by Blake, Leta
A noise caught his attention, and he swung his head toward the suddenly open door and the person standing there.
Leith pulled out of Zach, who flipped over, looking bewildered. Leith quickly jerked the sheets up to cover him and rolled out of bed and into a fighting stance before he even fully registered who had intruded into their space.
“What the fuck?” he shouted.
Zach’s cousin Janelle smirked. “Huh. I always figured Zach would be on top, what with the way you always let him boss you around.”
Pulse pounding and seeing red, Leith roared, “Get the fuck out before I throw you out!” He felt Zach’s hand on his trembling back.
“Leith, calm down.”
“Jeez, chill out, fighter. And use the lock next time!”
Leith clenched his fists, determined to master himself, and repeated the mantra Arthur had drilled into him when he was just a kid: it’s never okay to punch a girl.
Janelle wriggled her fingers in a cutesy wave and took her time closing the door.
“Come on,” Zach said, tugging on Leith’s arm until he joined him again on the bed. “She’s gone now.”
“I think I want to murder her,” Leith muttered, still struggling to get his temper in check.
Groaning, Zach flopped back on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. “No, you won’t get the pleasure. I’m going to murder her first.” He looked up at Leith, his hair mussed and chest still flushed with arousal. “I told you that you didn’t like her.”
“I should have believed you,” Leith said. “God, I was really damn close too.”
“Yeah? You were?”
“So fucking close.”
Zach looked up, his lips in a pout and his eyes pleading. “Leith…can you still…?”
Leith closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths. He opened them again and nodded. The relief in Zach’s eyes warmed him, and he laughed. “Did you get left a little needy?”
Zach bit his lip. “Desperate. You got me all crazy. Please, Leith…” He got back on his hands and knees.
Leith pushed Zach’s legs apart and climbed between them. As he checked the condom and shoved in, he remembered what Janelle had said. He settled his cock deep in Zach’s ass and bent to whisper, “Do you ever do this to me?”
Zach twisted around for a wet kiss. “My God, yes. You love it.”
Leith shuddered and started rocking, grabbing Zach’s hips and holding them still when Zach squirmed against the sheets. “Let’s do that soon,” he whispered. Zach made a desperate noise and grabbed his own cock, jerking it hard and fast while Leith fucked him.
Dr. Thakur sat beside Leith on the bench near the roses. “How’s outside life treating you?”
Leith ran his hands over his jeans and tilted his head back to the sky. “Sure beats a prison,” he said, and then cracked a smile. “It’s good. Things are…good.”
“How are you spending your days?”
Leith shrugged. He wasn’t doing a lot right now, just trying to sort things out. Zach let him behind the counter when things got busy at Blue Flight, but for the most part, Leith looked at his books from CUNY, and thought about his future. He didn’t know if he felt passionate about a career in physical education anymore. When he tried to write down a list of pros and cons, he hid the paper from Zach, not wanting him to see his handwriting. “Trying to figure out my future.”
“The future is like a thousand suns,” Dr. Thakur said, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.
“Really bright?” Leith asked, chuckling.
“Yes,” Dr. Thakur said, and then shook his head. “You think I’m full of bullshit, don’t you, Leith?”
“No, of course not.” Leith hoped he sounded convincing.
“And how is Zachariah?”
“He’s…great,” Leith said, smiling as he remembered Zach bustling around Blue Flight earlier, alternately telling Vanessa where to put the vodka and instructing Leith on which buses to take to get to the clinic for his appointment. Zach was so cute when he was being bossy.
“Hmm. No problems with feeling overwhelmed? Somehow I don’t believe that.”
Leith smirked. “I’m fine. When I feel stressed I go running or punch the bag in my room for a while.”
“Those are both pro-active ways to deal with your frustration.”
Leith shrugged his agreement.
“What has been the hardest thing so far?”
Where to start? Maybe when Zach had shown him around the bathroom before bed that first night. “This is your toothbrush and our toothpaste—Marian keeps hers here, but we don’t use it unless we run out before we can buy more. Here’s Ava’s; we never use hers because it tastes disgusting, and having dirty teeth is better. This is where we keep the towels, and the spare toilet paper goes here. This is your shampoo, that’s Ava’s…” and on and on. Leith had felt like he should be taking notes, or that he was eight and being guided around a friend’s house before a sleepover.
“But you’ve settled in since then?” Dr. Thakur asked.
“Yeah. I’ve had weird things happen, though.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like one day I was at my brother and Zach’s bar, and I realized I knew how to mix drinks. Even drinks I don’t remember from before.”
“How did that feel?”
“Good. Right. But then…”
“What happened?”
“Zach just looked so hopeful, and I realized he wants me to get my memories back.”
“Does he?”
Leith sighed. “I don’t know.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he wants to move on.”
“I see. And do you want to move on?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Dr. Thakur nodded. “And the anger?”
