Authors: R. M. Grace

Of Stars & Lies (10 page)

Twent
y

He knows he is dreaming. Each step is lucid enough to be real, but the darkness that closes in is daunting and unnatural. Although, the darkness is behind what he is seeing because smears of orange and purple claim the sky. The thick clouds are full of snow, so perhaps there will be another blizzard later.

As he walks down the path, he glances upwards to the roof where he spots the first flakes falling to the ground since this morning. The ground is already carrying thick layers, most of which splash up his work trousers.

He loves this weather because it reminds him of Cade. He would usually be watching at the window with his features full of wonder, but he's not surprised he can't see him there today. He had an argument earlier that affected him badly, so he didn't bother going into work. He made excuses not to show up, so Love missed seeing him on the bus. As much as he hates to admit it, not seeing Cade made for a miserable day.

Hopefully, he's in better spirits now, or he's open to me cheering him up with terrible jokes and beers.

As he stands on the path to Cade's apartment, the cold air breathes into his ear and gets lodged inside his chest. To make matters worse, they argued over something petty this morning on the phone too while he was angry. So he will be in for a frosty atmosphere if Cade bothers to open the door at all. One thing Cade hates is arguing before work; he says it wrecks his whole day.

Just another thing I've screw up.

As he drags himself through the footprints on the path, he cannot shake the sensation something isn't right. For a moment, he stops to stare back up at the window. His stomach curdles with sickness as he stares at the half-closed blinds. Cade isn't standing there, but his irrational thinking intensifies.

“
Where are you? Something's wrong.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he is trudging his feet through the snow at speed. He races up the stairs with wild thoughts bombarding his mind. He doesn't want to acknowledge any of those thoughts, but they eat away at him until he can no longer ignore them.

When he reaches the hallway, he runs and doesn't slow for anything. The narrow hallways are solemn and empty and dread seems to coat the walls. Once he reaches the front door, he sees it is open a crack—just enough to cause panic to stab at his chest.

He pushes the door inwards with a whine and calls for Cade. When no reply comes, Love enters.

Across the carpet are trails of damp and mud where someone has trampled it through the flat. Cade takes his shoes off at the mat every time without fail.

He is a pain in the arse like that.

True to that, Love spots his shoes stacked on the rack beneath the coats.

“
Cade?” He calls louder again, but before he can a third time, he spots the mess.

The shelving in the front room lies along the floor. Decorations are no longer on the walls, but lying atop books and magazines. The Christmas tree has fallen so the sofa props it up at an angle. Tinsel dangles to the ground and tangles baubles within the glitter. The furniture is in chaos, reminding him of when he loses his temper, but there is something worse here that he cannot put his finger on. All he knows is it's unsettling.

“
Cade, are you here?”

Love rushes through the adjoining kitchen in panic mode. He steps over fallen foods and spilled liquid, yet he doesn't notice what they're from. He cannot acknowledge any of this because
this is not happening.

Love calls again. Still getting no response, he flings the bedroom door open, and a thick gasp escapes his mouth. Stumbling backward, his eyes settle on the floor at the side of the bed. And the crimson smears along the cream carpet.

“
Cade.” His voice is thick with sorrow, and his mind breaks into shards of twisted pain. “No, no, no,” he trembles as he closes the space on shaky limbs.

His head throbs in hazy aching as he kneels in the blood, and his eyes well with fear as he lifts Cade's head to face him.

“
How long have you been here, baby?”

Dried blood trails cling to the side of Cade's chin and, to Loveren's horror, his eyes have lost all purpose. Dropping to the floor, Love takes the limp body in his arms and cradles him like a baby. He struggles to slide beneath Cade's torso with the liquid dampening his jeans.

“
Cade? Cade?” His trembling fingers drift over his abdomen where the blood soaks through his chequered shirt. “No,” he sobs.

Love lifts his finger to Cade's throat to check for a pulse. His fingers shake and smear red prints across his neck as he tries to find the spot. When he feels nothing, his heart cracks with agony and an intangible whine escapes his soul.

He didn't find a pulse the first time, but he tries again in the hope he was wrong.

Why should things be any different this time?

With his fears confirmed, Love cups his jaw and circles Cade's cheek with his thumb, pulling the skin taut as his touch falls away. He drops his forehead against the cold forehead and pushes his golden eyes closed.

