Any Given Lifetime

by Leta Blake

“I know you grieved for…for Neil. But you had a pretty awesome life after that, didn’t you? You were happy.” As long as he could remember, he’d wanted nothing but for Joshua to be happy. He looked away. “Well, until recently, that is—”

  “Don’t talk about Lee,” Joshua said, putting a hand up in warning. “Don’t even mention his name.”

  Neil nodded and mimed zipping his mouth shut.

  Joshua shook his head. “As for Neil—not that I owe you an explanation—but I’ve missed him every day since his death. Some more than others, sure, and eventually it became bearable, something I just lived with the way I’d live with a scar before nanites.” He huffed a laugh. “Funny how nanites can’t repair emotional wounds.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hopefully not ever,” Joshua said. “But I’ve never once been happy that he died, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Neil looked down at the floor and then back up to Joshua’s eyes again, wanting to say the right thing. He wanted to tell him the truth, that he’d missed him, too, that he was sorry he’d died, that he wanted more than anything to make it right, but how could he? It would sound absurd. Moreover, it was unkind.

  Joshua had grieved him and moved on, not only with Lee, but in every way. It would be the highest act of selfishness to confess to him now, rip his life open again, and ask him to accept something so confounding. He deserved peace. He deserved to find some measure of joy again. Not bewildering madness with a man half his age, if that was even what he wanted. They’d been together so long ago. Nothing had been guaranteed between them even then.

  The world had changed. So had Joshua. And Neil would be a monster to try to deny that.

  “I know you’re young, but have you ever been in love?” Joshua’s voice was tinged with some anger, but also soft with compassion.

  Neil shrugged. He had always been in love. It was painful and full of despair. It was a terrible way to live.

  “Okay, well, then, let me ask you this,” Joshua went on. “Have you ever loved anyone at all? Someone besides yourself?”

  Neil stared at him blankly, the most inappropriate answer screaming in his mind.

  Joshua said, “No? Not even your mother?”

  Neil swallowed. “I love my mother very much. But I’m a terrible son.”

  “Oh, really? Did I just hear you say, Dr. Green, than you are terrible at something?”

  Neil’s lips quirked, and he gazed down at the carpet, unable to look at Joshua as he smiled at the jab. “Just don’t let it get around.”

  Joshua snorted. “I hate to break it to you,” he said, drawing air in through his teeth, “but you seem like the kind of guy whose reputation precedes you. I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear that you’re a jerk to your mother.”

  Neil flinched. “I never said I was a jerk to her.”

  Joshua’s head cocked with interest, and he seemed to back down from whatever barb he was going to throw next.

  “I said that I was a terrible son. But I don’t mistreat her. Is that what you think?”

  Joshua’s brow furrowed with some confusion. He seemed to understand that he’d hit a sore spot, and, in typical Joshua manner, he was sorry for it now. “Frankly, Dr. Green, I don’t know what to think of you.”

  Neil nodded once to indicate that what Joshua had said was fair enough. He still felt defensive, though. He thought of Alice with her dark brown hair and the kiss she’d planted on his forehead every night at bedtime as his body grew into his mind, and he wanted more than almost anything else to find a way to make it up to her, to make up for having been him.

  “Are you okay?” Joshua asked.

  Neil couldn’t believe it. After the ways he’d been hurtful and callous, Joshua was asking him if he was okay. Joshua was still such a good-hearted man that it made Neil’s chest ache. Simple country boy, with a heart of gold. He jerked his head in affirmation, averted his gaze again, and rubbed his fingers through his hair. He heard Joshua take a sharp breath.

  “Yeah, well. I’m sorry about your lover. And your husband,” Neil said, the words coming out low and tired. “I’m just sorry. For everything.”

  “I…uh, thank you,” Joshua said, sounding confused.

  Joshua stood up from the chair and sat down next to Neil on the bed. Not incredibly close, but the weight of him dipped the mattress lower, and Neil could smell his aftershave. It was nice. Different from years ago, but still very nice. Older, somehow; more mature.

