by Ashley John
“Cadey,” Finn stood, his extraordinarily long eyelashes batting like a camel trying to keep away the on coming sand storm, “it’s really you.”
“Who else would it be?” Caden sighed, closing the door behind him, “What do you want?”
Sitting back down, Finn sipped the coffee, avoiding Caden’s harsh gaze. He looked good, great in fact, but Caden was looking at him through different eyes. Instead of feeling utterly heartbroken at the betrayal, he was wondering how he could have ever loved somebody so vapid and empty. A muscle-hugging shirt showed that he hadn’t been too affected to miss his daily, sometimes twice daily, trips to the gym. His cropped, almost white hair was brushed away from his tanned face, letting all of his perfectly symmetrical beauty shine. It didn’t give Caden the warm feeling it used to, it just left him feeling a little empty.
“I want us to talk.”
“You drove seven hours to talk? You must have left New York last night?”
“I had to,” he was directing his words at the coffee cup, “you’ve been unreachable. All of your profiles are down, you’ve changed your number and you’re ignoring my letters. You’re a hard man to reach.”
Did Finn not understand that was intentionally directed towards him?
“I needed some space. I didn’t want to talk to anybody.”
“We all miss you,” Finn shrugged, “I miss you.”
Sitting at the table, making sure that he was on the opposite side and out of touching distance of Finn, he leaned back in the chair, wondering how quickly he could get out of there.
“We?”
“Your friends. Everybody. It’s not the same without you.”
“How’s Adam? He was my friend.”
“Please, Caden,” Finn looked up to him, his bright crystal eyes doing all of the work, “I thought if I gave you enough time, enough space, you’d move on from that.”
What about Caden’s body language didn’t say that he had moved on? He had spent years by Finn’s side, feeling grateful for his love. Now, he was sitting as far away from him as possible. He was even leaning back in his chair, recoiling his head, because he was still too close.
“I’ve moved on. You and Adam are welcome to each other.”
“It wasn’t like that. It was one mistake. One time.”
Caden laughed. They both knew it was more than once. Nobody would admit it was anything more than a dumb mistake but dumb mistakes don’t suddenly happen ten minutes after the fiancé left for work. If he hadn’t gone back for the laptop he had forgotten, he probably would never have caught them. Or, he would have caught them but in six months, or a year. It didn’t make any difference to him. It was a blessing in disguise.
“We’re over, Finn. I’ve met someone.”
“Who?” Finn laughed, “You’re going to throw away all those years for a guy you’ve known for a month?”
“I’m not the one who threw it away, I’m just the one making sure it doesn’t get jammed in the garbage shoot.”
Taking in a deep breath, he vowed that he wasn’t going to let Finn make him feel guilty. He focused on Elias’ face in his mind, instantly thinking clearer.
“Who is he?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
After a long pause, Finn finished his coffee.
“Is it love?”
“Why does it matter to you?” Caden stood, “Even if I hadn’t met a guy, you wouldn’t be able to wriggle your way back into my life, Finn. You broke whatever we had and if we’re honest with each other, it wasn’t as great as we thought.”
“But I still love you,” Finn’s words didn’t make Caden’s insides twist, they just made him exhale with frustration, “I want us to try again. Come back with me. We can start again. I’ll cut Adam out and we can just -,”
“Stop, Finn,” Caden didn’t want to hear anymore, “desperation doesn’t suit you. Look at you, you’re gorgeous and you could have any guy you want. You only want me because it didn’t end on your terms. That isn’t love, that’s a fear of being alone. Goodbye, Finn.”
Feeling like he had given him more than the five minutes he deserved, Caden gave him one last smile before leaving him alone in the kitchen.
“Caden?” his mom rose from her chair, stuffing the morning’s paper under her arm, “I – I – how did it go?”
“You were right. I did need to talk to him. I feel so much better.”
“Oh, good,” she seemed surprised, “where’s Finn?”
“Still in the kitchen,” he shrugged, “I’m going back to Elias’ apartment. Let me just grab some more fresh clothes.”
“Didn’t you work things out?”
“There’s nothing to work out,” Caden said as he ran up the staircase to the guest bedroom, “but I feel so much better knowing that I’ve made the right decision.”
He stuffed as many clothes as he could into a duffle bag, knowing that he wanted to spend as much time with Elias as possible without having to come back here. Not because he didn’t want to see his parents, because he did, he just needed space from his mother’s questioning for a while.
“Have you seen the morning paper?” she asked, still clutching it under her arm, her bottom lip quivering.
“What? No. If Finn doesn’t leave, call the police or something. Tell them he’s trespassing. He’s got this fear of authority. I don’t know. I’ll call you.”
“Caden, wait -,”
Sighing, he opened the front door and tossed the duffle bag over his shoulder, “Mom, me and Finn are over. Just accept that.”
The morning sun was still frosty but it had never felt so warm on his skin. As he headed back across town, leaving Finn behind, he felt truly ready to start the new life set out in front of him, no matter how unknown and scary it was. It had taken seeing Finn again to know that he wasn’t scared of turning thirty after all, he was just scared that he had wasted the whole of his twenties living a life that didn’t suit him.
