The River Leith (7 page)

Leith wanted to press his forehead to Zach’s and breathe in the smell of his cologne again. Instead he forced himself to step back and release Zach’s arm. “Thank you. I just feel…really alone right now.”

Zach draped his jacket on the chair, kicked off his shoes, and climbed back up onto the bed, patting the spot across from him.

“I thought you had somewhere to be?” Leith asked, scooting onto the bed too. It was good to sit again.

“It can wait. Everything else can wait.”

Zach opened the box of photos again, and his hand looked incredibly strong and steady to Leith when he pulled out the next photo.

“This is you and me the day after I got back from a trip to Kentucky to see my mother,” Zach said.

Leith took the photo. He and Zach stood together in an unfamiliar kitchen, both in T-shirts and sweatpants. Zach looked so much younger; so much happier, like there were no worries at all in his life. As for himself, he looked incredibly relaxed.

His stomach flip-flopped as he stared at the picture. There was something about the way he was looking at Zach. The itching in his mind intensified, and he breathed shallowly. He thought about his body’s reaction to being close to Zach. How he wanted to breathe Zach in, and touch his skin, and feel
—

Leith’s pulse raced, and his mouth went dry.

Zach glanced up from where he sorted through the photos. His brow creased. “Are you feeling okay? Maybe you should lie down.” He reached for Leith’s knee.

“No,” Leith croaked. He grabbed a glass of water from the table beside him and gulped. He managed a smile even though it felt as if Zach’s palm was burning him through the flannel of his pajama pants. “I’m fine.”

He wondered if Zach knew that Leith had been in love with him.

LATER THAT NIGHT

VLOG ENTRY #3

INT. LEITH AND ZACH’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

Zach sits at a desk chair. There’s a bed with crumpled sheets behind him. His eyes are puffy, and his hair is tousled.

ZACH

It’s four in the morning. I can’t sleep and I thought of you my loves, and all your concerned comments and emails. I’m sorry I haven’t replied. I’ve barely been able to talk to anyone. My sister Maddie’s worried about me. She calls every day. I know I should talk to her, but it’s too much. As you might imagine, I’m not doing too well right now.

His eyes focus somewhere beyond the camera, and he shakes his head slowly.

I saw him. Leith. He…he’s…fuck, he truly and completely doesn’t remember me.

His voice cracks.

I don’t know what to say about that. I keep thinking that any day now, any second, I’ll wake up and this will be a terrible nightmare. And when I’ve seen him, I feel like I’m going to die if he doesn’t look at me and know who I am. I feel so…

He shakes his head blankly.

Lost, and scared. And it’s ridiculous, but I’m so angry because I…I’d know him anywhere. He looks at me like I’m a stranger.

I first went two days ago. Afterward I crawled into bed, and I couldn’t get out until today. Because he asked to see me again, and how can I say no?

He sniffs loudly and shakes his head again.

He texted me, and I thought maybe, just maybe, something had come back to him. He wanted me to bring pictures of people he knows, and I did. Of course he wanted to know about his old girlfriend Naomi. It was torture. It was so hard to answer his questions, and he got mad at me. And I don’t blame him for that. But I really wanted to yell back. I wanted to scream.

His voice trembles and breaks.

I feel betrayed. Can you believe that? He’s injured
—
he could have
died
—
and he lost his memory, and
I
feel betrayed? But that’s how I feel. Like if he loved me enough there would have been nothing
—
nothing in the whole damn world that could erase me from his mind.

But seeing him…the look in his eyes? I’m gone.
We’re
gone. We’re nothing. Everything we had is dead. I love him so much, and it’s all
gone.

Zach’s lips curl into a snarl before he bursts into tears.

I know it isn’t his fault, but I’m still angry. I feel so…broken. Like, fuck him. He forgot me?
Fuck him
.

He throws up his hands and closes his eyes.

I just wanted to forget. I wanted to forget and feel whole again. So I did what I used to do when I was a stupid kid. I wanted to lose myself, and I thought everything could be made easier with a stupid, meaningless fuck.

Zach indicates the bed over his shoulder as tears fall.

It worked. I forgot
—
for about ten minutes. And then it all came crashing down on me, and I feel like I can’t breathe. It was pointless, beyond meaningless, and now…

His voice breaking, he whispers.

Now the sheets smell like another man, and I…I don’t want to go on without him. Without Leith. He’s everything to me.
Everything
. And he doesn’t even know who I am! Would it hurt more if he was dead? Could it? I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.

Zach bows his head and his shoulders shake. There’s a knock at the door, and Zach wipes at his face.

MARIAN (
off screen
)

Zach? Zach, can I come in?

ZACH

Sure.

He whispers to the camera.

Apologies, my loves, for the emotional breakdown. Goodnight.

“So, I was going to college at CUNY,” Leith repeated slowly around his bite of sandwich. Ham and swiss with all the fixings. He wasn’t sure where Arthur had bought it because it’d been wrapped in standard shiny foil without a logo, but he felt sure that if Zach had come to visit him, the sandwich he’d have brought would’ve tasted better.

Not that Zach’s come to visit me lately.

It had been a few days
—
four, actually
—
and Leith felt hurt one minute and relieved the next. He needed to get his head on straight before he saw Zach again. He huffed out a laugh.
Get my head on straight. So to speak.

“What?” Arthur asked. “Why is that funny? You’d always planned to go to college before…”

“Before I landed in prison fresh out of high school because I’m an idiot? Anyway, I was going to CUNY.”

Arthur nodded, picking the pickles off his hoagie. He shifted in the chair beside Leith’s bed, crossing his legs. “Queens College for physical education. I never quite understood if you wanted to be a boxing instructor or teach gym to kids. I admit I never really listened when you talked about it.”

