Authors: Mimsy Hale
“Ah, Josh was always going to make it. He was gone before the ink on his diploma was dry.”
“He had something to prove after how hard he had to fight for that full ride.”
Aiden nods and glances back at the front row; Josh is surrounded by a group of men and women. The girlfriend Aiden recognizes from Facebook pictures is sitting in his lap.
“If New York is where you want to be, I’ll go with you,” Jake blurts, catching Aiden off guard as he always does.
He turns to look at Jake. “What did you just say?”
Jake sits up straighter in his seat, sets his drink on the floor and clears his throat. “I said that I’ll go with you to New York. If you’ll have me.”
Aiden blinks and crosses his arms over his chest, as if it will stop his heart from beating right out of it. “Jake, of
course
I would, but… I mean, when you mentioned it in Santa Monica I didn’t think…”
“You didn’t think I was serious, I know,” Jake says. “But I am.”
It’s too much to take in, too much to hold inside. It’s everything he wants, but it’s selfish, selfish, selfish. “No, Jakey. No, I want to work on this movie, and I want to be with you, wherever you are.”
“I don’t want you to do this for
me,
though.” Jake’s eyes shine brightly, his intent as pure and clear as sunrise. “I want it to be what’s right for you.”
“You’re
what’s right for me. And you’re one reason—not the whole reason,” Aiden says, wrapping his fingers around Jake’s arm. The gesture is as much an attempt to ground himself as it is to assure Jake. “I’m doing this for me. Honestly, I feel like L.A. is where I’m supposed to be right now. And I meant what I said to Josh; I’d be stupid to turn down an opportunity like that. Come on, Jakey. Even if it turns out to be a movie about killer shrimp from outer space, it’s a dream gig.”
“Oh god, I hope it’s not killer shrimp,” Jake says, scrunching his nose. He shakes his head. “You’re
really
sure?”
“What, you need me to convince you?” Aiden teases, hoping his distraction gambit is working.
Anything, I’ll do anything, as long as you believe me.
“Should I sing you that love song now?”
“Only if you let me sing it with you. We’re a team, aren’t we?” Jake looks as if he’s expecting Aiden to roll his eyes and tell him of course they are, they always have been and always will be. And once again, Aiden can see that his tactics have worked, that Jake is diverted and the topic has been left in the dust. This time, relief makes him bend down to grab Jake’s collar and pull him up for a crushing kiss. His lips tingle with the taste of Tequila Sunrise that lingers on Jake’s tongue and at the corners of his mouth.
“Let’s do it, then,” Jake says breathlessly, looking up at him with a playful smirk.
“You wouldn’t rather…” Aiden tugs at the fistful of collar in his hand. “Get out of here?”
Jake takes a step back, opening his eyes comically wide. “Aiden Calloway, are you trying to pass up the chance to be onstage? It’s like you’re a different person. Are you feeling okay?”
Aiden intercepts Jake’s hand on its way to his forehead, threads their fingers together and gestures toward the stage. “After you.”
It’s a heady feeling, taking a step back to look at everything through a director’s eyes once more as they hit the stage and take up their microphones. He can see exactly how everything would play out on a big screen—which angles would be used to capture the happiness in Jake’s eyes; exactly which second the lights would catch on Josh’s watch, drawing Aiden’s attention so he catches Josh’s suggestive wink; cuts to the knowing little glances he and Jake exchange as they sing to each other.
They’re together now, and Aiden wants to laugh at how scared they’ve both been, how uncertain he has allowed himself to be even just tonight. If he’d known this was waiting for them all those years ago, he would have taken Jake to Dairy Frost when they were fourteen and reached for Jake’s hand over the weathered Formica tabletop. He would have slow-danced with him at prom instead of quietly judging everyone else and nursing a cup of the cliché spiked punch. He would have recognized forever when it was standing right in front of him.
The song ends, Jake kisses the corner of Aiden’s mouth and finally, standing on the stage of an old theater in Portland, Aiden comes home.
