Second Wind

by Walker, Aimee Nicole

  Rush turned and exited the gym, as if he couldn’t take it for another second. Jana was so busy squealing and jumping up and down with her friends that she didn’t notice my lack of attention. I used the distraction to quietly leave the gym and seek out the only person I had wanted to bring as my date. I knew where I’d find Rush too. He would go to the one place in that school that brought him peace and happiness; it’s what I would’ve done too. Except, I would’ve gone to the weight room while I knew I’d find Rush in the photography lab.

  Just as I suspected, the red light was on, indicating that photo developing was underway. I knew Rush hadn’t been in there long enough to start, so I yanked the door open. He jerked his head up and gasped when he saw that I’d followed him. Tears streamed down Rush’s face, and I had never hated myself as much as I did at that moment.

  “I’m so sorry, Rush.” The words were lame but true. I could see in his eyes that he needed more from me, and I’d give it to him no matter the cost to myself. “I wish it could’ve been you. I know you don’t believe me, but I’d give anything to be able to dance with you.”

  Rush closed his eyes and nodded his head.

  Music from the gymnasium floated up through the floor of the journalism and photography classroom. The lyrics and melody were hauntingly perfect for our situation. Rush opened his eyes, and I saw the same awareness in his liquid green gaze.

  “End of the Road.” I could barely hear my voice over the music and the pounding of my heart. “Dance with me, Rush.”

  We wouldn’t have forever, but we had that moment. I refused to be denied. Rush walked out of the photo lab and into my arms, and I forgot to be afraid. I only thought of the wonderful memories of us that I’d cling to until my last breath, our only dance would be my favorite. The song went by too fast as we slowly danced in a circle, staring into each other’s eyes and crying bittersweet tears of both sorrow and joy for our last embrace.

  “I’m never coming back here, Lincoln. I can’t live a lie for the rest of my life. I know it will be scary and hard, but I feel like I’m suffocating.”

  “You’re the bravest person I know, Rush.” He scoffed, but I meant it.

  “I’m afraid of everything. I was terrified of learning to ride a bike or getting on the Ferris wheel. I only did those things because of you, Linc.”

  “You did those things, Rush. I only encouraged you. I’m going to encourage you one last time. Leave here and don’t look back. Live openly and happily for both of us. Just don’t forget me, okay?”

  “I could never forget you.”

  When the song was over, we shared one last, long kiss. The saltiness of our tears mixed with the special sweetness that was unique to Rush Holden. Fuck, I couldn’t imagine never tasting his kisses again. The anguish of knowing it was truly the end of the road for us was almost crippling. Our good thing had come to an end, and I truly didn’t know what I had with Rush until it was gone.

  Fast forward twenty-five years and a few months later, those same two phrases come back to haunt me as I sit across from my wife at the dining room table in the dream home we built together. It was supposed to be a dinner to celebrate the next phase in our life: empty nesters. Ironically, both of our children chose Chicago for the next stage of their lives. Kennedy finished her internship in Washington D.C. and completed another year at Loyola before Holden joined her for his first semester at School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The tuition could see us eating ramen noodles before long, but our children were ecstatic.

  I just wished I could say the same for their parents. Without the kids, I was suddenly at a loss for things to say to the person who knew me best in the world. Ophelia didn’t seem to have the same problem although it was hard to figure out what she was saying between the body-wracking sobs. She buried her face in her hands, which slightly muffled her anguished cry. I was grateful we decided to eat at home rather than go to a restaurant.

  “Honey,” I softly cooed, dropping to my knees beside her chair. “They’ll be all right, and so will we.”

  Phee shook her head vehemently. “No,” she said.

  “Sure we will.”

  My wife slowly raised her head and looked at me with an expression I would describe as defeated. “We’re not okay, Lincoln,” she finally said between gasps. “We haven’t been okay for a very long time.”