“I feel calm when I’m with Zach, but yeah, sometimes I still get angry.” He remembered Janelle walking in on them making love. “But it’s not too much. I can control it.”
He sighed, remembering the day he’d volunteered to get something out of the storage room for Zach and put in the combination to the door without even thinking.
He slammed his fist against the storage room wall. “Leith!” Zach cried. He’d put his arms around Leith’s waist from behind and rubbed his stomach soothingly. “Please, don’t get so worked up.”
Leith shook free and paced the storage room, realizing he knew where the lemons were kept—in the back corner—and not wanting to tell Zach that he knew.
“What are you thinking of?” Dr. Thakur asked him.
“A day I got angry.”
“With Zach?”
He shook his head. “With myself.”
“Why?”
“Because…I can’t remember.”
Leith hadn’t been able to take the look in Zach’s eyes that day in the storage room, not when he knew Zach wanted him to remember. And if Zach wanted him to remember, that meant Zach wanted the old him back, even now.
“You can’t remember why you got angry?”
“No,” Leith huffed. “I’m angry because I can’t remember.” He brought his hands up to his mouth, fingers steepled, and took deep breaths, feeling as though he were shaking down to his core.
“Leith?” Dr. Thakur asked.
But it in his mind it was Zach’s voice he heard.
“Leith, talk to me. Please.”
“Dr. Thakur says I should swim against the current. Not let myself get washed away in it.”
Zach had nodded and pressed his cheek to Leith’s shoulder. ”I won’t let you get washed away.”
“I only remember pointless things. Combination locks. How to mix drinks. But I don’t remember what’s important to you.”
“Hey, hey,” Zach said, moving in front of Leith and cupping his face in his hands. “You know who we are to each other, and that’s all I need. Everything else is past. It’s gone, and all that’s left is us. We don’t need anything else.”
Leith sw
allowed thickly. “What if I do?”
Zach shook his head. “You don’t have to know anything other than this,” and he kissed Leith’s lips so softly and sweetly that Leith’s knees buckled a little. “Can you tell me more about this memory you’re caught up in?”
Leith shrugged and tried to put it into words. He felt a little nauseous, but it helped to get it out. “Zach hasn’t accepted it, I don’t think.”
“What?”
“That I’m never going to remember our past. He doesn’t want to talk about it because he hasn’t dealt with the fact that this is all we have. This time together now.”
“That last part is very true, but I can’t speak to Zach’s state of mind. He’s been a closed door to me from almost the beginning. He doesn’t talk about the times before?”
“Almost never. Only when I ask, and then only to answer my questions. Sometimes he’ll even try to avoid that by telling me all we need is each other here and now. On the surface it sounds like he’s accepted the truth, but underneath, I don’t think he has.”
“That’s very astute. If it causes him pain to remember, do you feel entitled to make him talk about it?”
“Not really. But the old Leith deserves to be remembered, doesn’t he?”
“Everyone deserves to be remembered.”
“And Zach’s the one who remembers him. I just wish it didn’t hurt him so much that the old Leith is gone. It makes me feel like I’m not good enough.”
“But you are good enough, Leith. Just the way you are.”
“Gee, thanks, doc. I feel all better now.”
Dr. Thakur snorted. “I’ve mentioned my wife is from India. Her grandmother taught her many things, and she walks around our house spouting wisdom left and right. Occasionally I’m reminded of the warning about throwing pearls before swine, so I sometimes attempt to be less of a pig and listen to her.”
Leith raised his eyebrows and wondered where this was going. “Uh-huh.”
“Last night she said to me, ‘Krishna told us that he was the taste of pure water, the sound of every voice and noise, the radiance of the sun and moon, and the courage of human beings.’ And I, in my own infinite wisdom, thought to myself, ‘Now that’s what I’ll tell Leith tomorrow, so that he can feel that he’s getting something meaningful from our discussion.’”
Leith was bewildered. “Okay,” he replied, nodding.
“Krishna, by the way, represents the vastness of everything, and that includes the future. He’s bigger and brighter than a thousand suns. Do you understand? Larger than any future—mine, yours, everyone’s. He’s big enough to encompass the past and the future, and every conceivable moment of both.”
“Dr. Thakur, is this religious instruction, or am I here for psychiatric counseling?”
“Some would say there’s very little difference between the two, but let me ask you a few questions, and perhaps we’ll come back around to what I was just telling you.”
“Sure.”
“Have you been thinking about that little bird lately?”
“The kinglet?”
“Yes, the one you thought of fairly often in the beginning. The one you wanted to help.”
Leith hadn’t thought about the kinglet in a while now, finding his focus was entirely on Zach. “No.”
“Boxing?”
Leith cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. He shrugged and squinted up into the sunny sky. “I don’t know.”
Dr. Thakur was silent for several minutes, and Leith listened to the birds rustling in the bushes.
