Breakfast at Midnight

by Kim Dias

  James was quiet for a moment before he let go of Fred’s shirt. He stood up straighter. “I’m sorry,” he said, voice strict and formal, measured to create distance. Unfortunately for him, Fred knew all it really meant was that James felt unsure of himself. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have—have kissed you.”

  Fred shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. Because it hadn’t been a kiss. It hadn’t. It had been the acknowledgment that once upon a time, a million years ago, he and James had been madly in love.

  Fred’s phone buzzed. He ignored it. “I wish…,” he said and trailed off.

  James nodded. “I know. Me too. But, as you said—” He sighed heavily, looking somewhere over Fred’s right shoulder. “We were a disaster.”

  “Yes. We were.” James nodded, Fred nodded back, and Fred was ready. “Walk me out?”

  “You’ve forgotten the way already?” But it was with a smile that James opened the door. He stepped back to let Fred go first. Fred led them down the stairs and, when he saw how crowded the front hall was, out the back door. His phone vibrated against his thigh again.

  They stood at the corner of the house, Fred with his hands in his pockets as he looked out across the garden where Amira had run through the sprinkler every summer. “Well,” he said, and if the moment had been tremulous before, it was now completely broken when James started to speak, quick and businesslike.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said. Two steps returned him to the door and he stopped, his hand resting on the knob as he turned to look at Fred over his shoulder. “I mean it,” he said. “It’s… it’s good to see you, Freddie.”

  He would have left then, leaving Fred standing there with a vibrating phone and a heart full of memories. But Fred reached forward, caught James’s arm, because James looked sad, and Fred had always hated that, always. He could handle James being angry, being upset, being frustrated. But sadness…. Fred had never been able to take it. And he’d called him Freddie. No one else ever called him Freddie, not even his mother, and it had been so long since Fred had heard it, and—

  They were kissing again, and this time Fred was the one desperately clutching James. Just this. Just one more kiss, one more goodbye, before—

  Fred pulled back. He stepped away and touched James’s cheek before he opened his eyes to look over James’s shoulder and directly into Callum’s face, which peered at him over the steering wheel of his Hyundai.

  “Oh, Christ,” Fred said, and when that wasn’t enough, “Oh, fuck,” and when that still wasn’t enough, “Fuck.” He was an idiot, a fool, not just Callum—oh God, Callum—if Amira had seen them, but she hadn’t, but Callum had, he was right there, jaw loose, face slack, reversing the car—

  “Go,” James hissed, hand on Fred’s back to shove him forward. “Oh my God, Fred, Jesus Christ, go after him, for Christ’s sakes.”

  It took Fred’s feet a moment to remember how to move, but then he raced after Callum, quick steps down the driveway, calling out, calling Callum’s name and wait and let me.

  Callum was already driving away.

  IT TOOK Fred an hour to reach Denny’s.

  He’d walked home, sweating in his button-up shirt. The walk took him thirty minutes, but it was only once he had done ten minutes of aimless driving in his truck—aimless and unsafe, more attention paid to his search for a little blue Hyundai than to the road—that the obvious hit him.

  The hour was worth it when he walked in and saw Callum, skinny and pale and beautiful, with troubled eyes and a lip that started to tremble the second he saw Fred. Fred caught Leslie’s eye. She was standing between the bar and kitchen, keeping her distance from Callum. Fred had never seen her here this early before; she must be working an extra shift. Her eyes were full of questions and Fred didn’t want to give the answers. He looked away from her, walked across the room, slid into the booth opposite Callum; he knew that if he waited for an invitation, he might stand forever.

  Then he waited.

  “You know….” When Callum finally spoke, Fred’s head snapped up. “When I said ‘flirt,’ that wasn’t really what I meant.”

  It was tacit permission for Fred to speak, and he did; his words tumbled over each other. “It wasn’t—I didn’t—James was just talking to me, I was stressed—it wasn’t—” How was it that he had waited for so long to speak and yet he still didn’t have the right words to say? He stopped, breathed, tried again. “It wasn’t like that.” That was better. It was slower, at least; Callum would actually be able to understand what he was saying. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “No?” Callum turned to him. He was struggling, Fred could see it on his face. Struggling to have anything that resembled patience. “Then tell me what it was like.”

