If He Ever Cries (manxman / boyxboy)

Chapter 20

-Chapter 20-


Everything I know is wrong

Everything I do, it's just comes undone

And everything is torn apart



Oh and it's the hardest part

That's the hardest part

--The Hardest Part, Coldplay



The surrounding chill curled around Adam's bones, and it was like the first time he ever felt it. Never so cold. Never so sharp. The sound of his shoes against the pavement echoed in the lonely parking lot, and resonated in his ears with the weight of defeat. Onlookers would see a doctor leaving for a good rest after an extenuating work day. They had no clue. Even Adam couldn't sort out what exactly kept his sight floored.



If he could have disappeared from the hospital and appear magically in his pacifying shower, he would have done it. That file, Kaiden's file, was going to be the end of his carreer, life, existence, freedom, sanity...identity. To his irritation, people lacking magic were stuck with their two legs and conventional, not so snappish transportation methods.



His hand had hovered, quivered in hesitation. His thumb brushed the edges of the pages. A slight nudge, tiny in the back of his head, coaxed him with pathetic ease to just take a look--just an innocent glance over for a sickening minute longer. Only one more block. Just one more page. Just to see if he's fine.



Adam knew enough about stalking and stalkers to know where that was going, so he stopped--but not one moment too early. It really was unintentional to learn that the guy was allergic to aspirin. Only by accident, his quick mental math located Kaiden's place a short fifteen-minute jog from Adam's.



"Go find him." That's when it skidded into dangerous territory.



It was going to be a short drive home. A little over ten minutes--alone with that irresponsible, irrational part of his brain that recited Kaiden's phone number over and over again.



"Go find him," he mocked under his breath, as he reached inside his pocket to press the button and unlock the car. "What about 'go find a lawsuit'?" The real world isn't as fantastic and romantic as they write it in books.



He unlatched the passenger door and hung his white coat on the backrest. He leaned for a moment on the hand that closed the door. Romantic what? Kaiden didn't want to see him. "Gosh, I'm a jackass."



"I second that."



"Fuck, Taylor." Adam lowered his head, clung to his heart with a thud, and laughed lightly. "Jesus, you scared me."



"Serves you right. Today, of all days, Adam... I hope you were fighting death somewhere."



He gave Taylor a questioning look. Taylor only had to lift an eyebrow. "Oh, shit... The audit." Adam grabbed his head. Turned away. Cursed his life.



Taylor spoke serious after a minute of leaving Adam to his torture. "I don't want to say...it went exceptionally well. And I don't want to say we passed...with flying colors."



Adam turned and looked at him with a glint of hope, his hands hovering over his hair. A shy smile fought to spread into a full grin. "You serious?"



"You can breathe now."



He slumped against the car with Taylor's smile. "I'm so relieved I could hug you. God knows I can't take a bad result right now."



Taylor waved a dismissing hand. "Keep the hug. Your secretary has all the info. Next time, you call me beforehand if you can't make it or I'll hand you to them on a silver platter."



"Thank you. I appreciate you covering for me."



He gave Adam a side frown and pointed him with his umbrella. "I've been here for over fourteen hours straight. You--owe--me--lobster."



"Anything."



"I'll hold you up to that." He gave a nod and continued to his car. "See you tomorrow."



"H-How's your son? Is he...doing alright?" Adam wanted to sew up his mouth at the blurt when Taylor turned to him and gave him that knowing look again. So much for not hinting the man...



Taylor thought for a moment that stretched long enough for Adam's heart to grow uneasy. Then he sighed and looked to the side, his face to Adam. "I wish I could say he's fine, but I'm not sure." The man shook his head and pinched his nose bridge. "Physically, everything looks fine... It's his behavior that has us worried. He's distressed for some reason and doesn't want to talk to us." He looked at Adam. "He...decided to leave the hospital early without telling me. That's not like him at all."



