by Anyta Sunday
In the corner, the dead plant that had been sitting there all semester had been replaced with a potted Benjamina tree, and the ugly grey wall in front of him was no longer ugly.
In the middle of it hung Candice’s canvas.
He stared at the view of Dunedin city, the contrasts of dark and light softened in the light. But what had him sucking in his breath and laughing out loud were the figures flying over the city.
He could make out Sig and Candice, his supervisor, the guys from the office next door, Eric and himself. She’d turned the eleventh floor into geeky superheroes, saving the city with pieces of code. And when he inched closer and studied the buildings, the hills and the sky, he saw in very fine writing, quotes they’d all said throughout the year. He laughed at his own “bad computer” and Candice’s: “it looks like a pig farted these numbers” and even Eric’s “it’s coding me insane.”
Tears seeped out of his eyes as he continued to laugh, and his supervisor briefly glanced his way, raising a hand.
Will acknowledge him briefly, before reading the small plaque under the painting. At the end was a dedication: To all you suckers. You know who you are. It wouldn’t have been nearly half as fun without you.
Jesus. How long and hard the eleventh floor had tried to solve the mystery of canvas. And it was so simple. He’d snooped, worked his charm, spent copious amounts of free time trying to figure it out, and he couldn’t solve the mystery whose answer had stared him in the face each and every day.
He moved around the corner, the light to the Freak Zone at the end of the hall was on, and he could hear Eric laugh as he approached.
Sig swung open the door as he entered, Candice looped around his arm. “Ah-ha, finally the man shows up.”
He looked at Candice’s calm facade. Too calm; that couldn’t be good. “I’m so sorry, Candice.”
“And?” she said.
“And it looks amazing. That foyer was ugly as hell before today.”
“And?”
He looked to Eric perched on his desk for support, but the guy shook his head. “And congratulations?”
“No, the brooding you idiot,” Candice said, “are you going to pull it together now? Or do I have to make good on my promise?”
He came into the office and collapsed on a chair. “I’m beginning to think the cheese and cringe just might help sort me out. Maybe then I’ll really learn my lesson.”
She sniggered, and kindly changed the topic. “So, you like it? It really ended up Sig making it what it was—I was tackling it all wrong.”
“Background to foreground—” Sig started, but Candice finished: “large to small, light to dark. Large details to intricate. Yeah-yeah, I got it now.”
Eric sighed. “I can’t believe the answer was staring us all in the face like that. Makes me feel, well, stupid comes to mind.” He scrubbed the side of his neck along the curve of a tattoo. “So, Will, have you and Heath made up yet?”
“Stupid’s a good description for you,” Candice said, scowling at Eric. “Really, you think this”—she threw a hand toward Will—“looks like someone who’s made up with the one he loves?”
Will looked down at himself, his shirt was inside out, and the inner pockets of his jeans were showing. She had a point.
“Point,” Eric agreed. And then to him: “Taking your time, aren’t you?”
Will gripped the desk in front of him, sure he couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
“Just leave it, Eric. He’ll figure it out in his own good time.”
“Figure what out?”
“Nothing.”
Candice changed the conversation and for the next half-an-hour any mention of his break-up was purposely avoided. She made them all sign the Canvas folder that she said she was going to frame.
After an hour, Will had to leave. Last to come, first to leave. He shook his head, but right now it was a struggle to keep up the conversation. Especially with Eric’s assumption running through his head that he and Heath should have gotten back together already.
The foyer was empty when he approached and pressed for the elevator. As he waited, he looked again at the canvas. The answer to the mystery really had been staring him in the face.
Sig caught up to him as the elevator doors opened. “I just have one thing I need to say, and I’m going to kick myself later for how preachy this will sound, but bear with me, okay?”
Will let the doors close again without stepping inside. “Preach away.” It was the least he could let him do after disappointing Sig’s girlfriend. His friend.
