The Air He Breathes

  I was wearing pajamas, my hair was in the messiest bun of the century, and my eyes were swollen. I raised my arm a little and smelled my underarm. “I put on deodorant.”

  “Oh, honey.” She frowned, stepping into my living room. “Where’s Emma?”

  “Friday night sleepover,” I explained, plopping down on the couch.

  “What’s going on, Liz? Your boyfriend came into the café saying you haven’t been talking to him. Did he hurt you?”

  “What? No. He’s…he’s perfect.”

  “Then why the silent treatment? Why do you look like a homeless person?” She sat down next to me.

  “Because I can’t talk to him anymore. I can’t be with him.” I went on to tell her about the accident, to explain why things with Tristan couldn’t work out. The seriousness that filled her stare was something I didn’t get often from Faye, which attested to how serious and real the situation was.

  “Sweetie, you have to tell him. He’s falling apart trying to figure out what he did wrong.”

  “I know. It’s just…I love him. And I know because of this, I’ll lose him.”

  “Listen, I don’t know much about love, and when my heart was broken, I threw shit. Literally threw shit. After I got done throwing the shit, I was still heartbroken and sad. Someone told me that the heartbreak was worth it, because in the end at least you got to experience the love.”

  I nodded and lay down, my head in her lap. “When does life stop hurting?”

  “When we learn to tell life to fuck off and we find the littlest reasons to smile.”

  “I’m sorry Matty broke your heart.”

  She shrugged, pulling my hair tie out of my hair before starting to comb her fingers through it. “It’s okay. He only cracked it a little. So, what are we going to do for the rest of the night? We can be totally girly and watch The Notebook or some shit, or…we can order pizza, get some beer, and watch Magic Mike XXL.”

  Magic Mike won.

  The next afternoon, Emma and I walked into Needful Things to find Tristan smiling behind the coffee counter. “Hey, you guys!” he said with the widest grin ever.

  “Hey, Tick!” Emma exclaimed, climbing up into one of the chairs.

  He bent down and bopped her on the nose. “Hey, Tock. Hot cocoa?”

  “With extra marshmallows!” she yelled.

  “With extra marshmallows!” he echoed, turning away. His happy demeanor was a bit off-putting. I wasn’t sure what it meant, or how to take it. We hadn’t spoken in days, yet he was acting as if everything was perfect. “Elizabeth, can I get you something?”

  He’d called me Elizabeth, not Lizzie.

  “Just water,” I said, sitting beside Emma. “Is everything okay?” I asked him as he poured me a glass of water and handed Emma her ‘semi-hot’ cocoa, which he always added a few ice cubes to. She hopped out of her chair and hurried over to find Zeus.

  “Everything’s fine. Everything’s good.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “We should talk. I know you’re probably upset because I’ve been avoiding you…”

  “Have you?” He smirked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, it’s just—”

  He started wiping off the counter. “That your husband killed my family? Yeah, no, that’s cool.”

  “What?” My throat tightened and my ears rang as I replayed the words that had just left his mouth. “How did you…?”

  “Your best friend Tanner stopped in for a bit yesterday. He wanted to, you know, try to talk Mr. Henson into closing his shop. So then he and I had a talk. He thought it was sweet how I was able to look past the fact that, you know, your husband killed my family.”

  “Tristan.”

  He placed the rag down on the counter, stood across from me, and leaned in. “How long have you known?”

  “I—I wanted to tell you.”

  “How long?”

  “Tris…I didn’t know…”

  “Dammit, Elizabeth!” he shouted, slamming his fist down. Emma and Mr. Henson turned toward us with looks of curious concern. He was quick to usher Emma into the back room. “How long? Did you know when you told me you loved me?”

  I stayed quiet.

  “Did you know at the wedding?”

  My voice shook. “I thought…I thought I would lose you. I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

  He smiled a tight grin and nodded. “Awesome. That will be two dollars and twenty cents for the hot cocoa.”

  “Let me explain.”

  “Two-twenty, Elizabeth.”