14,091 miles
Day Ninety-
seven: Washington
“Dan, I’m pretty sure I won’t lose my mind in the few hours you’re forcing us to spend apart so that you can go hang out with my ex-boyfriend,” Jake deadpans, holding up the pair of rubber gloves he’s about to put on and adding, “That is, unless you
want
to stay and help me clean. I still maintain that you cheated.”
“You can’t cheat at beer pong,” Aiden says.
Jake snorts. “Getting naked isn’t exactly regulation.”
“It got warm,” Aiden says, exaggeratedly earnest. “You were welcome to remove clothing as well.”
“Still. Tipping the water bottle over yourself was a little much. This isn’t
Flashdance.
”
“Well, you were winning. You know what that does to me.”
“Ha! So you’re admitting it!” Jake crows. Aiden has the decency to look shamefaced.
“It’s not like
you’re
totally innocent,” he says, moving closer and backing Jake against the kitchen counter.
“Don’t know what you mean,” Jake says, squarely meeting Aiden’s gaze, chin up and finger raised. “Choose your next words very carefully. Remember, I’m the one cleaning this place up so we can have her tidy for the drive home.”
“Excited?” Aiden asks, leaning into him and setting his arms atop Jake’s shoulders.
“Ready, I think,” he says. “It’s been kind of insane, to say the least. But I think I’m just ready to start everything. With you.”
“See, now you’re making me want to stay and take you back to bed,” Aiden says.
“Always an option,” Jake says wistfully, fingers dancing along Aiden’s hip. “But no, go have fun with Brad the Great Deflowerer.”
Aiden tips his head back and laughs, and the sound fills the kitchen. “And you’re sure it’s not weird?”
Jake nods. “I’m sure. Now go, I’ve got better things to do.”
“Okay.” Aiden grins and presses a kiss to Jake’s mouth before casually tossing over his shoulder, “Love you!”
“Love you, too!” Jake calls after him, and once the door to the RV has closed with a soft click and he has watched Aiden walk away, his hair golden under the yellow lamps of the campground outside, Jake closes all of the blinds and gets to work.
It’s a few hours before he finally takes a breather, and if he’d known there would be so much to do, he might not have bet the beer pong match on it. Both of them got into pretty good habits their first year at Bowdoin when they roomed together in the dorm, but by the time he finishes scrubbing the shower door, he’s sweating and cursing Aiden for distracting him into losing.
He collapses onto the couch, then pulls off his gloves and sets them aside to dig his phone from between the couch cushions; he wants to see if he can finally beat level forty-eight of the game he’s been stuck on for the past week and a half. But now that he’s started to clean, all he can see around him is mess; he can’t focus on the game with piles of papers haphazardly strewn across their small dining table and the plethora of empty food wrappers lying all over the kitchen counter. Sighing, he sets his phone back down and stands, stretching out his arms and cracking his back as he goes.
He takes a single step toward the dining table and promptly trips over the strap of his rucksack where it lies on the floor by his feet. Stumbling forward, he sends the papers on the table flying but manages to grab onto the back of the chair and keep himself upright. The papers fall to the floor with a
thunk,
which catches Jake’s attention; as he rights himself, he drops into a crouch and moves the papers aside to uncover Aiden’s black notebook, lying open and face up.
I’m going to miss the road, and all the incredible things Jake and I have seen together,
he reads, eyes widening,
and I might have finally figured out that music and composing are what I want the most, but going to L.A. is the right thing to do—for both of us.
Jake slams the journal closed with far more force than necessary and stands, looking down at its unassuming black cover. He presses his hands together in front of his face and starts pacing around the living room, his thoughts coming a mile a minute. Why did he have to see that journal entry
now?
He’s known about Aiden’s journal since the early part of their trip and has never once given in to his intense curiosity, but now he needs to know more, needs to know everything. Jake picks up the journal along with the mess of papers on the floor, sits down at the table, flips open the journal to the most recent entry and works his way back from there.
The latest ones are happy and filled with Aiden’s lighthearted humor; they have Jake smiling; tension drains from his limbs as he settles back into his chair. But all too soon he’s on edge again. Reading their story not only in reverse, but also through Aiden’s eyes, is discomfiting, as if he’s watching houses being deconstructed into their component parts. The further back he reads, the more Aiden talks about movies—his dream of being ‘the director’ isn’t who he is anymore. Somewhere along the way, Aiden has truly found himself.
