by Blake, Leta
“Hey,” Zach mumbled.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You okay?” He was clearly still mostly asleep and not aware of what he was saying.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
Zach said, “Okay,” and then turned onto his side and fell immediately back to sleep. Leith waited until he was sure that Zach would stay put before curling up in the fold-out soft chair. It wasn’t bad, like Arthur had said. He watched Zach reach for the remaining pillow and clutch it tightly.
Leith pondered Zach’s sleep-slack face. What if Zach knew how Leith had felt about him? What if he’d pitied him? Because surely if Zach cared about him, too, they would have been together? Wouldn’t they have been more than just good friends?
Later Leith finally fell asleep counting Zach’s beautiful, slow, and tender breaths.
THE NEXT MORNING
VLOG ENTRY #5
INT. BAR – BOOTH – DAY
Zach brushes a hand over his wet hair and smiles softly.
ZACH
Hello, darlings. Well, it was quite a night. No, not like that. I stayed to watch a movie with Leith, and ended up crashing for the whole night. Leith was a perfect gentleman and took the chair. Yes, I inadvertently kicked a head trauma patient out of his bed. Now I’m at work, and I’m the only one here so far except for Tony in the kitchen. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do, but all I want is to be with Leith.
He smiles more broadly and waves a hand at the camera.
So instead I’m talking about him with all of you. He’s doing better, which is good.
Zach’s smile fades.
He still doesn’t remember me, for the record. It’s like…I want to be with him every minute, but it hurts at the same time. Still, it doesn’t matter how I feel. He needs me. I see it when I’m with him—the look in his eyes that tells me that some part of him recognizes that we click together.
There have been moments, small flashes, where…am I kidding myself? I don’t think I am, I really don’t, though I suppose you’ll all tell me I am. But there’s something there.
Sometimes he touches me, or we brush against each other, and there’s this look on his face…and believe me, it’s a look I know quite well. He likes touching me. A lot. And it surprises him, but he doesn’t pull away. He was asking me questions about this gay movie, and I just couldn’t answer. I’m afraid that if I let myself hope…
Zach sighs and shakes his head.
I can’t help it. I have to have some hope. I love him, and I want whatever I can have of him. If I’m fooling myself, so be it. I’ll take his friendship, and I’ll give him everything I can for as long as he’ll let me.
Don’t get me wrong; it hurts to be around him, loving him and knowing he doesn’t remember anything about who we were. But I can take it. I can do anything if it’s for him.
Zach bites his lip. He runs his hands through his damp hair and takes a long, deep breath before continuing.
What I can’t risk is losing him. Not right now. I’ll keep what we were to myself for the time being. His doctor agrees with me, actually. Arthur and our friends understand that the doctor wants it this way for Leith at the moment, but I don’t think they know all of this is also for me.
He lapses into silence for a few seconds.
If it has to come out—when it has to come out, and I know it will, then I’ll deal with the fallout then. I know when he leaves the hospital he’ll have to know. Of course he has to know from me before he finds out from anyone else. But right now I can’t handle it if he rejects me.
His face twists.
I remember how it was when he first felt attracted to me; how he was cruel at first in his refusal to accept his new understanding of himself. I can’t handle him being cruel right now. I’m willing to risk putting it off another day or another year—whatever it takes to stay in his life. That’s what I want to do.
Zach claps his hands lightly together, and leans forward.
I’d better get to work. I feel finally able to breathe a little again. Until next time, my loves.
Chapter Six
Have you ever been to India during monsoon season?” Dr. Thakur asked.
Leith peeled a petal off the rose he held and dropped it to the ground, shaking his head. “No. I’ve never been to India at all.” Then he rolled his eyes at Dr. Thakur. “That I know of. Unless I’ve been in the last three years and no one has told me.”
Dr. Thakur smiled. “No, as far as I know you weren’t in India during any of your lost years. It wasn’t a trick question.”
Leith pulled a few more petals from the rose. He held them on his fingertips, examining the bright orange color at the middle of the petals, and the fuchsia on the ends.
“A few years back my wife, Bhavanha, wanted to return to India for her grandmother’s funeral. It was the first time she’d been back since she was a small girl, and I attended the funeral with her.”
Nodding, Leith brought the petals to his lips and blew, watching as they floated on the breeze and landed a few feet away in the gravel of the path.
“It was monsoon season, and so my introduction to India was, well, it was very wet.”
Leith listened, but not very intently. He didn’t know why Dr. Thakur was suddenly getting personal with him, but he supposed it was better than rehashing his own feelings again. It was getting very boring to say, over and over: It’s frustrating not to understand. It’s confusing when I feel things that don’t match my experience. It scares me when I’m in a situation and I can’t be who I know the other person wants me to be.
He hadn’t told Dr. Thakur about the hard-ons he consistently got around Zach, or the intense emotions Zach brought up in him. Both the thought of being with Zach and being without him made him tremble and ache. He still didn’t know how to even begin to express those feelings.