  Fred faltered. That was not what he had expected.

  “It was….” Fred searched to find the right words, but maybe the right words for this situation didn’t exist. “It wasn’t… anything. It was just a kiss, nothing more. It was a… goodbye. Does that make sense?”

  “No.” Callum’s voice wasn’t harsh, but it was unforgiving. “That’s not what my goodbyes to my exes usually look like.” He paused, then asked in a much smaller voice, “Would you have told me?”

  Fred hesitated. Would he have? It hadn’t felt like infidelity, hadn’t felt like cheating until Callum had arrived… but maybe if he hadn’t told Callum, if he had kept it a secret, maybe that was where he would have crossed the line.

  “I don’t know,” he said, honest as he could be. “I think so. I hope so. I—I would have been more afraid of hurting you than of telling the truth. I wasn’t trying to hide it, but I didn’t want to hurt you. Upset you.”

  “Yeah,” Callum said. “Because this isn’t upsetting at all.”

  “I’m sorry.” Fred could feel the words I didn’t mean to in his mouth, but he swallowed them down, knowing they would mean absolutely nothing. Why would Callum care what he meant when what he did had hurt?

  “I know.” Callum stared down at his hands, clasped on top of the table. “God, I know about not getting over an ex, but Jesus, I didn’t think—”

  Fred grabbed Callum’s wrist before he could stop himself. He almost dropped it the second he’d realized what he had done, but he made himself hold on, anchoring himself to Callum yet again. “I am over him,” he insisted. When Callum raised a skeptical eyebrow, he repeated, “I am. Are you telling me you’ve never kissed anyone without it meaning anything?”

  “We’re not talking about me,” Callum said mildly. His wrist was limp in Fred’s grip, as if he wasn’t even aware of Fred’s hold on it. “And did it mean nothing? Honestly?”

  Yes, Fred almost said, but he caught himself. It wasn’t true. Much as he wanted to pretend it was, it wasn’t. “He’s my ex,” he tried. He weighed each word cautiously, knowing any one of them could be the one that made Callum call it over. “There’s always… I think there might always be something. Not love, not wanting a relationship…. Maybe a kind of… fondness?”

  “Fondness,” Callum repeated. Fred couldn’t work out if he sounded disbelieving or if his tone was simply dull. He was more worn down than Fred had ever seen him; even his hair was flat.

  “Yes,” Fred said. Callum didn’t so much as twitch. “I was married to him, Callum. I’m not in love with him anymore. I think—” Now his words caught in his throat. He couldn’t say I think I might be in love with you, could he? No, he couldn’t, absolutely not. It was ridiculous. He was ridiculous. He coughed, trying to hide his awkwardness, trying to pretend he had something else to say. “I think I, um—”

  “I’m probably an idiot,” Callum interrupted, to Fred’s immeasurable relief, “because it’s been, like, a week and I don’t know you, not really, and decisions made during big transitions always end up being kind of shit, don’t they? Isn’t that the rule? But I totally thought there was a chance I could fall for you.”

  Fred’s mouth had never felt so dry in his life. “Was?” The word
rasped out of his throat.

  Callum opened his mouth, and Fred never found out what he was going to say because Leslie, apparently done with giving them space, spoke first.

  “Coffee?”

  He stared at her with wide eyes, probably looking lost, confused, and wild as he struggled to drag himself back into the moment and remember where he was. “Uh,” he said. “Yes. Please.”

  She raised a thin eyebrow at him as she reached to flip his mug over, something he usually did for himself the moment he arrived. “And your usual?”

  Her question made Fred very aware of the gnawing emptiness in his stomach. He hadn’t noticed it before, but he had no idea how he hadn’t, the same way suddenly realizing he could hear his breathing made him notice how silent his house was. He hadn’t eaten at the party, too busy trying to navigate conversations that made him want to rake his nails down the inside of his arms, and he had skipped breakfast too, anxiety getting the better of him. He could hear the lectures he’d heard his entire life. They echoed through his head, the ones that came first from his mom, then from James, now Amira….

