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“You shouldn’t be moving around too much,” chides Marcus, catching sight of Tomas tugging at the heavy blinds behind the couch.
Tomas turns around and grimaces. He isn’t going to miss out on this sunlight, thank you very much. It’s rare here—like a once in a lifetime sort of thing.
“Brought your coffee,” Marcus continues, motioning for him to get down. “There was a cafe around the corner. The family above us—they said it was good.”
“How good can it be?” Tomas sighs, sinking back into the couch. His head is beginning to ache again, and he knows that coffee probably won’t help, but it’s part of his routine. He enjoys it. And Marcus has already failed to talk him out of it.
To his surprise, the coffee’s not just okay, it’s good. Thank you, upstairs family! It reminds Tomas a little of his mother’s—dark and rich and sweet. The trick, she always said, is to mix the sugar into the hot water before you brew it, and then to use a cloth filter, Tomasito. See? Simple.
Much to the chagrin of his grandmother, she used to give baby Tomas a little thimbleful before she left for work in the mornings. It was their little secret, even during sticky summer days—
“Are you happy, Tomas?” Marcus’s voice floats into Tomas’s head like the opening notes of an old, familiar song. “Are you happy with me?”
“With you?” Tomas repeats, bewildered. Surely Marcus knows by now that Tomas is fine with where they are in their journey together—although true happiness is a state with which Tomas Ortega is generally unfamiliar.
But with Marcus, he feels safe. He feels that he’s in the right place. And to Tomas—perpetually anxious and always in transition—that’s more important than happiness itself. But happy? Perhaps. Happier than he’s felt in a long time, at least. Living on the road isn’t easy, and it’s far from comfortable. But under the circumstances, sure. He’s happy.
“Yes,” he finally settles. “I am.” He smiles—genuinely—and Marcus smiles gently back.
“That’s lovely. But I’ve been thinking... I’m not sure we should continue.”
Tomas stiffens, not believing what he’s just heard. He thinks, for a moment, that Marcus is joking, and nearly manages to convince himself of this until he sees that Marcus’s smile has hardened into a thin line.
“I’m just saying,” Marcus continues, sighing softly, “that this isn’t working.”
“What do you mean?” Tomas asks, still not convinced. He scoffs—a short, nervous sound. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re a liability. D’you know what that means? Li-a-bility.”
“Come on. You’re joking, aren’t you?”
“No, Tomas.” Marcus leans forward, rests elbows on his knees, steeples his fingers. It’s an absurd moment. Tomas wonders if this is what is feels like to be fired. “I’m really sorry. But this just...” he makes a face and gestures to the air between them in order to signify their relationship, “just isn’t working out.”
Tomas feels dizzy. This isn’t happening. This cannot be happening.
He wrings his hands together and feels that his palms are slick with sweat.
“But, we... we can work it out, no? I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I told you that.”
“Tomas.” Marcus clicks his tongue as if speaking to an unruly child. His face is a indifferent mask. “It’s too late.”
Tomas swallows, or tries to. His muscles don’t seem to be working properly. He touches a hand to the base of his throat and he can feel his heart hammering under his fingertips.
“But. We’re a...”
“A what?” Marcus frowns. “A team?”
“Sure, if you want to put it that way. You’ve said so.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“You just don’t get it, do you? How many times are you going to pretend to care what I have to say?”
“I do care—”
“Don’t lie, Tomas!” Marcus’s voice is venomous. Tomas expects to feel angry—ready to leap up and fight; to defend himself. But he just feels tired. Tired and sick. Besides, Marcus is right, no?
The room begins to tilt as if on an axis.
“I can do better...”
“You don’t care. You do whatever you want—damn the consequences, eh?”
“Marcus. I can be... I swear, I don’t mean to—”
“I can’t take that risk anymore, Tomas. Please understand.” Marcus puts a hand on Tomas’s knee, but it doesn’t feel like much of anything. Tomas hardly registers the pressure. He feels numb, as if he’s been out in the cold for too long.
“I don’t—I don’t feel...”
“I know.” Marcus’s gaze meet his, and it’s dark with—something. Something that doesn’t look like Marcus anymore.
And then the pain comes. It blossoms in Tomas’s stomach and crushes the breath out of him, leaving him doubled over, stunned. He prays it’ll pass, but it doesn’t.
“I know you won’t,” he hears Marcus saying. But the sound is very far away, like he’s underwater. “You’re dying, Tomas.”
He’s what?
“...In your coffee. I’m really sorry. But I didn’t know how else to make sure that you aren’t a threat to me anymore. You were going to bring them right to our door, you know.”
Tomas doesn’t believe what he’s hearing. He can’t. And yet, he feels it—eating him up from the inside. He feels blood, viscous and metallic, coating the back of his throat, and there are black spots encroaching on his field of vision.
Then, just as quickly as it began, it’s over. The last thing that Tomas hears is Marcus—praying reverently—and then there’s nothing.
But there is something.
Things are happening. He’s sitting, and he’s gasping for breath, and he’s alive.
