Page 34 of Any Given Lifetime
“Have a seat. I’m going to be upfront with you,” Joshua said as Neil let his legs give out to sit back on the edge of the bed. Joshua licked his lips and then cocked his head a little, his eyes focused intently on Neil’s face. “You look a lot like someone I knew once. I suspect you even know you do. It seems like you know an awful lot about me, Dr. Green.”
Neil said nothing.
Joshua nodded as though he had, though. “So, we’re going to have to deal with that. I didn’t give you a fair shot because I…well, I lost my husband two years back. A poorly researched, experimental nanite procedure led to his death. So, that, combined with the fact that you look like…well, you know who you look like. So I got upset. Like I said, I didn’t give you a fair shot.”
“There was no way to prevent what happened to Lee,” Neil said, defaulting to his work. It was safer there. “When your husband started with the nanite treatment, we didn’t have a test for the genetic markers.”
Joshua nodded. “I know. And you’ve since developed one.”
“Yes,” Neil said. “Idid. I developed itbecauseof him.”
Joshua blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Well, your husband and about fifteen hundred other people. The future of nanite medicine depended on it. With the tests I’ve designed, we can be sure it won’t happen again. My propositions might be experimental, Mr. Stouder, but I’m not without a conscience. There’s always protocol to keep me in line, but Idogive a damn about human beings. All creatures, really.”
Joshua’s expression softened, and he said with fondness, “Like I said, I knew someone like you once—he cared about human beings, too. And animals. Maybe a little too much.”
“Oh yeah?” Neil asked, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard. “What do you mean by that?”
“It got him killed,” Joshua said. “Maybe if he’d cared just a little less…”
Neil’s breath hitched. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m sorry he died.” Neil felt like he was about to be swept from the face of the earth for even daring to say it. “Both of them, I mean. I can’t imagine how you felt.”
“Itsucked.”
Neil recalled the expression on Joshua’s face when he’d first seen Neil, how much he didn’t want to be reminded of him. It reminded him of the torture he’d put himself through watching Joshua’s interviews over and over, memorizing every wrinkle, every smile. He thought of the years that he’d spent in Atlanta, growing up with Alice, being so much more than a little kid, and yet never enough to be with Joshua. Too young, too late, too dead. And then Joshua had been too happy, too married.
It was too much.
“I know you grieved for…for Neil. But you had a pretty awesome life after that, didn’t you? You were happy.” As long as he could remember, he’d wanted nothing but for Joshua to be happy. He looked away. “Well, until recently, that is—”
“Don’t talk about Lee,” Joshua said, putting a hand up in warning. “Don’t even mention his name.”
Neil nodded and mimed zipping his mouth shut.
Joshua shook his head. “As for Neil—not that I owe you an explanation—but I’ve missed him every day since his death. Some more than others, sure, and eventually it became bearable, something I just lived with the way I’d live with a scar before nanites.” He huffed a laugh. “Funny how nanites can’t repair emotional wounds.”
“Not yet.”
“Hopefully not ever,” Joshua said. “But I’ve never once beenhappythat he died, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Neil looked down at the floor and then back up to Joshua’s eyes again, wanting to say the right thing. He wanted to tell him the truth, that he’d missed him, too, that he was sorry he’d died, that he wanted more than anything to make it right, but how could he? It would sound absurd. Moreover, it was unkind.
Joshua had grieved him and moved on, not only with Lee, but in every way. It would be the highest act of selfishness to confess to him now, rip his life open again, and ask him to accept something so confounding. He deserved peace. He deserved to find some measure of joy again. Not bewildering madness with a man half his age, if that was even what he wanted. They’d been together so long ago. Nothing had been guaranteed between them even then.
The world had changed. So had Joshua. And Neil would be a monster to try to deny that.
“I know you’re young, but have you ever been in love?” Joshua’s voice was tinged with some anger, but also soft with compassion.
Neil shrugged. He had always been in love. It was painful and full of despair. It was a terrible way to live.
“Okay, well, then, let me ask you this,” Joshua went on. “Have you ever loved anyone at all? Someone besides yourself?”
Neil stared at him blankly, the most inappropriate answer screaming in his mind.
