Linnet was talking about a therapist. And yes, Ed had thought about it. He'd thought about how it wasn't fucking going to happen. “I'll be fine,” he said gruffly.
The doctor handed him several scripts. “Here. You're going back on some higher-dose painkillers until this calms down. I've included something for anxiety too, because that helped you last time. And I want you making an appointment with physical therapy before you leave the clinic.”
Ed scanned the papers and saw his old friends Voltaren, Ativan, Skelaxin, and Vicodin. He grimaced, but he nodded too.
“And once you get back on your feet, keep up the dancing,” Linnet said as he shook Ed's hand when he rose to go. “Be sure to mention it to PT. They can work it into your plan.”
They swung by the pharmacy on the way home, where Ed picked up all the meds and a Diet Mountain Dew to wash them all down. By the time he hit the stairs to his apartment, he was so high he was practically floating up them. He ate the soup and sandwich his mom put in front of him with only the barest acknowledgement that he was doing so. But when she put him into bed, he remembered, and he sat up, pushing the covers away.
“Laurie,” he slurred, drooling a little. The room pulsed in and out of focus, but Ed fought through it, determined to get to his phone. “Have to call Laurie.”
Annette fought him, and when she couldn't take him, roped Dick into the act as well. “I'll call him, honey. Is his number on your phone?”
Ed tried to fight her, but he was so tired. I want to call him, he tried to say, but his lips felt numb. I want to hear his voice. But it was all he could do to keep himself conscious enough to get back into bed. He sank into sleep before his mother had finished pulling up the covers, and he dreamed sharp-edged narcotic dreams where he lay numb and broken on the ground, reaching out helplessly to Laurie as he danced into purple-tinted fog.
And then Laurie was there, touching his face, talking quietly. He sounded like he was underwater, so at first Ed assumed he was still dreaming. But then he felt the dull ache of his neck again, and things felt real. Maybe Laurie really was here. He couldn't quite tell. He hoped to hell it was real, and he reached out for him, thrilling when Laurie's cool hands closed over his own.
I was supposed to make love to you tonight, he thought as he watched Laurie swim in and out of focus, and out of nowhere, depression swamped him. He didn't realize he was crying until the tears ran into his nose, and then he was alarmed, because that was definitely not something he was ready for Laurie to see.
Someone pushed something small and hard and round into his mouth, and he tasted the bitter tang of a pill before a straw appeared to draw up water and chase it down. Then another pill came, and another, and another, and another—the full monty, which meant he'd gotten an Ativan too. He'd said no earlier, but his mother apparently had seen the tears. Well, Vicodin and Ativan would iron those out. No pain, anxiety, no depression. No nothing.
I don't want to feel nothing, Ed thought, then tried not to think about that in case Laurie really was there, because he was so strung out now that a dog food commercial could probably make him cry.
He lost track of dreams and reality once the meds took hold of him again. For a while, he floated naked on a cloud while Laurie kissed his way down his spine, but mostly there was nothing. Sometimes he thought maybe someone was petting his hair. Sometimes he thought he smelled Laurie, but he might well have imagined it.
They're going to fire me, he thought dispassionately as the Ativan bore him away like a Lotos-Eater. They're going to fire me, and then I won't have health insurance.
The dream-Laurie started kissing him again, and Ed smiled. Wouldn't it be nice if that meant I could just spend all day dancing with Laurie?
Sometime in the middle of the night, his full bladder woke him up, and that's when he discovered Laurie really was there, because before he could finish letting the queasiness settle, he felt hands sliding over his shoulders and Laurie's whisper in his ear.
“Are you okay?”
Laurie. Laurie was here. “Bathroom,” Ed slurred, fumbling to find Laurie's hand and hold it tight.
Laurie helped him to the toilet, sitting him down on it like a woman so he didn't fall over while he tried to piss. “Your mom said you might be queasy, and that if you were, I was supposed to make you toast. Do you want some toast?”