  My heart sank when I realized that I was the source of her sorrow, not the kids. I seemed to have this effect on the people I loved most. I did this to her; I made her miserable. My beautiful wife who deserved the absolute best in life had streaks of mascara running down her angelic face. Each new tear felt like someone had taken a razor-lined strap to my battered soul.

  “Let me fix this,” I pleaded with her from my knees. “I’ll try harder, Phee. I love you.”

  “I love you too, Linc.” Her words should’ve eased the panic swelling inside me, but the devastated look in her eyes told me that it was no longer enough for her. “But I’m not in love with you. I think you feel the same way too.”

  “No.” I shook my head in denial. “That’s not true, Phee. I—”

  “Haven’t voluntarily touched me in so long that I can’t remember. You reciprocate after I initiate sex between us, but you never take that first step.” Her tears slowed a little, and she let out a cute little hiccup like she did when she cried after Kennedy and Holden were born. “I watch the way other couples who are in love behave, Lincoln. They reach for each other and turn into one another. When was the last time you reached out to hold my hand while we walked in public or did more than give me a quick goodbye or hello kiss?” She tipped her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Come to think of it, when did you ever do those things?”

  “I can do those things, Phee. Please don’t give up on me. I don’t know what I’ll do.” I lay my head on her thighs, and she ran her hands through my hair, giving me comfort. “I can’t lose you.” A thought suddenly occurred to me. I raised my head and asked, “Or is it too late? Have you already met someone else?”

  I saw the answer in her eyes. “I haven’t acted on the attraction,” she said quickly. “I’d never hurt you like that, Linc. I’ve tried to ignore these feelings for more than a year, but they’re getting stronger. If you and I were truly happy, there is no way I could feel like this about another man.”

  “Who is he?” I asked. “Who’s taken my Phee from me?”

  “That’s not important right now,” she said then smiled sweetly. “No one could ever take me from you. I know it will be hard, and I know this sounds selfish, but I still need you to be my best friend. It’s not about the business or even the kids; it’s the fact that no one has ever made me feel as safe as you did. You’ve loved me the way I was, never asking me to change. I could tell you anything, and you’d never judge me.”

  “Except that part where you’d fallen in love with another man,” I said. “You didn’t trust me with that.” The bitterness that had crept into my voice had more to do with the blow to my pride than anything else.

  “I’m trusting you now, Linc. I’m begging you not to hate me.”

  The only thing that mattered was assuring Phee that I could never hate her. I’d come to terms with the rest later. “Never that, Phee.”

  We held each other and cried over the loss of our marriage and the fear of the unknown. Our focus turned to when and how to tell our kids, but we didn’t make immediate decisions. Phee and I thought it was best to sleep on it and talk more once the shock had worn off.

  That night, I slept in the guest room. Well, I tried to sleep anyway, but I mostly stared at the ceiling and berated myself for ruining the lives of everyone I ever loved. I tried to grasp onto anger, but it eluded me because I most likely deserved everything that happened to me. No matter how hard it was for me, I would put Phee and the kids’ needs before my own. I wouldn’t wallow in self-pity and try to hold her back for my selfish reasons.

  That was exactly the biggest problem too. I would still have my
best friend and business partner, but I was losing my safety net. Without Phee, I was free to explore a part of me that caused goose bumps of terror to pop up all over my skin. Without her as an excuse, what reason would I give for denying my urges. I still risked losing my family and my clients if they found out the truth.

  I rolled over onto my side and curled into a ball. The chill began to fade from my body and sleep started to sneak past the edges of consciousness. I dreamt of two boys sharing a dance in a quiet classroom, but this time around, they looked at each other with hope instead of desolation.

  I knew it was a bad omen when I woke to pouring rain on my wedding day. It was supposed to be a sunny and unseasonably warm September day, and not an end-of-days kind of monsoon. It might’ve been a little more tolerable if I’d woken up beside my soon-to-be husband, but Travis wanted to spend the night before our wedding apart to pay homage to traditions I didn’t observe. I wanted to make him happy, so I caved. Travis stayed in a Hilton hotel near the venue while I stayed in our home. We spoke on the phone before bedtime and expressed our mutual joy in beginning the next part of our journey together. I was thinking babies all the way, but Travis just chuckled when I brought it up. Baby steps, Rush. Baby steps. You’re finally getting your guy to say, “I do.”