“I get why Eric thought you’d be back together already. When ’Dice told us what happened, I thought it was just a temporary break-up, too.”
“Temporary? He doesn’t love me back, Sig. It doesn’t get more permanent than that.”
“Just, are you sure about that?”
Sure? Of course he was. He’d asked him point blank to tell him what he thought of him and he couldn’t.
He opened his mouth to reply, but Sig cut him off.
“Just think about it, okay?”
With a clap to Will’s shoulder, Sig left.
*
He walked through the botanical gardens toward home, Sig’s words following him the entire way. Are you sure about that?
He was sure.
Absolutely.
Wasn’t he?
He hadn’t eaten since that morning, and his stomach lurched in complaint. At home he checked the cupboards, but there was barely anything there. Crackers. Some dry pasta, but he didn’t feel up to cooking. He slumped onto the couch and dug his nose into Heath’s favorite cushion. He could still smell him there. He sighed into it, warm breath bouncing back on his chin and neck. He’d never had to worry about what to do for dinner with Heath around. Heath knew how much he disliked cooking and had done it for him. He was kind and thoughtful like that.
Just as he’d been kind and thoughtful about the Stewart Island trip he’d so carefully planned. Heath really had listened to him and remembered. He always did, and had showed on so many occasions that he cared for Will. Like helping him overcome his fear of Murky, embracing all his weirdness and accepting him, wanting him to be comfortable . . . And what had he done in return? He’d basically turned his nose up at all those things and honed in on one thing—on hearing the words.
He sat up straight, clutching the pillow and he banged his head into it again and again. Eric wasn’t the one who was stupid. He was. How could he be so . . . so blind? It was just like with Candice’s canvas. Heath might never have given him the answer he had been so intent on hearing, but it was there. Right in front of him, as obvious as the ugly foyer wall that had stared down at him every day.
*
He rang Heath. No answer. He tried sending several texts and anxiously went to bed.
On Saturday morning, after no word from Heath, he gave in to sensibility and flooded Heath’s inbox, telling him he’d do anything if only they could only talk. He’d even walk Murky on his own every day for as long as Heath wanted.
And when, later that day, he still hadn’t heard back, he decided he couldn’t wait a moment longer. He had to talk to Heath.
* * *
It was overcast outside, and an icy southerly blew against him as he walked the forty minutes to the Wallace’s.
His teeth were chattering by the time he got to their driveway.
He hesitated at the Commodore, wondering how something he hated could make him feel so nostalgic. The drive to Macaroons, if he’d known it’d been his last—
He shook his head. He had to focus.
Vicky answered the door, smiling as she saw him, but she didn’t beckon him inside. “Is Heath there?” He knew he was; he’d just seen his car.
“I’m not sure he’s up to any company right now, hun. Would you like to go for a walk with me?”
He barely heard her offer, the first sentence she’d uttered still ringing in his mind. If he hadn’t been frozen in front of a concerned
Vicky, he’d have fucking bawled his eyes out. Had he finally turned Heath away for good by not contacting earlier? He took a shaky step back, and then steeled himself. He’d come here with a purpose. He wouldn’t give up so easily.
“I really have to see him.”
She bit her lip. “I’m not sure. He’s been off all week. I think he’s going through something, and while I really want you two to sort whatever-this-is out, I don’t want to rush him.” She reached out and gently patted his arm. “But when he’s ready, maybe then you could—damn, boy, your fingers are icicles. Hold on.”
Vicky muttered her disapproval at his state as she disappeared. In the corner of his eye, he caught an upstairs curtain flickering. He looked up. The window to William’s room was cracked open a fraction. But he was certain he’d seen something more than the curtain move.
At the same moment Vicky came back with a pair of gloves and a thick scarf, Will charged past her and into the house. “Sorry, Vicky. But I just . . . I have to do this.”
He sprinted up the stairs.
“Will.”