Ed nodded, then sat there on the toilet, swaying as Laurie went away. He took a few moments to rise when he was done, and Laurie was back as soon as he stood, helping him get his pants back up. He also made him wash his hands, which Ed found kind of funny, but he'd do about anything to keep Laurie touching him like this. When they were through in the bathroom, he let Laurie lead him into the kitchen, where he listed on a stool and gnawed on toast.
“I took tomorrow off,” Laurie said as he wiped crumbs away from Ed's cheek with a napkin. “I'll call Vicky for you in the morning. Your mom is calling your office for you, since they know her better than me.”
At first Ed didn't know what Laurie was talking about, and then he remembered. His class on Thursday. He wanted to argue he'd be okay by then, but he didn't know. Probably not. He wondered if he was ever going to get to teach it at all now.
Laurie kept stroking his face, this time with his thumb. “Your mom said you hate the painkillers but that you needed to take them regularly for now. She told me how to taper them off in the morning so I can get you to your therapy appointment in the afternoon. Will you tell me, though, if you're hurting? Because she said you can be obstinate about that too.” He paused and bit his lip. “Sorry, you're not awake enough for this conversation, are you?”
Ed just blinked at Laurie, everything swimming, both the room and all that Laurie had just told him and what it meant, what he'd given up for Ed, to be with him, to help him.
“I love you,” he blurted. He was vaguely aware that this had been a silly thing to do, but he was so high he hardly cared. He thought about confessing that too but decided to let things stand.
Laurie's face softened, and his thumb slipped down to the corner of Ed's mouth. Then he rose from his stool, leaned forward and kissed him sweetly. “Let's get you back to bed.”
Ed went, sinking gladly back into Laurie's arms, nestling into his shoulder and the ice pack Laurie tucked against his sore neck. He drifted off to sleep again, but when he was sliding away, he thought he heard Laurie whisper against his hair, “I love you too.”
He might have been dreaming already. But as he slid deep into the drugged haze, Ed decided that either way, it was the best medicine he'd had all day.
It upset Laurie to see Ed in the condition he was in.
The first night, Ed had been so drugged nothing seemed to register, but by the next day he was less groggy—and more clearly hurting. He slept a lot, but when he was awake, his eyes were hazy with drugs and pain. Annette came to take Ed to his doctor appointment the day after that. Laurie should have gone to the studio, but he cleaned up Ed's apartment instead, then ran over to his own place to do the laundry. When he came back, he brought over some more of his own things.
He hoped that was all right. Ed didn't seem like he should be left alone. And honestly, he wouldn't do anything but worry about him if he wasn't there. There wasn't much he could do, but it felt better to be there to help. He tried to look for signs to see if this upset Ed. He couldn't tell. After a few days, Laurie decided perhaps his staying over was unwelcome, so he started just “popping by.” He wasn't even sure Ed noticed the change.
He told himself it was selfish and stupid to worry about what this meant, told himself Ed wasn't rejecting him, he was hurting and thinking about himself as he well should, but it didn't stop Laurie's worries.
Nothing seemed to engage him. He didn't respond to gentle teasing, and he didn't want to do much beyond sit on the couch and stare absently at the TV. On Wednesday he'd roused himself briefly, but unfortunately it was to try to go to work—until he keeled over sideways when he tried to put his leg in his dress pant
s, right over the top of the sweat pants he'd slept in. After that, he'd gone quietly to the couch, and he hadn't said much since.
Annette had said he wasn't usually this bad, but that yes, this sort of spasm came and went. She'd confided too that the doctor had told Ed the desk job wasn't good for him. “All kinds of data entry,” she'd said with distaste and hunched over as she typed on an invisible keyboard. “Strains the injury. The doctors all say it's movement he needs, but controlled.” She'd smiled hopefully at Laurie. “He mentioned that dancing was good.”