“In the village where my wife’s grandmother had died, there was a river, and it was wildly flooded by the monsoon waters. Every day this group of boys would trudge out in the mud and stand by the side of the river, pushing and shoving, and daring each other to go first.”
Go first, Leith thought. Sometimes he felt torn into different people. One who wanted to hold back and wait—to not to push anything because the answers were surely coming. Another who wanted to tell the world to go fuck itself because he was starting a new life without any of the old hang-ups to deal with. And another who wanted to curl up on a bed with Zach and never leave. They all seemed to be playing a game of chicken with each other.
“Have you ever swum across a river?” Dr. Thakur asked.
“Sure,” Leith answered. “Lots of times out camping.”
“These boys, though, they weren’t just swimming across a river. They were swimming across a monsoon-flooded river, with floating tree limbs, and debris rushing downstream. To make it across required daring, strong muscles, powerful lungs, a lot of endurance, and most importantly a ton of will-power and determination. And yet these young boys would jump in and risk it just for fun.”
Leith could imagine it. It must be universal for young boys to egg each other on into doing something stupid.
“I was thinking about them this morning while reviewing your file. You have several options. You can leap back into whatever life you had before—go with the current, and wash out to wherever it is you end up. Or you can do something more than that. You can push yourself to find out who you are, no matter what memories you have or don’t have. You can swim against the current until you reach the other side of the river.”
Leith pondered it as he plucked another rose petal. Time was like a river, and memory was a current. Time flowed on without ceasing, no matter what or who tried to get in its way. But memory was changeable, and even losable. Like a current it could carry a person far away from their starting point, leaving them somewhere they might never have intended to be.
Like remembering how Zach’s lips looked as soft as the rose petals Leith held on his fingertips, and that h
is eyes were sometimes as green as the leaves on the rosemary shrub filling the garden corner. Leith sighed deeply and dropped the petals. He didn’t understand all this mooning over a guy, and yet he couldn’t seem to make himself stop thinking about Zach, or to feel anything less than thrilled whenever Zach walked through the door.
“Leith? Are you still with me?”
He nodded.
“What I’m saying is that if a flood comes your way—a flood of anger, or of fear—don’t let it carry you away. Fight that current and cross that river. Anyone can go with the flow. Be more than that. Challenge yourself.”
“Okay,” Leith said. “I’ll try.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” Dr. Thakur stood up and reached for Leith’s hand. He allowed Dr. Thakur to pull him up to stand as well. “It’s been a pleasure, Leith.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll be referring your case to an outpatient counselor. Tomorrow you go home.”
Apparently I’ll be facing a monsoon swollen river tomorrow.
Zach’s immediate reply to Leith’s text was a simple question mark, and Leith thought about not telling him anything more. Just showing up at Blue Flight or the apartment and letting Zach be surprised. It was likely a bad idea.
I’m being discharged. Tomorrow I come home.
It took more than an hour for Zach to reply. Leith sat on the bench in the garden and stared at his phone, his stomach tied in knots.
Your room will be ready for you. See you then.
Leith carefully folded his shirts and placed them into the bag Arthur had brought. He was wearing his jeans and the blue polo Zach had bought him, and Leith’s stomach flip-flopped at the idea that he was actually leaving. That he was going home to his own apartment—and Zach would be there.
He watched Arthur pacing the room, rolling and unrolling a newspaper, getting newsprint all over his hands. “Arthur,” Leith said, smiling. “What’s going on with you? Are you going to tell me before you rip that paper to shreds?”
Arthur tapped the paper against his palm. “I suppose I should. After all the doctor says I need to tell you before you find out for yourself.”
Leith sat down on the side of the bed. “Okay, so tell me.”
Arthur gave a tight, close-mouthed smile. “This newspaper is over a year old. I kept it because…well, isn’t it always nice to see one’s name in print?”
Arthur handed over the paper he’d been torturing, and Leith blinked at the gossip rag. On the cover was a blurry photo of him stepping into what looked like a boxing club. He read the headline aloud. “The Next Great Amateur?”
Arthur nodded and shrugged.
“So what is this? Some kind of story about me?”
“It’s about you, and because of that it’s about me…and Mom and Dad. I want you to read it and then we need to talk about something else too.”
“Is it a good article or a bad one? Why are you showing it to me now?”
Arthur made a face that seemed to indicate he felt the quality of the story was very much meh in his opinion. “Because this is the information that’s out there about you, and everything in the article is true. You have a right to know it. Especially the less savory items, which are mostly about me I suppose, but it’s a little bit about everyone.”
Leith skimmed down looking for Arthur’s name. “Are you fucking with me right now? You slept with women for money?”
“Oh yes, that. Well, it was years ago. When I first came to New York and had no income.”
“I thought you got your start with what Mom left you.”
“Come on, you know as well as I do there was barely enough there to last six months—much less the year it took me to get Joseph’s Teeth up and going. And, for the sake of full disclosure, it was actually men I slept with for money. They pay more.”
