by Allan, S. H.
A little while later, they were sitting on a weather-beaten deck in the warm sun, eating clam chowder and watching seagulls watch them in hopes of handouts. Ben was so used to seeing his boyfriend stressed out about school that he could barely remember a time when it wasn’t Aaron’s default setting. Now he smiled as he watched Aaron spoon the last of his chowder out of a Styrofoam bowl and then settle back with a contented sigh.
“You look like you don’t have a care in the world,” Ben told him. “It looks good on you.”
“I’m as happy as a clam,” Aaron said, eyes closed.
“Those clams just got eaten, you know.”
“Good point,” Aaron said with a mischievous grin. “So they’re ahead of me. But the day is young, and I have high hopes.”
It was tempting to linger, but Ben had an agenda, so after a few more minutes lounging in the sun, he announced it was time for the next stop on the itinerary and drove them a few miles farther up the coast. He pulled into the parking lot of a popular coastal trailhead, and they clambered out of the car.
“Fancy a bit of a stroll, love?” Ben asked in his best upper-class British accent.
“Aye, mate, that suits me fine,” Aaron replied with an accent of his own, causing Ben to roll his eyes. “What?”
“That sounds Aussie, not British,” Ben explained. “I was trying to sound like an English schoolboy seducing his sexy classmate away from his books.”
“Oh,” Aaron said. “I was going for Cockney.”
“Close enough, I guess,” Ben smirked. “Since I was going for cock.”
They laughed and set off on the trail that led southward. For the first quarter mile or so, they encountered quite a few strolling tourists, but after that they had the path mostly to themselves as it narrowed and meandered through rough grass and low shrubs. They chatted as they walked, stopping often to peer over the cliffside onto rocky, driftwood-strewn beaches far below. The sea was sparkling and brilliant blue, and the air was warm with just a light salty breeze. Aaron reached for Ben’s hand and held on to it even when the path occasionally narrowed so much they had to walk single file, even when a boisterous group of young men passed them from the other direction. They’d been walking for about twenty minutes when Ben finally stopped.
“Here we are,” he said excitedly, leading Aaron off the path and onto a small grassy plateau that jutted out from the cliff. Near the edge was a rough wooden bench, and from its vantage point they could look down at the tiny isolated beaches on both sides as well as the breadth of the ocean as far as the eye could see. Aaron sat next to Ben and grinned.
“Beautiful,” he said. “I love this place.”
“Me too,” Ben agreed. “And…? Do you remember why it’s special?”
A bit of anxiety crept back into Aaron’s eyes. “Other than that it’s beautiful?” he asked.
“Yes, other than that,” Ben encouraged. “I’ll give you a hint. We did something for the first time here.”
Aaron looked around as if hoping one of the wheeling seagulls might have the answer, but finally turned back to Ben with an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know. What did we do here?”
Ben fought a twinge of disappointment but persisted. “This is where we kissed for the first time,” he explained. “It was a couple of weeks after we met, and we’d been texting and talking on the phone, but my schedule was crazy, and it was hard to get together. So finally it worked out, and we had an early dinner at the bistro, and then you said there was a gorgeous place nearby where we could walk for a while. I’d never been here before, and I was thinking ‘Oh my God, please don’t tell me this guy I have a crush on is one of those rabid outdoorsy types who’s gonna want to go hiking in the wilderness and hunting elk and fuck knows what else.’ But then you brought me here, and the sun was almost setting, and you kissed me, and I was a goner. Remember?”
Ben was relieved to see Aaron’s eyes turn warm with recognition before he was pulled into one of those kisses that always stole both his breath and his senses. It was only the sound of voices from people nearing them as they walked up the trail that compelled Ben to reluctantly pull away.
“I do remember,” Aaron said and then sheepishly added, “now. But in my defense, all our kisses are amazing, so each one is like the first time.” Ben couldn’t help laughing.
“Nice save,” Ben said. He reminded himself of the rest of his itinerary and pulled Aaron to his feet and headed them back the way they’d come. By the time they returned to the car, the sun was setting, and the last of the light faded as Ben drove them inland.