  His stormy eyes were cold once again. There was a coldness I hadn’t seen in his stare since the first day I’d met him. I reached into my pocket, pulled out some change, and placed it in front of me. Tristan picked up the money and tossed it into the cash register.

  “We’ll talk later this week,” I said, my voice shaky. “If you let me, I’ll explain everything the best I can.”

  His back was to me, and he gripped the countertop by the coffee machines. His head lowered, and I could see how red his hands were turning from his tight hold. “You need anything else?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Then by all means, stay the fuck out of my life.” Tristan dropped his hold on the counter, called for Zeus, who came running out toward him, and then the two of them left the store, the overhead bell sounding their exit. Mr. Henson and Emma came out from the back room.

  “What happened?” Mr. Henson asked, walking over to me. He placed a comforting hand on my shoulder, but it didn’t stop my shaking body.

  “I think I just lost him.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Tristan

  April 7th, 2014

  Goodbye

  I stood on the hilltop in the far back of the cemetery with Zeus by my side. Everyone else stood around the side-by-side caskets, all dressed in black, with tears in their eyes. Mom’s body shook in Dad’s hold. All of Jamie’s and my friends stood by, brokenhearted.

  Charlie’s teacher showed up and cried the whole time.

  She was probably thinking that it was so unfair. It was so unfair that Charlie would never have the chance to learn how to handle fractions or what algebra was. That he would never learn to drive stick. That he would never have to apply to college or fall in and out of love. That he would never slow dance with his mother at his wedding. That he would never get to introduce me to his first born. That he would never get the chance to say goodbye…

  I wiped my eyes and sniffled as Zeus moved closer to me and laid his head on my shoe.

  Dammit, I couldn’t breathe.

  They lowered Jamie into the ground first and my legs wobbled.

  “Don’t go…” I whispered.

  They lowered Charlie next.

  “No…” I begged.

  My legs collapsed. I fell to the ground and my hands covered my mouth as Zeus comforted me, licking my tears away, trying to make me believe that it was okay, that I was okay, that everything would somehow, someway, turn out okay.

  But I didn’t believe him.

  I should’ve walked down and stood by my parents, but I didn’t. I should’ve told both Jamie and Charlie I loved them both so fucking much, but my voice went mute.

  I stood and turned away, Zeus’s leash wrapped tightly in my grip.

  I turned away from Jamie.

  I walked away from my son.

  And I learned how much it hurt to finally have to say goodbye.

  “So you’re running,” Mr. Henson said to me a week later as I parked in front of his store to say our final goodbye.

  I shrugged. “Not running. Just moving on. Things come and go; you should know that better than anyone.”

  He brushed his fingers against his gray beard. “But that’s not what you’re doing. You’re not moving on, you’re running again.”

  “You don’t understand. Her husband—”

  “Is not her.”

  “Mr. Henson…”

  “My former love adored magic. He spent our whole
life together trying to get me to support his dream of opening a tarot shop in this town. He believed in the power of energy, in the healing power of crystals. He believed magic had a way to make life more livable. I thought he was insane. I worked a nine to five job and hardly paid any attention to him. I called his dreams of owning his own shop ridiculous. We were already two gay men—life was already hard enough for us. The last thing we needed to be was two gay men who believed in magic.

  “And then one day, he left. At first it seemed so out of nowhere, but as time went on, I realized it had been all my own doing. I hadn’t valued him when I’d had him, so when I lost him, it hit me hard. After he left, I felt so alone; I realized he had probably always felt that way. No one should feel alone when they are in love. I quit my job and tried to make his dream of magic come to life. I studied the power of crystals and the healing herbs. I worked hard to understand his dreams, and by the time I did, it was too late. He had moved on to someone who loved him in the moment.