Wailing fills the apartment and tears spill onto the open mouth below as Loveren clutches his body tighter and screams his grief free.

Why couldn't I save you?

Twenty-One

His screams jolt him awake. When he realises he's in his bed, he pushes his hand across the pillows to find Cade. When he cannot find him, Love leans across to switch the lamp on.

He plucks his jogging bottoms from the floor and slips them on in a rush.

In a panic, he turns each light on as he goes through the kitchen to the living room. Beer bottles cover the coffee table and floor around the sofa. An old cup is full of stubbed out cigarettes, and smoke still lingers in the air which makes him cough. He hasn't smoked in years and Cade wouldn't fill his lungs with
that
garbage.

“
What the hell?”

Among the empty bottles and spillage sits a square box decorated in green wrapping paper. The shiny, blue bow sits on top.

Is he giving me it back? He couldn't handle me like this, so he's giving it me back.

With apprehension, Love crosses the space and plucks the gift from the table. Coconut and lichee drifts past him, and he turns.

“
Cade, is this a joke?”

When no reply comes, he glances around the room. Sweat lingers on his brow from the nightmare and his pulse refuses to slow.

“
Cade?”

This time, the door knocks in response. The tapping is gentle, but he fills with urgency to open it.

Grabbing the gift, he heads to the door, ready to question Cade's motives.

He better have a good excuse for tricking me like this.

After he fumbles to unlock the door, he releases a deep breath at the visitor.

“
What are you doing here?”

“
I went to get changed. I've been texting and calling for hours.”

“
Sorry, I didn't hear anything. I was sleeping.”

Love moves aside to allow Matt to pass through. He surveys the room and frowns. “I've only been out a few hours. I got worried when the calls kept going to voicemail. You said you would be okay. I thought you'd gone to the roof again.”

“
The roof?”

“
I know how difficult Christmas is,” he comments as he slips out his thick coat. “But I'm coming to stay until I get a place fixed. The guys are popping around later too. We can have dinner together. For Greg, it will be seconds though,” he chuckles.

Love sighs and glances around confused.

Where the hell is he?

One thing is for sure, he has opened none of his presents even if he is drunk.

But why did he wrap his ring back up?

“
Why would it be difficult? I asked Cade to marry me and he said yes. We were planning to spend most of the day in bed to be honest.”

He closes the door and goes to clear up the mess until Matt tugs his arm. “Loveren, look around you.”

Love glances at Matt as he gestures to the room.

“
Cade's gone. I'm sorry, okay. I know you're struggling with this, but lying to yourself isn't helping.”

“
Gone where? What are you on about?”

Matt's hand rests against his shoulder. His grave expression forces Love to look at the gift in his hand.

“
He's dead, Loveren. You know that. I know you know that. Pretending he's still here isn't healthy. You need to get back on the pills for your own sake.”

“
He said yes though,” Love replies. He knows he said yes; he asked him by the fire. He said yes. So why are tears welling up in his eyes?

“
He would have said yes, mate. He loved you and always will. But do you think driving yourself mad will help? You'll wind up back on the roof. Do you think he'd want you to kill yourself?”

The realisation hits him in a sudden wave of grief as though he is seeing Cade lying in the bedroom all over again. On trembling limbs, he crumbles to the ground.

“No, he was here. He was with me tonight. He said he'd marry me. After opening the ring, he said yes. I am his life.”

“
You are and will be forever.”

He visualises the worst moment in his life as it comes back to haunt him in flashes. He sees the way he held his body until a neighbour broke the door down and called an ambulance. The way he wouldn't release Cade's hand when the paramedics tried to carry him away—away from him and the life they had just started building. He glimpses the way he sobbed night after night until the grief became too much, his ascent to the roof where his toes dangled over the ledge and the arms that brought him back—the same arms that wrap around him now.

“
How can this be? He said I called the ambulance and saved him. I couldn't save him though. I couldn't.”

He couldn't leave this apartment because Cade is everywhere. If he lost this place, he'd lose the memories. His smell, his smile, those golden eyes. He couldn't leave them. To leave them would be a betrayal, but living with them is suffocating.

When Matt saved him from jumping, he knew the only way he stood a chance at continuing with life—as he said Cade would have wanted—was to become numb to the world.

