by Damian Bloom
“Come on. This is love we’re talking about.” Peter shakes me by the shoulder. “Your true love. The guy you’re actually supposed to be with, not some immature clown.”
I roll my eyes. “He could show up riding the proverbial white horse, and I wouldn’t be impressed.”
My brother purses his lips. “This doesn’t sound like you at all, Luis. I’m worried.”
“You don’t have to be,” I say with a shrug. “I’m growing up. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
He frowns. “What does that even mean?”
“That it’s getting harder and harder to believe in fairy tales. I suppose it’s only natural.”
Life is so much simpler when you don’t believe in fairy tales. There’s really not much to daydream about, to hope for or sigh over. You don’t need your imagination much either, which is maybe a reason why I haven’t done a lick of writing in the past half month. Of course, the main reason remains my unwillingness to deal with all the memories that facing that manuscript would bombard me with. The laptop he bought me I’ve stowed away in a drawer and refuse to touch. Every time I remember it, I curse myself for not leaving it behind. In the whirlwind of that last day, I thought I’d still want my manuscript. I keep telling myself I’ll mail it to him, but I put it off because that would require me to think of him more than I can at the moment.
To keep myself busy, I considered starting a new book. But since all the serious writing I’ve ever done has been, if not under Adam’s guidance, then at least in his presence, I’d rather stay clear of writing altogether.
Yes, memories are definitely the hardest part. If I could wipe them all out, I would. But they’re insidious—they burrow into the smallest things, hide behind corners and in deep shadows, pouncing when I’m most unguarded.
Whenever it rains, I remember. I remember that day when we kissed for the first time. I remember him on top of, inside of, and all over me. He’s been so many of my firsts—I’ll never be able to forget this. But maybe in a few years, I’ll no longer want to.
I haven’t seen Grandma since her vision came true. Every week, I make up an excuse not to visit, putting on my best fake cheery voice, but she knows me too well to be fooled. I’m sure she knows something happened between Adam and me, but she’s taken mercy on me and hasn’t asked me about it yet.
Most of the time, my mind works against me, stoking the fire, finding new thoughts that hurt. What if I just wasn’t enough, I often ask myself. Maybe there is someone out there good enough to change Adam’s mind about love and relationships, but it’s just not me. It’s someone better, smarter, nicer, better-looking—on and on my mind goes. What if, years from now, I run into Adam on the street or in a store, and someone, a husband or a wife, is holding his hand? What if he has children? The thought stings like rubbing alcohol on an open wound.
The romance novels littering my floors and climbing my walls taunt me. I’ve got half a mind to pack them all up and dump them at Grandma’s. Let her go on gobbling up these lies and illusions.
Love isn’t butterflies and fireworks and fun and giggles. It’s not soft and sweet, like these papery devils would have me believe. I’ve now looked the beast in the eye and seen it for what it is.
Love is thorny and rough and treacherous. It lulls you into a false sense of safety and then snatches the ground from under your feet. It waits for you to look the other way and then bashes your head in.
Head spinning with such thoughts, soul overflowing with sadness, rage, or a mixture of the two, I raise out of bed late at night and dart for the second desk drawer. I pull the laptop out, turn it on, and rush to the project Adam and I have been working on for the past months. Hands shaking, I permanently delete the file. I loose a shaky breath of relief. Next, I rush to the cloud where I backed all of it up and delete it from there too.
I feel lighter when I slam the gadget shut. It remains to be seen whether the feeling will last.
But at least that’s over with. As promised, I gave this whole writing business a shot, but it wasn’t meant to be. All that’s left to do now is go on with my life.
No more writing; I’ve written my final word.
And no more Adam; I’ve loved him for the last time.
28
Adam
I snap awake before my head hits the desk. Coffee’s not doing the job anymore. The letters on the screen muddle together under my eyes, but I’m almost done.
After typing in the last word, I print it all out—page after page of sleepy, confused, but all too honest writing, and once I’ve got the sheaf of papers clutched in my hand, I charge out the front door.
