Love Can't Conquer

by Kim Fielding

  “Nothing happened. I figured one drink, what could it hurt? It’s just booze, not smack. Just one fucking drink. Is that so much to ask from life?” His voice started out bitter but ended up raw and wretched.

  Fuck. Fuck, fuck. “You can’t have one drink, Qay.”

  “Don’t you think I fucking know that? Every goddamn day it claws at me, and I can’t—I can’t—” He growled and threw his head back against the cushion.

  Jeremy tried to calm himself with a few deep breaths, ignoring the room’s foul smell. “This is my fault. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pressured you—”

  Qay leaped to his feet, startling Jeremy so badly he nearly toppled onto his ass. “It’s not your fault! It’s not all about you, Captain Caffeine. This is my addiction. Mine.” Qay hit himself hard in the chest. “My fucked-up head. Other people, when a fantastic man wants to build a relationship, when a good education gets handed to them on a platter, they can handle it. They’re fucking thrilled. Not me. Never me.” He made an inarticulate noise and began to pace the small apartment.

  Deciding that chasing Qay would only spook him, Jeremy stood his ground. “It’s not fair, but it’s also not your fault. Life dealt you a shitty hand. But you’re…. Look. Relapses happen. It’s not the end of the world. I’ll drive you to a meeting, okay? And we’ll find you a counselor. I know some really good ones. You’re not alone anymore. You have me.”

  Qay spun around and marched right into Jeremy’s space. “Is that what I am? Another of your charity projects? Captain Caffeine saves the fucking world.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Jeremy’s one good hand bunched into a fist—which promptly loosened when he saw the despair in Qay’s eyes. “You’re not a project, Qay. You never were. I love you.”

  “Did you love Donny?” The question came out as a hoarse whisper.

  “Yeah, I did. But that was a long time ago. He’s gone now and—”

  “And that’s my point. Love isn’t enough, Jeremy. You should have learned that already. You can love someone with every ounce of your fucking enormous heart, but it’s not enough. It won’t cure what’s in here.” He knocked his own forehead with his fist. “Love doesn’t save anyone. A man has to save himself, and I don’t have it in me. I just fucking don’t.”

  “You do!”

  “Keith Moore never died. He’s—I’m still here, more fucked-up than ever. Still falling off that goddamn bridge.”

  Jeremy felt as if he’d been flayed. Qay hadn’t set a finger on him, yet this hurt worse than anything Davis had done to him. “Qay,” he began.

  “No. Go find someone who deserves you. Someone who’s whole.”

  “I don’t want someone else. I want you. You’re—”

  “You’ll get over it.” Qay tried to harden his expression to match his cold voice, but he couldn’t hide the sorrow and desperation in his eyes. “You need to go now.”

  “Let me stay. I won’t try to… to do anything. I won’t say a goddamn word if that’s what you want. I can just sit here with you.”

  Qay shook his head. “Go.”

  A toxic stew of emotions churned in Jeremy’s gut, making him want to puke. Anger, fear, sadness, frustration, distress, worry, panic. He wanted to crush Qay in a tight embrace until Qay saw reason. But Jeremy didn’t even have two good arms.

  “I think… I think we both need to calm down,” Jeremy said. And sober up. “Get our minds clear. Things will look better tomorrow.”

  “My mind is never going to be clear, and things will never be better.”

  “Qay—”

  “Just go.” Qay pushed Jeremy’s chest with both hands. Not hard, but it hurt a little due to the healing burns, and Jeremy winced. Qay winced too, but his jaw was set.

  Jeremy backed away. He stopped when he got to the door, but by then Qay had turned to stare at a wall, his back to Jeremy.

  “I love you,” Jeremy said.

  Qay didn’t answer.

  JEREMY COULDN’T put the new sheets onto the mattress properly due to his broken fingers, a fact that didn’t matter anyway because he couldn’t sleep. He spent most of the night pacing his brand-new, empty apartment, cursing Qay, himself, the Moore family, and God. If it hadn’t been so late, he might have called Rhoda to talk things out. But she’d done enough for him already, and he didn’t want to disturb her sleep.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, he remembered he was hungry. He hadn’t bought anything substantial during his grocery trip, so he shivered in his boxer shorts in front of the open fridge, trying to find something edible. He ended up with bread and butter. Charming.