Finally, Dr. Thakur said, “Human courage is a divine thing, you realize. It is right up there with the radiance of the moon, and the taste of pure water, and the light of a thousand suns. You, Leith, are incredibly courageous. I’ve watched you come to grips with a very difficult situation and face the loss of your father, your memory, and your idea of who your mother had been. I’ve seen you embrace desire for another man despite your confusion, and plunge into a life of strangers who love you. None are easy feats.”
“Poetry didn’t pay enough as a career?” Leith asked.
“No, annoying my patients suffering from amnesia pays much more.”
Leith smiled. “Yeah, yeah, go on.”
“How about I stop talking now? Why don’t you talk some more?”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me what you think about courage,” Dr. Thakur said.
“Courage,” Leith repeated aloud, studying his fingers. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Everyone says boxing isn’t a smart thing to do. My neurologists advise against it. Zach says it frightens him.”
“Fear is a strong motivator.”
Leith thought about the future—the long stretch of it ahead of him, endless. It would roll on and on without him even after he was dead. He only had so much of it for himself. “Those memories, they were only three years. I’ve got an entire future waiting,” Leith said softly. “I don’t want to waste it being afraid.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Thakur agreed.
“Dr. Thakur, are you telling me to box again?”
“Of course not. I’m talking about Krishna, and my wife, and courage, and thousands of suns, and all kinds of madness. You’re the one talking about boxing.”
LATER THAT NIGHT
VLOG ENTRY #9
INT. BLUE FLIGHT – BOOTH
Zach sits alone in a booth in the empty restaurant. He salutes the camera.
ZACH
I’m in a bit of a mood tonight, my loves. Rumor has it that Leith is considering boxing again. And the person spreading this information is Leith himself, so I’m pretty sure it’s true.
He sighs.
I’m trying to be supportive because I know what the sport means to him, but I can’t cheer him on. It’s funny. I remember the old days when I’d watch him train. The way my heart would burst with pride and—yes, something a lot dirtier than pride—whenever I watched him in the ring. All that muscle, and sweat, and the power. God, that power.
But now when I think of boxing, I just remember the smell of that ever-present antiseptic in ICU, and I hear the beeps of those damn machines and…
Fuck him!
I just got him back and now I’m going to lose him again.
He rubs his eyes.
Fuck, I feel so guilty even saying this out loud, which is why I’m saying it to you and not to Marian or Ava…and definitely not to Leith. I could never look him in the face and say these words to him, because they’re so ungrateful and awful. I mean, I know, from the bottom of my heart and soul, I truly know how lucky I am to still have him in my life. But, my loves? I think I’m a bad person. Because here’s the thing—I miss him so much.
I know, I know. Technically he’s here with me. He’s alive and he’s so much the same, but he’s so different too. He’s not the same man he was before. He’s like a colt finding his legs. My Leith, my sweet Leith, was cocky and sure of himself, and when I wavered or got scared, when I started to flake on my life or on us, he’d plow on through. Like of course everything was fine, and of course I could manage whatever was happening.
Now I’m supporting him, and I miss his bullshit bravado so damn much. I need someone to just bully me into believing we’re going to be fine. That I can do this, and that we’re okay. But I can’t have that. Because that person was Leith.
Some days I feel like he died after all.
He covers his face.
I’m so ashamed to say that. So fucking ashamed.
He drops his hands and clears his throat.
No, ignore that. Ignore all that whiny, needy crap and…don’t. Just please tell me everything’s going to be okay? I need to hear that so much right now. Please. Tell me he won’t box, or that if he does, he’s going to be safe, and tell me it’s okay to miss him, because I need someone to say that to me. Please…just, God, I wish he could hold me right now.
He wipes hastily at his face.
I hea
r him. I should go.
LEITH (off screen)
Are you coming up to bed?
Zach clears his throat and smiles.
ZACH
Yep! Just give me a second, okay?
LEITH (off screen)
Anything you want.
ZACH
Whispers to the camera.
Oh, how I wish he could deliver on that.
Talk to you all later.
Chapter Ten
“Are you going to take me? I’ve been out of the hospital over a month and I’m going whether you want me to or not.”
Arthur sighed. “Okay, I guess I can show you around. Just don’t tell Zach I took you.”
“I can handle it, Arthur,” Leith said, glaring at his brother. “I think it’s about time that I handled some things for myself.”
When he walked into the boxing club he was greeted by grunts of exertion and the slap and whap of gloves on skin and bags. He took a deep breath, the scents of sweat and mildew from the showers filling his nose.
“This is great,” he murmured, and then stopped in his tracks as the room grew quiet and all eyes turned to him. Every face showed a mix of concern and gladness, expressions that Leith was sick of seeing. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the men here would know him, but of course they would. He’d nearly been their champion.
“Leith!” A man with blond hair and expressive blue eyes approached, glancing over his shoulder as some guys fell in behind him. “Hey, bud. How are you?”