Tomas places a palm flat against his heaving chest, and at first he can hardly feel anything at all because he’s so numb with panic. He slips cold, clammy fingers under the collar of his t-shirt, and yes—there it is.
Far too fast, but still beating.
“Jesus,” a horrified voice sounds from next to him, “Are you all right?”
Marcus.
Tomas can’t bear to look, so he just stares straight through the windshield. It’s dark outside, but the lights from other cars on the road dance around the periphery of his vision—flickering intimations of something familiar and benign.
Back home, he used to love driving at night. He’d roll the windows down and turn up the radio and—
“Tomas!”
He jumps and turns toward his name. Their gazes meet, and Tomas is surprised to see that Marcus looks just about as frightened as he’s ever seen him. Marcus fumbles with the turn signal and before Tomas can protest, he’s pulled over to the side of the road and killed the engine.
Suddenly, Tomas’s labored breathing is the loudest sound in the cab.
“You’ve gone white,” Marcus tells him, voice low and tightly controlled. “It’s not just the concussion, is it? You saw something again."
Tomas opens his mouth to speak, but cannot for the life of him think of anything to say. This prompts another surge of panic. Is he having a stroke? His father went that way. Losing his mind? That was his mother. Maybe it is his concussion... Maybe Lorraine Graham did more damage than they thought.
His stomach churns dangerously and a whiff of stale coffee from that morning sets him over the edge. Tomas struggles with the latch on the door and shoves it open with both hands.
He can hear Marcus swearing in the background, punctuating the agonizing dry-heaving that’s currently Tomas’s entire existence. It seems to go on forever—even long enough for Tomas to put things into perspective and realize that if he were going to die tonight, he would have already.
Marcus meets him at the passenger side of the truck and tries to lay a hand on his back, but his touch is like an electric shock and Tomas can only recoil like a lab rat. Marcus stands back but remains by his side, stoically silent, save for the occasional shhh, shhhh. Tomas knows that Marcus is dying to interrogate him. But whatever questions Marcus is biting down are the last that Tomas wants to answer.
Tomas wants to disappear completely.
He wants to dissolve into the grass below his feet. At least then he’d never have to look Marcus Keane in the eye again.
But here they are, together—drifting along somewhere south of Seattle, beaten and bruised and shopping for cheap food to bring back to their cheap motel.
By the time Tomas feels well enough to stand straight, he’s shaking so hard it feels like there’s a motor in his chest. Marcus digs in his bags for some water, which Tomas takes with a meek thanks and uses to rinse and spit.
“Do you want to stay here for a few minutes?” Marcus asks, somewhat casually, as if he isn’t overly concerned with the fact that Tomas looks half-dead in the hard glow of the headlights.
“No,” Tomas answers, teeth chattering incessantly. He clambers back into the passenger seat, leaving Marcus in the cold.
“Do you want to tell me any of it?”
Tomas closes the door behind him.
As Marcus climbs into the cab, a strained silence settles between them.
Tomas can’t make sense of what he’s just experienced. It had been so real, like a memory. More than what he’d felt in Cindy’s head. It was like something tangible and immediate in his subconscious—an explosion of actual sensations and emotions. Real pain. But Marcus would never...
“Tomas, look at me,” Marcus is firm now, and Tomas knows that tone all too well. “Come on.”
Tomas wipes his face on his sleeve; notices that tears and snot have mingled with the sweat.
“Look at me,” Marcus repeats.
So Tomas looks.
Marcus is worried. His brow is pinched together and his gaze roves around Tomas’s face with visible urgency. “Are you all right?” he asks again, gentler this time.
“I’m fine. A dream, I guess.”
Marcus makes a face; scoffs in disbelief. “A dream? I’ve been watching you sleep for a long time, Tomas. Never seen you have a dream like that.”
Tomas, despite the taste of bile in his mouth, despite his pounding head and clammy skin, clings to the opportunity to derail the conversation. “You watch me sleep?”
His pathetic attempt at humor falls rather flat. If anything, Marcus looked even more suspicious. “Don’t do that.”
Tomas shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he snaps, defensive. “It was a bad dream.”
“Well, d’you wanna to tell me about it?”
“No, I don’t,” Tomas finishes, as firmly as he can. He’s been trying to push everything back, but it’s lingering. The coffee, the blood, the sunlight on his skin. Marcus’s voice. It’s all so close, right under his nose. And right beside him. But Marcus can’t open him up just like that. Tomas won’t let him. This isn’t Marcus’s problem.
This is his—whatever this is. Dream, vision. Insecurity. Fear. It’s all his, and he’s not in a sharing mood.
There are some things that Tomas won’t hesitate to share with his partner. But there are others that are better left unsaid.
You were going to bring them right to our door, you know.
“Are you tired?”
“No,” says Tomas, although it’s an outright lie. He would like nothing more than to sleep, but sleep doesn’t come easy to him on the road. Now, with this to prey on his mind, he isn’t sure it’ll come at all.
“Then do you mind if we stop? There was a diner a few miles back and I’m dying for a cuppa.”
“Are you kidding?” Tomas gestures to his clothing. “Look at me.”
Marcus shrugs. “Stay in the car.”
