The River Leith (16 page)

“Leith!” he cried, his limbs twitching and his eyes rolling back.

Leith didn’t stop moving his hand until Zach reached down to stop him, his fingers trembling and his voice shaky as he whispered, “Enough. Please. Oh God, that was…yes, sweet Leith, that’s enough now.”

Leith didn’t care if it made a mess
—
he grabbed hold of Zach and rutted against him, come smearing between their bodies as he kissed Zach’s mouth, neck, shoulders, nipples
—
anywhere he could reach until he finally pressed his face into the softness of Zach’s neck and came in his boxer briefs.

Zach rubbed a hand up and down his back, whispering, “I’m so happy. God, Leith. I’ve missed you so much.”

Leith kissed him softly. He didn’t know if it was possible, but he’d missed Zach too.

Later, after their shower and a change into fresh sleepwear, they cuddled in the narrow bed. Leith couldn’t get over having made Zach come. The surreal familiarity and novelty all mixed up in a jumble.

“How did we get together?” he asked, rubbing his fingers over Zach’s chin.

Zach shook his head and looked away.

“Did you…or did I? I mean, how did I know? You know, that I wanted you?”

Zach put his fingers on Leith’s mouth, his eyes dark and wounded. “Let’s just enjoy this, okay?”

Leith nodded, and they kissed on and off until Zach went down on him again and Leith forgot to be curious.

THE NEXT MORNING

VLOG ENTRY #6

INT. APARTMENT – TABLE

Zach sits at the dining table in the apartment. The door leading to the hallway is open behind him, and his hair still wet from the shower. A bruise is visible on his jawline.

ZACH

Hello, my loves! I have amazing news. Amazing news! I know that you’ll understand, my wonderful, super, fantastic followers, just how incredibly happy I am today.

Leith kissed me yesterday! Well, technically I kissed him. But! He was incredibly enthusiastic in his response, and then he asked me to stay with him in the hospital, and he was
very
persuasive.

He smiles and bounces in his seat.

And, in
even better
news, he’s talking to the doctor this morning about coming home tomorrow. I can’t wait to have him back here. I’m trying not to get my hopes up about this, but as you can see I’m failing miserably. It’s possible I’ll go back to the hospital tomorrow to pick him up and find that he’s changed his mind. Or he’ll be embarrassed and recalcitrant, but, as you can see
—

He pushes his chair back and indicates his jiggling knees.

Yep, I’m failing at managing my emotions. He kissed me! We made love. He held me and touched me, and it was just like
—
no, not just like before. It was different than before. He’s different, but so much the same.

He sighs and shakes head.

I have to be careful. I can’t allow myself to pretend or imagine for even a moment that Leith hasn’t been changed by this experience. In some ways I feel like my Leith died, and this is a new one that I’m learning all over again.

Zach covers his mouth with his hand and his eyes grow large. He moves his hand away from his mouth and shudders.

I can’t think of those things. I love him now and I loved him then, and I won’t think about those things. It drags me under and I have to stay on top of the water. I have to keep swimming.

He claps his hands on his knees and lifts his chin.

I know it’s been a while since I posted. I’ve been under a lot of stress, obviously, and I hope you’ll forgive me.

Believe it or not, only four days ago I was sure I’d made a mistake with Leith. I thought it was going to be over between us. See, I interrupted an incident between Leith and his brother, and Leith accidentally hit me.

He waves a hand toward the bruise on his jaw.

Before you freak out, trust me that no one feels worse about this than Leith. He was devastated. And it wasn’t so much that it made me question my resolve to always be there for Leith, but it did make me wonder if me being around was helping him at all. Or if once he knew the truth he’d be in an even worse place emotionally. He trusts me, and I worried if he found out I’d withheld such information about us, he’d lose that trust, and that would be it.

I admit I was scared too. I’d finally resigned myself to being his friend for as long as I could keep it that way. But then he was going to come home, and I knew I had to tell him the truth. That day I’d come to the hospital to tell him everything, and then…when I saw he was so vulnerable, and so easily wounded…I thought about taking the coward’s way again.

I nearly bought another ticket to Italy but Marian and Ava talked me out of it. Still, I waited a few days before going to him because I had to resolve myself to telling him the truth. I was terrified. I should have at least answered his texts, but I was paralyzed. I can’t even tell you how frightened I was. But then when I saw him…I didn’t have to tell him anything. Somehow, we came together and he simply
knew
.

His face lights up.

Now he’ll be home soon. It’s like the world has turned around completely. Yesterday I thought I might never see him again, and now I’m working out the details of a special surprise for him. In fact, I have to meet someone in ten minutes to finalize something. Oh wow, I’m running late. This took longer than I thought.

Dear viewers, thank you so much for the support you’ve given me. I know it’s not over yet. I’m sure there will be more problems ahead, but I know I have friends I can count on, and that means a lot. Thank you.

More later! Perhaps I’ll have Leith sitting next to me again the next time I post. You can meet him again. I think you’ll like him.

Dr. Thakur nodded along as he wrote notes in Leith’s file. “So, you feel much calmer now?”

“Yes,” Leith said. “I think I’m ready to leave the hospital.” He wanted to be near Zach. All day. Every day.

