Permanence

LaVieEnRose

For my eighth birthday, my parents gave me a Swatch watch with a transparent face, so you could see the inner workings of it. I loved it. Seeing the wheels overlap and turn, the strangely shaped cut-outs that all had a specific purpose for being exactly where and how they were, the little bounce each time the second hand moved. I couldn't stop looking at other watches after that, ones where you couldn't see the insides, and trying to imagine all the gears underneath. My dad had this huge heavy watch, the kind that costs a million dollars, but I would look at it and think, underneath all that leather and chrome, it's the same pile of gears that mine is, a thousand tiny parts that have to work together perfectly just to do this one thing, just to point at the time. And my dad's watch wasn't a status symbol, wasn't an accessory, wasn't anything except for a thousand moving parts, and nobody saw it that way but me. And all of a sudden I was so aware of how fake everything was, how all we could see of the whole world were the non-transparent covers to keep us from seeing what was actually doing the work.

And even when I was that little, there was this sense of...this is too much information. I'm not supposed to see this.

So now I was sitting on the edge of my bed thinking about how many muscles in my body were involved in taking a breath. The mystery was gone and I felt every single bit of my body, saw every single tiny piece moving to do the smallest thing.

I wasn't supposed to know that.

And the thing is, once you know it, that's it. And everything going on outside your body just becomes so fucking unimportant, because there's so much here to worry about.

I watched Brian rush around the apartment looking for his other shoe, and it's like I was watching a play or something.

God, it was hard to breathe.

He held it up and grinned. Finally. Ready to go?

I smiled. “Yeah.”

**

When you are sick, when you are very sick, it's like there's a wall between you and the rest of the world. I'm not talking about the usual distance I feel between myself and healthy people, because this isn't something that feels metaphorical or even psychological, this feels like...a literal, actual wall. Healthy people, they don't even notice. Other sick people see it, and they get what's going on with you, but even they can't break through it because this has nothing to do with empathy or camaraderie. This is just...you reach a point where your body is so fucked up that nothing that's happening outside of it can matter to you. You don't have room for it to matter.

And that's one thing when you're lying in a hospital bed trying to get better and that's all anyone wants from you and all you want of yourself, and another when it has been two months and you are trying to live your life and stop thinking about breathing.

Things outside your body sort of just...happen, and you just kind of let them without really noticing. One minute you're sitting on your bed thinking about breathing and then you're on the couch in your partner's office, staring at an empty page in a sketchpad, thinking about breathing.

Brian tossed an eraser at me to get my attention. You think getting out of here by four is early enough?

“Maybe. Kind of pushing it.”

I don't think I could leave before that.

“I can go by myself,” I said, even though I really didn't want to, and he didn't want me to.

He just shrugged. I think four will be fine.

My breath snagged and I started coughing, and it must have not sounded too bad because Brian ignored it. He was pretty used to it by then. How could you not be? Probably everyone in the office was used to it, because he said I was pretty loud. He knows I don't like to be hovered over unless I'm really struggling, though. My friends still get pretty freaked out by it, and they're on top of me trying to get me water and asking me if I need anything, but there's really nothing to do but just wait for it to stop, and the attention just makes me feel like I'm bothering everyone, that they're counting down minutes until I stop.

The coughing was my least favorite part of this, I think. Half the time in bad fits I'd end up gagging or vomiting, and it was so fucking exhausting and it made my mouth taste like blood and my chest ache, and I always felt even wheezier when the fits died down than I had before I started, even though they were supposedly clearing my lungs out.

I felt really dizzy and weird once I was done coughing, and I rubbed my face for a minute before I could focus back on Brian. He was squinting at something on his laptop screen, and I took a slow breath and leaned back against the couch.

He must have known I was watching him, because he said, Did you want to see the new mockups for the hearing aid campaign? I just got them.

Getting up sounded really hard, and honestly I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Every single day this went on I was just becoming a shittier person, and I had no idea how to stop it.

“Maybe in a little while,” I said.

He glanced at me, then back at his computer screen. Nervous about today? he said, all pseudo-casual. I don't know if he honestly still believes I don't see through that.

“I don't know. Not really. Anything the tests are going to show is already there, now we're just going to know about it.”

