Memento Amare

by G. D. Cox

  Let them listen. Let them all hear how flawed and fucked up and human Phelan Cole is and always has been.

  He's almost proud that his voice, rough and crumbly as it is, doesn't vacillate once. That he pauses only once or twice. That every word he utters is distinct and sincere. This is him pouring out whatever is left in him for Clyde. This is him leaving his latest and final will.

  It's just too bad Clyde will never listen to it, he's sure of that. A week from now, after Nate pays him a visit to this apartment and gives him a metaphoric kick in the ass, he'll be back at HQ and he'll discover from an astonished Don that Clyde's quit the agency and is gone. Without a goodbye. Just like that. Clyde's probably left behind his comm pad before dashing away from the GATF, from New York City (from him, from him) like a rabid bat out of hell.

  Just too bad.

  XXXIII.

  CLYDE DOESN'T LEAVE his comm pad behind.

  It's a fact Phelan will only hear straight from his mouth months from now as Phelan recuperates in the ICU at HQ, as he sleeps like the dead tucked into Phelan's side, still seeking refuge and not finding it (and he doesn't, not for a long time yet, not until he's made amends for how much he's sinned against the man he loves so much). Months from now, Phelan will also hear from him about what he had been up to in the weeks upon weeks that he was gone from the GATF, from New York City, from Phelan. They will end up coiled around each other on the black, leather-bound couch in their living room (theirs, again), with Clyde crying noiselessly and unconsciously scoring his own scalp with his fingernails until Phelan has to pry away his fingers by force and grip them to that broad, familiar chest lest he try to hurt himself again.

  "Tell me," Phelan will murmur, as if past a gigantic lump lodged in his throat, "tell me everything."

  Clyde will, and as Clyde does so with many more stumbling words and choked breaths, they hurtle back in time to that bleak night of polarized moonlight and abandoned homes, when Clyde flees from the apartment - it's Cole's, Cole's and the other Clyde's, not his, not his - with brisk steps down marred sidewalks in shadows the color of black blood. He walks, he walks and walks and walks while wind-hammered, and all he can feel are his tingling lips that had touched another man's lips (but they already have so may times before, he just doesn't remember). He tells himself he should be spitting and wiping his mouth and rinsing it with alcohol or something to disinfect it. He tells himself he should be scrubbing himself from head to toes, scrubbing away another man upon his body, in his body.

  But he doesn't. He doesn't do any of those things. He covers his mouth with one hand as he walks and walks, as he tries so fucking hard to not think about Cole. About Cole's large, callused hand upon his, about Cole's lips.

  (In hindsight, when Clyde is home again and he's on that couch with Phelan, he thinks that maybe he'd been trying to protect what he had left of anything good when he covered his mouth. Trying to protect what he had left of Phelan who'd always made sure he was warm and protected and cared for.)

  He's still stunned by the ki - ... by what happened. Stunned by how much he'd ... not hated it, and that is so messed up, so messed up. He isn't gay. He is not gay. He isn't. He has to stop thinking or feeling about Cole. (Stop remembering Cole naked and getting out of the bed so unashamedly, so elegantly in front of him that night in the master bedroom, with all that gold-gilded, zoetic skin and sea of scars waiting for his interpretations and muscles thickening and buckling with movement, all on display like he wasn't even there.) He has to stop. He has to stop ... everything.

  He tried, didn't he? He tried the best he could, he gave things a shot with the psych therapies and medical scans and the date tonight and it ... it just didn't work out, did it?

  He's not gay. He's not. He's not the Clyde that Cole wishes he was. He just can't be. Tonight's proof of that, isn't it? Proof that's polar ice cold and hard. He can't go back to the apartment now. He can't be near Cole, period, or he doesn't know what he's going to do, he doesn't know what Cole will do to him now that Cole's kissed him and he doesn't know how bad things will turn out and he's not gay, he's not, he's not -

  That's when he has his comm pad in hand, wrestled out of the side pocket of his jeans. That's when he fires off that fucking email that should be leaving him whooping and clicking his heels with joy. Bye bye, ball and chain, and heeeeello, ladies!

