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The summer heat buzzes under his skin, sweat rolling down the bridge of his nose as Cedar stares out over the lake. The glare of the sun against the water makes him squint as he kicks his legs out over the edge of the dock, swinging along with the waves.
He’s not entirely sure where his mind is. It always seems to circle back to here, this lake, those years, but even as he’s actually looking at it, staring, feeling the wind ruffle through his hair, he’s not here.
He’s stuck dragging himself through memories as thick as tar, time flying by outside his head. He’s lived one minute in two years, he can’t see the ground.
Cedar inches forward, humming softly to himself. He slides off the edge of the dock and into the water. It’s the ripples, not the cold against his skin, that assure him that he’s there.
He shivers in the water. The current carries him out from the dock, pushing along his back, rushing through his hair. Cedar forces his eyes open, watching. Rays of the sun cut through the waves, disappearing into the dark below.
He imagines letting his muscles go, following the current for as long as it would carry him. For a moment, he’s unsure if he would sink or float.
He relaxes then, lets his body level with the surface of the lake, the air in his lungs dragging him up against the weight above him. His legs hang lower, bones pulling him down.
Cedar feels the water rushing through his ears, but he can’t hear it. His eyes burn as he forced himself to keep them open, focus on the water down below. It goes from a green tinged blue to something like the night sky down below. He reached down, watching his hands below him.
He feels is heart pulsing through his body, chest tightening as the oxygen is pulled from the air in his lungs.
He hears them, in the vast darkness below.
The taunting voices, the loving ones that eventually realized he wasn’t worth standing by. The empty apologies, denials, his own words. They all echo through the water, carried by the waves, muffled by the rush of his blood through his ears.
He breaks through the surface of the water with a gasp for air, soft brown hair plastered to his skin. He drops onto his back in the water, clouds floating by between the mountains above him.
He breathes through his mouth, in and out, in and in and in and out.
He lets the current carry him to the dusty shore. Drags himself out of the water with a huff, and drops into the sandy grass. His car, and his phone god damn it, are on the other side of the lake. The sky has just started to bleed a soft orange.
For a moment, Cedar imagines that Nick is beside him in the grass, smiling softly up at him. Cedar imagines that he can run his fingers through Nick’s honey blonde hair, that Nick will look up at him, and scrunch up his face as he smiles.
Cedar closes his eyes, untangles his fingers from the rough grass, and walks to his car.
When he slides into the driver’s seat, the sun has started to dip into the water, the sky bruising dark.
His chest burns, feeling crushed as if there are a thousand pounds weighing down on him.
He opens his phone, thumb hovering over Nick’s contact.
“nick?”
“yeah?”
He closes his eyes, mind buzzing.
What if Nick didn’t want to see him? What if Nick told him to fuck off? Told him he was exhausting?
If he went to Nick’s place, at least he’d be able to see him, even for a second, for a moment if he slammed the door in his face.
His blinkers click on and off as Cedar drives towards Nick’s house. The green of the street lights casts a glow on the cement, the sun well and truly set now. He breathes along with the blinkers, the rhythm lulling his thoughts into silence.
Cedar pulls over across the street, hands tight around the steering wheel. The lights in the windows glow warmly, but Cedar feels his breath catch behind his throat.
Before he can drive away, he steps out of the car, the sound of the door closing ringing down the street. He digs his nails into his palms, walking across the street, and dragging his knuckles against the door as he knocks.
He stands there for what feels like an hour. The sand and water in his socks creating puddles in his shoes. He shifts back, towards the street, towards the car, when the door creaks open.
“Hey Cedar.”
Alex leans against one side of the door frame. Dark eyes looking past Cedar, out into the night.
Cedar’s head drops down, voice scratching out, he coughs,
“Is Nick home?”
Alex shifts, and Cedar takes a step back, tears feeling trapped in his throat. Oh god, he must sound pathetic, he must look like a disaster, why is he even here -
“Yeah, yeah he is, wait one second okay?”
Alex’s voice is shockingly soft, the door swinging shut with a click as his broad shoulders turn. Cedar can’t breathe.
He hears whispering behind the door.
It opens again, and this time, Nick is in front of him.
He’s in a tank top and shorts, wearing soft fluffy socks Cedar bought him last Christmas. He’d thought Nick would like the little bears on them.
Nick opens his mouth, gaze hard, and then Cedar peaks up at him through his sandy hair.
Nick sucks in a breath through his teeth. Voice dying in his throat.
“Cedar?”
Cedar opens his mouth to say something, anything, apologize for coming over, to say goodbye and turn right around, but he can’t.
His vocal cords are cut, he closes his mouth, works his jaw, stairs for a moment at Nick’s pony tail, moving softly in the wind breezing past Cedar and into his home.
Cedar drops Nick’s piercing gaze, takes a step back.
And then Nick’s hands are on him.
He’s so warm, and so gentle, one hand pulling Cedar’s fist open, lacing in between Cedar’s fingers. He feels himself get pulled inside.
Nick has one arm over Cedar’s shoulders, walking in step with him, encouraging him forward.
He walks him into the bathroom, sits him down on the edge of the bathtub.
Cedar’s skin looks pale against Nick’s tan.
“Can I take this off for you?”
