Inner Sorrow - Part 43: On the River

Part 43:
On the River
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On a faithful fourth of July night almost two years ago, I sat on the pier with Brad and watched the sun reflect off the water. Golden, as though the nymph had broken the axe into a million pieces, it glistened in the light of the setting sun. Just like it did now, it continued to glow, summoning memories of less stressful and even more haunting times.
“It’s nice out here,” Brad said, shocking me out of my reverie. I blinked, turning to look at him. He chuckled and offered acigarette. “Nice and peaceful, huh?”
I nodded. He pushed his lighter out to spark the cigarette to life.
“Something wrong?” he asked, putting his smoke to his lips.
“It’s good to be out here. You know, just the two of us.”
“I know.” He paused. Sighing, he set an arm across my back and pulled me close. “I’m sorry, Dean.”
“We need to spend more time together,” I whispered, leaning against his side. “We’re… We’re drifting apart.”
A smile crept over Brad’s lips.
“Naw,” he grinned.
“Naw?” I frowned. “I’m being serious.”
“I never said you weren’t.”
“Then why’d you say ‘naw?’”
“We’re not drifting, babe. We’re still the same couple we’ve always been.”
“Then how come I feel like I do?”
Pushing myself to my feet, I slid my hands in my pockets and started to turn away, but stopped when a flicker of light created a shadow across the water. In the shape of a fish, the shadow moved beneath the water like a dark specter waiting to strike.
The image alone froze me in place.
He’s still here, a voice whispered. He almost died, Dean. Remember?
“Dean?”
“I’m not going to lie,” I said, blinking to clear the fog in my mind. “I made a pass at Kason.”
“Kason’s not gay, Dean. He…”
“Then how come I walked in on him and some guy lying on the couch together?” I waited for a response from Brad. When I received none, I took a deep breath and continued. “I didn’t do anything with them though. Kason refused, Brad. He didn’t want to destroy our relationship.”
With my confession let loose, I bowed my head to await my penance. For several long, painful minutes, nothing passed between the two of us. Not even a breath could be heard on the long, stranded pier the two of us stood on. Water, loons, the occasional, passing boat in the distance—those sounds entered and passed through our ears, but nothing from us did.
He’s not going to hurt you, the voice whispered, touching the back of my head and stroking the curve of my skull. He’s never hurt you, Dean. The real him has never laid a hand on you.
How could I think otherwise?
Turning my head up, I closed my eyes and prepared to see my partner’s face.
To my surprise, he didn’t seem hurt, but concerned.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, reaching up to wipe tears from my face.
“Dean…” He sighed, tossing his cigarette in the water. “You have nothing to be sorry about. If anything, I’m the one who should be sorry. I’m your partner—I’m supposed to be paying attention to you.”
“I’m not trying to act like I hate my partner’s cousin because he’s taking all of the attention from me or anything—I’m just lonely, Brad. It feels like I’ve been locked in a cage and put back in the airport in Idaho.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yes it is, Dean. It’s…”
“I’ve felt like this since you… since you almost died.”
If a tree drops in the middle of a forest and no one is around to hear it, do you hear a sound? What about a bomb dropping on a country no one knows about? Can you hear the sound, can you hear the affect it makes? Because if you can, why didn’t Brad say anything, and why did he turn his eyes away from me to look at the fading remnants of his cigarette?
“Brad?”
“What?” he asked.
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
“There’s nothing to say,” he shrugged.
“You could’ve died.”
“You saved me.”
“Because I couldn’t live without you,” I said, closing the distance between us. Without waiting for him to turn around, I slid my arms around his weight and pressed up against him. “We need to be a little more open with each other. I know it’s been hard, especially since we almost lost each other, but we can do it, right? We’ve been doing it for more than two years now. I think we can get back into it.”
“I know.”
“We need to talk about something else while we’re out here.”
“What’s that?”
“I think you should un-ground Pal. He’s got enough to deal with as it is.”
“Dean, he blackmailed…”
“Because he wanted you to talk to him,” I sighed. “He did it because he didn’t know how to reach out to you, Brad. We’ve talked about this before. Adam’s been over, he’s getting better. That’s all that matters, right?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “It is.”
Leaning back, Brad reached down, set his hand over mine, and laced our fingers together.
If things would take a turn for the better, it’d be now.