First Love, Chapter 17

[cherimola]

Chapter 17

It was the end.

Luke and Reid remained in their center seats as the isles became congested. Luke used the time to collect himself, to mute the lyrics ringing in his head. To curb the tears. He suspected he hadn’t been entirely successful when he turned to find Reid looking at him with a faintly wary expression.

“I, um, thought they’d end up together.”

Reid continued to stare at Luke for another beat before speaking. “He went back to the Soviet Union for her, so that her father would be released. Anyway, he did already have a wife and kids.”

“Oh.” Luke wished now he’d paid closer attention to the plot.

“You didn’t like it.”

“What? No…it was…the music was great. The melodies. And the zombie chess pieces were…scary.”

“Right. There hadn’t been quite as many gruesome deaths in the versions I’d seen.”

“I guess they might have been trying a little too hard to make the two stories fit.”

Reid stood. “Maybe you had to be a film student to appreciate the brilliance.”

Luke looked at Reid sharply, but his back was already turned. Luke followed him out of the theater and onto the street, where they hesitated in the midst of a milling mass. The moon was high and full, which almost made a difference in the sparsely lit block.

They stood as if someone were between them. Luke’s hands were stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans. He had yet to gauge Reid’s mood.

“Hungry?”

“It’s getting late.”

Luke blanched. He could hardly have imagined a more dire response; his throat began to close.

In case of emergency, break glass.

“I just thought you might like to try the best pizza in New York.”

Reid froze, then tilted his head back slightly. He looked at Luke as if he’d unexpectedly captured Reid’s queen. “I suppose you did promise ‘famous food.’”

Air began to pass more freely. “And we can eat it with an ‘amazing view.’”

Reid’s face was shadowed. Neither moonlight nor streetlight could touch it. “I guess I’ve trusted you this far.”

Luke was sure relief showed on his face to a pathetic degree. He was past caring. Without removing his hands, he tilted his head and turned left. Reid matched his steps as they walked toward the sparkling lights of Manhattan as framed by the Brooklyn Bridge.

“See? It’s already a great view.”

Reid checked his phone.

The air was heavy with late-summer humidity. The barometric pressure was beginning to oppress.

Pizza will make everything better.

They crossed under the bridge in silence. Luke looked back to see the illuminated span of the Manhattan Bridge behind them. The scope of achievement represented by the massive bridges should have been inspiring - instead, lyrics echoed in Luke’s head: “still the gap between us is too wide.” Frustration began to overwhelm.

Other remembered lyrics didn’t help. “One happy moment”…is that how you still view our meeting again? As something to be enjoyed while it lasts? Haven’t we moved beyond that yet? Luke thought they had, that it was finally safe to allow thoughts of a future together. But he couldn’t help but be unsettled by how untroubled Reid seemed by the story’s resolution. How accepting he was of the finality of it, of the idea that a couple could love each other but not end up together.

He remembered another line, this one from Reid as he wiped away Luke’s tears on the bed in the hotel room: “It’s OK. I know we weren’t meant to be.” Dread pooled in his stomach like liquid mercury, shiny and toxic.

“I've been a fool to allow dreams to become great expectations.”

We should have seen Turnadot. At least that had a happy ending.

Luke mentally slapped himself as they approached the end of the street. His wallowing days were over. He focused instead on the progress, on the resolve to make it to the end by Reid’s side, no matter how many land mines were detonated along the way. But what about the day when he knows more about you than he should? When there are no more surprises? Luke gagged that inner voice. He stuffed it in a trunk and locked it in a wine cellar.

Pizza pizza pizza…

They turned the corner and ran into the end of the line for Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. The entrance of which could barely be seen at the far end of the block.

No, wait…it’s OK. Down, panic, down. “Come on, we just need takeout.”

They’ll probably be closing for the night before most of these people ever get inside. Ignoring Reid’s skeptical expression, Luke grabbed his arm and marched to the beginning of the line. Where he saw the sign taped to the door:

“Take out is the same line.”

Panic didn’t even bother to rise up threateningly again. It didn’t have to. Luke simply capitulated. He stood there, collapsing into himself, under the green and red sign promising a coal brick oven, next to a store renting chairs for queuing customers. It was like a creeping paralysis, a mind-wiping hopelessness. It’s just pizza.

He knew it wasn’t.

At some point Luke had dropped Reid’s arm; therefore he didn’t at first notice when Reid approached the man appearing in the doorway to call people in. Luke watched with a sort of detached attention as Reid spoke with the man and then followed him inside. Not quite trusting his current stupefied state, and fully expecting to be stopped, it took Luke a few moments to open the door and venture inside to look for Reid.