I’m too exhausted to drive without endangering the entire city. So I run. I run awkwardly, tiredly, my legs barely responding to the commands of my brain. It’s cold as fuck outside and I’ve only got a T-shirt and jeans on, so the cold bites at my skin. But I savor the chilly air, because for the first time in a long while, I can truly breathe.
I stumble into a couple of people, shout my sorries in my wake, get honked at two or three times while crossing the street in places I shouldn’t.
Then, suddenly, I’m in front of Luis’s house. The knowledge that he’s between those walls, probably getting ready for work, lights my insides up with tingles and sparks. I’m buzzing like a neon sign.
With a jittery finger, I ring the doorbell several times. If anyone was still sleeping in the house, I’ve certainly put an end to their dreams.
Peter pulls the door open. He’s already wearing an aggressive scowl, but when his eyes fall on me, his jaw turns even squarer, like he’s grinding his teeth to the point of pain. “What the fuck are you doing here?” There’s so much unadulterated fury in his voice, and he tries to intimidate me by puffing his chest out threateningly, but I turn my focus to the hallway behind him, hoping to spot the one I’m here for.
“Are you deaf or something?” he barks, pushing against me. Forcing me to take a step back, he steps outside and slams the front door shut.
Despite my exhaustion, I don’t get angry. I can’t blame Peter for hating me. “I’m here to see Luis,” I explain, holding up the papers like they’re supposed to mean anything to him.
He doesn’t pry his eyes away from mine. No one’s ever looked at me with such distaste before. While faintly sorry this is what my friendly relationship with Peter has turned into, I’m happy Luis’s got the protection of such a caring brother. “You’re here to see my foot shoved up your ass,” he says. “Now beat it before I break my promise to Luis and put you in a hospital.”
“Look, I only need to talk to him, okay? I messed up, I know, but I’m here to make up for it.” I hold the papers up again. “It’s my big gesture.”
Peter frowns and stares me up and down, considering the possibility that I’ve lost my mind. Fuck it, I’m not wasting any more time.
Floating down the front steps, I walk around the house until I find what must be Luis’s window. “Luis!” I shout as loudly as my lungs allow. “Luis, I need to talk to you!”
Behind light-yellow curtains, the faint silhouette of one of his curious friends appears in the neighboring room.
“Luis, please, I’m here!”
Finally, Luis flings his flimsy curtains to the side. My breath hitches as I feast my eyes on his beauty. Man, my memory really doesn’t do Luis’s handsomeness justice. It’s humbling to know that, for all my creativity and overactive imagination, I could never make up something as gorgeous as this man.
Eyebrows deeply knitted, Luis steps out onto his balcony and leans over the rail. “Are you crazy? What are you doing here?”
I burst out laughing. Maybe I really have lost my mind, but man, does it feel good to see him again. It’s like, after ages of living in black and white, the world’s gained its color back. “Look, Luis, it’s my big gesture!” I shout, spreading my arms out.
“Your big gesture?” He squints down at me in confusion. “What?”
I flutter the papers over my hea
d. “You know, like you said…the moment I realize how stupid I am and come to show you what I really feel for you.”
His eyes sparkle, his full lips parting in surprise. I scan the wall to figure out if there’s any way I could climb it so I can kiss him sooner. “What you feel for me?” he repeats, incredulous.
“I was so stupid, Luis, to let you get away. So, so stupid. Too stupid to realize what was right under my nose.” Oh, man, I don’t even know if my rambling makes any sense, but it’s hard to contain it. Everything I never told Luis bursts out of me. “I’ve been so damn scared of getting hurt again that I’ve convinced myself love doesn’t exist. Even after I met you, even after I fell for you…I didn’t want to admit what was happening.”
Luis’s forehead creases with how much he’s struggling to follow my long-winded confession. I’m too excited and too tired, and I just can’t find the words I’m looking for. So I take a deep breath and try to organize my thoughts a little better. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I love you, Luis.” I’m yelling now, and from the corner of my eye, I spot a few neighbors stick their nosy heads out their windows. But I love Luis, and I don’t care who knows it. “I love you so much it makes me want to puke, man. And if you’ll still accept it, my heart’s all yours. It’s been yours before I even met you.” My lips spread into the largest smile my face has ever known. “And I’m not scared anymore. If you want to break it, break it, Luis. Step on it, cut it open, trample over it for all I care. It’s yours, anyway.”
For a moment, all I can hear is my heartbeat thumping in my ears as the whole world holds its breath. Luis’s eyes bore into my face, but his expression is unreadable, and he’s deadly quiet.
Then, in one swift motion, Luis returns to his room, shuts the door, and somehow, the world turns even quieter than before. Even my heartbeat seems to want to stop.
Is this his answer? Cold sweat drips down the back of my neck. It’s…it’s too late. So caught up making sense of my own feelings, I never considered Luis’s and how they might have changed since we said goodbye. How arrogant am I to believe he’d be waiting for me to change my mind, that he’d throw himself back into my arms when I tell him to?
A lot can change in two weeks. How stupid of me to think he wouldn’t move on. That he wouldn’t stop caring…
Heads bowed with sympathy, Luis’s neighbors step back from their windows. Before the quiet house, I glance at the pathetic papers I’m clutching. Our Story.
A lump lodges in my throat, blocking my breathing again. My eyes ache with sleeplessness. Even if nothing came of this, at least now he knows. Luis deserved to know that I love him. I hope he’ll remember that.
I take a hesitant step back. Okay, well, time to sleep.
And then, when I whirl on my heels and I make to leave, as beautiful as an angel, Luis appears from around the corner. “You coming in?” Shivering in a T-shirt, he wraps himself in his arms and flashes me an unsure smile. “My butt’s freezing off.”
29
Luis
“I love you, Luis.” The words still chime in my ears. Especially as Adam barrels toward me and scoops me up in his brawny arms. And maybe I’m imagining it, but when he squeezes me to him, I can swear I feel his chest burning.
Famished, desperate, Adam takes my face into his hands and presses his lips to mine. Just like that, the past two weeks are erased, scorched in a kiss.
Hand in hand, we slither through the hallway and up the stairs. Peter’s standing in the kitchen doorway, his eyes fiery with anger. “It’s okay,” I shout, bursting at the seams with happiness. Unsurprisingly, Peter’s gaze retains its skepticism. Whatever, I’ll just talk to him later and explain everything. But I do make a mental note of treating this as a priority—I can’t think of something more awful than my brother and my boyfriend hating each other. I hold my breath. My boyfriend.
Eric’s tousled black hair pokes over Peter’s shoulder. He peeks around my brother, his face a sweet mix of surprise and delight. He gives us a thumbs up and a cheeky wink.
The rest of the house is still in the process of waking up for what might seem like an ordinary morning. But I know there’s nothing ordinary about today.
Up in my bedroom, once the door is safely shut behind us, Adam and I sit down on the bed. Staring into my face, Adam reaches for my knee and gives it a squeeze. I can’t believe he’s here again—in the flesh, close enough to touch. He’s holding a wrinkled pile of printed papers, which, after trying to neaten with his palm, he reaches out to me. At the top of the first page, in bold capital letters, the title reads, OUR STORY.
I lift my eyes from the text to find his. “What is this?”
“A love story,” Adam says, caressing my thigh. I’m glad he doesn’t break the physical contact for a second. Otherwise, I might doubt he’s really here. “The most important one, to be exact. Ours.”
The moment I opened the door, his eyes, golden-brown and impossibly deep, incapacitated me. In the depths of my being, I knew right away I would never forget them. I race over the paragraphs. What I’m looking at is his recollection of the day we met. But beyond it, there are dozens and dozens of pages, chronicling everything we’ve lived together since that day—every meaningful gaze, every touch, every kiss, every late-night conversation. “You wrote this?” I’m stupefied. “You wrote romance?”
Adam flashes me a blindingly charming, boyish grin. “Hey, write about what you know, right?”