As much as he didn’t want to be disappointed, Ben found his mood sinking along with the sun as he realized the day he had planned so carefully hadn’t gone anything like he had hoped. Sure, it had been nice, but he couldn’t help feeling frustrated that Aaron hadn’t remembered any of their relationship milestones so far. Surely Aaron would remember this next one, though.
“One last stop,” Ben said as they neared the destination.
“Another test question?” Aaron asked, and Ben’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“You know, I’m not doing this to torture you,” Ben said tightly. “It’s our anniversary, and I thought it would be nice to go back to some places that were meaningful, that’s all. Sorry if it’s been a chore for you.”
Aaron sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean exactly?” Ben asked.
“Never mind,” Aaron said. “Let’s not argue, okay? I want to see this next milestone. I love that you planned this.” He reached across the console and stroked Ben’s thigh consolingly, gently scratching the faded denim. Ben drove on in silence, regretting his outburst and trying to get back into a good frame of mind. By the time he pulled up at their last destination, a roadside ice-cream stand, he was able to muster a smile, which Aaron met in kind.
“Our favorite ice-cream place!” Aaron said, getting out of the car and leading the way to the order window. There were only a couple of other customers, and they drove off after they had bought their ice creams, so Ben and Aaron had the little picnic area all to themselves. They sat at one of the well-worn tables under pine trees that whispered in the cool evening breeze and savored their treats in silence for a few minutes—Ben his rocky road on a cone and Aaron his bowl of strawberry.
“You had strawberry ice cream on that day too,” Ben finally said, giving Aaron a meaningful look.
“What day?” Aaron asked, and then, “Oh, the milestone day. Okay, give me a minute.”
A minute went by, and then another, and Ben felt his heart sink. He thought for sure Aaron would remember this one, but he looked completely at a loss.
“Is it something about ice cream?” Aaron asked. Ben sighed and stood up, tossing the rest of his unfinished cone into the wastebasket nearby.
“Never mind,” Ben said. “Come on, let’s go home. I’m cold and tired.”
Aaron caught up to Ben as he walked briskly to the car and put his hand on the door before Ben could open it.
“I know you’re mad, but at least tell me what happened here,” Aaron insisted. Ben shrugged dismissively but told him anyway.
“First time we said I love you to each other. June seventeenth, five years ago. Now can we go?”
Aaron dropped his hand and nodded. The drive home was silent.
“IT’S cold as a witch’s tit in here,” griped Ben as he walked into the apartment, dropping his keys on the table by the door and toeing off his shoes before making a beeline to the thermostat. “Fuck, you had to turn it all the way down to zero? It’ll take forever to warm up.”
“Pretty sure I only turned it to sixty-five,” Aaron replied calmly, and Ben rolled his eyes as Aaron walked past him into the bedroom with his book bag. The only thing on his mind was getting warm and zoning out for a few hours. And trying not to think about how this day had turned into an unmitigated disaster. Well, maybe that was a bit overdramatic, but still. There was champagne in the r
efrigerator Ben had bought for the occasion, but he wasn’t feeling very bubbly, and he pulled out a half-empty bottle of white wine instead. He poured himself a glass, drank half of it all at once, and took the rest of it to the living room, where he turned on the TV and curled up onto the sofa with an afghan. Ben flipped the channels listlessly, barely registering what was on the screen, not looking up when Aaron joined him on the sofa a few minutes later to interrupt his one-man pity party.
“I’ll start dinner in a few. There’s more wine,” Ben said coolly, finding a cooking show and pausing to study the chef’s onion-chopping technique.
“I’m good,” Aaron replied. “But you’re obviously not,” he said a moment later, looking at Ben.
Ben shrugged and changed the channel again because onion guy was seriously boring. Fucking infomercials. Click, click, click. Nothing worth watching.
“Ben,” Aaron said, “can you talk to me, please? And don’t say nothing is wrong, because I’ve never heard you go twelve minutes without talking, but we just spent an hour in the car driving back home, and you didn’t say one word.”
Ben shrugged again, but Aaron was right. There were pent-up words inside him, and there was no point holding them back. He hit Mute and took a deep breath.
