by Blake, Leta
“Leith, please. Please.”
Some other guys held him back until he was pushed onto a stool at the bar, his heart pounding violently and his mouth wet with an urge to spit on the guy. It took everything in him not to lunge again when Zach grabbed the asshole’s arm and helped him up. Trembling all over, Zach looked up at him with big pleading eyes—had he looked like that while the asshole fucked him?—and begged him not to file assault charges. Begged him.
Gagging, Leith wanted to rip Zach’s hand away from the guy and punch the asshole again, his rage screaming through him. Sanity took hold long enough that forced himself to flee the scene, taking the stairs up to the apartment two at a time to put distance between himself and the object of his fury. Slamming through the apartment, his blood rushed in his ears as he made for the relative security of his bedroom.
His room was no help. The bed was still rumpled from the sex they’d had that morning, and he ripped the sheets off and threw them on the floor. It wasn’t enough, so he grabbed the closest thing he could lay his hands on and slammed it into the wall. The lamp shattered.
The new box of photos and letters he’d been looking through the night before was still open on his desk, and he grabbed a handful of pictures, his face twitching as he looked at the one on top of Zach laughing, his eyes bright.
“Leith?” Zach’s voice was barely a whisper.
Leith whirled to face him in the doorway. “When were you planning on telling me you’d fucked someone else?” Leith threw the stack of photos at Zach’s chest. They hit and scattered all over the floor in a splash of red, blue, green, black, and yellow.
Zach stood very still, looking as though he’d been slapped.
“Well?” Leith demanded.
“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Zach answered. “I didn’t want you to know.”
“That’s great. That’s just great.” Leith shoved past him, slamming his fist into the punching bag. His knuckles stung from the blow. Leith turned back to Zach and sneered. “Well, now I do. And do you know what I think? This is what I think.” Leith got in Zach’s face and spat out the words, “Fuck you.”
Zach’s jaw clenched and he nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said with slow and unusual deliberateness. “I made a mistake. I should have told you.”
Leith snorted. “I thought I could trust you. I thought that I—you wouldn’t believe what I thought, and all along you were just jerking me around, making an ass out of me.”
“Leith—”
“Who knew about this? Everyone? Marian? Who?”
“Leith, it was one night. It was a mistake. I thought that—”
“You didn’t tell me. You don’t tell me anything. I don’t even know you.”
Zach lips trembled, but his eyes flashed. “You didn’t need to know. There was no reason to tell you. He meant nothing to me—”
“Nothing! You fucked a guy who meant nothing to you? How could you do that? While I was in the hospital alone and fucked up you were out living it up? Fuck you. You’ve been lying all this time, and it’s my life. It’s my life we’re talking about here.”
“It was my life too,” Zach snapped, stepping into Leith’s personal space. “And you have no idea—”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t have to be anymore. You can go now. There’s no need for you here.” Leith grabbed a photo from the floor and forced it into Zach’s hand. It was a photo booth picture of them kissing. “This? This is bullshit. This is nothing. I don’t remember this and I never will.”
Zach looked as if he was going to throw up, and Leith’s throat felt tight, but he went on, “I don’t need your sympathy, and I don’t want your pity. You can stop feeling guilty about it and go get yourself fucked by someone else. I’m done with you.”
Leith pushed past Zach and tried to slam the door behind him, but Zach caught it and thrust himself between Leith and his escape route.
“Leith!” Zach’s voice seethed with anger. “I understand you’re angry, but you’re not the only person here who lost something that day.”
“Oh yeah, like you lost so much.”
“I lost everything,” Zach screamed. His face twisted and his voice broke. “I lost the man I loved more than life, and he doesn’t even remember me. He doesn’t remember what we had, what we were, or how happy we were together. He doesn’t remember the first time we made love, or the second, or the stupid fights we had that we thought were so fucking important. He doesn’t know how he used to look at me that made me feel like I would do, give, be anything if it was for him. He doesn’t know that even now just being near him is the only thing I want—even now, even when he’s disgusted with me—”
“I can’t look at you.”
Leith turned his back on Zach and unleashed on the punching bag in the corner, pounding it in rapid, hard bursts. Sweat slid down his back as he imagined the bag as the man in the bar, the disgusting bastard who’d talked about Zach like he was nothing, like he wasn’t the most important thing in the universe, and thought about Zach opening himself for some other man and slammed with more force. Pain bloomed on his knuckles and he kept on, harder and harder.
“I’m sorry,” Zach said, his voice barely audible over the smacks of Leith’s bare fist hitting leather. “I make a huge mistake, and I should have told you. I would give anything to be able to take it back.”
Leith didn’t answer, focused entirely on pounding the bag until his hands broke or until the rage inside was exhausted.
“I have to deal with the bar now, Leith. I’ll sleep tonight on the couch in the office down there until I can find a place to stay.”
The door shut behind Zach, and Leith collapsed to the floor, burying his face in his hands. Hot tears burned like shards of glass and blank, hopeless terror pulsed through him as though it was something vicious and alive.