With a renewed bounce in his step, he stopped off in the bakery to pick up some bagels and coffee. The baker, who he had learned was called Billy from the frequent visits downstairs gave Caden the strangest look. He wasn’t the friendliest man but this morning, he looked more disgusted than normal. Caden shrugged it off, wondering how loud they’d been in bed last night.
“Two cream cheese and bacon bagels,” he pulled his wallet from his back pocket, “and two coffees.”
Billy poured the coffee into two cardboard cups, not taking his judgmental eyes away from Caden. Feeling uncomfortable under his gaze, he decided to occupy himself counting the donuts in the glass display box next to the counter. When he reached the thirteenth donut, his eyes wandered over the morning’s Havenmoore Herald. He would have ignored it because the sight of a local newspaper only reminded him that he wasn’t pursuing his writing passion but he couldn’t ignore it when his face was plastered across the front page.
Dropping his wallet to the ground, he picked up the paper, lifting it up with disbelieving hands. Elias had tried to hide it from him and so had his mother. As he read over the headline, he felt something bitter tasting speed up his throat at lightning speed.
***
Elias didn’t know how long he was planning on keeping the front page of the newspaper from Caden but when he heard the front door slam and heavy footsteps run up to his apartment, he knew that the cat was well and truly out of the bag.
Clutching a copy of the newspaper in his fist, Caden burst into the living room, a look of panic and confusion on his face.
“How can she do this?” he shook the newspaper, “I’ll never work in this town again.”
Looking over his own copy, which he had fished from the trash the second Caden left, he let the headline sink in. ‘Support Worker Sex Scandal’ shone proudly next to a blurry video surveillance shot of Caden. Just from the town hall reception backdrop of the image, it wasn’t difficult to see where the finger pointed.
The mayor had been clever in not giving too much away.
The story covered the whole of the front page and most of the third page but it was mainly fluff, fleshing out the few facts they had. All they knew was a support worker, working for a local charity took advantage of an addict under his care. Elias’ name wasn’t mentioned, but why would it be? That would work against the mayor, not for her. On the surface, this looked like a direct attack on Elias but he knew better. There was nothing else she could do to Elias, so she had to hit him where it really hurt and that was the man he loved.
“There’s no going back from this,” Caden’s hands were fisted tightly in his disheveled hair as he paced the apartment, “the whole town will be talking about this.”
There was nothing Elias could say to make things better.
“This is my fault.”
“This is her fault,” Caden shook his head, “but if you hadn’t said anything at the ball, this wouldn’t have happened.”
The last thing Elias had been expecting was Caden to agree.
“I thought you were proud of me for standing up to her?”
“I was,” he cried, “I am, but, we should have known she’d do something. You should have known she would kick back when she had the chance.”
“I should have known?”
“She’s your mother!”
“Barely. You probably know as much about that woman as I do.”
The tension was rising between them and even though neither of them really wanted to turn on each other, it was too easy. Elias’ reputation or public image was nonexistent. He had spent years in the gutters of Havenmoore, unseen and ignored. Caden, on the other hand, had everything to lose. He came back to Havenmoore for a fresh start and so far his fresh start had bitten him at every turn.
“How can she get away with this?” Caden picked up the paper again.
“Stop reading it,” Elias attempted to pull the paper out of Caden’s hands, but he was clutching tightly, “you’re only going to make it worse.”
“Worse? How can it be worse than this? This article makes me sound like a dangerous sex criminal for falling in love with you. You’re not the one being referred to as an ‘unstable and dark character with troubling motives’.”
“So we’ll be unstable and dark together,” Elias stood up, “we’ll get through this. Dogs will be using this as their bathroom tomorrow and people will already be forgetting about it.”
Elias wasn’t sure. He knew how small Havenmoore was and a scandal like this would give them gossip room for as long as they wanted to drag it out. People would likely add to and embellish the story until Caden became a Hollywood style villain in the eyes of the people walking the streets. Judy James was a clever woman, Elias had to hand that to her.
“You’ve never had to live with anything like this!”
“I’ve been through my own shit storms, Caden.”
“You chose your path,” he pointed in Elias’ face, “you kept using drugs and pushing people away. I never asked for this. I never asked for my life to be ruined.”
He almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The words leaving Caden’s mouth sounded like they were somebody else’s. He wished they were. They weren’t. His lips were moving and the sounds were coming out in his voice, hurting Elias in the one place that Caden had always avoided.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten so close to me then.”
“Maybe!” Caden cried, his face burning, “What am I going to do?”
Elias walked over to his living room door, not wanting to believe what he was hearing, “I think you should leave.”
Caden looked up from the paper, shocked as Elias opened the door. Elias couldn’t believe that he was holding the door open and waiting for Caden to go. He didn’t want him to. He never wanted him to leave. He needed Caden by his side, even if he was being hurtful. Words hurt but it wasn’t Caden’s words that had caused the problem, it was his own. As he stood holding the door, he hoped Caden would refuse to leave so they could fix things.
