Tell him, I called him... Marito!"
Alex called Noah's phone and it started ringing somewhere close. Alex perked his ears and realised the phone was ringing nearby and called out to Noah. As he concentrated on the ringing phone, he could hear Noah call out his name.
"Alex! ALEX!" Noah started crying loudly. Alex responded and started running towards Noah's sound. He found Noah hiding behind the pillar, crying and hysterical.
"Noah! Noah! You okay? Did anyone hurt you? Are you hurt?" Alex touched Noah all over, looking for injuries.
"Who is Marito?" Noah asked between sobs, still looking at the apparition.
Alex let go of Noah's face as if he was electrocuted by him and stumbled and sat back, "What?" His heart started beating loudly and he felt a sudden chill.
"Marito! He is saying that you were his Marito!" Noah covered his face with his hands, he couldn't see his hands but the person was standing behind Alex and visible to a blind Noah.
"What?" Alex looked at Noah, shocked and scared, "Who?" He dragged himself a couple of feet away from Noah, terrified of him and the things he was saying.
"Him!" Noah pointed a few feet above the spot on the floor where Alex was seated. Alex looked behind to his left, where a blind Noah was pointing and again felt the wave of ice cold draft, in a windowless corner of the basement parking lot.
"What?" Alex whispered, wanting desperately to get out of there, his fight and flight response screaming, RUN.
"If you have his number, please call him!" Noah was still sobbing, his tiny body heaving and he begged with folded hands.
The man was still clearly visible, floating next to Alex, his feet a few inches above ground, his neck tilted, looking sideways at Alex with sad eyes.
Alex picked his phone from the floor where he had dropped it when he saw Noah sitting behind the pillar. With shaking hands and tearful eyes he dialled Enzo's number and put the phone on speaker.
"We're sorry! You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service! Ci dispiace! Sei arrivato ad un numero che è stato disconnesso o non è più attivo!" Alex felt relief to hear the familiar message from Enzo's number he had heard a million times he had called him after their last video call.
Suddenly the message got scrambled with static, Noah whimpered and shrunk into a sitting foetal position.
"Marito!" A low voice crept out of the static. "I am sorry!" Alex dropped the phone and moved further away, his back touched another pillar and he stood up using the pillar for support, looking at the phone.
Noah saw Enzo move closer to Alex, who shivered and hugged himself, rubbing his arms with his palms.
"I was a coward to not fight for you!" Enzo's voice seeping with self-loathing. "I was not brave enough to live without you!" He confessed. Alex covered his face, not sure what was happening, but he was right! He should have protected Enzo and gone to him, saved him! He failed Enzo!
"No! Marito! You wouldn't have been able to save me." The garbled voice of Enzo responded.
"He says that after six months of trying to forget you, he ended his life. He couldn't live a closeted false life anymore and had no way to come to you. They had his passport and sent him for eight weeks of religious orientation conversion. Even after mentally, emotionally and physically tortured, he came back more in love with you than before." Noah narrated what Enzo wanted to explain to Alex for so long.
"And rather than taking strength from what we felt for us, you were weak." Alex shouted, "You believed it and chose to hate me and you. You should have called me just once but you chose to run away! It was on YOU Enzo!" The voice came in and out of the static as Alex just stood there sobbing, unable to talk anymore or move, this was beyond comprehension for him.
"We were not a fling! I loved you but I didn't fight for you! I waited all this time to let you know, what we had was real and I wasn't brave enough for us! I will go now! Ciao Marito!" Enzo's voice sounded brighter and clearer, "I love you, Alex! Thank you for loving me and making my life beautiful! I can go now!" His voice disappeared and was replaced by static and the phone beeped for some time and then everything went quiet.