He stepped into a churning sea of red-and-white-checked tablecloths, lively voices, and brick-oven smells. An entire wall was dedicated to Sinatra. Another wall featured a Brando poster claiming he was “gonna make you a pizza you can’t refuse.” Pizza-makers at the far end performed behind plexiglass, a ballet of dough-flattening and pepperoni-arranging and oven-wrangling. A heart-broken Freddy Mercury provided the accompaniment:

Love of my life, don't leave me
You've taken my love; you now desert me
Love of my life, can't you see
Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me
Because you don't know
What it means to me

You will remember
When this is blown over
And everything's all by the way
When I grow older
I will be there at your side to remind you
How I still love you
I still love you

ENOUGH WITH THE LYRICS.

“Are you looking for someone?” The man from outside spoke to Luke with an exasperated tinge.

“Um, well, I was just…” Luke searched through the crowd.

“The line’s outside.”

“Yes, I know, but my…my friend-”

The man began to herd Luke backward. Just as Luke was at the door, the sea parted. Reid strode through the restaurant, two large pizza boxes and two bottles of root beer balanced in his arms. The man stepped aside as Reid exited. Luke dazedly followed outside.

“Wha…? How?”

Reid stopped and turned. “I used my people skills. Where to now?”

__________________________________________________

They ate the pizza by the water, on a large wooden pier surrounded by, yes, amazing views. The sweeping lights of Manhattan reflected as a softly shimmering rainbow on the surface of the East River. The site of the first ferry crossing between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the pier had been restored a century after the bridges had caused the ferries’ decline. Luke and Reid sat on a curved metal bench designed to evoke the cleats used on ships to secure rope. Each man had a pizza box in his lap. By now Reid’s contained one slice, Luke’s half a pie.

“Thank you.”

Reid’s answering nod was blink-quick.

“I’m not even going to pretend to be surprised that you got them to put on what looks like every possible topping. I’ve never actually had anchovies on pizza before. They’re not too bad. And I’m thinking these are…capers?”

“Saltiness makes everything better. As does cheese. And garlic.”

Luke was glad to see signs of spring. “So?”

“So?”

“How does it rate?”

“Acceptable. For a thin-crust, Italian pizza.”

“Let me guess…you’re a deep-dish guy?”

“More like Boston-Greek. Spongy, crusty, pan-cooked, cheap cheddar, oozing grease…no comparison.”

“You must be happy to be back, then.”

“It was certainly something I missed.” Reid leaned over to take a slice out of Luke’s box.

“Which is your favorite pizza place?”

“But that would be like choosing among my children.” Reid chewed thoughtfully. “I suppose the one I missed the most was this little shop in Watertown. The owner and I used to commiserate about the Red Sox.”

“You’ll have to take me there.”

Reid swallowed. Wiped his hands and placed the empty box on the ground. Stood. He walked to the railing, bending over it, his back to Luke.

Luke joined him at the railing. He was sure his heartbeats were audible. As he leaned over the water, he noticed words etched into the top of the metal fence that surrounded the pier on three sides. They appeared to form part of a poem. He looked at the particular word he was leaning against. What kind of poem uses the word “throb”? He stepped back to read the full line.

“Throb, baffled and curious brain!”

He exhaled sharply. Reid’s head didn’t move from its bowed position. Luke moved down to read the next line: “Throw out questions and answers!”

OK, universe. I get it. It’s time.

“You’re pulling away.”

Reid said nothing. Luke waited. Lapping sounds lulled.

“You want more than I can give.”

Luke faced Reid. “I do want a lot. You’re right. I want it all. I want the happy ending. I don’t care about your wife and kids.”

Reid continued to look down at the dark water.

“And maybe you can’t give it now, give it yet, but I’m willing to wait. I’ll just be waiting in Boston.”

Reid closed his eyes.

“There’s no life without you, Reid. Not any more. And it has nothing to do with the sex. OK, maybe a little.”

Again, Reid didn’t smile at Luke’s weak attempt at humor. He simply looked weary.

“I’m serious, Reid. I’m never letting you go again. You’re just going to have to deal with that.”

“So why did you?”

“What?”

Reid’s eyes had opened, but they were directed downward. “Why did you let me go?”