  Joshua tilted his head down, trying to see Neil’s face. “Dr. Green? What’s going on here? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Neil shrugged. What could he say without cutting Joshua open needlessly? “No, no. Everything is fine.”

  Joshua nodded. He sighed heavily, and he sat there, so close and so horribly far. Neil’s entire body wanted to lean against Joshua, to turn and press him to the bed, to climb on top of him, to kiss him, to smell him, to be near him, and to hold him for the rest of his life. If he could just make himself tear Joshua open with the truth now, they could both lead a very long life. Together. It was excruciating.

  Neil stood, kept his back mostly turned, and grabbed his suitcase. He plopped it onto the bed next to Joshua and started to fill it with his few clothes. Coming to Scottsville, seeing Joshua in person…it had been a bad idea. Now he really didn’t know how he was going to survive without him, and he hadn’t even touched him. He kept his focus down, because if he looked into Joshua’s tired eyes, he was going to lose all resolve, and then he’d be responsible for Joshua’s pain.

  “Dr. Green?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Stouder,” Neil said. “Coming here has been a waste of both of our time.”

  Joshua sat there, watching. Neil could feel him, but he didn’t look.

  Finally, Joshua said, “Dr. Green…hey. Listen. Neil—”

  A shudder went through Neil to hear his name spoken by Joshua in such a gentle, tender tone.

  “Neil, if you need help.”

  He was being stretched out on a rack. He didn’t know how much more of being near Joshua he could take before he came apart. He spat out whatever words he could grab from his mind, so long as they didn’t have anything to do with wanting to kiss Joshua’s neck, or being reincarnated, or missing him. “Help? What I need is money, Mr. Stouder, and since you’re unable to relent there—”

  “Fine, fine, forget I mentioned it,” Joshua said, standing up. He’d raised his hands in surrender, though there was an undercurrent of worry to his voice. “I’ll just get out of your way, and then you can get out of here.”

  “Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll never see each other again,” Neil said, feeling that much closer to tearing in half as he said the words.

  “Yeah, if we’re lucky.”

  Neil closed his eyes, letting out a hard breath, prepared to tell Joshua to get out if he had to because he couldn’t take another minute of it.

  He sensed Joshua’s retreat, and his back stiffened as Joshua said from the doorway, “You’re right. I had a good life with Lee. I loved him very much, and I miss him every day. But if Neil had lived, I would have had a good life with him, too. A different life, but a good one. And I regret that I didn’t get to have that experience. I regret it every single day.”

  Neil thought that was it, but no.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Joshua said. “Lee understood it. Understood me. I don’t know why I want you to understand, too. It shouldn’t matter to me. But it does.”

  Neil’s head bowed as he heard the door shut. He fought the urge to chase after him, to confess it all, and tell Joshua that he could have that experience with his Neil now, if he wanted. Mastering himself, Neil fell facedown onto the bed.

  Sobs wracked him as he tried to breathe through the pain of letting Joshua leave.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Neil’s plan was to leave Barren River, call a car to take him to the Nashville airport, and catch the first flight out to A
tlanta. It’d cost an arm and a leg, but what choice did he have but to stay here and travel with Dr. Peters the next day? But cars and taxis didn’t come out this far in the boondocks, so he couldn’t find a driver to take him to Nashville.

  He cursed softly, throwing himself backward onto the hotel bed again. He was trapped here. And he needed to get out. He thought about renting a car—surely this town had a car rental service?—but then he started to laugh, because he wasn’t old enough yet. Hell, he wasn’t even old enough to go downstairs and order a drink at the bar. He was so fucking sick of being a kid.

  Angry, he stood up, pulled on his coat, and walked out of the hotel room. He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed to move, and walking seemed better than pounding his fists against the pillows some more.

  Neil realized his mistake as soon as he hit the parking lot. Every lap around the lot was just another circle of the same new, horrible memories: every word he’d said to Joshua, the way Joshua had looked, how he’d smelled, how it had all gone so wrong. He wasn’t usually one to call his mother when he was feeling low, mainly because he tried to stay too busy to ever get truly down, but sitting on the bench outside of the resort’s main building, he didn’t know what else to do.