  Instead, his whole goddamn world goes hazy and hot and wet, no matter how many times he blinks. He walks and walks and walks with his comm pad switched off and put away once more, with his arms taut around his shivering torso, and he feels like he'll never be warm and protected and cared for again. He feels like he deserves that.

  (And in hindsight, knowing how much he'd hurt Phelan - the bravest, toughest, most noble man he's ever known - with that email, hurt Phelan like no one else ever could, he does deserve that. He really does.)

  Clyde finds his way to HQ on foot. He goes in and up to the Accommodation department on the fifth floor without running into any agents he knows (and thank god he doesn't run into Rajah, who's been driving him nuts with not-at-all subtle questions about the way he's been acting around Cole). He manages to wrangle temp lodgings one floor above his old one, the one he'd lived in for over four years until he'd moved in with ... until he moved out. His old lodgings have long since been cleared out and assigned to someone else, a relic of his past that he almost wants to pass by, just to see who's staying there now.

  Cole did tell you that the two of you became lovers before you started living together, a voice in his head whispers. So who knows what happened in there, right?

  Maybe that's where you and Cole kissed too, that voice in his head whispers, sounding just like Pop. Maybe that's where you and Cole fucked too, you little fag.

  He finds himself sitting on the side of an army-neat bed in the temp room, his head in his hands, his elbows on knees, still shivering, still cold. He squeezes his eyes shut. Bites his lower lip that's still tingling and, yeah ... he has to get away. He has to. Get away from the GATF. From New York. From everything. Just get away.

  For almost a week, he lurks around HQ and sneaks out to buy the basic stuff he'll need for travel, for going back on the streets (where he belongs, where he should have stayed, former circus white trash like him). He can't afford to get the supplies within HQ itself, not unless he wants word to spread like wildfire that he's going off somewhere while not telling anyone about it. He switches his comm pad back on a day after returning to HQ but immediately flicks away all notifications without looking at them and sets it to silent mode. He hasn't been drafted for any missions since Croenia anyway. He knows he won't be. He's officially on the bench under Fabry's direct order until he isn't compromised anymore, but that doesn't matter now.

  He discreetly goes about severing his ties with the agency, submitting all the relevant forms just before he vamooses. He doesn't give a shit that he's supposed to give at least a month's notice to Human Resources and to Fabry and Bhargava. He doesn't give a shit that he's supposed to see Dr. Fisher soon for more psych crap that do nothing but make his head ache.

  He doesn't see Cole once. He doesn't see Rajah, Don, Angela, Henry or any of the other agents he's become close friends with and he is so damn glad about that. He has no idea how to explain to them why he's quitting the agency and fuck it, why does he have to?

  He doesn't need Fabry's (or Cole's, or anyone else's) permission to live his own life. If he wants to leave, that's his right to do so. And if he wants to leave so he can seek out Melissa, the one woman who'd been different from all the others he knew, who hadn't laughed when he couldn't satisfy her, who'd ... always made sure he was warm and protected and cared for, that's his fucking right.

  His last memory of her is of watching her walk out the door of their cozy, rented apartment in Rochester, Minnesota well over a decade ago, and not look back at him once. And he doesn't remember why she left.

  He has to ... see her. He has to talk to her.

  The compulsion grows an
d grows as the days pass, as his self-imposed deadline to leave looms over him. Nearing the end of the week, he overhears hushed chatter about Cole, that Cole had abruptly requested a week off five days ago without any explanation to anyone. ("Except Fabry, of course," the other agents say while he lurks out of their sight. "Fabry would know what's going on with Cole, best pals that they are. Barnett too, probably. Some serious shit must have gone down for Cole to take emergency leave like this.") Clyde doesn't stick around for anyone to ask him what happened and why. He already knows what and why. Cole had mutually agreed with the other Clyde to never tell anyone else about their relationship, their marriage so why should he tell anything?

  It's not his right to do that. It's solely Cole's, now.

  With a duffel bag of newly purchased clothes, toiletries and a wallet wadded with cash, he walks out of HQ on the early morning of the seventh day. He doesn't look back.