Cedar knows that if he opens his mouth, he’ll cry. Nick is here and holding him and looking at him with worry swimming in his blue eyes. Cedar will cave and he will cry and he can’t.
(Hadn’t he caved by coming over in the first place?)
Instead he glues his tongue to the roof of his mouth and nods.
Nick pulls the soaked through shirt up over his head, running a hand through his hair once it’s off. Cedar bends down to take off his shoes, and pauses.
His shoes are full of sand, he can’t make a mess in Nick’s bathroom, why is he here?
Nick takes his hovering hands and pushed him back. He pulls his shoes off with so much care that Cedar might start to cry anyway.
“I’ll clean up later, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
It feels like he blinks, and then he’s sitting in Nick’s shower in his swim shorts, the shower head in his lap. Nick is working shampoo through his hair and humming.
The room is warm with humidity, and Nick takes the shower head from Cedar, tipping his head back and rinsing out the bubbles and sand.
The whole room smells like Nick. Like his shampoo, his soap, an interesting mix of basil and jasmine. Then Nick is brushing soft conditioner through his hair, and Cedar lets out a sob.
Nick doesn’t shush him, or ask him what’s wrong, he simply lays the shower head down, bends over the ceramic ledge, and hugs him. His arms cross over Cedar’s chest, fingers tracing over his sides, following along his matching scars.
They sit there for what feels like a year, and Cedar is sure Nick’s back must be aching, his shirt must be soaked, but Nick’s breathe is whooshing past him, following along the dips in Cedar’s ear, and he feels his heart settle down.
It goes like this.
Nick helps him out of the tub, sits him on the toilet, and wraps a towel around his shoulders.
It goes like this.
Nick brings him a pair of his shorts and one of Cedar’s shirts. But Cedar’s shirt smells like Nick. When Cedar finishes changing, Nick is waiting in the hall.
There aren’t puddles leading from the door anymore.
It goes like this.
Nick brings him into his room, sits Cedar in his bed and wraps him in his favourite blanket. The fluffy side out, because he knows he likes the texture of the cloud grey cotton against his skin better.
It goes like this, Nick gives him mac and cheese, and neither of them say a word. When he’s done he sits in Nick’s bed and hears the faucet running in the kitchen.
It goes like this.
Nick takes his car keys, and comes back with his travel box of medications, Nick gives him a glass of water, turns off the lamp.
They’re lying in Nick’s bed, face to face in the soft glow of fairy lights around Nick’s window. Nicks hands are between the pillow in front of them.
Cedar’s bedtime playlist is playing in the background.
Nick is wearing one of Cedar’s shirts, he doesn’t know when he changed.
And then Cedar is crying silent tears, and Nick has pulled him in to his chest, is rubbing his back, is talking, but Cedar doesn’t know what he’s saying.
All he knows is Nick’s warmth, his touch, his kindness, his smile.
“I’m sorry I said I loved you.”
Nick stills, and Cedar chokes on air.
Nick pulls back, just an inch, but Cedar already feels the lack of him. He shivers.
“Cedar,”
Nick whispers, looking down at him.
In the dim light, his eyes look like the bottom of the lake.
And suddenly the words are rushing out of Cedar’s mouth, a river, a torrent he can’t control.
“It wasn’t fair. It’s not fair to either of us.”
“I’m so broken Nick, I’m desperate, and I need too much, and I can’t, I can’t be your boyfriend, I shouldn’t have said I could.”
Nick flinches back a little, but his hands fist into the back of Cedar’s shirt, as if he can keep him from sinking just by holding on.
“Cedar baby please,”
“Nick I can’t. I can’t. I’m fucked up, and I’m going to expect too much from you, and that’s not okay. That’s not okay, I’m going to hurt us both.”
“And I can’t hurt you Nick.”
Nick whimpers, tears building on his lash line, and Cedar feels his heart split in two.
“I know that you’re hurting and I’m really truly so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
When he looks into Nick’s eyes then, he sees them, years younger and running from home, on the grass by the lake. Nick’s smile brighter than the sun, grin so wide his eyes were closed as he held Cedar’s hand.
“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry”
It goes like this.
Cedar loops and skips like a broken record, apologies spilling from his lungs as Nick cries, pulling him tighter to his chest. Cedar sobs out apology after apology as he wrestles his own arm under Nick’s side, holding him to his heart.
Nick doesn’t tell him to shut up, or fuck off.
Nick doesn’t call him exhausting, but he cries.
He cries, so he must be tired.
He must be just as tired as Cedar, crawling forward, a history of wounds bleeding out behind him.
And Cedar knows Nick is wounded, and traumatized, he knows Nick’s bones drag him down into the dirt too.
Cedar doesn’t want to pull Nick farther.
“Corázon,”
Nick whispers in his ear, and Cedar remembers Nick taking Spanish in university, sitting at Cedar’s counter and tasting the recipes he’d tried to learn. The food from his childhood he had no family recipes for.
“Corázon, estoy aquí. Contigo. Siempre.”
They cry themselves to sleep, together.
In the morning, they make pancakes.
Cedar puts sunscreen on Nick’s nose.
This time, they sit on the grass together, Nick’s head on Cedars shoulder, grass poking through their intertwined fingers.
They patiently watch the moon rise out of the lake.
Together.