Shadows You Left

by Jude Sierra

  Ten weeks was all it took to understand that love would not wait. It unfurled inside him with every passing glance, during every bout of laughter and late-night conversation. Love hadn’t cared for Erik’s cycle. It’d made a fool out of his resistance.

  His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He crossed the room and picked it up. Beverly’s name lit the screen. He didn’t want to get trapped in a conversation, so he forwarded the call to voicemail, opting to send a text instead.

  Erik: whats up?

  Beverly: I leave for Canada in a week. We should get together before I go.

  Erik: Canada?

  Beverly: It’s my last stop. Then I drive back down the coast and start applying for jobs. So? Hangout? Yes or no.

  He chewed on his lip, considering.

  Erik: Can I get back to you?

  Beverly: *Will* you get back to me?

  Erik closed the text window, scrolled through Instagram, and then re-opened Beverly’s messages. His thumbs hit the screen quickly, typing a message before he thought better of it.

  Erik: Yeah, I will. I promise.

  Beverly: Holding you to it.

  He slid his phone into his pocket and inhaled, keeping the breath there until his chest ached. If he wanted change, there was no other way to get it than to make it happen for himself. The idea of it, of acceptance and grieving and loving, terrified him.

  River’s wide eyes and shaky hands returned to him. You’re fucking me up. Erik heard it once, twice. He tried to mute it, but the words kept arranging themselves again and again. They didn’t let him sleep. River’s angry, scathing voice sounded worse two days after their argument than it did the morning after Erik’s trip to urgent care.

  And Steve. First off, fuck that guy. Second, that guy was absolutely, positively right.

  Erik wasn’t good for River. But River was the best thing that had ever happened to Erik. Which left him at a crossroads: buy a bus ticket to Austin and keep running, or build something with River and stay.

  The choice was as easy as breathing.

  …

  “You’re still here,” Desiree said. Her voice was clipped and rough. She dried mason jars behind the bar at Gem. A long, gauze dress swayed around her ankles. “I’m surprised. I figured you’d be gone by now.”

  “What gave you that idea?” Erik slipped behind the bar. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, which was too small, one River had left at his apartment. Des cocked her head toward the ice wells, which had obviously not been cleaned out the night before. Erik started scooping old ice into a bucket. He stopped when his stitches pulled and shook his head. Des handed him her drying rag with a sigh.

  “That pretty little thing of yours has an edge, you know.” Desiree eyed Erik carefully. “He didn’t take any shit at the clinic.”

  “River?”

  “No, your other pretty little thing.” Desiree rolled her eyes. “Yes, River. Did you tell him you’re leaving?”

  “I’m not.”

  Desiree stopped scooping. Erik picked up a wet glass and wiped it down.

  “I’m staying here—in Seattle. Well, here, too. I understand if you want me to find another job, though.”

  “That doesn’t sound like ‘I’m sorry, Desiree. I am a complete asshole, and I should kiss the ground you walk on for putting up with me.’” Her lips pursed, pressed into a smug pout.

  Erik snorted. “I’m sorry, Desiree. I’m a complete asshole, and I should kiss the ground you walk on for putting up with me. Better?”

  “Almost.”

  Erik set the glass down and folded his arms across his chest. She lifted her gaze. Big, dark eyes stared at him, waiting. “You give really good advice,” he said. “And I’m… I’m trying to listen. I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

  She tilted her head and snorted.

  “Fine, I don’t want to fight as much anymore,” he said. “Maybe once a month or something.”

  Desiree nodded toward his abdomen. “How’re those stitches doing?”

  “Healing,” he said.

  “How about the rest of you?”

  His gaze fell to the floor. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Healing,” he repeated softly. “I hope.”

  A warm hand caressed his cheek. Desiree thumbed at the dark circle under his eye. “It only took getting stabbed to get here, huh?”

  “Yeah, usually broken bones do it, but I needed something a little extra,” he said, subdued but playful. “And I have a lot more to lose than myself now, I guess.”