  He kept asking himself what he could have done to avoid this mess, but no clear answer presented itself. Yes, he could have sprung the whole moving-in-together idea more gently, or he could have waited awhile, but he had the feeling Qay would have freaked out no matter what. And Jeremy couldn’t blame him. Someone didn’t spend four decades alone with his demons and then just launch into a sudden—and fierce—relationship. As far as Jeremy could tell, Qay had never been able to trust anyone, and he couldn’t just set that instinct aside.

  But as dawn crept tentatively through the windows, Jeremy seriously thought about what Qay had said. Had Jeremy placed too much faith in himself? Did he take on too much responsibility for the welfare of others? He wasn’t a superhero, and he couldn’t cure the world no matter how hard he tried. Couldn’t even cure the people who were closest to him, like Donny.

  But fuck, couldn’t he help? Maybe a man had to cure himself—and honestly, Donny had never really tried—but he didn’t have to do it by himself. A medal-winning marathon runner had to run every step of that race by himself. But he had a coach to help him prepare, to remind him to keep hydrated, and dammit, to cheer him on even when he stumbled. Qay had been running so long by himself; if only he’d let Jeremy support him.

  Jeremy showered even though he’d forgotten to buy soap. At least he had shampoo. He shaved and dressed and had milk and plain bread for breakfast, just to silence the grumbling in his stomach. Maybe he’d head to P-Town later. But not now.

  Ignoring the light rain, he walked to Qay’s house. His shoulder ached from the cold and the restless night. His fingers were cold too, but there was no way to get a glove over the splints, and his bulky, immobile hand wouldn’t fit in his pocket. Little droplets sprayed upward with every step, wetting the cuffs of his jeans. He was aware that a Portland winter was infinitely milder than the ones he’d endured as a boy, but still he was beginning to long for spring. Longer days. Warmth. New growth.

  He turned onto Qay’s street. Plenty of parking at this time of day, when most people had gone to work but the nearby shops hadn’t yet opened. Had Qay ever owned a car? That was a useless question.

  Jeremy drew abreast of Qay’s house, took one look at the basement door standing slightly ajar, and knew the truth.

  But he had to make sure. His cop’s brain—no more banished from his psyche than the bullied little boy—demanded a thorough investigation.

  Jeremy walked slowly down the basement stairs. The doorknob to Qay’s apartment turned as easily as it had the night before.

  The reek of cheap wine hung heavily in the room. Qay had gathered all the empty bottles into one corner and smashed them nearly to dust. The piles of books lay toppled, the magazine pictures were scattered over the floor in shreds, and every one of Qay’s carefully collected trinkets had been swept off the tables and shelves. Many of them were broken.

  Qay’s backpack gaped on the couch, his schoolbooks and notes still inside.

  Jeremy entered the bedroom where they’d first had sex, first slept together. Empty drawers gaped in the ugly dresser. The closet door stood open. A few clothes remained strewn on the floor and bed, but they were mostly Qay’s work clothes. His favorite jeans were gone, as were his white button-down, his red sweater, and his ancient leather jacket. His duffel bag was missing too.

  Qay was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

/>   JEREMY KNEW the places in Portland where men gathered to drink cheap booze. He checked them all and described Qay to everyone he saw, but he found no sign of him. He tried the neighborhoods with the drug dealers too. Nothing. The entire time, he kept picturing Qay falling from a bridge—why were there so many goddamn bridges in Portland?—kept imagining him floating facedown in the Willamette. Jeremy reminded himself that if Qay intended suicide, he probably wouldn’t have bothered to pack his duffel and take it with him. But that logic brought little solace.

  Over the next couple of days, Jeremy stopped by Qay’s apartment several times. Just in case. The upstairs neighbor barely knew Qay but was sympathetic, and she gave Jeremy a spare key so he could get in. While he was there, he cleaned out the refrigerator and carefully cleaned up the broken glass, even though his bad hand made the task difficult. He straightened the piles of books and placed the knickknacks back on the tables and shelves. Even the broken ones, because Qay never seemed to mind a few dents and scratches. Jeremy couldn’t do much about the shredded magazine pages except throw them away. So he begged a couple of magazines from Rhoda, who always had a stack at P-Town, and carefully selected some new photos he thought Qay might like: scenic views, animals, and hot men. And then Jeremy hung them on Qay’s walls.