“Is that what you really want?” Caden blinked heavily.
Elias nodded before he had time to think about if it was what he really wanted. What he really wanted was Caden’s arms around him but he felt like he had gone too far to the edge.
“After all of the times I’ve been there for you -,” Caden stopped talking and dropped his head heavily.
Before Elias could make everything right, Caden was already hurrying down the steps to the street with a copy of the newspaper in his hands. Elias waited by the door, hoping Caden would run back up those steps at any moment so they could embrace and promise never to fight again. He didn’t. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into a lifetime. He was left alone with nothing more than his thoughts. They were screaming at him, calling him a fool for pushing away the one good thing he had in his life.
Times like this were usually the ones that would push Elias over the edge. If he had a line of cocaine in front of him, he would find it difficult to turn it down. He needed the voices in his mind to stop. Every sentence replayed on a constant loop, each loop growing louder and louder.
Picking up his copy of the newspaper, he grabbed his jacket and headed straight for the town hall. The receptionist told Elias that the mayor was working from home but she looked like she instantly regretted telling him that information. With only a couple of bucks in his wallet, he ditched taking a cab and headed towards the apartment building where his mom lived.
Elias had only been once before, but it was the only building of its kind in Havenmoore. It was as close to a gated community that you could get in a small town like Havenmoore. As luxurious as luxury apartments came, it stood four stories high, all glass and steel. The reception area was manned by a security guard behind a desk, who spent his days watching screens and Elias knew there was no way he could just march in.
Looking up and down the quiet street, he spotted flowers tied to the roadside. He hated himself for doing it but he plucked out the freshest bunch, trying to ignore the cards of sympathy for the accident that must have taken place there recently. The name card in the bouquet he had stolen was still there, written out to a woman named Brenda. He left the card in the flowers, promising to Brenda that he would put them straight back when he was done. It wasn’t like he was going to give his mom flowers.
“Flower delivery for Judy James,” Elias deepened his voice, hiding his face with the flowers as much as he could.
He wouldn’t put it past his mother to have his picture behind the security desk on a list of ‘Do not let inside’.
“There’s no delivery in the book,” the security guard sighed, scratching the side of his head, “just leave them here and I’ll get someone to send them up.”
“I don’t mind doing it. I think they’re from her boyfriend.”
“She has a boyfriend?” the young guy laughed, “I didn’t think old frosty panties had it in her. Go on.”
There was an electronic buzz and the door to the elevator clicked open. Not wanting to hang around, Elias headed straight for the elevator at what he thought was an acceptable speed. He couldn’t believe how easy that had been.
He pressed the button for the top floor, placing the flowers gently in the corner of the elevator for him to come back to when he was leaving. Rescuing the newspaper that he had stuffed down the back of his jeans, he straightened it out and looked at Caden’s blurry and pixelated face. He wondered where he was and what he was thinking. Was he regretting everything that he had said, like Elias was, or was he feeling lucky for an exit off the crazy train? Elias couldn’t blame him if Caden decided to never speak to him again. I hope I know him better than that.
The elevator doors slid open slowly, revealing the top floor corridor. It had a silence that only money could buy. Underfoot, carpet thicker than sponge cake cushioned his sneakers and wallpaper that looked like it had been spun from pure silk lined the surrounding walls. It was the kind of delicate elegance his mother had always adored. To Elias it was bland and pointlessly extravagant. He had
never understood why people liked to throw their money at such nonsensical things.
He firmly knocked on his mother’s door. She probably had cameras in the hall that he couldn’t see so she could decide if she wanted to open up. If she didn’t want to open the door to him, he would kick it down.
“Who is it?” a croaky voice called from within.
Swallowing hard, Elias straightened up his spine and stepped into the view of the peephole he knew she would be peering through.
“Who do you think?”
Agonizing seconds ticked by and he was sure the security guard was about to drag him out on her request. To his surprise, he heard the chain being removed and the door slowly opened.
He didn’t know whom he had expected to see but a woman he didn’t know stood in front of him. It was his mother, but he had no memory of ever seeing her like this. A thick, white robe was wrapped around her body; her hair hadn’t seen a brush and her face didn’t have a stitch of makeup on it. Without the dark eyeliner, her eyes looked smaller and more human. She wasn’t wearing her usual ferocious red lipstick but a similar color surrounded her nose as she sniffed deeply, a tissue clamped in her hand.
“What do you what?” she sounded nasally, “How did you get up here?”
Elias held the front page of the newspaper in front of her face. He was sure she would fake shock or surprise but her slightly swollen eyelids didn’t flutter.
“Are you a delivery boy now?” she scoffed, “Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse.”
“Don’t play games,” Elias pushed by her and marched into her apartment without an invitation.
She had redecorated from what he could remember but he was sure that she redecorated twice annually anyway. It was simple and stylish, everything white, glass and chrome. She had a perfect view over the town and in the distance, he could see the back of the town hall. He could imagine her sitting in front of the window with a glass of red wine clutched in her long stem wine glass, staring over her empire with a twisted and shrill cackle.
“Please, do come in,” she slammed the door, “I’m sick.”