His name from the top of the stairs startled him and he tripped, skidding down several stairs. He was tempted to knock his head on a stair; instead he let it dig into his forehead as he groaned in embarrassment. That hadn’t been how he’d hoped to make an entrance.
The sound of footsteps padded toward him and he lifted his head. And there was Heath, in bare feet and sleeveless shirt, reaching out a hand to help him.
Words were trapped beneath his tight throat, and he coughed in a hurry to set them free. “I’m sorry. Sorry for pressuring you, sorry for what happened with Rory, sorry for that whole night, and most of all, I’m sorry for not seeing it.”
Heath crouched in front of him. He looked tired and as if he hadn’t shaved all week.
“You’re sorry?”
“Really, truly, deeply.”
Heath sighed, reached out and dragged his hand down his arm until it reached his wrist. Tightening his grip, he pulled Will up and dragged him up the stairs.
And into William’s room.
Heath shut the door behind them and motioned for him to sit as he shut the window. Will sat on the bed both he and William had slept in.
What are you doing in here? he wanted to ask him, mystified. Curious. But he held back. It wasn’t the time.
“It’s been a hell of a week,” Heath said, his back to him, peering through the curtains.
“I’ve missed you.”
Heath sighed, took off his cap and re-set it.
“I’m sorry,” Will said again. “I wish that fight had never happened—”
“Fight? You broke up with me.” He plunked into William’s desk chair. Silence claimed the space between them for a few elongated seconds. “In some ways, I wish we hadn’t fought, either.”
“In some ways?” Will asked, feeling cold, though his fingers had returned to their normal color.
“Yes. I’m also partly. . . glad.”
He let out a sore laugh. He was glad they’d fought?
“Don’t take it the wrong way, Will. Hear me out.”
He clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on his knees, looking down on his fingers as Heath spoke. It looked vaguely like he was praying. Which in a way he was. Praying for understanding, for forgiveness, for getting Heath back in his life.
“The week apart,” Heath started, rubbing at his frown. “I realized I have a life. I have things I like to do and things I have to do. I realized I am fine on my own.”
Will reeled back, tears springing to his eyes.
“No wait, I’m not finished,” Heath said, hand outstretched toward him as if afraid he would run away, which half of him wanted to do. The other half repeated all the things Heath had been and done for him when they were together, and that won out; he stood next to the bed and braced himself for more.
“I’m fine on my own, but that’s it. It’s not great. Not wonderful. Not anything like it is when I’m with you.”
His knees weakened under him and he crashed to the bed. Not anything like it is when I’m with you.
“I love doing the things I want and don’t want to do with you, Will. And I want to be with you. I’ve known it since before we got together. Known it since the moment you said such wonderful things about my mum. The feelings I had then—they blew me away. And I just knew. This is the guy. My guy. And I hated myself for pushing you away. For not being able to say it.”
“Your guy?” he mumbled in two part awe and one part shock.
“Yeah, my guy.” He smiled, but if was brief. He had more to say. “I should have been clearer about this much earlier, but I didn’t let myself, because of a couple of things. That night when you pulled me up on my throwing myself into sex for escapism. I’ve . . . I guess I’ve wanted to make sure—to make very sure that this wasn’t something like that. That I wasn’t throwing myself into this relationship because I needed someone to make the pain of William less. I wanted to be sure this was more than me escaping those hurts.
“So I waited, never answering your words to me at night, because I didn’t want to lie to you.”
Will opened his mouth to say something, and Heath shook his head, cutting him off. “And to make this all the more complicated, when I was sure beyond doubt that this was nothing to do with escaping anything, I still didn’t say a word.”
Heath met his gaze. “When I’m with you, I’m happy. So very happy. And sometimes I go for long stretches—sometimes whole days—when I forget about William. When I don’t feel the tug of that pain. And I thought, maybe that’s the reason I’m so afraid to declare just how much you mean to me. Because you mean so much, and it frightens me. And I don’t . . . I don’t want to forget him, ever.”