Laurie acknowledged that was part of why he felt so unsettled. He hadn't even gotten around to worrying that dancing might have caused this, but it wasn't unlike finding out you'd nearly had a car accident; he still needed a few minutes to feel the hot terror of what might have been. Had dancing caused this in any way? What about the sex? The thought of losing either was equally hollowing.
He couldn't let himself think about losing Ed, period.
Laurie was, he knew, losing his mind. He was completely overreacting, he was making mountains out of molehills, and he absolutely wasn't helping Ed. Clearly he needed help. So instead of calling Vicky to tell her about Ed, Laurie drove himself over to the center.
She was in a meeting, though, with the door closed tight. Laurie, pumped up on anxiety over Ed's condition and a sense of confusion over his own role in helping with it, and angry at the universe in general, didn't feel that Vicky's standard cue for “don't disturb this meeting” applied to him just now. Which was why when a voice called out from down the hall as his hand reached for the knob, he jumped.
“She don't want to be bugged when that door is shut, man.”
It was the boy from Vicky's office the other day, the one with the BITCH cap, which he was wearing again today. The one who, he thought, was in Ed's class too. He stood halfway down the hall, arranged against the side of the wall as if he had worked very hard to look casual but slightly tough as well. And perhaps a little bigger than he actually was.
Laurie straightened, putting on an awkward, uncomfortable smile and clearing his throat. “Were you waiting to see her? Sorry if I was pushing in line.”
“Shit, no. Don't you tell her I'm here, neither. I'm ditching.” He jerked his chin at Laurie. “I saw you dancing and shit in that room the other day. Saw your show the other night too. You're good, man. Real good.”
Laurie had no idea what to say to that, so he went with a slightly awkward, “Thank you,” and worked hard to keep from glancing at the door. Something about the boy was making him self-conscious, though he knew he shouldn't feel that way.
But if the boy had picked up on Laurie's discomfort, he was ignoring it. He leaned a little more naturally against the wall. “What was that? In that room upstairs, I mean. Some modern shit? ‘Cause it didn’ look like no ballet but nothin’ else I seen either.”
“It was... I wasn't really dancing any particular style. Improvising, I suppose you could say. But I know a number of different styles, so I was probably flitting between ballet and jazz and—” His cheeks flushed hot as he realized he was likely giving more information than the young man wanted, and he cleared his throat. “Just a bit of this and that, which was probably why it looked odd. Free-form.”
“Didn't look odd. Looked wicked cool, man.” And suddenly the young man was the one looking awkward, his posture becoming artificially aggressive again as he looked down before lifting his eyes and looking at Laurie with a guarded intensity that made his heart pound. “Don't suppose you ever teach classes or nothin'.”
Laurie blinked. “Well—actually, I do. In Eden Prairie. Teach dance, I mean. Here I teach aerobics on Thursdays. Well, which you know. Because of the classes.”
The boy nodded, but he looked impatient. “That's what I mean. Why aren't you teaching us that shit?”
Laurie couldn't help a smile. “Vicky never mentioned there was a call for dance, or I'd have offered that too.”
“Depends on what you try and teach. None of that fancy shit gonna fly here. But you dance cool like that night, hell yeah, people will come.”
Laurie was relaxing more now; he leaned against the opposite wall, folding his arms casually over his chest before speaking. “The truth is, everyone has to start with the ‘fancy shit’ before they get to ‘cool.’ Anything else is like trying to read without learning the alphabet first. You might be able to fake it with the right books, but you won't really know how.”
The boy stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. “Well, when Ms. Vic gets out of her meeting and you go in, you tell her Duon says she needs to knock off that aerobics and get you teachin’ dancing.” He held up a hand. “But you tell her I told you couple of days ago, yeah?”
Laurie smiled. “I'll do that.”
Duon lingered. “So what you all agitated about? You look like you're about to climb the door and go in through that window above it. What'd Ms. Vic do? Or what'd you do?”
