If My Heart Was a House

LaVieEnRose

I met Heidi at a Starbucks on the Upper East Side. Her hair was shorter than when she sold us the apartment-formerly-known-as-home, and she had a wedding ring she hadn't had back then, and, God help me, I fucking thought good for her before I could stop myself. Fuck, at some point you just stop fighting it, and if this isn't a story about that, Lord knows what is.

She smiled and shook my hand. “Justin's not joining us?”

“Prior engagement. I'll bring him pictures when we break for lunch. Where are we starting?” I'd sent her an email week ago detailing what we needed: plenty of light and no stairs for Justin, open concept for the sight lines, three bedrooms so we could have a separate office and guest room, and a location closer to Kinnetik.

She showed me a folder with a few listings. “There's a place a few blocks from here that I'd like to show you, and one a few blocks towards the park I think might be the one. And I've got a wild card or two in there as well, depending how you feel about those first two.”

I leafed through the listings. Practically identical photos of bright, empty rooms, with hardwood floors and white walls. Nothing special, but neither was our current place, before we filled it up.

“Let's get to it,” I said it.

Heidi chatted to me as we walked to the building, asking me about Kinnetik and Gus and Justin, and I told her about the merger and Gus's Bar Mitzvah prep and Justin's latest art show, though of course that was months ago because he'd barely picked up as much as a pencil in weeks.

The first apartment was on the sixth floor of good-looking building a block away from the park. It was big and hit everything I'd asked for, but the ceilings were lower than our last place and made the place feel more cramped, and there wasn't any sort of outdoor space. The second apartment was pretty much perfect, but it was a pet-friendly building and we rode up on the elevator with two dogs, so that wasn't doable. Justin would fucking sneeze this place to rubble. Animals fuck up his sinuses like nothing else.

“Okay then,” Heidi said. “Balcony, high ceilings, no pets.”

“If you heard him snore you'd understand.”

The next place was nice, but there was no bodega on the block, and we'd gotten pretty spoiled by that at the last locale.

“Are you sure you want to move?” Heidi said as we left. “You're not acting like someone who wants to move.”

“Trust me,” I said. “I want to move.”

“Well, I think you'll like this next space.”

It was clear as soon as we walked in that she had me pegged. Immediately, it reminded me of the Pittsburgh loft. It was a converted warehouse building, Heidi said, now prized by “rich hipster fuckers like you,” and it was truly impressive. Floor to ceiling windows, tall ceilings, an open floor plan perfect for signing. The appliances were new and impressive, there was a small but functional balcony, three bedrooms, and it was right on the subway line. Shiny chrome and dark wood. Cold.

Ten years ago, this would have been a done deal.

Truthfully, if you had asked me hypothetically five minutes before I walked in, I would have told you it would be a done deal today. And here I was standing the middle of this incredible space, and...Lord help me, I was acting like someone who didn't actually want to move.

And you need to fucking trust me that I wanted to fucking move.

I took a lot of pictures and made all the right noises, but I could tell it wasn't the reaction Heidi was hoping for. She sighed and shook her head. “You're impossible without Justin, anyone ever tell you that?”

“No, first time.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let's break for lunch, and hopefully he can talk some sense into you. I'll call my office and see what else we have to show you.”

“Go team,” I said, scrolling through the pictures on my phone, and then we parted ways and I headed to the hospital.

**

I scrubbed my hands, stepped into Justin's hospital room, and let out a breath. Hey.

Justin was curled up in his arm chair with a book, his IV snaking out from under his sweatshirt. He smiled at me. Hey.

He was fine, before you get all worried. He had a skin infection we'd thought was was just a rash, but thank God for Hazel because she took one look at it and said he needed to get to the hospital for IV antibiotics like, yesterday. Since they'd caught it early he was fine, he'd been in there for a few days and would be out in a few more, and it wasn't like he felt especially sick or anything, so it was just a sort of annoying vacation. His immune system wasn't trashed enough anymore that he had to be in complete isolation, and he was doing okay with everyone who came in wearing masks and gowns over their clothes. Mostly he was just bored, and after him being in the apartment literal every minute for a month and a half, it felt very strange to have him missing.

I toed my shoes off and came over and kissed him. How was your day? I said. I'd seen him early that morning, before I met with Heidi, so I already knew the doctors had managed not to kill him overnight.

Boring. Daphne stopped by earlier. They added some saline because I'm a little dehydrated. I went for a walk around the nurse's station. Stop me when you've had enough of the excitement.

Stop.

He sneezed and wrinkled his nose. Were you around a dog?

That's amazing, I was around a dog. I took off my jacket and hung it over in the corner, away from him. We could make some money off of that.

