Axis of Aaron

by Johnny B. Truant

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I swear, some people are just liars and manipulators. Don’t you forgive Holly, Ebon. She was wrong. Not you. All she wanted out of life was…”

  (You know, I can be more than … )

  (It’s you who … )

  “… sex, and probably security, and so she latched onto you because you could provide the security and she knew sex would always be easy to get on the sly. And do you know why?” She paused. Ebon sat up farther, watching Vicky’s face become unattractively bitter, as if she’d sucked a lemon. “Because the worst thing you can be is vulnerable. The worst thing you can do is to trust people. It’ll only get you taken advantage of, and hurt.”

  “Your ex-husband,” Ebon said. “What was he like when you met?”

  “A son of a bitch.”

  “When you met?”

  “Always. He just hid it well for a while.”

  Ebon sat up completely and looked Vicky over from top to bottom. She looked exactly as she always had, but he’d never realized just how sour she was. He should never have told her about Holly. He should have kept things simple. It could have been (and should have been) about sex. Nothing more.

  Ebon stood. “I should go.”

  Vicky’s face fell, and in a half second went from spiteful to sad. He’d come here for a crutch, but he was seeing now that he’d been her crutch too. They’d meshed so well in the bedroom that first day, when she’d just been a beautiful redhead with swaying hips and he’d just been an intriguing stranger. But sex wasn’t the same as intimacy, and their second time had been slightly less exciting, slightly more familiar. The third even more so. Now nothing was left.

  “Don’t go. I thought we were going to watch a movie?” She was looking up at Ebon with her big eyes. Her auburn hair was tied back, making her look younger than her years, like a small girl lost. Looking down, Ebon found himself still lusting after her, knowing he’d be unable to resist if she suddenly became available and willing right now. Her smooth skin looked sun kissed from her time in California, and a spray of freckles had blossomed over her delicate, upturned nose. Her breasts — fair-sized normally, larger than normal with the help of whatever miracle bra she’d donned — seemed to beckon Ebon as they had that first day. But on that first day, she’d felt both familiar and comfortable, something old and compelling woven with lust in his mind. A quick fix for an immediate problem, but at the end of the day they’d never fit.

  Vicky, to him, could never be more than a toy.

  (You know, I can be more than … )

  An old voice in his head. An opportunity squandered. Ebon felt ready to break, looking down at this pretty woman who wasn’t what he’d hoped, who hadn’t scratched the itch a tryst was supposed to scratch. But how could he have known? Ebon had never had a tryst. He’d thought he was in a purely sexual relationship with Vicky, but he’d just been lying to himself, seeing things wrong. Now the blinders were off, and the world was clear. It made him want to fall to his knees and beg through his tears. Not to Vicky, but to someone else. Someone who was now and forever beyond begging, beyond saving.

  “I’m sorry,” Ebon told her.

  “But you came all the way over here.”

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “It’s just … ” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Ebon couldn’t tell her he’d only wanted her for sex. It wasn’t the kind of thing a kind person said to another human being. A kind person offered themselves, with a full heart, or had the decency to back away. A kind person opened like a book, risking rejection. They made themselves vulnerable, exposed to evisceration. A kind person had done that for Ebon, once.

  “It’s over, isn’t it?” said Vicky.

  He had to leave. He had to start walking, heading north. Vicky wasn’t the anchor and place of comfort he’d thought she was, but at least he now knew where he needed to be, and with whom. Vicky wasn’t an axis. She’d been a placeholder. A port in a storm. Now that he saw it, that storm was growing, churning and swirling, swimming behind his eyelid and unbolting what he’d taken for solid.

  Looking at Vicky — pretty but plain, her reddish-brown hair in a pony tail, her skin pale but not white, her chest ample but not overflowing — Ebon nodded slowly.

  “Because you only wanted sex,” she said, her voice surprisingly devoid of spite or judgment. Accepting. Perhaps understanding.