Leith snorted.

“So which was it?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t remember, asshole.”

Arthur grinned, reaching over and taking a big bite out of Leith’s sandwich and moaning like it was delicious. Leith wrinkled his nose. He was certain he’d had better
—
he just didn’t know where.

“You should ask Zach if you really want to know,” Arthur said. “He listened to you talk about your hopes and dreams all the time. I don’t know why, because they were always so pedestrian. But he seemed to enjoy it.”

Leith flipped Arthur off until he’d chewed and swallowed again. “Oh, and your dreams are epic?”

“Well. You know me.”

“Yes, what admirable dreams you have. Aspiring to spend even more time between even more women’s thighs?” Leith wiped at one eye. “I’m so proud.”

“Hey now. I’ll have you know that my numerous sexual encounters with humans of the female kind are because I’m possessed of a deeply romantic, loving nature, thank you very much.” He paused and couldn’t hold back a grin. “And because God, I love sex.”

Laughing, Leith took another bite of sandwich, and his mind went to that soft looking skin on Zach’s neck, the brightness of his eyes, and the pink of his mouth. He took a big gulp of water. As he swallowed, an image of Zach’s ass in those zipper-pocket jeans came to mind, and he had to take another sip to cool the heat that flared inside him.

How long had the Leith from before known he might be gay or bi or whatever these weird feelings meant? And what about Zach? He’d seemed a little feminine at times, but that didn’t mean he was gay. It all made Leith want to scoot down in his bed and pull the covers over his head.

“But seriously,” Arthur said. “CUNY’s been amazing about all of this. They agreed to hold your place so you can rejoin the program again when you’re well.” He smirked. “Of course you’ll have to start from scratch since you went and forgot everything you learned.”

He rolled his eyes. “Who needs brains when you’ve got brawn and beauty?”

The truth was Leith was plenty smart
—
or he had been. He still had no idea what the injury might have done to his IQ. Of course he knew that just because he could write a decent essay or appreciate poetry didn’t mean he made smart life choices. Knowing the proper declension of Latin verbs, as he had in high school, hadn’t led him to a life lacking in impulsive, bone-headed moves.

In fact, as far as Leith was concerned the ways in which he was smart had always been completely useless. Sure, he’d achieved top scores in school, but he’d still fucked up his life. Boxing was the only thing he’d ever been smart at in a way benefitted him, at last for a while. But as evidenced by his current predicament, he’d apparently still managed to mess up
everything
in the boxing ring. Or someone else had messed it up for him. The result was the same.

Arthur had always had his share of adventures, but they’d generally been of the romantic kind. He’d gotten into a lot less trouble than Leith over the years, so maybe those extra few IQ points he had over Leith
did
count for something.

Not meeting Arthur’s eyes, Leith asked, “So, when I left prison, what happened?”

Arthur looked up, concerned little furrows appearing between his brows. “We’ve discussed this before.”

“I know. I remember. I just want to hear it again.”

Arthur shrugged, eating one of the pickles he’d picked off earlier. “Well, like I’ve said, you came to live with me but in the end you couldn’t stand my mess, so you moved in with Marian. You’d met her at CUNY.”

“How? In class?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her. Then Ava moved in a couple of months later when she and Marian got hot and heavy.” Arthur smirked. “For a while, right after the break up with Naomi, I thought you were totally hitting that.
Both
of that, if you get my meaning.”

Leith waggled his eyebrows, even though his heart wasn’t in it.

“I was pretty impressed with your new and sudden prowess with the ladies. Of course, I should have known better.”

“I’m plenty man for two women.”

It was Arthur’s turn to roll his eyes. “Like I said, I’d have known better if I’d really given it more thought. But you were being so secretive at the time. I had to come up with
some
explanation, and I suppose that was the most titillating one.”

Arthur always did like to talk like a professor. With all the potential for sexual escapades with students, Leith sometimes wondered if his brother hadn’t dodged a bullet by never going down that path. Despite multiple scholarship offers, Arthur had never gone to school at all, striking out on his own in New York City with the small inheritance he had from their mother’s death. Leith’s was long gone, gambled away by their father, for which Leith had no one to blame but himself.

Leith remembered with pride how Arthur had gotten that first small bar, Joseph’s Teeth, off the ground before Leith even graduated high school. It was named for the bloody end result of the only punch Arthur had ever landed on Joseph Tiernan, a bully from Arthur’s gangly, scarecrow teen years.

The bar had been more successful than Arthur had ever imagined. He’d paid off old debts, hired full-time staff, and offered to help Leith with school. But he’d refused to loan even a dime to help their father. Leith frowned, fighting off the residual anger he felt about that, reminding himself that it was all bygones now. After all, his father was long dead, even if it felt like only weeks to him.

His mind back on the conversation, Leith thought to ask, “What was I being secretive about?”

Arthur shrugged. “Whatever it was, you definitely weren’t sharing your little man with Marian and Ava.”

“What makes you so sure? I’m pretty good looking. I might’ve been able to work it.”

Arthur scoffed. “I know
you
think you’re awfully pretty, and I guess you are, but you can’t turn rug-munchers straight. Besides, Marian would never have asked you to move in if she thought you’d want to sleep with her. She’s level-headed, that girl. And,
even if
they’d been interested, you were never much of a ladies’ man. Not like that. Even though you could have been.” Arthur suddenly became very absorbed in trying to scrape excess mustard off his sandwich.

“I had girlfriends.”

Arthur shrugged.

He studied Arthur carefully, noting how his brother avoided looking him in the eyes now. “Was I in love with Naomi? Or was it more casual than that?”

Arthur’s face made it plain that he’d been skeptical. “I heard you tell Naomi you loved her a few times.”