  “Don’t turn away from Liz because of something she didn’t have anything to do with. Don’t walk away from a chance at happiness because of an accident. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about the tarot cards, or the crystals, or the special teas. That’s not where the magic lives. The magic is in the tiny moments. The small touches, the gentle smiles, the quiet laughs. The magic is about living for today and allowing yourself to breathe and be happy. My dear boy, to love is the magic.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip, taking in all of his words, all of his thoughts. I wanted to believe him, and I thought a big part of me truly did understand his words. But another part of me, buried deep inside my soul, felt the guilt. Jamie deserved more. For me to even consider loving someone else after such a short period of time was selfish. “I don’t know how to do it. I don’t truly know how to truly love Lizzie seeing how I never said goodbye to my past.”

  “You’re going back to say goodbye?”

  “I think I’m going back to learn to breathe again.”

  Mr. Henson frowned, but said he understood. “If you ever need a place to rest your head and a friend to call on, I’ll be here.”

  “Good,” I said, pulling him into a hug. “And if you ever sell your shop to some asshole, I’ll be back here to fight it tooth and nail.”

  He snickered. “Deal.”

  I opened the front door, listening to the bell rang overhead for the last time. “You’ll watch after them? Emma and Lizzie?”

  “I’ll make sure their tea and cocoa is never too hot.”

  After we said goodbye, I headed out of the shop, jumped into my car, and started driving with Zeus. We drove for hours. I wasn’t certain where I was going, or if I even had a place to go, but mindless driving made sense to me right then.

  I pulled up to the house after three in the morning, and their porch light was still on. As a kid, I’d stayed out past curfew way too often and had made life a living hell for them. Despite that, Mom always kept the porch light on to let me know that they were still waiting for me to arrive back home.

  “What do you say, boy? You say we go in?” I asked Zeus, who was curled up in the passenger seat of the car, wagging his tail. “Okay. Let’s go in.”

  Once I stood on the porch, I knocked a total of five times before I heard the door unlock. Dad and Mom stood there in their pajamas staring at me, almost as if they were seeing a ghost. I cleared my throat. “Look, I know I’ve been a shit son this past year. I know I disappeared and didn’t say a word. I know I’ve been lost and wandering around in my mind trying to find my way. I know I said some terrible things before I left, blaming you for what happened. But I…” My hand brushed over my mouth before I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets. I started kicking around the invisible rocks on the ground. “I was just wondering if I could stay here for a while. Because, I’m still lost. I’m still wandering. But I don’t think I can do it alone anymore. I just need…um…I just need my mom and dad for a while, if that’s okay.”

  They stepped onto the porch, wrapping their arms around me.

  Home.

  They welcomed me home.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Elizabeth

  “What do you mean he left?” I asked Mr. Henson. My hands gripped the railing of the countertop in his shop as he stood making me a cup of tea on Friday afternoon. I’d just dropped Emma off at her grandparents’ house for their sleepover, and seeing how I hadn’t seen or heard from Tristan in a few days, I was at my breaking point. I needed to talk to him, or at least know that he was okay.

  “He left two days ago. I’m sorry, Liz.” Mr. Henson’s bubbly personality was gone, which scared me.

  “When will he be back?”

  Silence.

  My hands landed against my hips and I tapped my shoe against the wooden floor. “Well, where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, Liz.”

  I chuckled, nerves and worry building inside of me. “He won’t answer my calls.” My jaw shook as tears formed in my eyes. My shoulders rose and fell. “He won’t answer my calls.”

  “Honey, you both have been through so much. And I know this has to be hard for you…”

  “No. Not for me. I mean, I can deal with him not answering my calls. I can deal with him ignoring me. But I have a five-year-old wondering where Tick and Zeus are. She’s wondering where her two friends went. She’s asking why Zeus hasn’t been over to play catch or why Tristan hasn’t been reading to her at night. So yes, I’m sad that he’s not talking to me, but I am beyond pissed off that he left Emma like that, without a word, without a thought. I’m pissed off that she’s been crying because she misses them. And it is breaking my heart that I cannot even tell her where he is or if he’s coming back. He said he would fight for us, but when it came down to it, he didn’t even try.” My voice crackled. “She deserves better.”

