36

I dropped my key in the change jar as I walked into the house and closed the door. I turned the latch and locked it. It would be my indicator for if Cameron came home…if he ever did. The thought that he had done something permanent and wouldn’t be coming back in anything other than a crime-scene photo had crossed my mind once, and only once. But I remembered what he had said last night – that I was all he had, if that’s what he had meant, but that might just be because I was getting overconfident – and dismissed the notion. I had plans to follow. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I hope it would be worth it in the end.

Cameron had said something to me a long time ago that I had almost forgotten. I pondered it as I marched through the dining room and through the swinging door. Cameron kept a few cookbooks in a small shelf situated on the counter closest to the pantry. I grabbed one and rifled through the pages, searching for what I needed. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but I decided that if I wanted this to go well, and what’s more, go right, then I needed to take his advice to heart.

---

It was past ten when I heard a truck coast into the driveway, followed by a door closing softly, as if the driver was paying attention to just how much noise they made. I removed the lids I had placed over the food on the table to keep it warm. It had taken a while for me to get this all ready. It would be for nothing if the food got ruined.

A key turned in the lock and the door inched open. I had turned off all of the lights, save the ones in the dining room. I’d also shut the curtains on the windows. He would get it.

Cameron’s footsteps padded down the front hall, and his head poked past the threshold between him and me. Our eyes met.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You made supper.”

“I did.”

“You…sure went all out.”

I had. I perused the cookbooks for over an hour before I settled on gourmet lasagne with a salad. I can’t say whether or not it was hard and easy. It was just cooking. But that wasn’t important now. I motioned for him to sit down in the seat opposite mine. Cameron followed my silent instructions, creeping to the seat and slowly sitting down slow enough that it would seem his bones were as brittle as chalk. “When it’s a casual lunch, you cheat. But when it’s special, you start from scratch.”

He nodded, remembering that day. “And what makes tonight special?”

“You’re here.”

“John, I can’t—“

“Where did you go?”

His eyes evaded mine, looking down at the food that sat on his plate. “I went around,” he said. “Quiet places. The library, the park...just where I could think.”

“And what did you think about?”

Cameron took a forkful of lasagne and pushed it into his mouth, closing his eyes and slowly chewing on it. “This is really good, John,” he said after swallowing.

“What did you think about?” I asked again.

“I tried to think about what was happening, why it was happening, and what I needed to do about it.” He pushed the plate away from him and linked his hands on the table, adopting his serious pose. “You just broke up with Andrew. You’re hurt, John. You miss the closeness, the intimacy. So you turn to me, the only other person that’s close to you, and you start to project your feelings for Andrew on to me. You—”

“I’m not on the rebound, Cam.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

The words hung in the air. Cameron’s mouth hung open and his eyes were fixated on mine. My lips were pursed together and that I wasn’t blinking. “And don’t call me that anymore.”

“Call you what?”

“John.”

“Then what do I call you?”

I took a deep breath through my nose. This was what we had been working toward all this time, and now it was over. And what’s more, I was giving him the bonus of being the first person to learn my name after all of this time.

“Ian.”

Who was it that said “What’s in a name?” It was floating around in my head right then, as well as a bunch of other thoughts related to it. ‘John’ had this sense of neutrality around it, like the person who was named it was some clean slate that hadn’t been written on yet. But Ian, that was an attention-grabbing name. It was full of youth, vigour, attitude, and vibrancy. It might have suited me when I was younger, but it didn’t sound like something I could go by when I got old. Did my parents consider that when they named me?

“That doesn’t really…oh.”

Cameron mused over it for a few seconds. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I was about to say that it doesn’t start with an ‘E’ like you said, but I guess I’m wrong.”

Had I said that? Oh yeah, in the truck. How could I have forgotten that already? My ability to forget and repress had really screwed me over all these years; I’d have to do something about it. Maybe take vitamins or something.

“Cameron,” I said, rising to my full sitting height, “My name is Ian, and no matter what you think, I love you.”

“Ian, I am your doctor and caretaker, and no matter what we want, I can’t be in a relationship with you.”

“’We?’”

“You.”

“What do you want, Cameron?” I demanded, lurching forward on my chair, on the verge of standing up to intimidate him. “You’re always talking about what’s right for me. You ask me about how I feel, what I want, what I think without ever telling me your own opinion.”

“I want to keep you away from me!” Cameron shouted, springing up and shifting so that we were both face to face. “You wouldn’t understand my thoughts, my feelings. I can’t even understand them myself!”

“Then try to explain them!”

“I fucked up my life.” There was the slightest pause. “The only thing I can do to make up for it is to make sure you don’t do the same to yours.”