The chill took another round at Adam. A grip so strong and suffocating that he couldn't keep it off his face. He prayed Taylor didn't have laser vision too. Else he'd see Adam's memories of the night before. The bad news. His accusations to Kaiden. But you knew it was because of you that he left. "I'm sorry." That wasn't simpathy, but a true apology. "Maybe he only needs time alone to sort things out?"



The older man's hazel eyes studdied Adam's face, and Adam felt exposed, like his skull had turned transparent. Taylor's expression was between amusement and a hidden smile. "You like him, don't you? He's amazing. I told him you like him but he didn't believe me." He shook his head. "I've been around a while. I can see those kinds of things."



Crap.



Taylor's expression hardened as he stared at Adam. He continued when Adam didn't respond, paralized from the effect of the man's words. "Look. I have a strong feeling you're not being honest with me. You know my boy." Oh--shit. "I don't know why you deny it, and honestly, I don't want to know. I'm not going to judge you. But I know you enough to say this. Don't mess with him, if you're not serious..." He gave another single nod. "See you tomorrow."



* * *



Imbalance crawled up every wall, every surface...Kaiden's skin. Pictures stacked on top of one another, some torn, some scratched--piled on different places of the living room. Eyes, hands, nape, lips--Daniel's presence in Kaiden's condo--thrown carelessly on wobbly towers as an extension of Kaiden's inner turmoil.



He stepped on the sofa and glanced with lost eyes at the canvas print. Once his favorite piece--their bodies intertwined on the exhaustion of love--now the one that incited the most rage. "What do you know about love? Ignorant fool." He peeled the framed picture off the wall and threw it accross the room. "It's only ejaculation!"



He paid no mind to the breaking glass--broken like his heart. That time could heal anything, that was bullshit happy people said. The hollow in his chest wasn't getting any smaller. It had no end, as if it would last an eternity, slashed with uglier, deeper wounds...not going away, to the point where Kaiden couldn't remember what happiness felt like.



The people who cared about him didn't know a thing of what was going on, except for Eric. And even Eric didn't know everything that ran through Kaiden's mind. Every day for the past week, his parents had been asking him why he left the hospital and what was wrong, insisted they wanted to help him--as if they could do anything to put him back together.



The solution was simple: a fine powder compressed into a few milligrams of self-delivered justice. Maybe he would go and find a few of those, and not call Eric this time. STD resolved. Betrayal resolved. No more pain. Everyone's happy.



But not before he did just one more thing. A thing some would call noble, but it was hardly that.



"I've been sharing a man with my sister. How noble it is checking if we were sharing bacteria too?" Except, she wasn't sharing. Adam's choice of words fit Kaiden like the diamond ring fit so perfectly on Kristina's finger. Kaiden was a whore and an irresponsible son of a bitch. He could spice it up even more with gobs of fitting names. It didn't matter that in his short life Kaiden had only been intimate with two men, when only one time, out of all he'd been fucked, he wasn't betraying his sister.



Maybe the words from Adam's lips carried a different meaning, but they were still true.



Eric rushed out of the shower. Kaiden knew he was there but he remained face down on the sofa and didn't answer when his friend asked what in the name of God happened to the living room. Kaiden kept silent, an arm dangling to the floor, where his finger traced patterns and shapes. Lone tears dripped accross his nose and died on the cushion underneath.



"I don't want to keep anything. I don't care if I sleep on the floor. I don't want them."



Eric sat at the edge of the sofa and squeezed Kaiden's shoulder. "Want to redecorate?"



Kaiden thanked God for Eric's sharp brain. He didn't spell things out for the guy, yet he understood always. Kaiden shrugged. "I don't care what this place looks like. I just...want Daniel's presence out of here."



Eric squeezed Kaiden's shoulder a fraction tighter and shook it slightly. "You see him in every corner, don't you?" Kaiden sank his face in the cushion and nodded. This condo, he bought so that he and Daniel could meet in private. Of course there were memories with Daniel everywhere. A few times since the engagement, he had wanted to move, be rid of the space along with the stuff and the memories. But he liked the place...and loved looking out the glass window in the living room.