  He reached his hand out and placed it on top of mine. A slight wave of comfort flew through me. “You all deserve better than this.”

  “Okay, I better get going. Just, if you hear from him…” My words faded off. I wasn’t certain if I wanted Mr. Henson to tell Tristan to come back or to go to hell. So I left the shop with a clouded mind.

  That night, I was in bed before ten. Not sleeping, but just staring at the ceiling in my darkened room. I turned on my side and stared at the emptied space next to me. When I received a call from Kathy saying that Emma wanted to come home early that night, I would’ve been lying if I said I wasn’t pleased.

  When she came back, she lay beside me in my bed. I read her a few chapters from Charlotte’s Webb in my best zombie voice, and her giggles reminded me of the important things.

  After the story, we were both on our side, facing one another. I kissed the top of her nose, and she kissed mine.

  “Mama?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, babe.”

  “Mama?” she said once more.

  “Yes?”

  “Tick’s zombie voice was good, but I like yours better.” She yawned and shut her eyes. I combed my fingers through her wild, blonde hair as she began to lose herself to sleep.

  “Mama…?” she whispered for the final time that night.

  “Yes?”

  “I miss Zeus and Tick.”

  I snuggled beside her, falling asleep only a few minutes after she did. I didn’t say it to her, but I missed them too.

  So, so much.

  The next morning, I shot up from my bed at the sound of a shovel scraping against the sidewalk outside of my house. “Tristan…” I murmured to myself, tossing on my robe and slippers, hurrying to the front of the house. When I opened the door, the small bit of hope I held was demolished when I saw Tanner standing on my sidewalk, getting rid of the freshly fallen snow.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, crossing my arms.

  He looked up at me with an upside-down smile and shrugged. “I wanted to stop by and see how you and Emma were doing.”
He stopped shoveling and rested his chin against the handle bar. “Plus, I’m pretty positive you’re mad at me.”

  I huffed.

  Mad?

  I was beyond mad—I was livid.

  “You had no right to tell Tristan about the accident.” My eyes tried to lock with his. Maybe if he stared into my eyes he could see how much he hurt me. Maybe if he stared into my eyes, he could see how he ruined things for Tristan and me. Don’t you feel bad at all?

  He wouldn’t meet my stare. His eyes faltered to the ground, and he kicked snow around with his boots. “I thought you’d already told him.”

  “Tanner, you knew I didn’t. I don’t know what your deal is lately. Is this all because I wouldn’t go out on a date with you? Is this because you were embarrassed? I’ve been playing it over and over in my head as to why you would do something so heartless and nothing is coming to mind. I literally cannot understand why you would do this to me.”

  The palm of his hand ran across his mouth, and he muttered something.

  “What?” I asked. “Speak up.”

  He didn’t.

  I walked down the steps on the porch and stood in front of him. “You’ve been in my life for years, Tanner. You were at my wedding. You are the godfather to my daughter. You held me at my husband’s funeral. So if there’s a reason you are acting weird, if there is a reason you broke Tristan and me up, then tell me. Because if there is a real, legit reason for why you don’t think I should be with him, then maybe I can get over this feeling inside of me. Maybe I could figure out a way to look at you and not feel sick to my stomach.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he said with his head still lowered.

  “Try me.”

  “But—”

  “Tanner!”

  “God dammit, I love you, Elizabeth!” he shouted, finally finding my stare. His words hit me hard, making me stumble backward as my heart stopped beating for a moment. He dropped his shovel, and then tossed his hands up in defeat. “I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years. Since I’ve first met you. I hid my feelings for so long because my best friend loved you too. And you loved him. I stood by never speaking a word because I knew if there was anyone else worthy of your love it was Steven. But after he died…” He started in my direction and combed my fallen hairs behind my ears. “I didn’t plan to want you as much as I did once you came back to town. I buried my feelings down deep. But then, this Tristan guy came along and I sat behind the scenes once more, watching someone else make you laugh, someone else make you happy, someone else loving you.