  He grew increasingly frantic as the days passed with no sign of Qay. On Sunday he gave in to desperation and called Nevin.

  “’S up, Germy?”

  “I lost him,” Jeremy said plaintively.

  “You lost— What the fuck, man?”

  Jeremy tried to pull himself together. He was sitting in his SUV just off Burnside, hoping he could avoid a complete hysterical breakdown. “Qay. I lost Qay.”

  After a brief pause, Nevin sounded all business. “Chill out right now. Breathe. And tell me what the ever-loving fuck is going on.”

  It helped to be given orders, because Jeremy was suddenly tired of being in charge. As succinctly as possible, he told Nevin what had happened.

  Nevin didn’t interrupt; he waited to respond until Jeremy had spilled every searing detail. “Okay. Your boy freaked and then he split. You know we can’t do a missing persons report, right?”

  Jeremy did know. Unless foul play was suspected or the person was incompetent or a danger to himself or others, an adult had the right to pick up and disappear. “Can’t you at least—”

  “He have any friends or family around here?”

  “He has nobody.”

  “Fuck. Well, I can ask around. You got a photo?”

  Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut. “No.” He hadn’t taken a single picture of Qay. Other than that seed cone and the book, he had nothing tangible from their time together.

  “Dial it down, Germy. You sound like you’re about to fucking lose it. I’m on this, okay? If he’s anywhere in the Portland metro area, I’m gonna find him and bring him back to you with a big pink bow on his pretty ass.”

  “Thanks, Nev.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Between this and your Thanksgiving fucktasm, you owe me so goddamn big, cowboy. You’re gonna need to build a statue in my honor when this is all done, and stick it right in the middle of one of your damn parks.”

  Despite everything, Jeremy chuckled slightly. “So the pigeons can crap on you? No problem.” And then, very belatedly, he remembered Nevin’s Thanksgiving plans. “How’s it going with that guy?”

  “Colin? He’s an overprivileged fairy who doesn’t have a fucking clue what real life is like.” Nevin sighed noisily. “And I can’t get enough of him.”

  Jeremy hoped he’d someday meet the man who had apparently captured Nevin’s feral heart. But right now, Qay was his priority. “Nev? Qay might be…. He’s been clean for seven years, but he was a user. And he was drinking last week.”

  “Got it.”

  One of the things Jeremy liked about Nevin was that he didn’t judge junkies and drunks. Although Nevin fiercely hated anyone who hurt other people—especially if the victims were children or otherwise vulnerable—he was pragmatic about addicts. “Just people on the wrong fucking side of biology, man.”

  By the time they ended the call, Jeremy was calm enough to trust himself in traffic again. But he was still scared to death.

  JEREMY RETURNED to work Monday, which was a good thing. His regular duties distracted him just enough to keep him sane. And while he was out in the parks, he could keep an eye out for Qay and ask all the down-and-outers whether they’d seen him. None had. Everyone seemed to know about Jeremy’s unpleasant adventure, though. Surviving torture and landing back on his feet even earned him a little cred with some of the tougher cases who previously hadn’t wanted anything to do with him.

  On Friday afternoon he went to Patty’s Place with a load of donated clothing. Toad and some of the other kids made a huge fuss over him, examining his splinted fingers closely and begging for details about the kidnapping. He was reluctant to say much.

  “Did the cops come in blazing away?” asked a girl with candy-cotton-pink hair and a sparkly nose ring. “Like, with Uzis or something?”

  “I don’t think the Portland Police Bureau uses Uzis.”

  “Well, was it the SWAT team? With the—”

  “I’d just been pistol-whipped and kneed in the balls. For all I knew, I got rescued by clowns on a Rose Festival float.”

  The kids were still laughing as he made his escape to the office, where Evelyn waited. “Thanks for bringing those clothes, Chief. We need ’em.”

  “How are you guys fixed for Christmas presents?” These kids had dealt with enough shit already; they should at least get something to unwrap and call their own.

  “Pretty good. I got one of the department stores to pony up, so each of these kids is gonna get a backpack with underwear, soap, pajamas… stuff like that. They’ll get new shoes too.”

