The Last Time We Met

13

I blinked and sat up. Cedric had to pull away before my head slammed into his. "Whoa," he said, pushing on my chest. "It's okay. You fainted, I think."

Swallowing, I gazed around at a tattoo shop that looked different than the one in my recent memory, even though it was the same one. I rubbed my eyes, then touched my nose. Sure enough, my fingertip held a dot of bright red blood.

"Oh, he's bleeding," Cedric said to someone behind him. A tattooed man in a worn concert t-shirt held out a tissue.

Everything felt terrible: my head was pounding, my stomach churning, and I felt too dizzy to stand on my own. Cedric helped me up and sat me down in one of the chairs until I was ready to try getting up and walking. He called an Uber to get us, because he didn't think I could make it back to the hotel on foot.

Once we were back in the hotel room, Cedric undressed me and got me under the sheets with my head propped up, then put a cold facecloth on my forehead and overwise babied me.

"Sorry we didn't get tattoos," I mumbled, thinking about Chris and Brent and how their tattoos meant they were married. I rubbed my birthmark, thinking about how that was where Chris's tattoo had been.

"It's okay," Cedric said. "I don't have enough money for a tattoo, anyway. But I was talking to that guy before you hit the floor, and he said they don't do tattoos over birthmarks, anyway."

"That's disappointing."

Cedric shrugged. "Well, hopefully we enjoyed our tattoos in our past life. Saved ourselves some money, anyhow."

My eyes drooped shut, no matter how much I wanted to stay awake and do all the things Cedric and I had planned to do with a night in a hotel room. "I think we did," I said. "I think for them it was the only way they could show the world that they were together, because gay marriage wasn't legal back then."

"Aw." Cedric kissed my ear and snuggled the heat of his body close to mine. "Someday that'll be us. Together forever." Smiling, I drifted into sleep.

I let Cedric drive my car all the way back to Brentwood the following day so we could make it home in one piece. I didn't tell my mom about my fainting spell, or the nosebleeds, which had begun to concern me. Instead, over dinner, I told her about the art studios at UCLA and how big the campus was. "Otis is still my top choice, but UCLA's pretty good for a safety school."

"And where does Cedric want to go?" Mom asked.

"I think he wants to go to Berkeley," I said. "He wants to do something with forensics."

Mom raised her eyebrows as she ate her salad, not making eye contact. "Are you also applying to CCA? Or San Francisco Institute of Art?"

"Yeah, those are on my list."

"Maybe Berkeley would be a better safety school than UCLA."

I furrowed my brows. "Why?"

Mom finally looked up and gave me a knowing smirk. "Come on, now, James. You think I don't know why the two of you really went down to look at UCLA? It wasn't because you both wanted to go to UCLA."

My first thought was that she had read my past lives journal. Then I realized she meant Cedric and I had just wanted a night together in a hotel and I felt my face go red. "No, I really did want to see the campus!"

"Okay, sure, yeah. Mm-hmm."

"I did!"

"James, I know you. And with you everything is serious. And I see how serious you are about Cedric. Do you really think you can live five hours away from each other for four years?"