  I had felt light and happy when I drifted off to sleep, but that feeling evaporated when I opened my eyes the next morning and saw the rain cascading down my windows. I was so disappointed that all my plans for an outdoor photo shoot were ruined, but I pushed it aside to look on the bright side.

  I received an early-morning phone call from my sister and niece, text messages from Will, Nigel, and Kent, as well as others who wanted to wish me luck before the ceremony. I even received a welcome to the family text from my soon-to-be mother-in-law. It was a bitter reminder of the family I’d lost when I decided to come out before leaving for college. I was dead to them, as was Jules for not abandoning me along with them. Travis was far luckier than he could ever realize to have a mother and father who loved him without condition.

  I refused to be maudlin on my wedding day and give my parents the power to hurt me. There were many times I wondered if they thought about me, or perhaps heard about my success as a photographer, but I wouldn’t allow my wedding day to be one of those times.

  I showered and dressed in my classic black tuxedo with the utmost care, knowing that later my husband would remove it from my body. I wanted everything about me, and our first night as husbands, to be perfect. I quirked up a half smile when I thought about all the times my drive for perfection drove Travis mad. That thought led me to wonder what he was doing at that precise moment at the Hilton.

  We had agreed not to text or talk before the ceremony, choosing to reveal the emotions we felt in person as we stood holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. I blew out a nervous breath once I was fully dressed. All grooms were nervous, right? The unease I’d felt building inside me all day was just wedding day jitters and that’s all. I wanted to reach out to Travis and let his calm voice settle my nerves, but I stuck to our agreement.

  I turned and faced the full-length mirror to inspect myself from head to toe, smiling because I liked what I saw. Then memories of another time I dressed in a black tuxedo slammed into my psyche hard enough to make me take a startled step back. I remembered how much I wanted to find a viable excuse not to attend that prom and see Lincoln dancing the night away with Jana. I would’ve welcomed a car accident and hospital stay over the pain of seeing them together. I’d heard Jana talk on and on about the special night she had planned every morning in English class. She either didn’t know that I could hear her or didn’t care.

  I sucked it up and went to the stupid prom. It was as horrible as I expected, but then, something bittersweet and beautiful happened. Lincoln followed me upstairs to share a private dance. I held on tight to him, hoping that moment would glue the shattered pieces of my heart back together. I urged my brain to remember everything about the moment from the way he smelled to the sound of his ragged breathing that said he was every bit as destroyed as me. Nothing was more painful than watching him walk away after our final kiss.

  One thought helped me get through that night and the painful summer that followed after I left eastern Tennessee for good: Lincoln Huxley thought I was brave.

  I wasn’t sure why my brain reminded me of one of the most painful memories from my past on what should’ve been the happiest day of my life. Was it to show me how far I’d come, or a reminder that the passion I felt back then was still unrivaled to that day? But it was normal. I’d always heard that your first love stayed with you for the rest of your life, and Lincoln had been so much more than just my first love. I wiped at the tears that fell from my eyes, chastising myself for my ridiculous stroll down memory lane. What happened to my resolve to avoid maudlin thoughts? It seemed I had been doing it an awful lot lately, and it was time to put my energy on my future, not the past.

  “We’re here, Uncle Rush,” Racheal hollered from the living room. Caught up in my thoughts, I hadn’t heard them arrive to pick me up.

  There was a knock on my door. “Come in.”

  Jules entered wearing a regal, strapless dress in a vibrant purple hue that looked beautiful against her fair skin and made her eyes look greener. My sister suddenly halted when she saw the evidence of my tears. “Rush?”

  “I’m fine, Jules. Who isn’t emotional on their wedding day?” I crossed the room and hugged her tight. “Thank you for standing beside me, today and always.”