He grunted, balling his fists. “It’s not coming out right. This is difficult for me to explain, and it frustrates me—sometimes I feel like I contradict myself. But somehow both things are true. I’ve tried to escape the pain of losing William, most often with sex, but at the same time I never want to forget it either. Hear how screwed up that is? But I just—”
“It’s okay, Heath.” Reaching out Will was just able to touch Heath’s knee. “I . . . I get it. You want to remember your brother, but you don’t want the pain that comes with it.”
“Yeah, except sometimes it feels like the pain is what keeps my memories of him fresh. So I feel stuck. Like it’s a catch-22 or something.” He sniffed, swiping the nose with the back of his hand. “It freaks me out, Will, because being with you, thinking of a future with you . . . it felt like it was a step closer to forgetting him.”
Heath sniffed again, but this time the back of his hand swatted away the tears leaking out the sides of his eyes. Will shuffled over the floor on his knees and wrapped his arms around Heath.
Heath’s next words hit the top of his head. “The last year and a half, I’ve made myself think I was strong, that I was handling this as well as I could. I always thought Mum was hit the hardest. But, Will, I think I’m just as devastated inside. I didn’t cry it out every day like Mum, or get depressed, but I got—well—like this. I’m paranoid. Absolutely terrified of imagining the future—of imagining being a hundred percent happy again. And wanting exactly that at the same time.
“I’m crazy. I’m scared of a future with you because I really think we could be happy together.”
Will brushed a kiss over Heath’s cheek. His words were so utterly sad and so beautiful at once.
“This week,” Heath continued, “I wanted so badly to chase after you, to make you take me back, but I knew I couldn’t do it that way. I had to sort out my head first. Needed to figure things out, to come to some type of peace with William. That’s why I came in here, this room. So I could feel the pain and hurt in all its intensity. It was—a punishment for being happy with you, for wanting us to have a future, and thereby slowly forgetting him.”
Will drew back, hands sliding to Heath’s chest, wincing. “Punishment?”
“That’s how it started. But—everyday I came back in here, the pain became a little less. And on Wednesday, I wasn’t crying anymore, I was laughing. I remembered when he was a kid and he told me to play hide and seek, but I was a lazy bugger and said no. But he hid anyway—and accidentally locked himself in the wardrobe. Instead of crying and wailing, he took all the clothes in there and put them on. When it was time for me to call him for lunch, I heard him shuffling, opened the wardrobe door, and out he rolled. When I raised my brow, he just said it was cold in there and sauntered down to lunch.
“I remembered the time he caught me kissing and feeling up my first girlfriend and he said he wouldn’t tell Mum anything about it as long as I gave him all my dessert for a week. Then fast forward four years and I turned the tables on him. Best desserts ever.”
He picked up the book of poems from next to the lamp. “We used to take these poems and make them as dirty sounding as we could.” Heath’s lips twitched with the memories. “They kept coming, Will, all these stories. The things we did together. And just like that I craved coming back in here for more. It made me hope. That with time, good things can come out of the pain I have inside.”
Heath captured Will’s face, palms on either cheek. “I have some issues—things I need to sort out. I’m—I’m afraid it’s not something I’ll be able to get over any time soon, but I think maybe I’d like to go back to therapy, like Mum. Because I feel deeply inside that you’re my guy. And while I could be okay on my own, I’d rather go for the wonderful with you. If you hadn’t have come today, I would have come to you, to apologize and, well, demand you take me back.”
Will could feel Heath’s fingertips tightening in silent question: ‘would you have?’ He removed Heath’s hands from his face, holding them in his own, and he spoke, his mouth running away from him to say: “I should never have broken up with you the way I did. I was stupid. I was looking for words, when the proof was right under my nose.” Heath Wallace might not be able to say the words, but Will could see now that he’d meant them. “Good things take time. And you have my time. As much of it as you need.”
* * *
For hours they talked and held each other. It was wonderful and warm and—