He didn’t know who he was anymore or who he could trust. From deep down a cry pushed up and he wailed, “I want to go home!” His voice broke. “Just let me go home.”
Night moved across the room slowly as he huddled in the corner. The sounds of cars occasionally vibrated the windows, adding texture to the darkness, and the rattle of the pipes gave vent to Leith’s anxiety.
He stuffed a bag with some underwear, a change of clothes, the box of photos and letters, and a wad of cash. He didn’t know where he was going, and he wasn’t even sure he would actually leave. But sitting in the dark thinking of the pummeling he’d given the stranger in the bar, someone whose name he didn’t even know—someone who’d had Zach—he didn’t feel like he could stay either.
Leith took his cell phone from his pocket and turned it on. He typed in a text and discarded it without sending it. He noticed there was a forgotten draft already ready to send.
Zach, I don’t understand it, but I think I’m in love with you.
After staring at the words for a long time, he deleted the message and sat the phone on the desk.
He wasn’t sure where Marian and Ava were, and the door of the apartment shut behind him quietly. He walked down the stairs, hearing the soft echo on the walls. The city was drowsing, and though there were lights still on and cars moving all around, it was as though the world was at arm’s length. It didn’t take long for him to get a taxi, and from the backseat he watched the city disappear.
LATER THAT NIGHT
VLOG ENTRY #10
INT. LEITH AND ZACH’S BEDROOM
Still dressed in jeans and a rumpled shirt, Zach is slumped against the headboard of the bed. The computer is propped on something on the bed, and Zach reaches out to steady it several times. He doesn’t look at the camera.
ZACH
Hello, my loves.
Things here have…imploded. Leith is gone. I don’t know where he’s gone to, and I don’t know if he’ll be back. He didn’t leave a note. He just left.
He sighs and cups his hands under his chin.
We had a fight. Over that idiotic one night stand I had. The one I told you about. I never thought I
’d see that guy again, and I never wanted to. It had been humiliating enough to live through, and I didn’t want to be reminded of my mistake. But then he and his boyfriend showed up at Blue Flight. I don’t know how Leith found out what happened, but he did, and all hell broke loose.
Zach shakes his head and fiddles with the bed clothes. He moves and nearly tips the computer over. He straightens it again.
The guy I slept with isn’t going to press charges, and for that I’m grateful. Arthur talked to him, and for all I know he paid him off. The guy said he hoped things worked out for me and my boyfriend.
He rolls his eyes and throws up his hands.
I didn’t even know what to say to that. He said he knew when we…well, he’d been able to tell that I was in a bad place in my life. He said he was drawn to that kind of thing; the desperation was a turn on for him.
He sighs.
I’ve been around enough to know what was going on when I put myself in that position, but hearing myself described through his eyes?
He picks at the hem of his jeans.
Leith didn’t even know who I was! Everything we’d shared had vanished. It was all gone, and I just needed to feel something other than the black hole of despair. The worst part is that I let some asshole see my fear and desperation, and I never let Leith see that. Not even later when I should have. I couldn’t. I was too afraid.
He looks at the long thread he’s yanked free.
Unraveling. Yeah, that’s about right.
He sighs and wraps the string around his finger.
I told myself that I was taking care of Leith, and if he saw how terrified I was, then he’d never trust me to take care of him. He needs me to be reliable, and he needs me to be the person he can turn to when he can’t handle something for himself.
That’s when I can see the weight lifted from his shoulders, and I feel stronger somehow, because I know I did that for him. But if he knew how confused I’ve been— how scared and sad? Where would that leave us? Who would shore up our sinking ship? I couldn’t tell him what I’d done. There was already so much to deal with.
Zach’s lips twist. He brings the finger with the string on it to his mouth, biting at the thread.
God! I’m an idiot. I’ve been going on and on about this stupid one night stand, and the bigger problem is that Leith has left, and I don’t know where he’s gone, or if he’s coming back. I don’t know what to do with myself. Arthur’s worried, but he thinks Leith needs space to process things, and that he’ll come back.
Zach unwinds the thread from his finger.
Arthur’s right. He’ll come back, and I need to be ready when he does. There’s a lot to do around here, so I guess I’ll sign off. I hope you’re all enjoying the rollercoaster that is my life. If nothing else, I hope you’re thinking to yourselves, Hey, at least my life isn’t as bad as Zach’s! At least my boyfriend or girlfriend still remembers who I am!
So, just remember kids, it could be worse. Cherish the good times.
Signing off.
Chapter Eleven
The driver was listening to an album of blues Leith didn’t recognize, but struck him as classic and right for his escape from Brooklyn. The rhythm seemed to throb with the slide of the landscape out the window and the ache in his heart as Leith let himself drowse in and out of sleep.
A train to Penns Grove would have been faster and cheaper, but the taxi was private, dark, and lonely. Leith was in a rocking womb hurtling through darkness back to someplace older than he could ever dream of being, someplace that held memories he hadn’t forgotten. A place that might clasp him tight, push his hair off his face, and kiss his cheek while murmuring that everything was going to be all right.