“And does this have anything to do with the sex you had with your friend Zach yesterday?”

Cheeks burning, Leith looked down at his knees and rubbed his hands against his pant legs. He didn’t know what to say so he turned his attention to Dr. Thakur’s bookcase, reading the titles for the hundredth time in the last week alone.

“The nurses were very amused,” Dr. Thakur said. “Of course news of it would reach me.”

The silence grew very long until he finally met Dr. Thakur’s gaze and said, “It felt right. Really right.”

Dr. Thakur nodded. “What did Zach tell you about before?”

Leith shrugged. “Nothing. He didn’t want to talk about it. But somehow I know that we’ve done…
that
together before. I don’t remember it, but I know. I just know.”

“I see. Leith, I think you’ve probably realized something important. Your memories aren’t gone, so much as inaccessible. The brain is a mysterious thing in many ways, and while you might not be able to consciously remember things from your past, there may be
unconscious
memories that defy a narrative explanation but still exist and motivate you nevertheless.”

Leith nodded. He’d experienced that
—
the way he was pulled by strong currents of emotion or need that his conscious mind scrambled to make sense of. He came back to Dr. Thakur’s question. “What do you know about Zach and me? From before?”

Dr. Thakur sighed and put down the file. He studied his nails for a moment. “Why do you ask?”

Leith thought it should be obvious. “Because it’s my life, and I would like to know.”

“It isn’t just your life. You must realize that other people were affected by your injury, and it has been a constant balancing act to take the wishes of those people into account while also putting your emotional and psychological health first. I can tell you this, since you know it for yourself now: you were previously involved with Zachariah in a sexual and romantic way. Your friends and family were aware of your relationship. From all accounts, you were happy.”

Jaw dropping, Leith stared at Dr. Thakur. Blood rushed in his ears. “You knew this. You knew all of this and you didn’t tell me.”

“Leith, it may be difficult for you to understand, but there are times when less information is the better route to take, especially when dealing with permanent memory loss. Imagine how your reaction to Zach might have been different had you been told immediately who he’d been to you. Now imagine how that reaction might have hurt him, and might have damaged you as well. My stance was that if the relationship and feelings had been erased, and if Zachariah didn’t have the coping mechanisms at that time to deal with revealing your entire history to you, then it was better for the short term to let both of you heal as necessary. It appears your subconscious had plenty to say on the subject, and it led you back to where you most wanted to be.”

Leith clenched his fingers into fists, a sense of betrayal rolling in his gut. “And what about Zach? Is this where he wants to be?”

Dr. Thakur shrugged. “I can only assume it is. He had the option of moving on without you in his life, and it’s clear he chose to accept you as you are now, in whatever capacity you were willing to be with him
—
even if that was just as a friend. Had he been angling for more, that could have been problematic, but the way he approached it seemed the healthiest for both of you. So I stood aside and let him choose how quickly he wanted to tell you about your relationship.”

“And you get to determine that?” Leith asked, bitterly. “That’s your job, is it?”

“It is.” Dr. Thakur lifted an eyebrow and indicated Leith’s fists. “Would you like to wreck a bookcase over it?”

Leith sat in silence for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Finally he said, “You should have told me.”

“It’s all a guessing game, Leith. I make choices and hope they are the right ones at the time, but there’s no way to know. Perhaps I should have told you, or perhaps this ended up the best for everyone.”

Dr. Thakur went to the bookshelf and pulled out a large piece of folded paper. He took it to his desk and unfolded it slowly, smoothing the edges down until it took up nearly his entire desk. “This is a map of the known universe. Or the known universe as it was about twenty years ago. It’s an old map.”

Leith didn’t stand up but he could see the blue, black, and white arching over the paper.

“The sun, our sun, is ninety-three million miles away. Did you know that? It’s not exactly right next door, and yet it is our neighbor.” Dr. Thakur pointed along the edges of the map. “This is the outline of it, what astronomers call the ‘observable’ universe, because there is so much out there, so much that we can’t understand, and they have to simply say, ‘Beyond that, we just don’t know.’”

Leith stood up to look at the map. The swirls of star clusters and planets were beautiful and compelling. He put his finger on a galaxy and traced it.

“The mind is like this map, Leith. There is only so much of it we can understand. The rest of it? We have to say that we just don’t know. I don’t only work with the ‘observable’ mind. No, I have to take into account the billions and billions of things that make each person distinct
—
the cells and parts that make up
you
. The pieces, knowable and unknowable, that make you Leith and no one else, despite all you’ve lost. The universe doesn’t stop being the universe at the edges of this map simply because we can’t fathom it. It’s still part of the whole, and you don’t stop being Leith simply because you have lost some time and memories.”

Dr. Thakur sat in his chair, his fingers continuing to run along the map, tracing out various star systems. “It’s a universe of wonder and mystery, and a lot of us think that we’re lost in it. I prefer to think that we’re found. Do you understand, Leith? Sometimes the facts aren’t what we need. Sometimes we need to be found in wonder.”

Leith pondered it as he trailed his finger along the Milky Way.

Zach’s face in orgasm and his hands on Leith’s skin. His laugh when Leith accidentally tickled him. His eyes that were the same color as the little kinglet’s feathers.

Not lost, but found. In wonder.