Eric half-leaned on his arms that crossed on top of Kaiden's shoulders, and laid his chin on Kaiden's head. "I think you should redecorate. Make it faaa-bulous." Kaiden chuckled into the sofa at Eric's attempt at a queer tone. It didn't fit him...all the funnier.



"Get off me, fag." Eric threw himself back, accross Kaiden, and laughed his contagious laugh, and in no time Kaiden was grinning and laughing too. It wash't the kind of heavy laugh that left him breathless. It was comfortable and soothing, but like everything good, it faded off--leaving Kaiden to his hollow chest.



He pushed himself up onto his elbows and glanced at Eric, guilt settling on his face. "I'm sorry we can't go backpacking yet. It's my fault. I want to go away. But I need to find out about Kris first."



"It's okay. It was for you anyway. We'll go when you're ready." He smiled and patted Kaiden's back hard. "Come on, get ready. Kris called to see how you're doing. We should go see her." Kaiden groaned and pressed his face to the cushion again. "Hey, she stopped it with the man of honor thing. Being run over by a car worked after all."



"Very funny. I'm hardly off the hook. She'll find a way to include me." As if Kaiden wanted in any of it. He'd more than gladly be the hung over brother who didn't show up. But then he'd have to watch the wedding video and see picture after picture, because he had missed it. And he couldn't fast-forward through all that, because she'd sit next to him and narrate it in excruciating detail. Damn her story-telling skills.



"The more time you spend with her, the easier it is to get her test results."



Kaiden didn't like it, but Eric was right. He needed to know...and the clock was ticking.



* * *



The music was annoyingly louder. The customers, annoyingly friendlier. The colorful lights flashing a little more blinding.



Kaiden's hands moved with ease and learned skill, measuring vodka, orange liqueur, and cranberry juice. A squeeze of lemon completed the mix. He shook the shaker with style, just for show, and poured the contents in a chilled glass that he garnished with a thin lemon wheel.



He pushed the Cosmo to the middle-aged man, and smiled a plastic smile before signaling for the next. And that's how it went.



It took all of Eric's convincing skills to make Kaiden come back to work. It had it's perks to be best friends with the boss. Someone else would have given him the boot for being absent so much. He wasn't in the mood for this, though. He didn't need to remember Adam. And this place did just that, even a month and a half later.



Can't redecorate every place that brings bad memories.



But Adam wasn't entirely a bad memory. Not the tender, sweet parts, where they had known each other for ages. When Adam made him feel wanted and that there was nothing else to look at, nothing else to thouch but Kaiden. It was the other eighty percent that jagged the edges of the hole in Kaiden's chest. It was meant to fail from the start. And whatit? There was nothing there to be it.



Stay away from the hospital and you won't see him again.



When he stood behind the bar, he was the one in control. Concentrate on Kris. That's what's important. It gave him back some of the lost happiness. A welcomed distraction. He didn't need this job or, more precisely, he hadn't needed this job--at first. It was just for fun, until his issues thwarted the inspiration that ran his own business. Art and hurt didn't mix together. Not for Kaiden. So he came back before resorting to help from his parents.



The middle-aged man took a sip and savored Kaiden's creation with delight, giving Kaiden an instant confidence boost. He slid the payment for the drink accross the counter, topped off with a few extra hundred and a meaningful gaze. Kaiden looked at the man for a few long seconds before he tore his eyes off, gave a quick glance around, scrunched the bills, and stuffed them in his pocket. He whispered something to the other bartender, who gave a quick look at the man and nodded, not without hiding a smirk.



Kaiden walked out the bar, side-glanced the man as he passed in front of him, brushed fingertips to the man's knee, and continued at a slow pace to the back door. His mind was a wide expanse of echo and gray when his numb hand pushed the door open...



And they disappeared, away from snoopy eyes, into dimmed darkness.