  Desiree hummed. “Don’t let him carry your heart around, Erik. It can’t be about that.”

  “It’s not. It’s…”

  “You gotta be good for yourself, honey. You and you alone. He can’t fix that, can’t make it go away, can’t erase your past. But he can be your future if you want. The beginning of it, at least.”

  “I’ve known him for two and a half months, Des,” Erik whispered. He leaned against the counter and tilted his face against her hand. “This is new for me.”

  “You know,” she said, “I’m polyamorous, right? I know that. I feel it deep in my bones. But that doesn’t mean that if I met someone and wanted a monogamous marriage with them that my identity would suddenly, I don’t know. Poof, disappear. You’re demi, and you’re still demi. It just happened quicker with River. You got to know him better, faster. And that’s okay.” She gripped his cheek. “But don’t discredit this goodness you’ve got over something fluid that lives inside you, all right?”

  Erik chewed on his bottom lip. “What if I fucked it up too bad?” he asked, the confession a breath barely edged with sound. “He’s too… River’s way too good for me, and he’s…” Erik stopped to sigh. “What if he’s already gone?”

  “Then he’s missin’ out,” Desiree said. She thumbed the bridge of Erik’s nose, broken one too many times. “But you won’t know unless you go looking for him.”

  He gathered a breath and puffed it in Desiree’s face. “You’re my Yoda.”

  “Obi-Wan,” Desiree corrected. “You’re as whiny, if not whinier, than Anakin.”

  Erik palmed her face and pushed her gently. She swatted his hand, laughter loud and vibrant between them.

  There, he thought. One thing fixed.

  “Help me clean out this well. I’ll dump the ice,” Desiree said. She kicked the bucket of ice. Erik ran the sink and warmed hot water.

  Erik thought of River, of his gorgeous eyes and elegant hands, of his contagious laugh and quivering voice. He dried his hands.

  You don’t get to walk out now.

  Wolfbite013: Hi pretty boy

  A second went by. It turned into a minute, another, and another. No response.

  Erik put his phone away and dumped the water into the well, scrubbing, careful of his stitches but thorough, preempting a lecture. He and Desiree chatted about nothing and everything, about the weather and love, sacrifice and memories. Erik told her about Lee. He let it come, flashbacks from high school and middle school. A moment in the skate park when Lee broke his wrist. Erik’s first kiss. The time Beverly snuck them into her neighbor’s pool when they were sophomores.

  The more he talked, the less it hurt. But the less it hurt, the more he missed them.

  An hour went by before Erik’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

  Watermarked: Hi tough guy

  Erik’s breath caught. He sighed, relieved, surprised—thankful.

  Wolfbite013: Can I see you?

  Watermarked: Tomorrow?

  Wolfbite013: Tomorrow works

  “So?” Desiree said. She placed a bottle of tequila on the backlit shelving. “Is he still around?”

  One side of Erik’s mouth quirked. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess he is.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The real trouble started when River knocked over his tray for the second time in one session. “Sorry,” River excused at Cheyenne’s quick glare. “Extra clumsy today, I guess.”

  River
wasn’t clumsy, and they both knew it. Chalking it up as a fluke was easier than tracing it to his other poor choices. An extra cup of coffee from Erik’s favorite place. Getting out of bed after a sleepless night. Trying to sleep on a broken heart. And those, he knew, were the best of a shitty passel of options.

  Falling in love; that was the worst.

  Each breath was lined with shards of glass. His eyes were hot and dry, hands and heart a throbbing, shaking mess. But still, he didn’t regret that last one. Much.

  Cheyenne, on the other hand, probably regretted everything from the day she hired River to the day he decided to go into tattooing.

  “You, me, backroom. As soon as you’re done here.” Cheyenne smiled, thin lips and hot eyes, as she helped him pull his station together. River turned away with a nod.

  It wasn’t so bad after that. The dread of having to talk to Cheyenne, who was terrifyingly honest in all things, made him regret the simplicity of the tattoo he’d just been cursing for having to focus on at all.