Jake gets as far back as Florida and stops. His heart sinks heavily into his stomach.
“What happens now, Dan?” he murmurs, his fingers tracing patterns across the page. The territory is uncharted, and yet again Jake finds himself standing on shaky ground.
He fights off the familiar world-weariness threatening to settle over him and resolves to talk to Aiden about it whenever he returns—in the meantime, he can easily distract himself with tidying the bedroom and packing for their flight to Anchorage tomorrow. So he sets about putting things away and pulling out the warmest things he owns, folding them and placing them on the bed by his open suitcase. Within a matter of minutes he’s humming, his troubles put away to be addressed later.
Upon finding one of Aiden’s pens in the pocket of the cable knit sweater he’d borrowed in California, Jake smiles. The image of Aiden wrapped up against the almost nonexistent chill finally lets him shake off his lingering unease—that is, until he opens the drawer of Aiden’s bedside cabinet to put the pen away.
Inside the drawer are dozens of scraps of paper covered in words and musical notes. Some of them only contain a line or two, while others hold entire verses. And then he finds a single, loose sheet of paper, the words painstakingly written in Aiden’s neat, slanting script. A lump rises in Jake’s throat, and he scans the page with stinging eyes.
Where am I from if home isn’t home
And where am I running to
You’ve been by my side for the days, for the search
Does my future exist outside you?
I’m afraid of the taking and giving
But I know that safe isn’t living
Am I ready to risk being happy?
Though I never grew into my shoes
Feels like I’ve been moving the mountains
Just to make it on home to the truth:
That you’re where my journey began
And the only forever is you
Do you only see the crash and the burn
Or could you see us through my eyes
We’ve been on this ride for the weeks, for the months
Do you believe in the truth or the lies?
You’re afraid of the taking and giving
But don’t you know safe isn’t living?
Are you ready to risk being happy?
Though you never grew into your shoes
Feels like I’ve been moving the mountains
Just to make you come home to the truth:
That you’re where my journey began
And the only forever is you
We’re afraid of the taking and giving
Now we know that safe isn’t living
Now we’re ready to risk being happy
Though we never grew into our shoes
Feels like we’ve been moving the mountains
Just to make it on home to the truth:
That I am the score to your movie
And my only forever is you
He reads the entire thing through three times, his grip on the page faltering until the paper falls and lands on the bed. The lyrics ricochet around his mind, and Jake swallows thickly. This is Aiden, the poetry of him finally in motion and so clearly what he is meant to do—Jake sees that now, and he’s about to keep Aiden from it. If Matthew hadn’t offered them the movie, they would go to New York without question. Instead, Aiden is following Jake to California and accepting a job that isn’t his dream, isn’t what he’s meant to do.
Goddammit, Aiden. I knew you were doing this for me back in Portland, and I let you throw me off.
Jake takes a few deep breaths to stave off the nausea welling in his gut. He casts his eyes around the room, and suddenly it’s as if he’s back home, running his hands along the uneven mantel over the fireplace. One last look. One for the road.
He runs his fingers over the page and traces circles around the line,
We’re afraid of the taking and giving.
“But what have I given you?” he whispers. Aiden has given too much—and Jake has given nothing. He takes a deep breath, buries his face in his hands and considers. It feels too big, pressing in on him from all sides and leaching air from the room. He wonders again just when everything became so important, so weighted with responsibility.
He sits up, and his eyes land on his suitcase. Then it occurs to him:
This is what I can give you.
With an eerie sense of calm, Jake retrieves his plane ticket from the folder in the glove compartment, calls a cab to the airport and scribbles a note that he leaves propped in front of the coffeemaker:
You deserve the chance to live your dream and you’ll miss out on it if you follow me to California. Please don’t do that, Aiden. Not for me. I love you, and I’m sorry.
He reads it over and over again, looking between it and the scraps of paper littered across the bed, the sheets pulled so tight it is as if he and Aiden were never here. Maybe that would have been best, if this is how it has to end… and hasn’t that always been the great doubt? That this will end, that they can’t possibly see it through without wrecking one another?