Luke was unexpectedly shattered by Reid’s soft tone. “I…I told you. I was weak and confused and self-destructive. I knew it was a mistake the minute I told Noah yes.” Luke noticed Reid’s left hand twitch. “By the time I realized the extent of the disaster, you were gone.”

“So why didn’t you come after me?”

There it was. The one question Luke had been dreading most. The question that revealed what he had hated most about himself. The part he still hated. His insecurity. The crippling self-doubt that had been hobbling his attempts at happiness for years. That he’d been using as a sort of perverse crutch to avoid making the hard decisions. No more.

“At first, I felt I wasn’t good enough to be with you. Sure, I knew being with Noah was wrong, but the way I figured, I didn’t deserve what was right. And then I had to make it work with him…I certainly couldn’t admit defeat. As long as we were together, I wouldn’t have to confront the full reality of what I’d done, that I’d thrown away the greatest thing that had ever come into my life. That I’d thrown it away for a mistake. Pretending that Noah and I were in a relationship was the only way I could keep myself from falling into total despair.”

Still, Reid didn’t look at Luke. “And then? When it did end? What, a year ago? If you thought you weren’t alive without me, if you were imagining skipping through parks with me…what stopped you from coming to me then? You obviously knew where to find me. What took you so long, Luke?”

Luke tried to catch his breath. The attempt was mostly unsuccessful.

Reid turned his head to look at Luke. His eyes were as empty as his almost-smile. “Of course, the truth is…you never did, did you? You never did come after me.”

Luke started to speak, but Reid cut him short. “And I actually thought you did…at first. When Alex called me over. I thought ‘this is it’…finally…you’d come looking for me. After all those years…waiting…” Reid shook his head briskly. “But then it quickly became clear that you hadn’t expected to run into me. That running into me had been the last thing on your mind.”

“That’s not true. You’ve always been first, Reid. Front and center. Why else would I have been wandering around a room full of neurosurgeons? I was looking for you there before I’d even known there was the possibility I might find you. That’s what I did, Reid. That’s how I’d been living my pathetic life.”

“Well that was a pretty lousy way of looking. Especially considering you knew exactly where I was.”

“You’re right…but part of me was terrified of actually finding you. I was sure you’d want nothing to do with me. After all this time, after what I’d done…how was I supposed to have any idea that you’d still want me? I mean, I’d pretty much convinced myself that it had been a fluke that you’d wanted me in the first place, some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, or the warping effects of Oakdale’s limited dating pool. And the more time that passed, the more I was sure you’d forgotten about me…or, if not, that your memories had turned more and more bitter. That you were like, ‘what the heck was I thinking?’ That the last thing you would ever want would be a surprise call, or visit, from some college-dropout hick, some needy, smothering drunk with only one kidney…which I know you noticed. I mean, come on, who would want that?” Luke cursed the tears he could no longer stop.

Reid straightened slowly. He turned to face Luke with his entire body. His voice sounded like a lion on a leash. “You thought I wouldn’t want you? You thought I wouldn’t-” His breaths appeared carefully controlled. “Luke. I haven’t wanted anyone but you. Not since the first time I heard your voice.”

Luke’s lips formed a rueful twist. “I’m not talking sexually-”

“Neither am I.” Reid took a step forward, reducing the gap. “I haven’t been with anyone else since I heard your voice.”

Luke was too stunned even to blink. He was sure he’d misheard.

“Do you honestly think that would have been the case had I only wanted you sexually? Believe me, you can lust after someone and still fuck other people. I couldn’t even…look at anyone else. And God knows I tried. Guys who looked like you…guys who didn’t look like you…I even got myself checked out. I mean, come on, no one could be that fucking in love with someone. Certainly a man couldn’t. But even when I tried to imagine it was you…” Reid looked out at the water. At the glittering skyline just across the river. Almost close enough to touch. “After a while, I stopped trying. I was half-way resigned to being a fucking monk for the rest of my life.” His laugh was a harsh rasp. “And you thought I wouldn’t want you.”

Luke’s mind was still in stasis. Until a memory flashed - images, sounds. Of the ferocity in Reid’s face, his eyes, his cries - when he was inside Luke for the first time. When he asked Luke how many there had been. Luke crumpled over the railing, clung to it, the etched words pressing into his stomach. The smell of stagnant water filled his nose, his mouth. Tears hit the river. He imagined he could hear the splashes.

Reid leaned against the railing beside him. His loud breaths could be heard above the sound of the strengthening wind. Their upper arms barely brushed.

When Luke spoke, his voice was small. “So why didn’t you ever come after me?”

“I figured you were still with him.”