“I don’t know what to think, Aaron. I’m confused, okay? I have all these great memories in my head of you and me, of our life for the past five years, all the things we’ve done together, talked about, places we’ve gone, great sex we’ve had, all of it, you know? And then we go out today, and it’s like, fuck—all these memories that are important to me, that I thought were important to you—you don’t even remember them.”
Ben swirled the pale wine around in his glass and bit his lip. He could feel Aaron’s gaze on him, but now that he was talking, he wanted to get it all out before looking at him. “And now I’m wondering, are we even on the same page? Does this”—he gestured vaguely between them—“mean as much to you as it does to me?”
When Ben finally looked at Aaron, his heart sank, because instead of responding, his boyfriend stared at him with an unreadable expression and then stood and left the room. Fuck. Was he being an idiot? Overreacting? Ben frowned. But why shouldn’t he feel like shit that the love of his life basically could barely remember the major moments in their relationship? he thought defensively. But then Aaron was awesome in pretty much every other way, so why did it matter? Before Ben could figure this out, Aaron came back into the room and sat down again, setting a round tin container on the sofa between them. Ben looked at him, confused.
“Um, I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t see how my Gramma’s fruitcake is applicable to this conversation, not to mention it doesn’t go that well with chardonnay,” Ben remarked, trying to lighten the mood a little.
“Sorry, no fruitcake in there anymore.” Aaron smiled. “It’s just what I use to put some important stuff in, and I thought….” He paused, and Ben could see the effort it was taking Aaron to talk, and despite his own confused feelings, he reached out and touched Aaron’s wrist.
“Thought what?”
Aaron opened his mouth, closed it again, shook his head, and glanced at Ben apologetically before taking the tin and prying off its lid.
“I’ll just show you,” he said, reaching in and pulling out what lay uppermost inside. It was a piece of folded paper, and Aaron handed it to Ben.
“What is this?” Ben asked, opening and smoothing it out on his lap. “Oh wait, a page from your GRE study manual?” He scanned the words and smirked. “Oh my God, analogies. How many fucking hours did we spend?” Ben read from the paper. “‘Attentive is to officious as….’” He trailed off, making a face. He looked at Aaron questioningly. “I don’t get it. I thought you burned this study guide after you got accepted into grad school.”
“I did. But I kept a page just as a reminder,” said Aaron.
“A reminder that you aced a test you were so worried about?”
“No.” Aaron smiled. “That was definitely nice, but I kept it because it reminds me of how amazing you were during that time. The day after I decided to apply to grad school, you bought that book for me. And every single night, whether I wanted to or not, you’d help me study. Vocabulary words, math problems, the stupid analogies. You never for a minute let me doubt that I’d ace that exam, even though I’ve always been scared to death of tests. You believed in me so much that I started believing in myself.”
Aaron took the page out of Ben’s unresisting hand and folded it again carefully. From the tin he next removed a crayon and held it out.
“Cornflower,” Ben read and waited for Aaron to explain.
“So about a month after we started seeing each other, we were talking about when we were kids, and I told you that I’d never had a sixty-four-pack of crayons. You were so horrified!” Aaron chuckled at the memory. “Right then and there, even though it was almost midnight, you got me in the car, and we drove around to three different all-night drugstores until we found one that sold the sixty-four-pack. And then we went back to your place and made art. At least, it felt like art. Probably the weed helped.” He grinned wryly and then turned serious again. “But that night I realized how much you really listened to me, and how you wanted me to experience things I’d never had before. You told me that it wasn’t too late to have a happy childhood. That’s the night I realized what a kind person you were.”
“And why cornflower?” Ben managed to ask after a moment.
Aaron took back the crayon and set it beside the folded paper. “It’s the one I used for your eyes.”
Ben swallowed past the sudden burn in his throat. “Aaron,” he started, pushing away the afghan.
“Hold on,” Aaron said. “There’s a few more things.” He pushed the tin toward Ben, and Ben took it and lifted out the objects one by one, holding them up so Aaron could explain.