I lunge at him and hang from his neck, hopelessly smitten, as we kiss. Tasting his lips again, I feel like a prisoner finally seeing the light of day at the end of a century-long sentence. The house is restless beyond the walls of my room—I imagine there’s a council in session, discussing Adam’s presence in the Castle.
When he peels himself away from me, Adam rests his forehead against mine. Suddenly, he slumps. The sigh he heaves almost breaks my heart all over again. “I’m so sorry…”
“It’s okay now,” I say, shaking my head.
Almost violently, he grabs my hand and squeezes. He locks my eyes in a fiery stare and says: “I’m sorry it took losing you to realize how important you are to me. But I promise you I won’t let that happen again. I’ll never hurt you like that again.” His skin glows in the golden morning light—the kind of morning that spells magical new beginnings. “I’ll be everything you need me to be. I’ll ride a white horse, I’ll wear capes, anything.”
I laugh. Truly, fully, honestly laugh, and it feels almost foreign. “All I want you to be is yourself, Adam.” His beard pokes the heel of my palm as I cup his lovely face into my hand. “That’s who I fell in love with.”
Adam’s eyes light up like a child’s on Christmas morning. He traces a finger over the inside of my forearm, tickling the tender skin. Then, a rogue thought crosses his mind, leaving a worried pout in its wake.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, pressing a palm to the back of his head and pulling him closer so I can sprinkle a trail of kisses from his lips to his ear, over the abrasive hairy cheek I’ve missed so much.
“What about your Grandma’s vision?” He sounds dejected, like he’s preparing for a fight he’s already lost.
Both Grandma and her visions are currently so far away from my mind, they might as well belong to a different galaxy. “What about it?”
“Do you still think the odds are stacked against us? That someone else will come along and steal you from me?”
A tingle dances over my spine. He’s scared of losing me. I shake my head vehemently, rushing to put his worries at rest. “No one can steal me away from you. I don’t give a damn what fate holds,” I go on. “I’m ready to fight anyone for this. Including destiny.”
As air sizzles around us, charged with the heaviness of my promise, Adam’s gaze brushes over my face, studying my features; he’s gauging my conviction, measuring how much he can trust my words. And so I realize there’s still a part of him that struggles to trust, to believe in something pure and good and potentially stronger
than fate itself. But that part of him has already shrunk so much from when I first met him, and it continues to diminish. It might take some time, but I’m happy to teach him to open his heart again, fully.
He tips us over. With his arms coiled around me, everything’s well in the world again. Lining my fingers up to his, I bring his palm closer to my face, and I study it like I’m seeing it for the first time. Along the edge, the shy sunlight trickling in through the window paints his skin a glowing pink. “Should I gather from your question that you’re thinking of forever?” I ask, barely articulating the words through my enormous smile.
Adam snuggles up to me, nuzzling his nose into the side of my jaw. “I’m yours for as long as you want me.”
As my heart starts to beat like a drum, breathing gets more difficult. “Well then, you’d better get comfortable,” I say. “‘Cause you’ll be here for a looong time.”
“Perfect.” He purrs with delight. I can’t believe my luck. I can’t believe this is my life.
Only months ago, I was lying in this bed on my birthday, wishing for everything that I now realize Adam has given me—butterflies, romance, passion, sex, and, most importantly, true love. “I can’t believe this is real. It doesn’t seem fair for one person to be this lucky.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he whispers, squeezing me closer.
“Well, yeah, obviously that’s who I meant.”
Letting out a warm chuckle, Adam shoves me toward the edge of the bed, pinching my stomach. I yelp, teetering on the edge. This prompts a chorus of giggles from the hallway. Damn these thin walls.
Grabbing me by the wrist, Adam pulls me back onto the bed. I punch his chest and stick my tongue out. As if he’s just remembered something extremely important, he sits up. “Wait.” He crawls off the bed, stands up straight, and flattens his shirt. “I want to get this right,” he says with almost ceremonious seriousness.