  Callum was staring at him. “Have you eaten at all today?” When Fred shook his head, he rolled his eyes vehemently. “Jesus Christ, eat.” He looked at Leslie. “Yes, he’ll have his usual.”

  Her mouth twitched as she busied herself with scribbling on her pad. “What about you, hon?”

  “Er… pancakes, please. Just pancakes, nothing else. Wait, yeah, no, some bacon on the side, that would be amazing.” He smiled at her, suddenly all boyish charm. “Please and thank you.”

  She winked at him before she turned to Fred. “Jam?”

  “No. Thanks. I’m good. Just ketchup.”

  Leslie nodded and took a step away from the table. Callum said, “Oh my God, please don’t, he’s just going to put it on his toast like an animal.”

  Leslie laughed out loud and Fred stared. It was the first time, in his year of coming here, usually three, sometimes four or five times a week, that he’d heard her laugh. It ended quickly, abruptly even, as she walked away, but it had been a laugh—an actual laugh. He turned to Callum. He didn’t know where the words came from, but he said, “You’re not my midlife crisis.”

  Callum didn’t even blink. He just nodded, as if this non sequitur made plenty of sense, and tapped his nails on the side of his coffee cup. “I know that,” he said. “But I think you might be mine.”

  “Uh,” Fred said. “What?”

  “When I saw you today,” Callum said and then proceeded to take the longest drink of coffee; the mug must have been empty by the time he set it back on the table. “If you were upset or hurting or anything, whatever, who would you go to? Honestly. Be honest with me. Please.” And that one simple word almost broke Fred’s heart; Callum hadn’t felt like he’d had to ask for honesty before.

  “You,” he said, and hated that it was the answer, because it made Callum’s eyes narrow and his chin tilt up. If he had been able to say James, at least Callum would have believed him.

  So he said, “It’s true,” and didn’t stop talking, as much as he wanted to leave the words to speak for themselves. Show don’t tell wasn’t going to work here; who knew how much longer Callum would stick around to be shown? “The other night, you saw me more… more vulnerable than anyone has in a long time, a very long time. Even James. Especially James, maybe, I’m not sure.” He took a gulp of coffee. “I didn’t mean for it to… for today to be… cheating.” He cringed at the word, wishing he had a better one, wishing that right now, as he sat across the table from the twenty-three-year-old, he didn’t feel like the immature one.

  And sure enough, Callum nodded, pulled-together and sophisticated despite his obvious exhaustion. “Can you cheat on me?” he asked, voice so nonchalant it was as if he had asked Fred if he wanted more coffee. “I mean, are we something you could cheat on?” He suddenly laughed, pulled his wrist out of Fred’s grip, and rubbed his hand over his face. “God, we had a song like that.” He sang in a soft, lilting voice, “What am I to you, what am I to you, can we be more than just friends…. It was a kinda douchebaggy song, really, but a lot of our early stuff was kinda douchebaggy, so….” He rested his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand. “I wanted to be able to be really mad. To be able to fucking be like, I quit my band for you, asshole! But I couldn’t. I didn’t. I quit my band for me and that’s why that was so fucking scary.”

  Fred felt like he had missed a step, or missed several. Gone from A to Q instead of to B. “What?”

  “I would have given up everything for you,” Callum said, so quietly that it broke Fred’s heart. “I was… I was this close. But if I quit my band for you, what kind of person does that make me? I can’t—I can’t. I’ve spent the last five years doing what other people have told me to, and maybe…. God, Fred, maybe it’s time for me to learn how to do things for myself. For me. I have to have left my band for me because otherwise… otherwise you’re going to become my everything. And when I saw you kissing James—”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “It’s not that you kissed him. It’s that I realized I’ve known you for a week. I mean, practically, time-wise, you’re still a stranger. You’re not, but you could be.” He sucked in a deep breath, then looked at Fred with his startlingly green eyes. “Did any of that make sense?”

  “I have no idea,” Fred said, and he hadn’t meant for it to come out quite so deadpan, but he was glad when Callum ducked his head with a laugh, eyes crinkled shut. “I—I think so?”

  Before he could say more, Leslie was there, putting plates on the table, one in front of Fred, the other in front of Callum. She placed a small pitcher of syrup beside Callum’s plate. “Anything else I can get you?”

  Fred shook his head, but Callum looked up at her with a smile at the corner of his mouth and said, “A way of communicating that actually makes sense would be great.”

  “Honey,” Leslie said, “if I had that, my marriage would have ended very differently.”

  Fred choked, very glamorously, on his own spit. He stared after Leslie as she walked away, then turned to Callum and said, entirely serious, “I think you’re a little bit magic.”

  Callum made a noise that was half scoff, half laugh. “What? Her? I just talk to people, love.”

  “And I… don’t.” Fred reached for the ketchup bottle and shook it. Callum obligingly pulled a disgusted face. “So.” He pretended his hands weren’t shaking as he squeezed ketchup over his eggs and slices of toast. It was one of the hardest questions he’d ever had to ask, second only because he’d once had to say, Are you saying you want a divorce? He kept his eyes on his plate; he could only ask so much of himself. “Where were you going with that? Because I feel like you were going somewhere.”

  “I was.” Callum pulled in a deep breath. “I’m leaving.”

  FOR THE second time that day, Callum stood on Fred’s doorstep, shuffling his feet and clutching the straps of his backpack like a little kid. And there was Fred once again with a thousand things he wanted to say and the bravery to say none of them.

  “So,” said Callum.

  “So.”

  “I’ll, um—” As Callum bit his lip, Fred couldn’t bear to see him go, to no longer have those green eyes to blink at him, and his words suddenly worked.

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted, words tripping over each other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—it didn’t mean anything. I know that’s a cliché. It is and it’s a terrible one, but it’s true. He’s…. It was a goodbye. It wasn’t an I love you. It wasn’t anything other than an… an acknowledgment. That doesn’t make sense. A… an…. It was a—”

  “I know.” Callum spoke softly, and Fred snapped his mouth shut so hard it jarred his teeth. “I know that it wasn’t… it wasn’t nothing, but it also wasn’t anything, you know? I know, anyway. It wasn’t, like, I don’t know, a dramatic declaration of undying love.” The corner of his mouth twitched when Fred couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter. “I get i
t,” he said and stepped forward. He cradled Fred’s face in his hands, fingers cool on Fred’s cheeks. “But I need to work out who I am so I can work out how he deals with things.”

  “That doesn’t even make any sense,” Fred said, voice husky. He received another almost-smile for his troubles.

  “Yeah, it does,” Callum said. “But I grew up reading Frederick James novels, so my influences are questionable.”

  Fred’s laugh felt wet and hollow. He gave Callum the lightest of kisses before he stepped back, away from his lips, away from his hands, because if he didn’t now, he never would. “Be safe, okay?” This was good, he told himself, because he was a writer and making up stories was what he did. It was a good thing. His focus could now be Amira; he would put everything he had into being a much better father than he had been for the past few years. Romance, any sort of relationship, would just be an unnecessary distraction.

  Callum nodded. “I will.” He paused, then stepped away from Fred. “Okay,” he said, the word more of an exhale than anything else. His eyes were slightly brighter than they had been a moment ago, but, well, if he didn’t mention it, Fred wouldn’t. Instead he watched as Callum dragged a hand through his hair and said, “Well, I… I’ll see you, I guess.”

  And, oh, hope like that was a dangerous, dangerous game, one Fred knew he really shouldn’t be playing right now. So he shook his head and said, as gently as he possibly could, “No. No, you probably won’t.”

  Callum’s eyes flashed with hurt. “Oh,” he said, and he sounded more stunned than Fred had realized he would. “Well, I… okay. Great. Okay okay okay. Good. I will, um, yes. Goodbye.”

  He didn’t even wait for Fred to respond before he turned and walked down the driveway, his steps short and quick. Fred watched him go, swallowing hard and wishing he was strong enough to just turn away and go back inside, wait in his living room until Callum was most definitely gone—off Fred’s street and out of his life.