  He nodded. Some of them had come to Patty’s with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs. But then he thought about Qay’s collection of… stuff: little figurines, tiny mementos, things that had no purpose except to sparkle or shine or look cute. Reminders that even though life could really suck, it could also be frivolous. Proof to Qay that even when the world turned its collective back to him, he was there and he was real.

  “Hey, Evelyn? I think these kids need toys too.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You mean video games? We can’t afford that.”

  “No, I mean… stuffed animals. Silly little things. I know they’re teenagers, but… I don’t know. Maybe they still have some little kid left in them.” Because despite being in his forties, only recently had he realized that he’d never quite outgrown the child inside him.

  Evelyn gave him a sweet, slow smile. “That’s a real nice idea, Chief.”

  He headed to Target and filled his cart with trinkets—plush puppies, superhero action figures, shiny costume jewelry. Nothing expensive. But maybe enough to make some young people a little happier. He dropped the bags off with Evelyn, telling her to distribute as she saw fit.

  “Our hero,” she said as she walked him to his SUV.

  He smiled at her, but his broken heart knew the truth. He wasn’t a hero at all.

  ON SATURDAY afternoon Nevin joined Jeremy for coffee at P-Town. Rhoda, wearing the most hideous Hanukkah sweater ever made, sat with them. Jeremy frowned at the dancing dreidels. “I thought they only did ugly Christmas sweaters.”

  “Are you kidding?” Rhoda scoffed. “The Chosen People don’t get left out of that tradition. I own eight different ones.”

  The café bustled with shoppers needing a caffeinated pick-me-up and students cramming for finals. Rhoda refused point-blank to play holiday music, so Johnny Cash rumbled over the sound system instead. The air smelled of rain and coffee and cinnamon, and the taste of sugar lingered on Jeremy’s tongue, reminding him of Qay’s kisses.

  Nevin had already given a progress report on the search for Qay. Not that there was any progress to report. Qay had disappeared without a trace.

  “He must have l
eft town,” Jeremy said, tracing his finger through a few droplets of spilled coffee.

  Rhoda patted his arm. “Maybe he just needed some space, honey. Maybe he’ll be back.”

  Jeremy shook his head. Qay had abandoned his job, his schoolwork, and nearly everything he owned. He wasn’t coming back.

  Jeremy had been imagining him dead through suicide, accident, overdose, or violence. Those images were wrenching. But it was almost as bad to think of him huddled somewhere in his too-thin leather jacket, shivering and hungry and with nowhere to turn. God knew Jeremy didn’t have to try hard to conjure those mental pictures; he’d seen the real version far too many times.

  Nevin always ordered the darkest roast available and chugged it hot and black. Either his tongue was impervious to burning or he’d already permanently scorched it with his litany of expletives. Now he took his cup to Ptolemy for a refill and swigged while retaking his seat. “Let’s consider your problem logically, man. If Qay’s not here, he’s gotta be somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, and that narrows it down to… the entire continental US, I guess. I doubt he has a passport.”

  “I don’t believe people travel at random. Something pulls us toward a place, or some kind of shit pushes us away. What are his pushes and pulls?”

  Running his fingers through hair that desperately needed cutting, Jeremy considered Nevin’s words. They made sense. After all, Jeremy himself had been pushed out of Bailey Springs by a whole lot of cold shoulders and contempt, and he’d been pulled to Oregon by a scholarship and the chance to feel strong in his own skin. But how would this help find Qay? Jeremy was well aware of what had pushed him from Kansas—and now, what had pushed him from Portland—but the pulls? He didn’t know Qay well enough for that. “I don’t know if he has any pulls,” he finally said.

  Nevin rolled his eyes. “We all do, Germy. Even if sometimes we don’t like ’em and don’t wanna admit it. A week and a half from now? I’m going to a Christmas gala at Colin’s parents’ house. Me at a motherfucking gala! I’d rather eat raw banana slugs. But Colin says I owe it to him on account of missing Thanksgiving, and he’s been making puppy-dog eyes at me, so I’m going. See? Pulled. And I bet you can guess what part of me he’s yanking.” He made an unnecessary gesture toward his crotch.