Come see the amazing allergic boy?

I mean, if we're gonna do your fucking allergies anyway. I stretched out on his bed. Come here and I'll show you pictures.

He got up slowly and pushed his IV pole to the bed, and I squished to the side to make room for him and felt my heart slow down as he pressed himself into my side. I kissed the side of his forehead and smoothed his hair back, and he tucked against my shoulder while he leafed through Heidi's folder and scrolled through the pictures on my phone. I looked over his shoulder at first, but I don't know, I'd just seen the places and didn't really feel like looking at them again, so I ended up just studying the way his hair curled around his ears and watching the shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheek stretch and jump when he blinked.

“I like this one,” he said. “I like all of these. Heidi has good taste.”

I guess a few of them are okay.

“What about this one?” he said. “I love the block this one's on. And the architecture's gorgeous.”

It's a hundred square feet smaller than what we have now, with part of that in another bedroom. We'd feel cramped.

“This one?”

Look how low the ceilings are.

“Okay, this one.”

That's the one with the dogs.

“I'd do okay with dogs just...around,” he said. “Our building has cats, I survive.”

The cats don't ride the elevator with you. And honestly, right now even that arrangement was just...unacceptable, I don't know. I'm not saying Justin was miserable over it or anything, but I also don't think you can convince me he wasn't waking up snifflier than he needed to be, and...I mean, Christ, you try looking at your partner who's in the hospital for a fucking rash and then wanting to put him anywhere less than hermetically sealed.

And I couldn't see Justin, this Justin, my Justin, in any of these places, and something just...wasn't right.

“Okay, come on, this one's amazing,” he said. He'd found the loft-alike, of course. “This has Brian Kinney all over it.”

That's what Heidi said.

“So...? Come on, we loved the loft. This is beautiful.”

It feels like going backwards.

“Not everything is symbolic,” he said. “Sometimes a great place to live is just a great place to live.”

I shook my head a little and flipped through the pictures. Something just isn't clicking. I can't put my finger on it.

“Okay, well...I would live in any of these places. So I want credit for being agreeable.”

I'll make a note. I tapped my fingers over my mouth. Something's not right.

“You'll figure it out,” he said, his voice weak, sleepy. “You always do.”

Worn out from your exciting day?

“I mentioned I walked around the nurse's station, right?”

Yeah, you own this place.

He nodded, eyes closing.

One day, Simba...

He snickered and pinched me, and I smiled.

**

Back to the real world.

Leaving Justin at the hospital...fucking sucks, to put it simply, and I'm always in a bad mood for a while afterwards. If there's anything in this world to reliably get under my skin it's Justin not being where he's supposed to be, and “by himself in a hospital” definitely qualifies. Evan was babysitting while Gwen and Emily were out of town and Molly was busy with finals, and Justin didn't really feel like any visitors outside of them. I think he felt embarrassed about making a fuss when he didn't really feel sick or anything. I don't know. The kid's nuts.

Regardless, I wasn't really in the best of spirits when I met back up with Heidi to see three more apartments. At least I had the awareness to know that I was being a fucking asshole, because she was showing me places that checked every box, that should have been perfect, and...she was right, I was acting like someone who didn't want to move. I wasn't giving anywhere a fair shot. And there's a reason I blame the fucking hospital for it, because aside from my general unpleasantness there was a throbbing thought that hit as soon as Heidi unlocked every front door: this is not where Justin belongs.

Which probably would have been at least slightly less annoying if I had any fucking idea where he did belong. It wasn't the hospital, it wasn't where we were living now, it sure as fuck wasn't Pittsburg, and it wasn't any of these apartments.

“Can you try to articulate the problem?” Heidi said, at least making an effort to sound patient.

“They're not...they feel like boxes,” I said. “Like some place temporary. I don't want to move him again after this, it's hard on him, and...this needs to be perfect.”

And I don't know what the hell I was expecting from her, but it wasn't for her to cross her arms thoughtfully and say, “Have you thought about a house?”

I scoffed. “You got a house in Manhattan?”

“Don't you work in Queens?”

“We're not moving to Queens.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

I paused. Studied her. “Where in Queens?”

“Flushing, probably. Right on the 7. Thriving downtown. Fifteen minutes from your office. Half an hour from Times Square. I've sold three places there this week.”

Fifteen minutes from Jane. “I don't know, that's pretty...suburban.”

She nodded. “It's quieter than Manhattan, definitely.”

Quieter.

“A house is a lot to manage,” I said. “I never pictured us as house people.”