“From that Japanese restaurant,” Aaron said about a fancy paper napkin with an embossed oriental design. “The first time I tried sushi. Or should I say, the time you made me try sushi for the first time. And I loved it! Except for the unagi, I loved it.” He grimaced. “I mean, eel? Come on. But other than that, it was great. And I loved that you pushed me out of my comfort zone and that you made me try new things. And I loved even more that you were okay even if I didn’t like everything about it. It made me feel brave and safe all at the same time. I’d never felt that way before.”
Ben studied the other things in the box. The key to the apartment Ben had been living in when they met, which Ben had given to Aaron even before he’d moved in. (“You trusted me, and you believed in where we were going together, even though I was so scared.”) The plastic identity bracelet from the time Ben had insisted on taking Aaron to the hospital after he’d almost passed out, dehydrated and half-delirious from the flu. (“I’d never let anyone take care of me before,” Aaron admitted). Five years’ worth of cards from Ben—Valentine’s Days, birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries. Dozens of scribbled sticky notes Ben had put inside Aaron’s lunches, stuck on his laptop, tucked into his schoolbooks.
Good luck on the test.
You can do it!
Stay strong, baby.
I love you.
Love you.
I love you!!!
And finally at the bottom of the tin, a couple of crumpled boarding passes.
“From when we flew to Idaho and you met my family for the first time,” Aaron said, and Ben sighed, remembering how difficult that trip had been. The uncomfortable dinners, the strained silences, the awkward introductions (“Uncle Joe, this is my boyfriend, Ben….” and watching Uncle Joe blink in confusion and walk away without a word). Ben had been so worried about Aaron, scared that the man he loved would be hurt again. He knew Aaron’s family had never really accepted the fact that he was gay, and his father had been especially cruel, telling his son once that Aaron was the biggest disappointment in his life. There were no transformations during the trip: no one had a major change of heart, an
d there were no tearful apologies or declarations of unconditional acceptance. Each day was a quiet test of endurance, and each night Ben had left his sofa bed in the den and quietly crept into Aaron’s childhood bedroom and held his boyfriend tight in his arms, telling him he was perfect and beautiful, until Aaron fell into exhausted sleep, and Ben kissed his forehead and returned to the den.
Now Aaron smoothed the boarding passes and spoke quietly.
“I needed you to see where I came from. I knew before we went on that trip that you loved me, but after… well, I knew that you totally accepted me, even though my family was a mess, and I was sort of a recovering mess. And I realized I could forgive and move on, because even though my past wasn’t perfect, I had an amazing future ahead. With you.”
Ben gently tugged the passes out of Aaron’s hand, put them into the tin along with all the other objects, and set it on the coffee table. He moved into Aaron’s space and wrapped himself around his boyfriend as tightly as he could, stroking his back, running fingers through his soft curls, feeling Aaron’s body start to relax as Ben held on to him.
“I know I have a shitty memory for some things,” Aaron said.
“Yeah, you really do,” Ben said. “That’s okay. Between me and Google alerts, we’ll keep you on track. And obviously you remember the most important things.”
It was nice to remember birthdays and anniversaries and first kisses. But Ben realized it was even better to be with someone who knew and treasured the best parts of him, someone who remembered what their love was all about. It was a while before Aaron spoke again, his voice muffled against Ben’s neck as they held each other.
“Still, I’m sorry about the way it worked out today,” he started, but Ben pulled away and shook him a little.
“Shut up,” Ben said, fighting back tears. “Just shut up, okay? I’ve been a shitheel, and you’re amazing, and I need you to kiss me right the fuck now.”
And Aaron did, pulling Ben even closer and licking into his mouth, gentle at first and then building in heat, sending sparks along Ben’s spine and scattering his thoughts. He gave himself over to the deliciously heady feeling of Aaron’s mouth possessing his own, Aaron’s hand slipping beneath his shirt and over his belly and up his chest, his thumb stroking Ben’s nipple, making Ben twitch and gasp, making his bones turn liquid. Ben loved that just beneath Aaron’s quiet, somewhat nerdy exterior was all this passion and heat and that Ben was lucky enough to have it all for himself.