  “Damn you, Rush,” Jules said in a tearful voice. “Now you had to go and make me cry. I’ll always choose you.” Those were the same words she told me before I came out to my parents. Oddly enough, the monsoon on my wedding day was eerily similar to the day that Jules and I said goodbye to our old life and boarded a Greyhound bus headed to Chicago.

  “Why are you upset?” Racheal asked from the doorway. “Travis isn’t that bad. At least he’s handsome.” Her bluntness was just the thing we needed to dry up our sentimental tears and laugh.

  “It will be Uncle Travis in a few hours,” I reminded her.

  Racheal screwed up her face and tilted her head to the side like she was thinking hard about that. “We’ll see,” she said using the same tone as her mother when Jules said no without really saying it.

  “I adore you, kid,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of her. “You look so beautiful today that no one will even notice me up there on the altar.”

  “You think so?” My precocious niece spun around in a circle, her lavender organza skirt billowing and swirling around her legs.

  “I know so,” I assured her.

  “We’re going to be late,” Will said, leaning lazily against the doorframe. I noticed that he only had eyes for his wife. He looked over at me as if just realizing his place and purpose. “Thanks for making my wife cry, asshole.”

  “I’m her brother; it’s my job.”

  “It’s my job to get you to your wedding on time, so let’s go,” Will said.

  I sat in the back seat of Jules and Will’s car with Racheal, trying my best not to let the weather bring me down.

  “The Crystal Gardens will still be beautiful in the rain,” Jules said from the front seat. She looked over her shoulder at me and offered a sweet smile. “The sound of raindrops on the glass windows will be romantic.”

  “Or put all your guests to sleep,” Will added dryly.

  “You’re not helping,” Jules said to her husband.

  “The meteorologist used the phrase ‘of biblical proportions’ when discussing the amount of expected rainfall today. Rain makes people sleepy,” Will told us. “Of course, this was the same jackal who originally said it would be in the high sixties and sunny.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Rush. You’re going to have a beautiful day.” I couldn’t help but notice that her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. I knew she didn’t care for Travis and thought I was making a mistake, but she didn
’t say anything because marrying him was what I wanted. Right? Of course, it was.

  I didn’t think it was a big deal when Travis was fifteen minutes late. When was he ever on time? There were many reasons, namely traffic, that could cause his delay. It wasn’t like he could walk from his hotel in the torrential downpour. After a half hour passed, I started to worry that he was involved in an accident, because who was that late to their wedding? Sure, he’d missed our anniversary dinner and was late to countless other events I wanted to attend, but he wouldn’t leave his colleagues and esteemed guests checking their watches and questioning his character or capabilities.

  Will checked the local news app for any alerts about a traffic accident that would’ve tied him up so long. Jules threatened to start calling hospitals. Racheal slipped her small hand into mine to comfort me while I stared at the phone in my other hand. I’d called Travis’s phone every five minutes, silently begging and pleading for him to answer my calls or reply to my texts. So many horrifying scenarios floated through my mind, and I just wanted to know that he was okay.

  The response I was waiting for finally came an hour after the time we were supposed to commit our lives to one another. It was a simple text with three words: I am sorry. My hand went suddenly limp, and my phone fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

  “Is that him? Is that Travis?” Jules rushed over and picked my phone up off the floor. I closed my eyes and braced myself for her reaction. “He stood you up?” my sister asked in disbelief. “That son of a bi—” She stopped and looked down at her darling daughter who copied every little thing Jules said and did. “Sweetie, why don’t you go with Daddy so I can have a private word with Uncle Rush.”

  “Okay, Mommy.” Racheal squeezed my hand once more before she walked away with her dad.

  “I’m going to gut that fucker like a fish,” Jules snarled as soon as they were out of earshot. “Then I’m going to do something else equally vile, like set his remains on fire.” She shook her head vehemently then walked to me and put her hands on my cheeks. “I know right now it might not seem like it, but that arrogant bastard did you the biggest favor by walking away. He just did it in a cowardly fashion.”