“That's true,” she said. “Something goes wrong with a house, there's no building manager, no maintenance staff. You have to figure it out on your own. Helps to be handy. And there will be a yard and possibly a garden to take care of, depending what neighborhood you pick there might be a homeowner's association or a community safety program. Having a house is definitely a job, something to take care of. And maybe that's not your thing.”

I laughed a little. “It's not. It's not my thing. It's Justin's. Fuck.”

“You want to see a few?”

I was about to nod, then I said, “Houses have stairs. He can't...he hates stairs, with his epilepsy. He doesn't breathe well, I can't make him do stairs every day.”

“Let me see what I can find,” she said.

**

It was the very first house she showed me. It was light blue, there were trees out front, it was a block from the train, and the second we stopped in front of it, I knew.

I barged into Justin's hospital room two hours later. Hey hey hey.

He was fast asleep, passed out on his stomach. Of course.

I came over to the bed and kissed the back of his neck until he rolled over. Wake up, lazy. We need to talk.

He yawned and coughed, messing with the cannula in his nose. He made absolutely no attempt at sitting up, so I rolled my eyes and adjusted the tilt of the bed. He whined.

Scoot over, I said, and fit myself in next to him.

“Well someone's excited.”

Open mind, all right? I said, and after he nodded I handed him the folder.

He was still at first, then he reached out and touched the picture on the listing. “Where is this?”

Flushing.

“Flushing? Jesus, why not Hoboken.”

It's twenty minutes from the city on the 7.

“Are you serious, I...when did we start considering a house?”

I took a deep breath. It's six bedrooms, three bathrooms.

“This isn't one level, I...”

He didn't want to say he couldn't do the stairs. There was nobody else here and we both knew he couldn't do stairs every day and he still didn't want to say it.

It is fucking heartbreaking what the world has done to him.

I know, I said gently. It's made to be rented out, it's designed as like a two family house, which means there are three bedrooms on the main floor, including the master. You don’t fucking ever have to go upstairs if you don’t want to. I can use that for my office and for storage. Everything you need is on one floor.

He was quiet.

The kitchen is the size of our living room now. You'd fucking love it, look. And this wall, I checked the floor plan, it's not load-bearing, so we can knock it down. And then all of this is open, you can see from one end of the floor to the other. You can watch TV while you cook, we can sign to each other from opposite sides...anything. And then the master bedroom and the bathroom are right off of this—there are three bathrooms—but fucking look at this one. It’s bigger than our fucking bedroom. Look at that bath tub. Imagine soaking in that when you're sick.

I was moving too fast for him. The whole main floor would be open?

The whole thing. Not like now where we can only see each other over the one counter if I’m in the kitchen. Like the loft. And it’s fifteen minutes from work, and there’s studio space nearby, or... I turned a page in the file. Or you can use the basement, if you don’t mind the stairs, or I was thinking that could work as a space for Evan?

He looked up at me.

I swallowed. It’s got its own entrance so he could have some privacy, but if you want it for a studio...there are six bedrooms. He can stay anywhere. Jane can have her own. You can have an office for administrative shit. One of them can be a fucking closet. Six bedrooms.

“I...”

We can have the car there, we don't have to pay to keep it somewhere anymore, and we could actually drive without it being a huge goddamn hassle. And look at the yard, okay? You can plant vegetables.

“Can we afford this?”

One point three.

“Seriously?”

Yeah. Once we sell the apartment we've turned a profit.

He swallowed and flipped through the folder a few times. “Brian...do you really want this?”

This feels right, I said. I think we'd be comfortable here.

I don't want to have to deal with your domesticity freak out when you realize you don't live in a fuckpad anymore, he said.

I gave him the sincere look he can't resist and repeated his words back to him. Sometimes a nice place to live is just a nice place to live. Not everything is symbolic.

But it was symbolic; of fucking course it was. And I don't mean in any sort of big dramatic settling down way—Queens is still New York—but just in the sense that it was something different. It was Justin and I doing something we hadn't done before, a month after we weren't sure we'd ever get to do anything together again, new or otherwise. It was showing us that...God, if our lives were going to get fucking shattered, maybe we could get a good look at the pieces and make something that worked better instead of trying to cram the old thing back together.

And it was a garden and a bathtub and a space for Evan and a huge open floor and it was...it was more than we had had before.

And I could drive again, and be at work in one subway transfer instead of two, and he could paint when he didn't feel well enough to leave home, and go outside without having to see people, and we wouldn't have to worry about pet fur in the vents or waking up neighbors with our music or his coughing.

It felt safe.

Isn't this what you always wanted? I said to him.

He took a deep a breath as he could and looked up at me, his eyes wet. You'll really buy me a house?

Yeah, I'll buy you a house. So what do you say, Simba? You want a whole place to be yours?

He smiled.