  Ebon shook his head no, his mind already beginning to tip inward.

  “Because it’s all I’ve ever settled for,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Anywhen. Anywhat.

  “EBON. SLOW DOWN.”

  EBON CEASED HIS verbal diarrhea, gave Aimee time to absorb his least ridiculous words and hopefully ignore the rest. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He felt cold. Warm. Cold. His feet dragged in the sand, one hand pressing his phone to his ear and the other holding his thin jacket closed against the chill. The breeze blew bitter cold, but the air was warm when the wind was still. Leaves fell from the trees, then miraculously reappeared on the branches. With each drop they fell sooner in the loop repeating before his eyes. Each time they reappeared, they were a little deader on the trees.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Ebon.

  “What?” said Aimee from the other end of the phone.

  “It’s so cold. I think it’s trying to become winter.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Just come. Just throw on your coat and come meet me.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nearing Aaron’s Party. Is it there?”

  “Are you asking me?”

  “Is it there, Aimee?! Aaron’s Party.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does it exist?”

  “Hell, Ebon. Are you okay?”

  “Does it exist?”

  “Hell, yes, of course. Abandoned. You know that; we went when you first showed up.”

  “Good. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

  “Think?”

  “Nevermind. I can see it ahead. Abandoned, just like you said.”

  “You’re almost to the cottage. Just come here. I’ll come out to meet you.” Ebon doubted she understood half of his bullshit (and maybe she hadn’t even heard it; he kind of hoped it had zoomed in one ear and out the other), but she definitely understood that he was in a bad way, and probably thought he’d hit his head.

  “I’ve already gone past the cottage. I’m heading north.”

  “Where were you? Between leaving the cottage and now?”

  “At Vicky’s.”

  “Who’s Vicky?”

  That’s right; he hadn’t told her. He’d thought for a moment that Aimee knew about Vicky, but it was in one of the alternate realities (now jumbled behind his eyes like a dropped deck of cards) that Ebon had told Aimee about Vicky. It was easy to blend the conflicting streams of images and thoughts, but if he could just manage to hold his focus, he could part those diverging streams like Moses at the Red Sea. And then, for a moment, he could manage to see clearly.

  “It doesn’t matter. South. I was south.”

  “You walked right past the cottage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus, Ebon. Why didn’t you come in?”

  “Things were changing. I couldn’t risk it.”

  A breeze blew in his face — the coldest yet — and he squinted his eyes against it. Behind his eyelids he saw the cottage as he’d seen it on passing, folding and twisting like a shimmering mirage. Different iterations of the cottage’s myriad instances had seemed to be competing for the same plot of land, its form shaped by the warring hands of a dozen invisible creators. He’d watched it decay and crumble to naked studs, the frame rotting and sliding into the sand. But a moment later time had seemed to rewind, walls rebuilding and roof reforming, the siding suddenly white and the roof slatted red aluminum, additions expanding like architectural tumors. He’d seen the floor plan sprawl, a pool sink into the dunes surrounded by a low white fe
nce. He’d watched a third and a fourth story grow, then collapse as if being folded into a magician’s pocket. He’d seen the cottage as it had been in Richard’s day. As it was supposed to be now, as he and Aimee restored it. Dead. Alive. In forms it had never been.

  “Ebon, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “We have to get to Redding Dock. I realize that now. Because it’s the only place that never changes.”

  “You sound delirious. Don’t go up to Redding; you need to come back here.” She made her voice serious. “You need help, for your own good.”

  The stern voice, coming from Aimee, sounded hilarious. Ebon almost wanted to laugh. His focus wavered with the thought and as his mind slipped, he watched Aaron’s Party vanish ahead like a party trick. Had he seen the pier naked like that recently? Or was it just one of the many false thoughts still rattling around in his head?

  “I can’t hold it much longer, Aimee.”

  “Hold what?”