  “Two weeks,” Alice said as her greeting. “Two weeks since you called, and I hear from Derek today that you’re not even in the state!”

  “Mom,” Neil said to cut her off, and then he was silent.

  When she spoke again, her voice had changed. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head at himself, dreading telling her, knowing that this was the stupidest thing he’d done since he’d tried to race a semi-truck to save Magic and lost.

  “Scottsville,” he said. “I’m in Scottsville.” Technically, Barren River was on the outskirts of Bowling Green, but whatever. Close enough.

  “Oh.” There was a long silence at the other end of the line.

  “We applied for that grant. The one I told you about. I failed to mention that the foundation in question was…”

  “The Neil Russell Foundation,” she murmured. “Did you see him?”

  “Yeah.” Neil rotated his shoulders like he was trying to shake his mood off. It was easier already, faking it for her. He let a long breath out between his teeth, and said, “Well, it’s better this way, I guess. Stupid is as stupid does. My genius card has been revoked.”

  “Are thinking you’re a genius at life when all you are is a genius at science?”

  “Gee, thanks, Mom. That’s the kind of encouragement I needed right now.”

  Alice sighed. “You don’t need encouragement, Neil. You need to get out of Scottsville before you break your own heart. But I’m sure it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said. His throat grew tight. The bench was hard and cold against his ass, even though the fall evening wasn’t too cool, and he could have done without his jacket.

  “So you met him, then?” Alice asked. He could hear the hesitancy and the worry.

  He didn’t speak. He tried, but he had no idea what he could say. Yeah, he’d met him. Joshua was everything Neil had known he would be, and it had felt so right and so horribly wrong. And Neil had scared the shit out of Joshua. Hell, he’d scared the shit out of himself.

  “Neil?” she asked.

  “He said I reminded him of someone.”

  “You didn’t tell him?” she asked, and the ‘surely’ was left off, though Neil heard it there.

  “I’m an emotional idiot, not a madman,” he said. “I mean, sure, I know things that only his Neil could know, but why would I do that to him? He’s just gotten over the loss of his husband. Why would I split him open like that again?”

  “Oh baby.”

  Neil let out a soft moan of pain.

  “So, how did it go?”

  “I’m calling you,” Neil whispered.

  “Not well, then.”

  “I need to get out of here.”

  “Come home.”

  Neil laughed, and it sounded bitter. “I’m stuck.”

  She made a strange sound. “You haven’t been arrested, have you?”

  Neil tugged at his hair and said, “No, but I can’t get a cab or a car up here. It’s the middle of nowhere Kentucky.”

  “Neil, do you need me to come get you? I can be there in, I don’t know—how long does it take to get to Scottsville?”

  “By car? Too long. By plane? Still too long. I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

  Neil looked up then. A tall, thin man with long, brown hair was walking toward him on the sidewalk from the offices of the resort. He wasn’t looking where he was going, his head down as he pawed around in a giant purse that seemed, as far as Neil could tell from the items he kept pulling out and dropping back, to contain the entirety of a beauty-supply store. A young, butch man dogged his heels, dressed like a stereotypical farmer, and talking a mile a minute.

  That’s when Neil knew, and he couldn’t look away.

  “You’re going to hold it together, baby. I promise,” Alice said fiercely.

  “I have to go,” Neil said, disconnecting the call.

  “Declyn, honey, you’re a grown man,” Chris said as he paused by the bench where Neil was still sitting to paw through his purse some more. “As much as I want to jump in and save you, you’re going to have to figure this one out by yourself.”

  “I know, but it’s just…” The boy groaned and stuck his hand in his jeans pocket. “Wait, that’s Nadia calling now. Stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere.” He took the call and ducked around the corner of the building, obviously wanting some privacy.