  The backroom was at half-light, a habit of hers that aggravated River on the best of days but soothed today. River closed his eyes and stretched the kinks out of his right shoulder. His whole body was one exposed nerve, and the shop, people, breathing, were overstimulating.

  “What’s the problem?” Cheyenne nudged him away from the electric tea kettle he’d been standing by without actually using. In cherry-red sling-back heels, black cigarette pants, and a lace-trimmed peplum top, Cheyenne was taller, leaner, and infinitely more pulled together than him. Terrifyingly together.

  “You look wonderful today,” he said. The front panel of the top was dense lace as well; her skin glowed luminescent in contrast.

  “And you look terrible, but that’s not the point, is it?” she said, with considerably less bite than usual. River understood this sort of softness in her hands. It was an invitation.

  River shrugged. A heavy cinnamon scent curled from the tea tin when he retrieved a teabag. He tilted it toward her, and she shook her head. Out came her preferred chamomile. Truthfully, considering the wreckage his heart was tearing in his chest, chamomile would be the better option.

  “Hey.” Cheyenne took the tin out of his hand. “I promise, your future isn’t in this can. At least brew the leaves if you’re going to try to read into them.”

  “Shut up.” River laughed because she’d wanted him to, and blinked gritty, sleep-starved eyes.

  “Love problems, I assume?” Forced ease paved a path for him and normalized what might, in some hands, be turned into a debilitating injury.

  “I guess.”

  Maybe he didn’t want it easy, though. Maybe this really was debilitating.

  “I’m tired of coming second.” River blinked. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say. It wasn’t even the crux of the problem or any important part of it. “Never mind. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Wasn’t it now?” Cheyenne didn’t bother to hide the amused curl of her lips.

  There was no first or second place when someone was hurting, or hurting themselves. Erik was breaking himself to pieces, and it had nothing to do with River. At the same time, it had everything to do with River because River was breaking himself apart over it, too.

  “Cheyenne, don’t be condescending.” River put his mug down. Defensiveness was one of River’s common denominators in all relationships. It was an ugly truth he silenced as often as possible. “I’m so tired of people acting like I can’t handle—”

  “Look, I’m not saying you can or can’t. But this is getting messy, and you’re making a mess of yourself. In the shop, with your clients, with your friends and family.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like you thinking I can’t—”

  “River, I say this with love, but shut up and listen. You’re used to having to defend yourself to the people trying to defend you—it’s exhausting to even think about. You wanna fight that? Go for it. I obviously don’t know the sordid aspects of your story, and to be honest, family makes children of us all no matter how old we are. But you can’t possibly pretend you aren’t a mess right now.”

  His mug made a squeaking noise as he turned it on the table. His tea was cold, half empty. He could see the particles of the leaves lining the bottom. What would become of him—of them—when they allowed the dust to settle?

  “Cheyenne…” River tasted his words, weighing their worth and necessity. “When is it okay to ask someone to give something up?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “That’s… hmm. Maybe it’s not a question of when—depending on what it is, I mean—but why.”

  “Why?”

  “Yeah. Do you want him to prove something?”

  River shook his head. It was tempting to say yes. There might always be something, a secret self within River’s bones that wanted proof. That wanted his mother to show him she loved him by giving up drinking. This was a song and melody whose discordant mess River was familiar with—wishing for things that made no sense. Wanting things he really didn’t want. Aching for trust and chasing a love someone wasn’t capable of giving.

  River wanted Erik to love him. To choose him—them. But more than that, he didn’t want Erik to hurt. Himself, or River, he supposed. Asking him not to fight, even not to use, wasn’t the solution to that. Erik’s ferocity and willingness to hurt in that cage spoke to more than just a carelessness or recklessness with his body. It was more than someone used to hurting. It was someone finding an avenue—an outlet and a punishment and a channel for something larger and potentially more self-destructive.

  Considering that Erik had just gotten himself stabbed, that said a lot.