  (Really, in hindsight, it was one hell of a sign of how goddamn compromised his mind was that it didn't occur to him that Fabry had an eye on him from the instant he set foot in HQ without Phelan at his side. One hell of a sign, that he wouldn't notice the tail following him out of the city and across the country like some careless rookie who wanted to be followed and reeled back in.)

  He rents a black Chevrolet Malibu from a car rental on West 96th Street under an alias. Alone in its spacious, dark brown and beige interiors, he allows himself to lament the lack of dazzling red. To miss, just for a moment, the brilliant 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle LS6 that must be parked in its space in the apartment building's basement parking garage right now. He's sat in it for only one night (as far as he remembers) but there was something about it that made him feel ... at peace. That made him feel as if he belonged in it, there in the red vinyl front passenger seat while Cole sat behind the steering wheel, like a breath-held snapshot to be framed and mounted on a white wall as a smile-luring memory.

  Was it really the car, a voice in his head that does not sound like Pop whispers, or was it the man beside you who made you feel like that?

  He doesn't know. He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know.

  What he does know is that he has to find out where Melissa lives now.

  As a soon-to-be former GATF agent at Level 6, he didn't have the access privileges necessary to obtain private information like Melissa's address and phone number (and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask a certain Level 9 agent to do it). Using his comm pad, he calls up an old contact in Rochester who was a mutual friend and co-worker with Melissa. He doesn't know how or why he has her number inputed in his contact list, under the name of 'Veronica (Ros, MN)'. He doesn't know why he doesn't remember inputing it. Is Veronica somehow connected to Cole? That can't be, considering he left Rochester years before becoming a GATF agent. There's no way Veronica and Cole know each other. Cole didn't even know about Melissa until he told Cole about her.

  He breathes a soundless sigh of relief anyway when Veronica picks up and recalls who he is with friendliness.

  Veronica isn't working for that local supermarket chain as a cashier anymore, not for three years now. She's married, with twin toddlers and still living in Rochester. Melissa, on the other hand, is living in Denver, Colorado, approximately 1,779 miles away from New York City. Married five years and counting, with a three-year-old son. Married and happy and has long moved on from him.

  Clyde still wants to see her, to talk to her.

  He has to know.

  "I guess you lost her number again, huh?" Veronica says, mellow with amusement. "See, this is why I never change my number if I can help it. You'll never know when an old friend calls you again."

  Sitting behind the steering wheel of the idle Chevrolet Malibu, Clyde blinks and stares out the windshield at the metallic orange rear of another parked car.

  "Wait. I called you before? To ask for her number?"

  "Uh, yes? You did. About two years ago? You said you needed to get in touch with her, and that it was important. It was a really short call because Mark was acting up and Matt was crying and refusing to nap." She pauses for a second. "I, uhm, assumed you did call her. But I guess you didn't?"

  Clyde blinks again. Oh. So that's why he has Veronica's number. He doesn't remember calling Veronica though, much less calling Melissa. He doesn't even remember how he got Veronica's number in his comm pad in the first place. The only reason he can think of for that is, whatever motive he had for calling Veronica, for calling Melissa (if he did do that at all), it must have been connected to Cole in a big way for him to no longer have memory of it. But how?

  He tells Veronica that he didn't call Melissa after all, that he'd lost the number later on, and Veronica says, "Well, it's a good thing you called. She had to change her number a few months ago after she lost her phone. I'm sure she'll be happy to hear from you again. She loved you a lot, you know."

  Clyde feels like laughing, or weeping, or both and fuck, he doesn't even know why. He rubs his dry face from forehead to chin with his left hand. He thanks Veronica instead for Melissa's new phone number and address in Denver.

  He's silent and still for a long time afterward, gripping the comm pad with both hands on his lap and not calling Melissa. He feels like laughing or weeping again when he skims through his contact list and sees a contact named only 'M' with a number that has a Denver area code. It doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter. He has her new number now.

  He can go see her now, and she'll ... she'll make a difference. She'll fix this mess (fix him). He can feel it.