The old house was right where he’d left it. It was somehow a surprise to see it there, though of course it couldn’t get up and walk away. It was small and brick, with a garden-lined path that was neater than Leith could remember it being since his mother had died. He paid the taxi driver and tucked what little money he had left back into his box of treasures.
He heard the taxi pull away and saw the vague shape of it drive off into the dawn light. He stood on the sidewalk outside the iron gate and stared up at the second window on the left. His bedroom had been the smallest room in the house, more of a closet really, but it had a window. So his mother had declared it a room, and she’d painted the walls blue just for Leith.
The room had been a surprise on his seventh birthday. There’d been a party that day, too, with some friends and streamers, and a birthday cake made with chocolate frosting and decorative sprinkles. His father had come home drunk and bitching about the expense of a party for such a little kid, and Leith had spent his first night in his own room listening to Arthur’s pounding stereo and the shouts of his mother and father.
As daylight crested behind the house, making it glow as though it were on fire, Leith looked at the living room window and remembered the soft green sofa his mother would sit on. She’d knit, or fold laundry, or simply stare out the window and hum under her breath. Her voice had been warm and safe like cocoa on a cold night.
Thinking back now, she’d always seemed so sad. Leith had often crept up by her and knelt at her side, resting his cheek against her knee, just listening. He bit his lip, remembering the soft cloth of her skirt and how it had felt so cool against his hot face.
Leith wanted to go to the backyard and look across to the fields he’d run as a child, to see if he could find the spot where he’d first seen that golden-crowned kinglet. But he didn’t belong here now. It was morning and the house would be waking soon. At best his presence would be tolerated and at worst he’d be accused of trespassing, but most of all he didn’t want to interact with anyone. He felt that if he were to speak now, the words would break him open and he’d spill everywhere—a fount of grief, fear, and tears.
He started walking. The streets were familiar and his feet knew where to go. It didn’t take long, and by the time Leith entered the shadows of the woods, the sun was an orange ball just over the horizon. In the forest it was still dim and cool, with dappled morning sunlight flickering on the dark, leaf-strewn ground.
The place he sought wasn’t as far in as he’d remembered, though. He supposed it had been quite a walk for his child legs to carry him. As an adult it wasn’t even three minutes off the road.
The ground was still clear, and there were remnants of a cooking fire. Leith crouched down and poked at the ashes with a stick. He wasn’t surprised children still camped here, but it was so familiar he might turn around and see himself with Arthur pitching the tent, or hear his father’s footsteps approaching from the road to give them final instructions and a strong goodnight hug.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” their father would say, handing them both an extra flashlight. “I’ll kiss your mother for you. Be smart, my boys. Stay safe.” For all his faults, in the early years their father had been more good than bad.
After their mother died and Arthur had left, Leith camped here alone. His father would come to tell him goodnight only if he was sober—only if Leith hadn’t escaped to the woods to get away from the phone that rang endlessly with creditors wanting their money, or bookies who wanted the same, or the neighbor who‘d decided Leith was her responsibility and always wanted to check in.
Sober nights were rare, and yet when Leith sat by the ashes and looked up at the gray-blue sky beyond the branches, he could almost feel his father there—almost hear his footsteps on the ground behind him. He felt that if he turned around, his father would be there with a flashlight and a grin. “Good morning, my boy. Did you dream enough for both of us?”
Leith whispered, “I didn’t dream last night, Dad. I didn’t even sleep.”
He waited for an answer and heard nothing except the rustle of squirrels in the bushes and the twitter of birds waking up. Cold in his t-shirt and jeans, Leith fell back onto the earth, his head cradled by the dirt and his arms and legs spread out limp. The sky was deep and endless
, and somewhere up there it turned into space, and space turned into the observable universe, and the observable universe turned into we just don’t know.
Leith didn’t know a lot of things. He didn’t know if there were police knocking on the door of the apartment to take him in on assault charges. He didn’t know if Zach had found him gone yet. He didn’t know if he wanted Zach to be mad, or sad, or scared. He didn’t know if he wanted Zach. Hell, he didn’t even know Zach.
And yet there it was, that feeling he couldn’t shake. It was like a pull against his skin, something constant and ever present, as though it was part of him down to his cells, an emotion strong and compelling and rooted without logic. It was something he could only name as love.
The day swam in and around him in slow hours spent sifting through memories and emotions he couldn’t contain. Alone in the woods he felt tears slide down the side of his face and drop off to the ground below. He alternated opening his eyes to stare up into the well of blue and closing them, taking comfort in the shifting colors under the black of his lids.
He sorted through the box he’d brought with him, reading again a beautiful letter from Naomi. She had loved him, and she’d left him because she believed he loved Zach. He read the words his father had penned to him in prison on the card he’d kept on a shelf by his bunk long after Christmas had passed.