Maybe you'll get a fancy new inhaler, he said. Pseudo-mocking, this time. I see through that one too.

“Maybe I'll get a discount code for oxygen tanks.”

Yeah, maybe.

“Or a spot in a care facility so I can finally get out of your hair.”

He tapped on his keyboard and didn't look at me. Don't talk like that, okay?

Healthy people hate sick humor. “Yeah, okay.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking at his screen. “Hear what you've been missing.” That's terrible, right?

“Yeah, that's really bad.”

Don't give me that face, I didn't come up with it.

My fucking throat clenched and I started coughing again with no damn warning, and it must have sounded bad this time because he looked up and cocked an eyebrow, and a minute later he went over to the closet and got another blanket out, and he put it around my shoulders and bent over to kiss my temple.

Ride it out, big guy, he signed, small. It'll stop.

It didn't feel like it would, though. It would just pause for a little while. My whole fucking life was divided into coughing and not coughing right this minute.

My territory had gone from the whole fucking world to inside my apartment to inside my fucking lungs. I'd been with Brian all morning, but if he'd stepped out of my sight just then and you asked me what he was wearing, I'd have no goddamn clue. That wasn't in my lungs.

Brian held out a box of tissues to me, and I grabbed a handful and moved the mask out of the way to spit out the crap I'd hacked up. Good, Brian said.

I snorted. “Thanks.”

I need to get Kleenex as a client, he said thoughtfully, looking at the box.

Vertically integrate your boyfriend, this spring at Kinnetik.

He tilted my chin up and kissed my forehead. He's a businessman after all.

I drew in a slow breath and felt it growl in my chest. Brian tilted his head to the side.

See, you're still congested, he said. That's not scarring. That'll go away.

I didn't see the point of arguing about it when we were going to have a real answer in a few hours. I didn't know how to tell Brian that this desperate, stubborn optimism he'll fall into when he's in denial was fucking exhausting. “Yeah. Maybe.”

Lie down, you don't look good.

I curled up on the couch and kind of drifted in and out for a while, drawing a line or two every so often, or watching Brian type or people walk by outside his glass doors. I knew Brian had all these meetings later, and I always hate that, because I don't like being in his office without him. I always feel like I'm not supposed to be here and I'm going to get in trouble or something, which I know is stupid.

Evan came in at one point, which on the one hand was great because I love him but also it was just another person I was supposed to pay attention to, so that was kind of stressful. He smiled at me—he always beams at me like he hasn't seen me in years—and came over and gave me a quick kiss through the mask, tangling his fingers in the hair at the back of my neck. How are you? he asked me.

I'm fine. I'm good.

I saw Brian sign something to him out of the corner of my eye, and Evan went over to the desk and handed him some forms. The traded a few questions and answers back and forth, boring business stuff I couldn't even begin to pretend to care about, as excited as I should have been to see Evan thriving, and finally Brian signed the forms and handed them back.

Evan took the papers back and then looked at Brian's signature for a long time. Brian finally stamped his foot to get his attention and gave him a well? sort of look.

Do you like your name? Evan asked him.

Sure, it's how I know if people are talking to me.

No, I mean like...the Kinney part.

I started coughing again, and Brian came over and checked my temperature with the back of his hand without looking at me. Darling, what the fuck are you talking about? he said to Evan, then he turned to me and said, Lie down, but there was no point doing that until I was done coughing.

Evan leaned over and rubbed my back. Well, you hate your parents, right? Fuck, this hurt.

They're dead, Brian said.

Before that, you didn't like them, right?

Is this work day therapy some sort of new initiative? Because I definitely didn't sign off on it. Is that what I just signed?

I hate my name, he said. Ever since Christmas I just...don't want their name anymore.

So change it, Brian said.

I don't have anything to change it to. I used to think about doing my mother's maiden name but...not anymore. He shook his head a little. Whatever. Is he okay?

Doesn't have a fever.

X-ray's today, right?

It is.

It used to bother me when people talked about me like I wasn't there, but at this point I was happy to not be expected to contribute. I finally stopped coughing and flopped down on my back to pant for a while. I really wanted to force in a good deep breath, because I was feeling lightheaded as hell, but I knew that would just piss off my lungs and start the coughing up again, so I had to force myself to be really careful and measured.

