Page 102 of The Leaving Kind

Nick sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the couch. Cam tried to push him back, but Nick leaned forward so their knees were touching. “If this business doesn’t work, I’d lend you the money to start another one. And another, and another.”

Why?

Answering the unvoiced question, Nick said, “Because you were always there, even when you weren’t. I missed you so damn much when you went away, but I was proud of what you were doing. I kept you in my head. When I had a hard time, I imagined you were telling me to keep trying. Now I have you back and that is everything.”

The journals were a terrible idea. An awareness of his mental state pricked at Victor’s consciousness the moment he picked up the first of the neatly labeled notebooks he kept in a low cupboard in the studio.

That the books were all the same, somber gray had soothed him in the past, as though he was taking his mental health seriously. Now, as he stared at the regular spines, the undulating wave of sober color—or lack thereof—told him something else: he despised these books and what they represented. If he loved them, he’d have bought a different color for every year. If he enjoyed them, he’d have deliberated over the covers, the style of binding. He’d have bought beautiful journals he couldn’t bear to write in.

“Which would have been so not the point,” he said to the book clutched in his hand.

He shelved the journal and closed the cupboard door. Winced as he straightened and decided his creaky back had a better idea. He’d do some yoga, then he’d go for a walk. Exercise might keep the oncoming swell of depression at bay—build a bulwark, a levee.

Victor unrolled his yoga mat, collected his earbuds from the charger, and queued up a favorite yoga instructor on the app he kept on his phone. Ten minutes later, hands pressed together in front of his heart, Victor lifted one foot, tracing his toes over the bone in his opposite ankle and up the curve of his calf to below his knee. He wedged the foot there and looked for a point of focus. His gaze landed on the portrait of Cam.

Those eyes. Even in varying shades of gray, they were warm and inviting. He’d marveled over Cam’s eyes before. They could be his best feature. Often sparking with merriment, with verve, snapping with intelligence, and always a balm.

“I love his eyes.”

In Victor’s ears, the instructor replied, “Breathe out and raise your hands past your face, straightening your arms, lifting them over your head.”

Victor complied, lifting his arms ceiling-ward. His posture wavered a little, and he concentrated on his focus. Cam smiled back at him. Victor’s heart squeezed and thumped.

“I’m going to hurt him.”

Cam had the ability to hurt Victor, an undeniable fact. But Victor knew Cam wouldn’t do it carelessly. If—when—the end came, Cam would let him down as easily as possible. He’d care about the mess he’d made and try to clean it up. He wouldn’t just disappear. Oh, dear god, he’d be one of those people who’d believe they could remain friends.

So Victor would have to be the one who did the letting down.

His pose collapsed, and he planted both feet on the ground, bent forward, and clasped his knees. There, he hung panting softly.

Why was he imagining the end? They weren’t even close, were they? What was wrong with him he couldn’t simply fall? Drown in love rather than despair?

His gaze cut sideways to the low cupboard housing his journals. Eleven volumes of thoughts that were supposed to help him clarify the process. The triggers that sent him toward a downward slide, the hooks that might hold him suspended and safe.

The navigation markers along a road designed to keep him on the most level route possible.

Ripping the buds from his ears, Victor stood up and breathed. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. He flattened a palm across his belly and breathed deep. His heart pecked away at the underside of his breastbone, the feeling almost a pinch, and his thoughts rabbited around inside his head until he wanted to tug his hair and yell.

“Time for a walk.” Raising his voice, he called his intent to the two furry inhabitants of the house. “I’m going out for a while, kids. Lock up the valuables while I’m gone, hm?”

Come to think of it, why didn’t he have a lockable cupboard for the wine?

Because he’d have to replace hinges every time he took a screwdriver to it.

Two days passed in a glory of effort and sweat. He did not read his journals, but neither did he drink. He walked five miles a day, every roll of his sole against the uneven pavement alongside Raymondskill Road a shovel full of dirt in the levee he built against the storm.

The sense of his depression, the oncoming wave of it, roiled off to one side, a brooding hurricane he intended to thwart by sheer will alone. Tez thought he could do this. His therapist had told him he could. But by the end of the second day, he couldn’t remember who all the effort was for. Him or Cam? For both of them?

Fate chose that moment to connect them, his phone buzzing in his pocket. Victor pulled it out and almost grimaced at the notification pane. Cam had texted him, and why was it so, so hard to text back? Cam was his lover, his friend, a beautiful and kind man. He loved Cam.

But did Cam love him back? And what would happen next?

“Stop, just stop.”

Wonderful, terrific, he was clutching his head and talking to himself on a public road. Spying a path into the woods, Victor stepped into the privacy of the trees and sank to the ground. His phone lay heavy and insensible against his palm.

Victor woke the screen and accessed Cam’s text.