There’s a pink neon sign behind the counter of the Dogwood Diner. Good Vibes Only. It hangs above the cash register like a royal decree.
Dazed, Tomas stares wordlessly as the maître d’ leads them to a little corner booth toward the back of the restaurant. Marcus shoots him a look, and Tomas thinks that the irony isn’t lost on him either.
There are a few other people scattered around the place, but apart from a group of college kids giggling quietly to each other, nobody looks particularly upbeat. What happened to the good vibes?
Tomas sinks listlessly into the booth, still shivering from walking across the parking lot. Marcus has lent him a thicker sweater for the occasion, which helps him feel dry but doesn’t do enough in terms of warmth.
“You shouldn’t eat much,” Marcus tells him off-hand, flipping through a brightly illustrated menu. “But you should eat. Maybe some toast or something, yeah?"
“I’m not hungry,” Tomas tells him, although he’s already given up the ensuing debate.
Marcus looks at him, exasperated. Tired. “I’m not going to force you, Tomas. You’re not a child. I’m just saying you should.”
Tomas wants to talk back; to reprimand Marcus for caring too much about what he does or doesn’t do. Why do you always do that? Why do you always talk to me like I don’t know anything? Why?
But it wouldn’t be the truth. That’s what’s so infuriating about Marcus. He knows how to push without being pushy. To guide. Besides, Marcus is right. He needs to eat. The black and white linoleum floor is starting to swim before his eyes.
“Maybe get a ginger ale as well.”
Tomas orders ginger ale and whole wheat toast, butter on the side.
“What time is it?” he wonders aloud after a few minutes of frayed silence.
Marcus glances at his phone. “About half eight.”
“What does that mean again?”
“Eight-thirty,” Marcus smiles. “Not too bad, but I don’t think I’m up for driving for much longer. Maybe shopping should wait.”
Tomas makes a soft noise of agreement.
The smile falters. “Tomas.”
“Marcus.” He rests his elbows on the table and puts his chin in his palm. The shutters are up. Don’t even try.
“I know you’re not... keen to share whatever happened to you. But remember what I said? About my friend who got too close?”
Tomas knows where this is going.
“They had ‘dreams’ too. Dreams that felt too real. That sort of presence messes with your head, Tomas. You keep letting it in, it’s going to get worse. Was it like that?”
Marcus leans forward to mimic his position; chin in palm, a strange look on his old, lined face.
Tomas drops his hands into his lap. There are things that are better left unsaid.
When he was sixteen years old and saddled with an excess of feeling, he daydreamed for months about kissing a boy called Rafael. He’d held that close to his chest, too, telling himself that it was for fear of what Rafa—a year older and almost laughably straight—might do to him if he found out. But that wasn’t it. Not really.
It was shame, pure and simple. Shame, and an acute awareness that it is very, very easy to alienate the ones you love.
His mother taught him that too.
But Tomas is older now. He knows, logically, that Marcus is not going to leave him over this—not in this state, anyway. He’d see him safe at St. Anthony’s first. But that won’t happen because Marcus is a priest through and through, collar or no. He forgives too easily. Gives more of himself than he even has to offer.
How could he even dream that Marcus would—
“Tomas.”
“Here’s your drinks...” Their waitress, a girl who looks about fifteen at the oldest, sets her tray on the table with an abundance of caution.
Marcus collects himself and then smiles broadly—always so patient—and lifts his tea off the tray so she doesn’t have to.
“I get panic attacks,” Tomas says slowly, and it’s partially true. He had one about two years ago, and another a few years before that. “This dream just triggered something. I don’t know why. It’s hard to explain.”
“And this dream...”
“I don’t want to say.”
“I get it, Tomas. I know. I’m not asking. But you will tell me, yeah? If they get worse.”
Marcus has left the engine idling for heat but hasn’t put his hands on the wheel, as if the parking lot of the Dogwood Diner is the best place to have this conversation.
Tomas is beyond caring. The food in his belly has calmed his nerves and tripled the weight of his eyelids. What’s more, the details of the dream have gradually begun to fade. It all seems very staged—like macabre one-act play.
“I’ll tell you,” Tomas agrees, leaning his head back against the headrest, already on his way out.
Marcus goes to put the truck in drive, but his hand lingers over the gearshift. He reaches out, carefully, and squeezes Tomas’s wrist instead. Tomas shifts a little in his seat, overwhelmed by the touch. But the warmth and the pressure remain, as real as the lump currently forming in his throat.
Good Vibes Only.
Marcus lets him go. “Let’s get you home.”
“Home?” Tomas shakes his head.
“Close enough, eh? Harper’s getting out tomorrow. I want my beauty sleep.”
“You don’t need it,” Tomas says under his breath, which earns him a whistle from Marcus.
“Look at you, being funny again. Didn’t know you still had that in you.”
He doesn’t. Tomas doesn’t say anything else. It’s all a bit too much for his concussed, sleep-deprived brain to handle.
The last thing that he hears in Dogwood is Marcus’s faraway voice—“Fancy a bit of Scott Walker?” and some quiet, fragmented notes on the radio.
--