I closed my eyes and kind of drifted out for a while, and when I opened them Evan was gone, the blanket was pulled over me, and Brian was at his desk talking on the phone to someone. He waved when he saw me looking and said, My meeting's in ten, after that I'm getting lunch ordered in. You've got to eat, okay?

I nodded a little. “Was I asleep?”

He cocked his head a little. You're so hoarse. Yeah, you were asleep. You've been coughing a lot today.

“I always cough a lot.”

I'm putting it in proportion. Are you okay?

I nodded. I think it's good. I've been too tired to cough mostly. I had, and I am not exaggerating, literally no idea if this was true. That was way too much perspective for me right now, when the most complicated thought I was capable of seemed to be ow with the occasional make it stop for variety. Some days I needed to push it aside so bad, needed to pretend that everything was okay because if this was going to be my fucking life then I needed to be fine with it and I needed to be fine with it now, and other days it just...consumed me.

It always consumed me. Whether you're living your life in spite of it or not living your life because of it...either way, it's about that.

Do you want someone here with you during the meeting?

No, I'm okay.

He shook his head a little while he hung up the phone and jotted something down on a notepad. Quiet today.

“I know. Sorry.” I took a slow breath and tried to come up with...anything. “Who's your meeting with?”

Sal Harris, you know that guy from the cereal company? He apparently had some new great idea. Doesn't he always.

I nodded, though if you'd asked me to repeat that back I wouldn't have gotten a word of it.

Sunshine.

“Sorry. Yeah.”

Everything's going to be fine.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

**

Some blur of time later, we were sitting in my immunologist's office while Brian flipped through a copy of Arthritis Monthly.

“What the hell is taking so long?”

Well, there's a lot to look at, Brian said, without looking up from the magazine. You've got the whole right lung, and then right when you're done with that, there's a left lung.

“What if I get sick from being here?”

You're not going to get sick, he said. Pseudo-bored.

“I feel sick, though.”

Yeah, well, you are sick.

I sneezed a few times like I was proving a point, went to chew on my nails and got stopped by the mask, then pulled my legs up on the chair, then put them back down again. I thought about getting up to walk around a little, but then my hand started seizing and I didn't really feel like moving, and Brian finally glanced up at me and this time set the magazine aside.

What do you think of this situation with Evan? he asked me.

I couldn't find it for the life of me. “What situation with Evan?”

With his name.

“Oh. I don't know.”

Is this something he's talked about to you before?

“No, I don't think so.”

He sighed and pulled my shaking hand onto his lap. Where the fuck are you today?

“I don't know. I'm sorry. I think I've...hit a wall with this, or something.”

Well, guess that was bound to happen.

I swallowed and nodded.

We're going to get some good news now, he said. This is going to be over soon.

Soon? I said skeptically.

He shrugged. Sure. Before you know it.

“I don't even care,” I said, even though of course I did, except for how I didn't fucking care about anything. “At this point I want to just fucking make it out alive.”

Don't talk like that, come on.

Sometimes I say shit to Brian that I shouldn't just because at this point I'm so used to telling Brian every fucking thought that runs through my head. “I know.”

It was another ten minutes before my doctor came in with the interpreter, and they shook hands with Brian and waved at immunocompromised me, and maybe it's just because I'm Deaf so I'm good with facial expressions, but I knew this wasn't good news right away.

She pinned the x-rays up so we could see them. “So here are your lungs,” she said, while I looked back and forth between the interpreter and the slides. They looked...I don't know, fine, but what do I know about chest x-rays? “And I brought this for you so you can see the difference,” she said, putting up another set of x-rays. “This is about what we'd expect to see in someone two months out of pneumonia.”

Oh.

“Given your immune system, this isn't that much of a surprise,” she said. “But it's still more clouding than we were hoping for. And that will clear up, eventually. But it's taking longer than we'd like.”

Brian took my hand, and I said, So what do we do?