We both breathed heavily, trying to stare each other down, to make the other understand what was going on in our own heads. I wanted to be close to him; he wanted to push me away.

“What I feel,” he said, “isn’t the slightest bit important. I’m here to make sure that you’re okay, help you fix up your life, and then disappear into the shadows. That’s what a psychiatrist does. They don’t indulge in their patient’s fantasies about love with a person in higher power.”

“That’s all this is to you? Some perverted fantasy?”

His expression told me that he had let that slip without thinking it through. He withdrew, staggering away, but the damage was already done. “You…you don’t care at all,” I mused.

“John—“

“Ian, and I don’t want to hear it.” I threw up my hands and looked away from him. “If that’s how you feel, then fine.”

“But I didn’t mean it.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

Cameron walked around the table and reached out for me, but I dodged his outstretched hand and slapped it away. He apologized over and over again, but I stormed out of the dining room, rushed up the stairs and slammed the door before I collapsed on the bed. I didn’t hear any footsteps coming up the stairs, or meaningless words at my door.

I clutched my pillow as hard as I could with my right fist, wanting to tear it apart, but knowing that I’d regret it later. I had that feeling in the back of my mind that I knew exactly what Cameron had meant, but my anger was blocking it, and I wasn’t in the mood to address it. It had been a long couple of days. I scrunched up my eyes and pushed my face into the pillow, pondering if suffocating myself was the right course of action. Of course it wasn’t, so I turned my head to the left, and then shifting my body so that I was lying on my right side. I realised I was grinding my teeth and stopped myself.

There were many things I wanted to say to Cameron right now, but it would have to wait. For now, I had to calm down or else I’d do what he did and say something I didn’t mean.

Everything could be sorted out in the morning.

But I didn’t sleep through to morning.

---

Something grazed my cheek, waking me up. My alarm clock said that it was around three-fifteen. I tried not to move as whatever it was lightly slid across my cheek again.

This felt familiar. Very familiar. But where had I felt this before?

The fingers slid across my cheek, slipping away around my jaw line. A couple of weeks ago, yeah. ‘Sorry for the awkwardness of sleeping on your crotch,’ was what I had thought when I felt this before. “It was you,” I said to the man behind me.

“I’m sorry,” Cameron said softly, pulling his fingers away.

“I know.”

I was still groggy, but the obvious question came quickly. “What are you doing in my bed?”

“There’s a spider in mine.”

“Oh,” I grunted, turning over so that I could look Cameron in the eyes. “Do ya want me to get rid of it for you?”

“No…I was actually, um…can I just spend the night with you instead?”

That woke me up.

“You said you weren’t gay.”

“I’m not.”

“Bi?”

“No.”

“Then why do you want to stay in bed with me?”

“Because…”

Cameron was struggling to find the words, so he bit his lip instead. I wanted to help him along, but I didn’t know what he was going to say. I only knew what I was hoping he would say.

“John—Ian, I…I don’t really get it. I mean I do, but not really.”

“Talk sense, Cameron,” I whispered.

“I, um…I shouldn’t be thinking like this. It’s not right.”

I closed my eyes, hoping that the words would have a bigger impact that way, and sighed.

“I think I love you,” Cameron said.

“But you aren’t gay,” I said, reiterating the point he had mentioned again and again to me.

“I know I’m not, but I don’t think it really matters.”

I thought out the situation in my head, but couldn’t come to a decent conclusion. “You’re right,” I said, stretching out my arms. “I don’t get it either.”

Cameron responded by putting his free hand around me and pulling my body closer to his. He mumbled my name before he rested his own forehead on mine. We were both trying to find the right words to say, I knew that much. I just couldn’t figure out my own until he said his.

“Ian,” Cameron said, finally, “If you’re a guy, if you’re a girl, if you’re a eunuch, if you’re…some sort of alien, I would still have these feelings for you. What’s in your pants…I don’t care about that. I just love you for who you are.”

“And you’re gonna risk your medical license over me?”

Cameron chuckled and looked toward the ceiling. “My job was to help you reclaim yourself. I think my job is done, wouldn’t you say?”

I reflected on it. I had found my name, gotten over my fears, and learned to live again. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“When I left…I took your medical journals with me. And in the end, I filled out your release papers. I’m not your doctor and caretaker anymore.”

“Does that mean I have to go?”

I only asked that question for dramatic effect. I already knew the answer.

“Only if you don’t want to stay here with me,” Cameron replied. “And you’re more than welcome to.”

And he had only said that for dramatic effect, as well. He knew my answer, and I confirmed it with a kiss.

“Thanks, Cam.”

And that’s how we stayed, holding each other close enough to share breath, feeling our hearts beat against each other’s, and falling into a sleep where the only dreams were of what would happen tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.