“What?”
“Yes, yes, so what? I’m sexually flexible. Ambi, omni, bi, queer—whatever it’s called. Why call it anything? I don’t see the point. Sex is sex. Leith, you used to know this, and you generally found it amusing.”
“I did?” Leith scoffed. It didn’t seem all that amusing to have his brother’s humiliating personal business splashed across the front of a trashy newspaper.
“The important thing is that my current girlfriend’s family knows about it all, too, and they’ve accepted it. Well, accept might be a strong word. It’s more like they’re resigned to it. Actually, they loathe me. Whatever. Miyoko and I have been able to work it out.”
“So, let me get this straight, although I guess that’s not the right word to use. You used to be a male prostitute, and now you’re in a relationship with a woman I haven’t met yet—or ever heard about—but you’ve sorted it all out?”
“Exactly.”
“Why haven’t I met this…what did you say her name was? Miyoko?”
“It wasn’t serious until very recently, and you weren’t really in a position to be meeting a lot of new people because you were so busy meeting old people.”
“Arthur, what the fuck?”
“She’s younger than me. Legal, though! She’s legal!”
Leith stared at Arthur. “How legal?”
“She’s twenty. Next month. Besides, it doesn’t to me. The only people who really care are her parents.” He sniffed and flicked his hair out of his face. “I’m ten years old than her and own a bar. Where she works. I’m not her parents’ ideal, that’s for certain.”
“You’re dating a nineteen-year-old employee. You’re her boss.”
“You make it sound so tawdry. Zach’s her boss too! Look, I didn’t exactly plan this, but Miyoko’s…” His gaze went distant, and he smiled softly. “She understands me. I always thought she was hot, but after your accident…she really helped me. We didn’t even hook up for weeks—it was just…talking.”
“Talking? It must be love then,” Leith bit out.
“It’s been stressful trying to make her parents understand my intentions toward Miyoko without seeming like even more of a…well, you know. But the heart wants what it wants. She wants me, and I want her. Her parents’ disapproval of course means nothing to me.”
“Of course.”
Arthur sighed, his shoulders slumping.
“And this has been going on the whole time I’ve been here? Why you didn’t mention it before?”
Arthur shrugged. “I didn’t want to burden you. You’ve had your troubles. I’ve had mine.”
“You say potato…” Leith said, shaking out the gossip rag again. His eyes took in the words, and as his brain supplied their meaning his stomach went cold and solid, like it was suddenly filled with stones. “Father addicted to gambling, and Wenz himself spent two years in prison for promoting an unlicensed boxing match and causing grievous bodily harm to a minor.” Two years in prison.
Shame swept over Leith and he closed his eyes. “None of this is anyone’s business but ours. This information is personal.”
Arthur sighed and snatched the paper from Leith’s hand. “It’s all just words. What do they even mean in the end? I don’t care.”
Leith jumped up from the bed and grabbed it back. “You might not care, but I do.” Of course Arthur had known he’d care. That was the reason he was telling him now instead of leaving it for him to discover later. Leith read further and scoffed. “‘At the age of eleven the young boxer’s mother killed herself?’ Arthur, that’s libel. That’s an outright lie.”
“Actually, Leith,” Arthur began, gently.
No. Leith didn’t want to hear it. He shoved his bag off of the hospital bed, his clothes and meager belongings spilling across the floor.
Leith shook the newspaper at Arthur and yelled, “That’s a lie. Don’t! Just shut up!”
“Leith, before…before the accident you already knew this. I told you when you got out of prison. Dad hadn’t wanted you to know. You were so young when it happened. But after his death, I thought you had a right to know the truth.”
“The truth
?”
“She was depressive. It wasn’t her fault.”
Arthur had his hands up and a look on his face that made Leith want to punch him. It was a sympathetic, brotherly expression that made him nauseous, because if Arthur was looking at him like that, then it was true. Then his mother had actually—no, it was too much for him to imagine. He’d just been a kid—a little boy. Why would she do that? How could she do that to them?
As Leith started to pace by the bed, Arthur’s voice came through the haze of building rage.
“It was pills. She left a note. They didn’t kill her right away, but the damage was done, and her organs shut down.”
Sweet Easter bread, and cool fingers on his forehead when he was sick. A new pink swirly dress that she’d worn while she danced and laughed with him in the street when he was ten, and purple flowers she’d saved in a vase until they were withered and brown because he’d picked them for her on his way back from school.
All of these things and more crested in his mind like a rushing wave, and he slammed his fist against the mattress. But it didn’t hurt enough; it didn’t make a dent.
“Leith, it’s—”
Leith shoved Arthur, drawing his fist back to strike. “Shut up! You’re lying! Don’t say it again!”
The firm grip on his arm came out of nowhere, and Leith whirled around, his fist flying blindly. He registered Zach’s face just as his knuckles connected, and the crack of fist on jawbone and teeth clattering together echoed in the room. Zach crashed to the floor, and Leith’s stomach plummeted.