“First, we're going to go back on antibiotics, because the stuff in your lungs is a great habitat for bacteria and that's not something we can risk. The congestion, the cloudiness you see here, that will clear up on its own. You need to keep coughing, keep doing the home remedies, steam, humidifiers, staying hydrated...everything you've been working on.”

Okay, I said.

“But the concern,” she said, “is that after this much lung trauma for this long, it's a reasonable assumption that—and we don't know how much at this point—but that there's going to be some degree of permanent damage.”

**

Brian and I don't sit next to each other that often because we can't really talk well that way, but when we got home we did for a while, just sat there on the couch staring straight ahead, our fingers laced together, Brian's lips rough against the side of my hand.

Permanent.

Well. We knew it was a possibility.

Fuck possibilities. I knew. I could tell. I knew.

But Brian, he'd been in denial. A few hours ago he'd been telling me there was no permanent damage. He was hopeful. He needed to not have another fucking...something permanent.

He was going to crash and I was going to spiral and I just...I could barely fucking bring myself to feel anything about it because all I could think was fuck, I can't goddamn breathe.

I must have been making some kind of noise, I don't know, because after a while of just sitting there staring at the fucking wall with him he kissed my hand and said, Okay, love, so small I barely saw it, then gave my hand a quick kiss and let me go. He stood up and said, I'm going to make dinner, okay?

I just want to go to bed, I feel like shit.

He ran his hand over his mouth. Okay. You've got to get up in a few hours, though.

I had to shower before I got into bed, so I loped into the bathroom and started the water, and then I stood there looking at myself in the mirror for a while until it started to fog up. Trying to convince myself that...I don't know. All the things people told me about this fucking body were actually happening to me. The whole thing seemed so fucking ridiculous.

And then I got in under the hot water and coughed, and coughed, and coughed.

**

I woke up after a few hours feeling dizzy and shivery and also thirsty, so I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and socks and wandered out of the bedroom. The lights were off in the living room but on in the kitchen, and Brian and Evan were at the table with wine glasses and empty plates in front of them. Brian was facing the doorway, and he looked up when I came in. Feeling better? he said. Evan turned around and smiled at me a little.

I shrugged and lumbered over to the fridge.

Need anything? Evan asked.

I shook my head and took a glass out of the cabinet and filled it with water. Just ignore me.

You need to eat, Evan said, but I just shook my head. The antibiotics were already making me feel nauseous as shit, not to mention the fucking coughing.

Brian said, “It's okay, leave him alone,” out loud to Evan, probably thinking I wouldn't get it, but I lipread Brian pretty well. Still, I appreciated being ignored, since I'd honestly meant it when I asked. I was not up for socializing right now, but I also didn't really feel up to hauling myself back across the apartment, so I just leaned against the counter and sipped my water.

And they went back to their conversation. Is the process hard? Evan asked him.

I've never done it, but I don't think so. People do it every day.

I'd need an interpreter. I can't read all those legal forms.

Yeah, of course.

And I still don't know what to change it to, Evan said. Maybe I have no last name. I'm like Madonna. Or RuPaul.

Veto.

Evan laughed a little. I don't know! I guess I just pick something random that sounds good. But I don't know. Ideally it's something that makes me feel attached to...anything. Part of something. My name now isn't doing that.

Evan New York. Evan Deaf. Evan Kinnetik.

God, so many choices.

I started coughing then, and didn't stop, and Brian got up after a minute and planting his hands on my shoulders, holding me still. I don't think very often about how much bigger Brian is than me, but it's useful for stuff like this. He put a palm on my chest when I was done and covered the whole thing. Warm. Okay? he asked.

I nodded.

He guided me to the kitchen table and sat me down. Time to eat now, he said, dropping a kiss on my cheek.

Okay.

**

I don't often think about the period right after I found out I was losing my hearing. Mostly because it's just ridiculous and embarrassing to try to put myself in a place where I'm upset about going Deaf, since...I mean, you've been following this saga, obviously I wouldn't trade that for the world, but also because it was a really fucking depressing time.