“Oh.”

“And I loved you enough to want you happy. I’d hoped that losing you had, shall we say, opened his eyes. That he’d somehow, miraculously, become a better man. Someone who appreciated you, who finally treated you the way you deserved. Regardless…I didn’t want to cause you any more pain. You’d made your choice.”

Luke lifted his head, watched the slow-moving lights drift across the Brooklyn Bridge. He felt the weight of that bridge on his chest.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“I didn’t expect you did.”

“You have to know - I never, ever stopped loving you.”

“Neither did I.”

Luke nearly fell over. His head snapped around. Reid met his eyes. Luke tried to speak, to form words with uncooperative lips.

“Am I really that hard to read?”

Luke made assorted sputtering sounds.

A shade of a smile colored Reid’s eyes and lips. “I let you take me to Brooklyn.”

Luke laughed hoarsely, cathartically. He leaned incrementally closer to Reid. Music drifted from the direction of Brooklyn Bridge Park to the south.

“So…when I asked what your type was now, and you said only me…you weren’t kidding.”

“I wish I had been. But apparently you’re it for me. Heaven help my heart.”

Luke caught Reid’s eye. “No offense, but if I never hear another ‘Chess’ song, it will still be too soon.”

Reid’s lips threatened to form a smile.

Luke watched a sightseeing cruise pass before speaking again. “Then what about…what about all those condoms?”

“Condoms?”

“That strip you had…last night…” Luke couldn’t finish.

Reid leaned into him, encouraging him to continue.

“I mean, if you hadn’t been planning on, you know…”

“Hooking up?”

“Yeah, that. Not that I’m…doubting, or-”

“No. It’s OK. It’s a fair question. I was decidedly prepared when you showed up at my door. But that’s because I’d just done a little shopping.”

“Shopping?”

Reid continued to lean. “Why do you think I was sitting in the lobby when you came looking for me? Because I’m so sociable?”

“You were hoping to see me?”

“I’m not even sure I was holding those papers right-side-up. All I know is I’d never before been so happy at the mere possibility of using a condom.”

“You, uh, bought quite a few.”

“I had a lot of time to make up for.”

The resonance of Reid’s voice set off vibrations deep within. “What if I hadn’t shown up in the lobby? Would you have come looking for me?”

“I don’t know. I told myself I wouldn’t. But I’d told myself I wouldn’t do a lot of things.”

“Like telling me your room number?”

Reid’s eyes found Luke’s. “I knew once I let you in, I’d never get you out.”

A man and woman joined them at the railing several feet away. They fed each other bites of their ice creams cones.

“But you were going to try anyway, right?”

Reid had been staring absently at the couple. “What?”

“To get me out. Even after waiting all those years, even though you still…even though I’d just told you how much I wanted to be with you. You weren’t planning on more than one night, were you?”

“Not entirely true.”

“Fine, then…two nights.”

Reid’s breathing cycled several times before he spoke. “You told me you’d regretted…what happened. That things with him hadn’t worked out the way you’d hoped. That you were sorry you’d hurt me.”

“I told you I’d never stopped thinking about you.”

“No, that you’d never stopped wanting closure. I figured we could both get some.”

“And then you’d just walk away? Take my picture and go? You really could have done that?” Luke’s voice hunched in on itself. “And you’re still considering it, aren’t you? Even after everything.”

The breathing became deeper. “I’d always known love was theoretically possible…a product of intersexual selection acting via hormones and monoamines…all to guarantee attraction and attachment long enough to raise some kids. The theory was sound, and I suppose I’d run across anecdotal evidence that it could last. But did I really believe it? Did I think it would ever be even remotely relevant to my life?” Reid’s eyes were fixed on the bridge in front of him. “You made me believe it. You made it real. Tangible. Attainable. Idiotic love songs didn’t seem quite so idiotic anymore. I didn’t care that nurses no longer trembled in my presence. As much. You even had me reconsidering my stance on ceremonies….” Reid straightened his arms against the railing. “And you’d assured me that if you’d wanted to be with Noah you would have agreed to move to LA with him. The first time.”

Luke closed his eyes.