  “You have to hurry. If I don’t make it to Redding … ” He didn’t want to think about that, so he added, “Come via the beach. Run. If you see me collapsed or anything, you may need to drag me.”

  Aimee’s response, when it came, sounded panicked. Around Ebon, frost covered the sand like a mist. Then it was gone, and the air warmed. The trees were still naked.

  “Drag you!” Her voice was near tears. “Just tell me what’s happening!”

  “Are you coming?”

  He could hear shuffling as she rummaged in the closet, fumbling for boots while pinching the phone between her shoulder and ear. Not because Aimee believed anything that Ebon was saying, but because she believed he was out of his mind and likely to do himself harm. Good. Because that might be true as well. And honestly, the fact that she was confused was probably a very good thing. It might mean she was real, that he was talking to the true Aimee instead of something else.

  “Yes.” She was fighting for calm, trying to be all business. “Just keep talking. Don’t you dare hang up!”

  “Is it cold out?”

  “You’re the one who’s outside,” she said.

  “Bring a coat. I don’t know if it’ll be winter when you get here.”

  “Jesus, Ebon. Just … please. Stop walking. Let me catch up.” There was a sniffing, and he could tell she was starting to cry. “We can go to Redding together, if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what I need.”

  “Slow down. Walking, I mean. Let me catch up to you.”

  “There may not be time. Redding is the anchor, Aimee. Redding is the axis. It’s the only thing that never changes.”

  “Oh, shit, Ebon. Shit, shit, shit.” More crying noises, then the sound of a door cracking open.

  “I’ll get there if I can,” he said. “I’ll wait for you. But hurry. I’m not dressed for the weather.” It had been October when he’d left the cottage. Now it had to be late November, maybe December.

  “Just keep talking.” The phone made shuffling noises as if something were rubbing rhythmically across the mouthpiece. Aimee’s words came with shortened breath. “I’m coming, Ebon. I’m moving as fast as I can.”

  “Is it cold out?”

  “Of course it’s cold.”

  “I screwed up, Aimee. I don’t know why it matters, but I keep thinking about Holly. About this one night, after we started dating, after we’d been together a few weeks. We were in bed. After sex. Just talking. Do you remember?”

  Ebon shook his head. Why the hell would Aimee remember that? She hadn’t been there. If she did somehow remember, it would mean she was the wrong Aimee. And she might well be the wrong Aimee, come to think of it, no matter what she told him. Holding the memories apart — holding one stream of events away from the other — felt incredibly difficult. In one of those streams, Ebon remembered being able to manipulate the world around him and tried to do it now, but nothing happened. He couldn’t keep the winter from coming. How could anyone halt the inevitable?

  “I wasn’t there, Ebon.”

  “Of course. Of course.” He nodded to himself, trying to make his feet move quickly in the sand. He couldn’t run. If he ran, he’d lose control, and whatever was trying to press into his skull would succeed. He felt one body of reality on one side and another reality on the other. One of those realities had to be true, and the other had to be false. But what if neither was true?

  Ebon shook his head. He’d cross that bridge if he came to it. He had to reach Redding Dock. That truth had become increasingly clear, leaving Vicky’s with an itching sort of discomfort and feeling pressure mount by the step. Vicky had been one kind of anchor and Aimee another. But Redding? Between the two sets of realities — or three, or four, or fifty, depending on how he counted — Redding was the only thing that had stayed the same throughout all of them, right down to the initials carved into the bench at its end.

  “You weren’t there,” he continued, “but it’s bright in my mind. Shiny like a beacon. The colors are vivid. The sounds are sharp, like the song. You know the song?”

  “Which song?”

  Ebon shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The song. The feelings, the sights, the sounds. But most of all, this one memory. I can see it all now, even if I try not to. The way her hair was spread on the pillow. A mosquito bite near her wrist. The way her lipstick had smudged, just a tiny bit, into this shape that was like half a heart just below the very middle. We’d made fajitas the night before, like a full twelve hours earlier, and I could still smell cumin in the air. And cayenne. You know?”

  Aimee, out of breath: “I don’t know, Ebon!”

  “I want to see it — and I don’t want to see it at the same time. It’s like a balloon inflating. I can squeeze it to try and keep the size down, to keep it from growing, but it’s getting air whether I like it or not, and it’s going to pop. When it does, I’ll … well, I guess we’ll see what happens.”

  Aimee sounded like she was sobbing, but half of that had to be exertion as she chased him from the south. Ebon chanced a look back as he neared the pier, but he’d already rounded the bend, and the beach by the cottage was out of sight. Would she even be running toward him in the same reality? Until they both reached Redding, they could be anywhere. Anywhen. Anywhat.

  “Keep talking, Ebon.” She sniffed heavily. “Do you feel dizzy? Do you smell anything funny? Are you seeing spots, or stars, or anything else?”

  Ebon almost laughed. He was seeing everything. He was smelling everything. The world was a jumble. A stew of his life, in all its many forms.

  “Where are you now?” she said when Ebon didn’t answer.

  “Just past the pier.”

  “I’m catching up.” He could hear the wind in the phone’s pickups as Aimee ran, the thudding of her feet, the swish of her clothes. “Do you see me?”

  “I’m around the bend. But I don’t think I’d see you anyway.”

  “Because the trees would be in the way?”

  “Because everything would be in the way. How can I know you’re even you?”

  “What are you talking about?” A heavy sniff. “Oh God, oh shit, oh damn. Just hang on. I’m coming.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Aimee faked a laugh, assuming he’d made a joke.

  “Seriously.” Ebon could see Redding ahead. Its top surface was white rather than red, but that wasn’t a change in Redding’s reliable, rock-solid persistence. It looked white because it was wearing a quarter-inch blanket of snow, January blooming from an October afternoon. “I mean it, Aimee: Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she panted, her breaths short and rushed.

  “Tell me about flowers.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me about flowers, Aimee. Something I don’t already know. Something you’re sure you haven’t told me before.”

  “Why?”

  “Make it complicated. Full of jargon. Something I’d never be able to pull out of my ass
in a thousand years, even if I were trying my best to fake it, or to impersonate you.”

  “Impersonate me?”

  “Tell me, Aimee!” he snapped. His feet slipped on the snow. Recovered. Holding things upright — holding himself upright, both inside and out — felt nearly impossible. The going was getting harder. The short, pulsing time cycles were deepening the snow around him, chilling his ankles. Ebon wondered if his solution was a fix after all. Even if he did make it to Redding Dock, he might just freeze to death atop its boards. And wouldn’t that be bitter irony?

  “Okay,” she said. A deep sniff. Then she began speaking, her words punctuated every few words by a pause for breath. The jittering rub of the phone on her end increased in frequency, as if she were running faster.

  “Ecuadorian roses use an automated hot-water heating system that allows the climate in each of the greenhouses to be individually monitored and controlled with the ideal temperature and relative humidity to prevent diseases, without the use of pesticides. This gives them a high petal count and clean foliage. If you want to maximize the vase life of your flowers, you have to be aware of their changing and transport them to vases that will support their new size as you get rid of the oldest flowers. And only idiots use scissors to cut the stems. Everyone else knows you should always use a sharp, non-serrated knife to cut an inch from the bottom at a 45-degree angle in a small bowl of water, because that’s the only way to prevent air from permeating the stems and aging the flowers.”

  When she finished speaking, Ebon was maybe a hundred yards from Redding Dock. He was so close. But the effort to soldier on, under the weight of the growing and brightening memory of Holly, had become almost unbearable. He wasn’t going to make it. He was too tired. He wanted to lie down, to disappear, to let whatever was supposed to happen, happen.

  “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were supposed to leave them in the same vase until they all died.”

  On the other end of the phone, Ebon heard Aimee vent a surprised laugh, the sound choked with shedding tears.