Because Jesus, anyone would have been floored by that, right? I mean one day everything's fine, and then we go to the audiologist because I've missed a few things and I'm having trouble with phone calls and honestly, to humor Brian, because I'm not convinced this isn't all in his head, and I'm thinking the absolute worst case scenario is I'm going to need to get something sharp jammed into my ear and pull out some sort of horrific blockage, or, even worse, maybe I'm going to have to wear a hearing aid, perish the thought, how am I going to get laid at Babylon with a fucking hearing aid...

and then, well.

I spent a few days in denial, and we went to another doctor for a second opinion, and I spent ages online trying to find any proof at all that what was happening to me could not be happening to me outside of I'm me, and this is not my life, and then...it hit and it hit hard. I wouldn't get out of bed, I wouldn't see anybody, and I wouldn't stop crying.

And Brian just let me. Don't get me wrong, eventually we got to the point where he was yelling at me to stop moping and telling me to take a fucking shower and pick up my fucking clothes and leave the damn loft, but if you'd asked me hypothetically I think I would have guessed he'd be doing that right away, and that's not what happened. He gave me time just to fucking fall apart over it, and he would just lie in bed next to me and play with my hair and make me sip water so I didn't get fucking dehydrated.

And part of that I'm sure was that his world was falling apart too, that he needed that time to mourn and not speak about it just as much as I did.

What freaked me out, and I think I was even aware of this at the time, wasn't that I was losing my hearing as much as that I was losing my hearing forever. I'd think I'd be coming to terms with it and that I was going to be okay, and then all of a sudden it would hit me that in five years or ten years or fifty years I would still be Deaf, and I'd start thinking about all the major life events I was going to be Deaf for, and it would all just hit me like a fucking train all over again. I've never been good at permanence. I got freaked out about it when Brian and I first got married, I got freaked out about it when I lost my hearing, I got freaked out when my neurologist said she didn't expect I'd ever get to go off my anticonvulsants, and I was freaked out about it now.

So that first week after finding out my lungs were never going to go all the way back to the low level of shitty I was used to was...familiar.

I wouldn't get out of bed. I wouldn't see anybody. I wouldn't stop crying.

Conveniently, I caught a cold, which made the staying in bed easier, though it made the crying harder, but I managed. The cold didn't develop into anything, and I never even ran a fever, but I felt fucking awful and we had to keep an eye on it, obviously, so Brian stayed home for a few days to push meds and juice and soup, and I was basically a lump that contributed nothing and ate when Brian said eat and slept when Brian said sleep and a lot of time when he hadn't, and I didn't even bother trying to make conversation with the guy who was putting his whole fucking life on hold to watch me hack shit up.

But maybe he needed time to mourn and not speak too.

**

The cold passed, and Brian went back to work, and I stayed home while he called me a few times a day, probably because he was concerned I was going to swan dive off the balcony if he didn't. I went to Sunday brunch with him and Molly and watched her talk about her classes. I made my therapy appointments. I visited Jane and bounced her on my lap while Emily and Brian had secret conversations with each other, and I wondered when Jane would be old enough to realize there was something wrong with her dad. How long could I hide it from her?

I'd jerk Brian off in the shower but couldn't scrounge up the enthusiasm for anything much else. Evan came over a lot of nights and watched movies with us or made dinner. I did a few half-assed paintings that even he couldn't pretend were good.

A little time passed, that's what I'm saying. And my lungs cleared up a little bit. And I breathed a little easier. And I didn't get well.

**

It's just embarrassing at this point, I said to Evan, sitting on the floor around the coffee table while Brian was at Nova. I feel like someone's crazy aunt on Facebook who's convinced she has half a medical dictionary wrong with her.

He dug into a box of crackers, his medical bracelet catching on the cardboard tab. We have similar ones, both with Brian's phone number on them in case of an emergency. Do you honestly think you're the first disabled person in history to have problems lead to other problems? he said. You didn't invent this. Shit accumulates. You got attacked, that gave you seizures, you had to take medication for the seizures, the medication made you sick. That's how these things happen. It's like my shitty kidney, this stuff isn't a coincidence.

I just don't know how much more I can ask him to take.

Has he been complaining?

Of course not. It's Brian. He only complains about work and bad hair days.

I really don't think he's like...annoyed with you.

I shrugged and chewed on a cracker.

Why don't you ask him?

I can't.

Why not?