“And then. And then I discovered that all of those equally ridiculous break-up songs weren’t, in fact, exaggerating. That love is actually some sort of…parasite that infiltrates every organ with invisible filaments, every bone and blood vessel and fat cell and muscle. And the brain, of course, everything from brainstem to prefrontal cortex. Like a high-grade infiltrative tumor impossible to extricate without profound damage. Only instead of killing you, this parasite makes you completely dependent on it for basic life processes, and it controls your thoughts and moods and perceptions. And they’re lasting changes, which means that, once it’s removed from your life, from your body, you can no longer function. Not in the same way. Never in the same way. Everything’s different. Foods taste different. Key body parts stop working properly. Things become…faded. Like someone’s turned the lights down. Has dimmed the sun.” Reid looked at Luke briefly. “Tissues eventually regenerate, but patterns and connections are permanently altered. I hypothesized that the extent of the damage depended on the duration of the parasitic presence.”

Luke looked at Reid. “In other words…you’d rather things ended sooner rather than later?”

Reid looked back. “The longer I have you, the worse the pain will be.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Reid looked away.

Luke grabbed the arm closest to him. “Reid. You have to believe me.” He annunciated his words. “I Will Never Leave. You might not always want me, but I’ll never leave. If I’d had even the slightest idea that all these years you’d…OK, maybe that’s not exactly the truth. Maybe I still would have found a way to let the fear sabotage me. But I’m not scared any more. Not of risking my heart or my pride. The only thing that has the power to scare me now is the thought of a life without you. So you don’t have to worry about my panicking about being too happy or not worthy enough. I know I could never be your equal, but you need me in your life. We complement each other. And even if we didn’t, if you didn’t, I’m more selfish now. There’s no way I’d ever give you up.” His hand on Reid’s arm loosened. “OK, so I can’t actually promise that I won’t worry from time to time about being able to hold your interest. That one song did kinda freak me out a little. But I promise I won’t leave unless you push me out. And even then I’m not promising anything.”

A frown had slowly crept over Reid’s face. “Luke. You held my interest captive even when you were a thousand miles away. It did your bidding for years. How could you possibly think there would come a day when I wouldn’t want you?”

“Yeah, well…the idea of someone can be a lot more compelling that the boring reality.”

Reid lifted a hand to Luke’s face. “Your right dimple alone has the power to hold my interest for at least eight years. Your lower lip, decades. Your cock…” Reid seemed to respond to something in Luke’s expression. “But the twists your mind takes, particularly when I think I finally know which way it’s going…maybe 60 years. Sixty-five, tops. Your ability to keep up with me…in every way…your bizarrely detailed knowledge of New York City and its hawk inhabitants…the ways your past has shaped you,” Reid’s hand dropped to Luke’s side, “your mutant capacity for loyalty and compassion, even when it’s not deserved…your compulsion to help and to fix, even when it isn’t appreciated…the fierceness with which you fight, especially for someone else…the fierceness with which you love, even when all hope seems gone,” his hand lifted to Luke’s chest. “And how when you love, it’s with everything. You give everything. It will take me the rest of my life to figure out what sort of freak interstellar alignment resulted in your giving so much of it to me. It’ll take the rest of my life to be worthy of it. But mostly, I’ll be with you for your money.”

Luke covered Reid’s hand as if it were a bird about to fall out of its nest. His eyes were wet. “You’ll be with me? You won’t be doing all of this figuring out from a distance?”

Reid looked down at their hands, his body still except for the movement of his breath. “I fear the parasitic recurrence is already too advanced. Any attempts to treat now would most likely be fatal. The only reasonable course of action would be long-term management of the condition.”

The slow-motion supernova began in the vicinity of Luke’s heart and radiated an advancing wave of luminosity until his entire body beamed. “Sounds like you’d need round-the-clock care.”

“The hours would be long and the patient at times uncooperative."

“Chronic conditions can be scary sometimes. Sometimes the patient just needs to know that they’re not alone. That they’ll never be alone again.” The fingers of Luke’s other hand lightly lifted Reid’s chin. “And sometimes the best treatment is to be around others who suffer from the same condition.”

Reid’s eyes were clear. The gates were open, the guards honorably discharged. “So we should form a support group? For parasitic hosts?”

“Support will definitely be involved. And respect and acceptance…”

“And sex? Nothing too twelve-step-y, right? I hear those sorts of groups tend to frown on members sleeping with each other.”

“And just how many other members do you plan on allowing in?”

Reid leaned closer. Luke swore he could see in Reid’s eyes the reflected incandescence from his own.

“Only you.”

Disclaimer: Freddy Mercury was singing (and wrote the lyrics for) "Love of My Life" by Queen. Odds are good he was singing about a man :-)

Also, the poem excerpts are from "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" by Walt Whitman.

Here is a photo of a supernova similar to the one that exploded inside Luke's chest: