Page 82 of Love Spell

Noah never saw Caleb again.Nor did he ever try to.

Just like he never told.Never came out.

He avoided people, avoided making friends, got into black-and-white photography as a hobby, finding something to do that calmed, that he could control and escape into without another human involved.

Eventually, Noah got a job in Seattle, where he bought a thumb-sized cactus to look after and remind himself how much bigger the world was than stunted pines and reindeer moss.He took a self-defence class and still lived his life jumping at every shadow, his pulse racing at the sight of two men so much as holding hands in Belltown, terrified for them.

He’d never even kissed another man besides Caleb by the time he started school in New York.It was another year replete with panic attacks before he even set foot in a gay bar, gradually allowing a small circle of friends in his life, then what might have been called one or two very short-term boyfriends.Noah always managed to find a way to run before long.

Even New York wasn’t far enough away to escape the memories and nightmares.After another between-year working and applying for overseas universities, Noah made his way to London.By then he was in his mid-twenties.He was starting over, had to be the master of his own life, not mastered by three young men in a blur of blood and snow and darkness, still laughing at him.

He had new cultural clashes in London and enjoyed simply exploring and talking about history, watching people from a safe distance and working more in IT part time while he studied.He didn’t have time for a boyfriend and, since he didn’t have a boyfriend, he didn’t need to be out.At least he could daydream about a future with a romantic partner.One day.Not yet.

If he ever was out, if that day arrived, it would be because Noah met the right person to walk hand in hand with him at the back of the parade with sunglasses on.It would be a careful thawing, a careful partner, a slow decompression for the sake of, and with the gentle reassurance of, someone he loved.If that person never happened, “one day” would also become never.

Never might be a painful prison, but at least no one but Noah got hurt, and at least that hurt wasn’t as bad as the alternative.

26

Timo didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do, trapped in an emotional stalemate with no chance of winning, unsure even how to score.He’d never done well with tears, though now he wished for them, for the clear social cues they would provide, instead of simply sitting here with Noah on the sofa through Noah’s robotic delivery of his story.

He couldn’t “There, there” and hug someone who sat numbly, staring at the coffee table, an arm’s reach away, hunched and tense as an injured wild animal.Yet Timo’s own impotence was a mockery, his inability to do anything or say anything to help appalling.

He couldn’t say he understood because he didn’t.Hate crimes were something Timo had taken for granted in Russia.When he’d been attacked, he’d attacked back.He’d almost killed a man by kicking his feet out from under him at the top of a flight of concrete stairs into the underground one night when the man pulled a knife on Timo and the man Timo was flirting with.Either you kicked faster than they swung, or you got knifed.Simple as that.

Timo hadn’t hidden because of oppression and violence; he’d fought back, he’d bought rainbow lapel pins and donated to human rights causes long before he could technically afford to do so.Then again, he’d also left Russia — “escaped” being more what it felt like.Was that really fighting?Or was it just an angrier form of hiding?

He couldn’t say it was all over now and Noah was safe and he didn’t have to live in the past, because of course Noah had to live in the past.Everyone did.If Noah didn’t have a past, he wouldn’t be Noah.If Timo hadn’t come from Russia he wouldn’t be Timo.Love or hate it, they were their pasts and saying it didn’t matter now or not to dwell on it would be even more insensitive than saying he understood.

He couldn’t say he was sorry, even though he was; sorry for what happened to Noah, sorry for how Noah had handled it, sorry there was never any justice done and those three men were still walking around in the world, probably working on the pipeline and drinking their wages.

But he couldn’t say sorry because Noah didn’t need sorry.He needed help and protecting and encouragement and strength to live his own life with someone he loved without being scared, and, helplessly watching him talk himself out, rigid, dry-eyed, Timo had no clue how to offer any of that, how to be any of the things Noah needed.

So they sat in silence after Noah talked.Sat in the bright, open-plan living room, the glass streaked with autumn rain, too high up to hear the London traffic, hushed as a tomb.

Finally, Timo admitted the truth by saying, “What can I do to help?What do you need?”

Then, for some reason, Noah did cry, clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut, chin on his chest.Which was a little better because Timo could wrap his arms around Noah, who leaned into him, but mostly it was a whole lot worse.

* * *

Noah lay on his back staring at the ceiling in his hotel room that night.He thought about the upcoming flight.About how much it and the hotel were costing him, but he’d be fine.He could get a room in Brooklyn, find work he enjoyed, live on what he now had in savings for several months without needing to panic about rushing into anything out of desperation.

Should he visit his mom and Sarah for the holidays?Flight to Fairbanks in December?Never.What about Thanksgiving?He might manage Thanksgiving, but it would be another big expense right now.He’d not seen them in three … no … was it four years?Screw it, he’d go at Thanksgiving.They’d be over the moon and suddenly, for the first time in a long time, he wanted to see them.

A mental image of Timo arriving in Fairbanks with Noah flickered through his thoughts before he could jerk them in another direction.That was senseless.It was over with Timo.

Timo had actually apologised about the public announcement.He’d really meant it and Noah didn’t take that lightly.Timo had even listened.He’d wanted to help, wanted to make everything right.The trouble was that Noah knew better by now.

They were wildly opposite characters and, while opposites may attract, there had to besomecommon ground, some sense behind the connection.What he had with Timo was a witch’s spell and a burning desire to start a new life in a new country that had momentarily blinded Noah into following along with that spell, to getting swept up in the fantasy that was Timo and forgetting that what they were talking about was not a weekend in Paris and a temporary place to live but a serious legal and life contract.

How many more major clashes and upsets would they battle through in the next months before finally falling apart?How long before the spell wore off, before Timo woke up one day and wondered what the hell he was doing with Noah?Or Noah woke up and asked himself how much staying overseas was really worth?

No, of course he had to leave.His time was up anyway.This was for the best.He just had to keep telling himself that to believe it.Until then?While he still felt like this?Like he had to keep making himself think of New York and Thanksgiving and his trip back in order to stop thinking of Timo?

How could he know on one hand that he and Timo were wrong for each other and Noah had no choice but to leave, while on the other regretting being alone more than anything that had happened lately?What was wrong with him?

* * *

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