Because...I'm afraid he'll answer, I said. I don't think he's annoyed with me either, I know Brian, but there's a possibility that he is and I can't fucking handle it. And even though Brian is Brian, there is still the off chance that if I ask him about his feelings he might, God forbid, tell me about his feelings, and I don't have room for that right now.

Evan nodded, watching me.

I can't listen to him be sad about this yet. I'm going to end up feeling like I have to apologize to him and I don't want to apologize to him. And I know, I know, he doesn't want me to either, but if he's not doing well then I'm not doing well and I just...I can't hear him not doing well right now. I barely have room for myself. I sunk my head down into one hand. God, I am just the worst fucking boyfriend.

Evan kept eating crackers, looking casual as hell. Actually, you're giving me permission not to have to care about your feelings when I get sick. So I think you're being a pretty damn good boyfriend, actually.

I picked my head up.

Nobody says this shit, he said. Nobody tells us it's okay for stuff about us to be about us. He shook his head a little. Feels good to hear it.

And that...I don't know. That was big. Hearing that I was still somehow good for someone when I was like this, even though I know, I know, the point of this narrative is supposed to be that I didn't have to be good for anyone right now...it helped. It helped a lot.

But still. What about Brian?

Someday Brian will get sick and he'll know he has permission too.

I thought about when Brian had cancer, how fucking pissed I would have been if he'd tried to make it about how I was feeling. How he almost ruined us trying to protect me from it.

I just don't want to be his patient forever, I said. I don't want him to stop looking at me the way he does.

He won't. He's fucking obsessed with you.

And even if I'm being the nice, you know, Lorax of the sick here or whatever, that's pulling me further away from him. I need to not forget how to talk to at least one healthy person, and I feel like I'm just...I can't relate to them anymore.

Evan wrinkled his nose. I'm not worried about you and Brian. Nobody is worried about you and Brian. He smiled at me, gently. Stop pretending like you have to be. That's not the story.

**

Brian got back from Nova a little bit after Evan left. He tossed me a wave over his shoulder and headed straight to the shower, and I gave him a few minutes to disinfect himself before I came in. He had his eyes closed, with his head underneath the spray, but I could tell he heard me from the little smile when I opened the door. He reached out and pulled me into him without opening his eyes, and we stayed like that for a while, until he tilted my chin up and eased me into a long kiss. He was already getting hard against my side, and I rolled my eyes inside that I'd ever worried Brian wouldn't be attracted to me. I'm so fucking neurotic sometimes. Can you blame me for wanting to apologize for living with me?

We kissed for a while, our arms lazily around each other, and eventually he let me off to breathe and ran my hands down my arms. How's Evan?

He's good. Took Jane to the playground today.

What does a ten-month-old even do at the playground?

People-watch, same as Evan. I took a slow breath in and out, testing. The steam was helping.

I tried to think of what Brian could have said to me when he had cancer that wouldn't have made me want to punch him.

I tried to think about how I felt, and by “I” I don't mean my fucking body.

I found it eventually. Thank you for being patient with me.

People like to be thanked more than they like to be apologized to.

And it worked. He nodded and lifted my jaw and kissed me again, and I let him swallow me whole until I ran out of breath. I closed my eyes and lay my forehead on his chin, resting.

I pulled back and kissed his cheek. “Can you fuck me really hard?”

Yeah, okay.

And for a minute, for just a minute somewhere in there, I forgot I had a body.

**

Trust me, no one would have been happier than me if one good fuck chased all my problems away, but...this is, unfortunately, life. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like the room was spinning, and I sat with my feet on the floor and tried to catch my breath while Brian put an oxygen mask over my face and rubbed circles on my back.

You need to go to the hospital? he asked me gently.

I shook my head. Just wait.

Okay.

We stayed there for a long time. I concentrated on letting go of every muscle, one by one, sitting up straight, taking my time. My heartbeat.

It got a little better, but Brian and I stayed where we were, just being together, not talking.

After a long time, he said, What's it like?

Getting thrown in the ocean, I said. You're all tangled up and you don't know when you can breathe.

He kept watching me, and that's when I realized that wasn't what he was asking.

Okay. It's like the opposite of being Deaf, I said. It's like you can hear everybody but they can't hear you.

He nodded and pulled me in close.

**

When it happened again the next night I started getting anxious.

What if this is as good as it's going to get? I said.

It's not. You saw the x-ray.

Do you think I'll know when I'm done getting better? Can they tell? Will they tell me?

And the third night, when I cried and said, I don't feel connected to anything, I feel like I'm going to blow away, he waited until I pulled myself together and then told me to get up.

“Why?”

We're going on a trip.

“It's four in the morning.”

I know. Bundle up. I'll be right back. Put the mask on.

Okay, well, sue me, being sick didn't kill my sense of curiosity, especially where Brian's schemes are concerned. I hauled myself and into a few sweaters, and Brian came back ten minutes later and told me the car was waiting outside. Half an hour later we were pulling up at the house.

Good? Brian asked me as he helped me out of the car.

I nodded with no real damn clue what he was talking about, and he unlocked the front door and let us into the house and turned on the lights.

It was a mess; construction was still ongoing, and the whole main room was full of raw wood and nails. Brian guided me around some scaffolding and into the kitchen. There was a little heater here for the construction workers, so he turned that on, then he reached into a half-constructed cabinet, set two champagne flutes on the half-constructed counter, and then opened the refrigerator.

“What...”

He held up of course, a bottle of champagne.

“Yeah, what?”

He laughed a little and poured two glasses. I got it for when we moved in, but...hell. I can buy another bottle. He handed one to me. Figured we could use a toast tonight.

Um...for what?

For... He shrugged. Same thing it was originally going to be for. Starting out something new.

What, the exciting adventure of Justin's shitty lungs?

But he said, Yes, sincerely.

I looked down at the champagne, and he took small steps towards me until I looked back up.

It's kind of remarkable, if you think about it, he signed, sultry, low, and I just had this moment, watching him sign one-handed, thinking about how comfortable he was signing and how far we'd come, my God. After all this time. There's still something new.

I put my glass down, and so did he, and he pulled me close and we stayed there for a while, swaying a little bit. I could feel his heart under my hand, and the worry that somehow any of this was going to pull me and Brian apart drained out of me. No, I can't always relate to healthy people, but fuck, I can always relate to him. We're stubborn bastards; anything that's supposed to put distance between us just makes us closer out of spite.

He was with me.

I feel like I've just been being the worst, I said, before I could stop myself.

He just shook his head a little.

I don't even know what's going on with Evan, I haven't been paying any goddamn attention.

He waved me off. I've got that under control, don't worry about that. We're not worrying about anything tonight. Tonight we're celebrating.

I watched him.

To starting new journeys and shit, he said.

I don't think this one's going to have an end, Brian.

He tapped his glass against mine. I've got nowhere to be.

**

Try adding some shading here, I said.

Evan moved his pencil.

No, not— I laughed and moved his hand. Going this way. There you go.

The lights flicked on and off in the hallway and Brian walked into the kitchen a second later, hair still wet from the gym. One of these days he's gonna get sick from walking around like that. He has to! He waved to us and went to wash his hands, dropping a stack of mail next to the sink.

Good, I said to Evan. That's perfect. “Hi, honey.”

Brian turned around. Hi, brat. He picked up the mail and started leafing through. What are we doing here, art class?

And for free, Evan said.

Just showing him a few tricks, I said.

Brian nodded to Evan. Are you staying for dinner?

Yeah, sure. Thanks.

Justin, you've got to do one of those protein shakes tonight.

I know, I know.

Brian set a magazine down on the counter and then said, Oh hey.

“What?”

He tore open a padded envelope, tipped something into his hand, examined it, and then tossed it to Evan with the smallest smile. Happy birthday.

Not my birthday. He uncurled his hand; it was a medical bracelet, just like the one he already had. You've already done this grand gesture, Brian.

He's getting forgetful in his old age, I said.

Brian just shrugged a little and left the kitchen, flicking me on the shoulder on his way.

Evan turned the bracelet over in his hand, looking at it curiously, but a second later he stopped and just stared at it, and then he pulled his bottom lip into his mouth.

What? I said.

Brian... he said, and then he held it out for me to see.

Evan M. Taylor