Laurie ran a hand briefly through his hair. “My—” He stumbled, glancing at Duon as he waffled between a serious of nouns. His eyes flicked up to the BITCH hat. Taking a chance, he pushed on. “My boyfriend had an injury flare up. I need to...talk to Vicky about it. I guess. She should know. And I thought—well. I don't know why I'm here, really.”
Duon straightened sharply. “This Ed?”
Laurie tensed slightly, worried that he'd shared what he shouldn't have, or that Duon would turn up his nose at their relationship. “Yes.”
“Shit.” Duon grimaced, then caught himself. “I mean, glad you two are dating and all, but shit that his neck got bad again. That's what it is, right?”
Laurie nodded, rubbing at his own neck as he eased the last of his awkwardness away. “Yes.”
“He gonna be okay?”
Another nod. “I think so. Right now he's mostly just tripped out on painkillers.” And ignoring me. And everything. And I don't know what to do.
But now Duon was looking at Laurie intently. “Do not tell him I cut, man. He will kick my sorry ass into next week if he finds out.”
Laurie couldn't help being a little amused at Duon's sudden panic. “With as much effort as you have to put into hiding the fact that you're skipping school, has it ever occurred to you it might be easier to simply attend?” Duon's face turned dark, and Laurie immediately regretted his teasing. Too late, it occurred to him why a young black man who wore a BITCH cap and came easily to empathy for a gay man and his boyfriend might be ditching school. “Sorry,” he said, flushing a little in his embarrassment.
“Bunch of shit anyway. I'm just doin’ time till I can go get my GED.” Duon adjusted his position against the wall, hefting his shoulder a little higher. “So Maurer really is gonna be okay?”
Laurie paused a moment as he tried to decide how to frame his answer, and before he could settle on anything, the door to Vicky's office opened. Duon was gone before Vicky even appeared in the doorway, but she wouldn't have seen him anyway, because she was completely engaged in a heated conversation with a man in a suit.
“You've got to give me until the end of the year at least,” she said. “Through the holidays.”
The man shook his head, looking grim. “I can get you to the end of the month if I lie like hell, Victoria, and that's the best I can give you.” He saw Laurie, nodded curtly at him, then hefted a briefcase higher in his grip as he wedged his way past Vicky into the hall. “I'll call you next week. Who knows. Maybe we'll have some sort of miracle, and this discussion will have been nothing more than a waste of both our afternoons.”
He hurried down the hall toward the stairs, and for a second Laurie and Vicky stood watching him go. Then Vicky turned to Laurie with grim determination and motioned him inside.
“Come on in. I hope you've come to tell me you want to give the center fifty thousand dollars.”
“What?” Laurie said automatically, but he hadn't needed to hear any more of Vicky's conversation than he'd already heard to glean that the center had a lot greater proble
ms just now than his.
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* * *
Chapter Twelve
outside partner step: a step taken with one's partner beside the moving foot. During this step the feet tracks of the partners do not overlap.
“The city is cutting funding for the center by fifty thousand dollars a year. And they assure me that this is just the first of many cuts to come.” Vicky sank back in her desk chair and shut her eyes.
Laurie shook his head. “That's a lot of money. How can they cut so much at once?”
Vicky's smile was macabre. “It's actually very carefully done. It's enough to be a cut without actually killing, not outright. It looks like ‘trimming’ to those who need to defend themselves as budget conscious. We can apply to sponsors for the difference or try for more grants.”
“You're going to, right?” Laurie asked.
“There aren't any more grants. I already do my best to keep us as funded on grants as I can.”
Laurie hesitated a moment, then dove in. “And sponsors?” When Vicky's eyes flashed, he held up a hand. “Victoria. Honestly. You're going to keep being unreasonable about that now?”
“Yes. And do you want to know why? Because as soon as you let that happen, you're at their mercy. They tell you what kind of kids you can have. They tell you what sort of programs you should be having. I get offers all the time from a megachurch in Bloomington. All I have to do to get twenty thousand dollars—which they assure me is a mere down payment—is let them present an abstinence-only program.” Vicky glared at him. “No.”
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