  Chris sighed, rolled his eyes, and then looked down at Neil. He was older than the last time Neil had seen a photo of him on Lee’s social media, but he didn’t look that different. Like Joshua, he’d obviously been able to afford the anti-aging nanite creams, because he was still bright to look at.

  Once upon a time, in that other life, Chris had been Neil’s friend. One of his only friends.

  Neil jerked his gaze away, but it was too late.

  Chris plopped down onto the bench beside him and said, “You look lost, sugar tits.”

  Neil snorted softly, lifted one shoulder, and let it fall.

  Chris started up with his bag again, saying, “Argh, finally,” and brought out a tinted lip balm. He took the lid off, looked at the color, and began to apply it.

  Neil didn’t mean to talk to him. He meant to stand up and walk away. Instead, he said, “That’s not a good look on anyone.”

  “Gee, thanks, lost stranger, for your input on my lip color.” Chris rolled his eyes. “Are you homophobic, too? Because we ain’t got time for that around here, as my husband says.”

  “No. I don’t care about your lipstick. Or the gay thing. I meant me. Looking lost. It’s generally not a good look on—”

  “Anyone. Got it,” Chris said. He narrowed his eyes. “You know, it’s kind of uncanny how much you look like this guy I knew once.” He reached out and took hold of Neil’s jaw. Neil flinched back from the touch instinctively.

  Chris rolled his eyes. “Let me look at you. Hmm, yes, I see that you’re lost, and you’re in need of some advice.” He grinned and let go of Neil’s chin. “Lucky for you, I know everything there is to know about this town, and I’m excellent at dishing up fantastic and unwanted advice. Just ask my son.” He looked toward the corner that Declyn had ducked around. “If he ever gets off the phone with that girl. I swear, is it always like this? Do kids always take up with the absolute worst person for them? Of course, my parents love Dale. It’s me they hate.”

  Neil stared at him. Chris was the same. Exactly the same. Talking to anyone like he had a right to, and being unfailingly cheerful even when he was being a bitch. And Chris had remembered him—well, the old him. And he seemed pleased to see the resemblance.

  Neil felt like he’d stepped into some kind of strange time-transport device where the people he knew and loved best we
re older, and he alone was younger. His phone buzzed. He knew it was Alice calling back. He hadn’t been very clear when he ended his call. She probably thought he’d been accosted or something. Again, at the rate that his life was going downhill, it was only a matter of time.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” Chris asked.

  “It’s my mother,” Neil said.

  Chris slapped him upside the head softly. “Like I said, aren’t you going to get that?”

  Neil connected the call and said, “Hey, I’m okay. Gotta go.”

  “Are you sure?” Alice asked.

  “I’ll call you later,” and he said firmly, and hung up on Alice again.

  Chris frowned at him. “So, are you rude to your mother like that all the time?”

  “Do you hit strange men over the head all the time? First, that’s assault. Second, neurological damage could result from that kind of behavior over the long term.”

  Chris grinned again. “Aw, that’s cute. You think you’re a man.” He patted Neil’s knee in an over-fond way. “Keep eating your vegetables and maybe you will be one day.” Neil shot him a look, and Chris laughed. “What’s your name?”

  He let the corner of his lips turn up. “Green,” he said. “Neil Green.”

  Chris’s expression changed, and he grew serious. “Are you… I don’t suppose you’re any relation to Dr. Neil Russell?”

  Neil nearly said, “I’m his son,” just to see the reaction, but instead he shook his head.

  “No, of course not,” Chris said a bit absently, studying his face. “You do look so much like him. It’s so odd that you’d have the same name. But no, of course you’re not related.”

  “Coincidence,” Neil said softly. “Never heard of the guy.”

  “Right. Of course.” Chris seemed to get himself together, and he smiled brightly again. “So, you’re lost. How can I help ya?”

  “You can’t. I just…need to get to Nashville so I can get back home.”

  “And where’s ‘home?’”

  “Atlanta,” Neil said, though his mind supplied him with a compellingly fresh memory of Joshua’s brown eyes studying him with earnest concern.