Matt lets him sink into his body and dampen his shirt with tears as he embraces him.

That's why they came home.

“
I'm here. We'll get through this together. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. You hear me?”

Sobbing hard, the grief spills out as it had the first time and will do until he takes his final breath.

Twenty-Two

Matt is snoring on the sofa when he enters the front room. He hovers beside him for a moment, watching him with a sting in his eyes. The moisture surrounding his lids glimmers in the moonlight.

He agreed to take his pills again, but Matt trusts him enough not to check under his tongue.

The last thing he wants is to do this to Matt, but now he knows the truth, he cannot see any other way.

Hours ago, he got engaged. Hours ago he made love to the most amazing man he could know. And now those lies are bare.

How could I just imagine it all? It's not possible. It's not.

Love places his letter on the coffee table, then glances around the darkened room with equal affection and hatred.

Two weeks after Cade's death, his father came forward and admitted to breaking in. After a heated argument over money while he was drunk, he stabbed Cade.

Money. He stole the love of my life over money.

Love glances to the story he will never get the chance to finish with spilled beer all over it, but there is no need now. He will finish it, just not on paper. Some things hurt far too much to write down, anyway.

I guess it really doesn't end well.

He glances back over to the sleeping form with a crooked smile. “I'm sorry. I hope you can understand why I can't do this anymore,” he whispers to Matt.

The bitter tears come again, and he tries to conceal his upset as he leaves the apartment for the final time.

***

On the roof's ledge, he glares at the sparse array of Christmas lights flashing on the roofs. Cade loved walking down the streets to the sight every holiday season. He loved the warmth and longed for a family to share it with.

“
We could have had that.”

“
And we still can.”

Love glances to his right to see Cade join him on the ledge. His cap sits backwards with tufts of hair sticking out the gap.

“
You know when I told you about living after we die?”

“
I remember,” Love says through a sob.

He sniffles and wipes his nose on the sleeve of Cade's old wrestling jumper. He couldn't part with it, like he couldn't part with the shampoo he used. Or throw away the presents he never saw Cade open.

Like the ring he will never wear.

“
Well, I'm waiting for you. I can't find out if I'm right without you by my side, can I?”

When a hand slips inside his, his finger rubs against a band.

He's wearing it?

“
You gave it me to wear, didn't you?”

Love smiles with bitterness.

“Does it hurt?” He glances down six storeys to the pavement.

“
Only for a second, then we'll be together. We can do all those things we wanted to do.”

Love grips his hand tighter and smiles at the face he sees from the moment he wakes to when he falls within the sweetest dreams.

When Cade speaks now, his voice adds a calmness to his soul like it always did.

This is right.

“
And you can't stay here with me?”

“
Only if you don't take your pills, but they'll put you back on them. That isn't living, it's pointless. Besides, I need you.”

“They all think you want me to stay here alone, without you.”

“I want whatever you want me to want, Love. I'm part of you now.”

Love traces circles on Cade's hand with his thumb as he had that fateful day. He smells the crisp scent of air, but can no longer feel its chill.

Children will be up in a few hours to open their gifts.

And I will spoil someone's by doing this.

“
You're not scared of heights any more because you can't get hurt.”

Cade chuckles. The harmonious sound causes a flutter within his rib cage.

“
So, are you coming to join me?”

“
Yes.”

Cade plants a kiss on his lips. When he pulls away, he wipes away the tears with his free hand and kisses Loveren's flushed cheeks.

“
Look at the stars.”

Love glances up into the sky. Dark clouds block most of the twinkling lights from view and the light pollution doesn't help either, but he isn't deterred.

“
Breathe.”

Love takes a deep breath in and lets any reservations slip away.

“
Close your eyes.”

Love takes a final glance at Cade and does as he tells him.

“
Now, picture us on that pebble beach. We've been swimming in the sea. We're freezing when we get out. You wrap your arms around me and—”

“
Then I kiss you like I wanted to.”

“
And we fall deeper in love with every passing day.”

“
Every day.”

“
And what do you do when you fall in love?”

“
Feel great?”

Wisps of air rustle his hair against his ear and he hustles closer to Cade.

“
Yes, but we jump head first. Can you do that,
Superman
?”