  “Look, River, I’m reasonably sure you know this, but I’m not sure you know how to apply it to yourself. So here: you can’t ask him to change or give something up for your sake.”

  “I know.”

  “Still talking,” Cheyenne said, and poked him with her fingernail. “Here’s the part you need to chew on: you can ask yourself to. In fact, you’re the only person you can ask for or expect change from in service to yourself.”

  River squinted at her. “Come again?”

  “You don’t set limits to try to contain something in someone else. Not even when you think it’s for their best. You need to set limits to try to contain or manage something in yourself. Your willingness to bleed. A tendency to love someone against an instinct for self-preservation, maybe.” She leveled a look at him over the rim of her mug, so pointed River had to close his eyes.

  “So…” He bit his lip as he puzzled her out. “I can’t ask someone to stop?”

  “Erik,” Cheyenne said. “This is way harder when we’re trying to be coy about the obvious. We both know you’re talking about Erik.”

  “Okay,” River said, playing along. “So I can’t ask—”

  “No, River.” Cheyenne took pity on him. “You ask yourself. Then maybe you’ll expect it of yourself and for yourself. And then, whatever it is, you take that to him as a limit and as a promise.”

  “I have to ask myself to stop doing what exactly?” He couldn’t tell if she was purposely fucking with him by talking in circles or just achieving a plane of wisdom he hadn’t leveled up to in life.

  “Truth time is over, kiddo. Can’t give you all the answers.” Her voice was cutting and affectionate, masked kindness and a whole lot of honesty. “Go home. Look in the mirror some. Ask yourself what you really want. For yourself, your life—any of it. Ask yourself what you’re willing to take and how far you’ll be willing to go. But know this—everyone in your life you’re fighting against? The people who have been asking you to take care of yourself? They feel about you how you do about him right now.”

  “In love and turned on at inopportune times?”

  “Oh God, even your jokes are getting worse.”

  River laughed when she kicked him. The tap ran cold, nipping at his fingertips. He washed the mugs and turned her words over. River wished he’d stopped Erik. Wished he’d kept his broken re
quest that Erik stay quiet. That he’d shouted it. That he’d never met Erik. That he’d never get to stop meeting Erik, uncovering who and what he was, every day.

  “You’re both messes.” Cheyenne ran pointed fingernails through his hair. “You can be messes together. But have some goddamn boundaries.”

  River swallowed and nodded and exhaled resentful thankfulness. It was nice, not to be told to walk away. Not to be treated like he couldn’t very well see the ruination he and Erik had created together. But in Cheyenne’s advice, River was not a child. He was more than dumb choices someone else needed to rescue him from. He was human, and in love, and fucked-up, and brimming with potential.

  …

  River opened the windows to a changeable and fickle spring. It wasn’t raining yet, but the smell of it soaked into every piece of clothing, the corners of the room, the dusk air breezing through the blinds in puffs. He watched the ceiling, stretched on the couch with his ankles crossed. A sweating bottle of beer left a condensation ring on his gray Henley.

  Wolfbite013: Hey pretty boy

  River’s phone cracked against the ground ominously when he tossed it, rolling his eyes and cursing. After everything, to be so flippant. His phone screen wasn’t broken, thankfully. It was still lit with the text, and behind it, a long string of older ones, teasing and sexy, sometimes sweet and utterly dangerous for his resolve.

  It was easier to stay put, to stay away, when they disregarded the gravity of where they found themselves now. If anything, the last two hours on this couch, watching the language of shadows stretch toward each other, whispering the sunset, had resolved him toward Erik.

  Not without a plan. Not without boundaries. Cheyenne was more than right. His whole life the only two people who had modeled boundaries for him were Val and his father, and he’d never wanted that. Val’s were a fuck you, boundaries set in rage. His father’s boundaries were empty threats and ultimatums. River didn’t have rage for their mother, and he’d experienced the uselessness of trying to hold himself hostage to earn her love. It had never worked, and the one walking away the most fucked-up had been him.