  He doesn't call her. He lays the comm pad flat on the car's wireless charging pad next to the driver's seat. He revs the car up. He gets out of the city, out of New York and he doesn't look back.

  He takes a laid-back, weeks upon weeks-long route into the heart of the country. He's in no hurry. He's got no plans. He's got a fuck load of cash and all the time in the world. He drives, drives and drives and drives and crashes in cheap motels with water-stained ceilings and retro-neon color schemes, using the GPS system on his comm pad as guidance. (He hides all its other apps and notifications because he is not a GATF agent anymore, goddamnit, they're not his problem anymore, a certain Level 9 agent is not his problem anymore. He'll chuck the comm pad once he gets a new phone. He will.)

  On I-80 W, after entering Ohio and cruising down miles and miles of blacktop, Clyde has the radio switched on and there's a song playing that has him thinking of lovers meeting on the banks of rolling, cool rivers, of slender willows with their verdant curtains of feathery leaves, of melodious, brown-gray and pale larks. He sinks like a stone to the bed of those rolling, cool rivers, feeling happy, soothed. He sings along, a song of farewells and love in spring and larks singing when a beloved one is near.

  He sings, and he thinks of euphoric candlelight, of slow feet dancing across a burnished hardwood floor. Of a bristly face nestled against his. A bristly cheek bunching up in a smile that he can't see, that he can only feel against his own.

  Clyde switches off the radio as soon as the song ends. He's stone-faced as a headache begins its drum concert in his skull. He stares at the boundless road ahead, his hands white-knuckled around the steering wheel and he doesn't think about a certain man with gold-gilded, zoetic skin and a sea of scars waiting for his interpretations and all those damn muscles thickening and buckling with every movement. He doesn't think about anything.

  All the cities and towns he passes through on his journey to Denver blur into each other, as if he's on a merry-go-round that he can't get off and is making him sick to his stomach. (And he's been feeling like this since leaving New York City, and he doesn't even know why.) He blazes off a tension that's nervous and electrical. He feels like a ball on a pool table, spinning out of control.

  He makes a stop in Toledo on a whim, on a dare. A few days later, back on I-80 W, he leaves behind seedy bars full of guys who wanted to beat him and ladies who wanted to fuck him. He has no illusions about said ladies pawing at him, more than anything else, for the money he
flashed with every shot of rich, golden-amber Maracame añejo tequila he guzzled down. He'd thought about picking some of them up, to fuck them, but he rejected them all. He didn't think about why. He just told himself that he's going to see Melissa, who's better than any of them could ever be, like that explained everything. (It didn't. It doesn't.)

  In some of the bars he haunts after that, ladies aren't the only ones to make passes at him. Some guys are gutsy enough to try their luck with him, try being the keyword. The first one doesn't get further than a hello before a wordless, savage snarl and bared teeth send the guy packing. The second one buys him a beer from afar and skulks on the opposite end of the bar from him, ogling him with an arrogant smirk. The smirk disappears fast when he swipes the full mug away from him, uncaring that it flies off the counter and explodes on the floor into shards of glass and a piss-colored pond. (Later, he pays for the broken mug and tips the bartender big. He's an asshole, but he's not that much of an asshole.)

  The third guy, however, is the one who launches him like a fucking rocket from Cape Canaveral into a six-day-long drinking binge that would have impressed even his old man. (Dead since 1989, bless his alcoholic, baseball bat-wielding soul.) The third guy has thinning, dark brown hair and sharp, blue eyes. The third guy is wearing a suit, but no, the guy doesn't even come close in the looks department to a certain other man with thinning, dark brown hair and sharp, blue eyes in a goddamn tailored suit.

  Clyde lets the guy buy him a drink anyway. He actually drinks it. He actually talks with the guy, and the guy talks to him like he's a person and not just a face to fuck while he's on his knees or a walking bank account who's only good till the money's gone. The guy is actually nice and ... and -

  It's too much. It's all too much, and fuck, no, he is not gay, he's not, he's not.

  He. Is. Not. Gay.

  And this guy, this guy is not Cole, he's not Cole, he isn't -