“Twenty-three?” Henry spoke into Colton’s soft hair.
“Yeah, he’d just turned twenty-three.One more trip, that’s what Will told his folks. One final trip and he could afford college. Then he would be out. Eight fucking weeks. A nurse. He wanted to be a pediatric nurse. A goddamn nurse… What’s wrong with this fucking country?” Colton almost yelled now. “We pay young men to go off to war to some godforsaken desert to kill. But we won’t pay for them to become a fucking nurse. That’s all Will ever wanted.” Colton trailed off while he almost squeezed the life out of Henry. As if Henry was the last thing keeping him from dissolving completely into the past and the hurt.
“It’s over now, baby. It’s over.” Henry’s comforting voice enveloped him, but it sounded so far away.
“It’ll never be over. Not ever.” He twisted in Henry’s embrace and looked up into the sky-blue of his lover’s eyes. The eyes of the man who’d come to mean more to him than anyone ever had before. Colton swallowed before continuing, still holding Henry’s gaze. “And I want it to be, you know. Over. I want it to be over so fucking badly. And I want to try. With you. I do. But it’s like the desert… It’s got a hold on me. It won’t let me go. It’s like this weight holding me down, suffocating me.”
“You need help, baby. Will you let me help you? Will you let me get you some help, baby?” Henry whispered. “And will you talk to me? When you feel it coming. Tell me and I’ll carry the weight with you. I can’t make it go away but I can carry it with you. You don’t need to do this alone anymore. I’m here now. We can carry it together now.”
“Together?” Colton asked, suddenly feeling a calmness settling in his chest and in his bones.
“Yes. Together.” Henry nodded reassuringly.
“Okay.”
“We’ve got this, baby. We’ve got this.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” A sudden change came over Henry’s face. A seriousness. Determination.That’s what it was, Colton thought to himself. Then Henry continued, his voice strong and unwavering.
“Because that’s what you do when you love someone. You don’t quit on them, just because they’re in pain. Just because things get a little difficult.”
“You love me?” Colton attempted to speak but a hiccup made the words come out in sobs instead.
“I do. More than anything.” Henry placed a soft kiss on his right temple, his lips lingering there for several seconds. Colton was overwhelmed by the certainty in Henry’s voice, and a seed of hope had begun to grow inside him. He closed his eyes while the smell of citrus from Henry’s hair enveloped him. Colton decided then and there that he was done with pretending. More than anything else, Henry deserved his honesty.
“I don’t know if I can say that back to you yet. How can you love someone when you can’t even love yourself?” Colton asked.
“That’s okay, baby,” Henry mumbled against his temple, the words forming a promise on his skin that this was not a dream. This was real. “I love you enough for the both of us. I can love you until you’re ready to love yourself. And long after that, too.”
EPILOGUE
Henry
Four weeks later
“YOU NEVER DIDtell me about the birds,” Henry whispered as he blew featherlight kisses across the black tree covering Colton’s right rib cage.
“Hmmm, what do you wanna know?” Colton replied sleepily, his morning voice adorably raspy. Henry poked an index finger against Colton’s ribs, making him squirm beside him.
“The birds, you dork! I want to know about the birds. You told me you’d tell me one day.” Colton was avoiding eye contact, but he knew better than to let him off this easily. It was strange how he’d come to know this man so well that he could decipher every look, every movement, every sound by now.
“Aarrh, you’re not gonna let this go, are ya? You’re like a dog with a fucking bone.” Colton tried his meanest face, but Henry saw right through him. There wasn’t a mean bone in this man’s body when it came to him. Once Colton had revealed his soft side, there was no going back to the hard, closed off exterior. Even on the darkest of days, Henry knew that he’d be able to coax the light out of Colton with a singlebabyor a well-placed kiss. Winking at his man, Henry continued, cupping Colton’s dick, drawing a deep moan from his lips.
“There’s only one bone, I’m interested in. And you should know by now that I’m relentless. Once I set my mind on something, I don’t give up. Now, tell me about the fucking birds.” As if to stress that he meant business, Henry leaned in and bit Colton’s right pec muscle while giving his semi a reassuring squeeze. A promise oflater, but not now.
“Okay, okay, you pest, you win,” Colton groaned, a smile crinkling in the corners of his gorgeous eyes. “You win,” he repeated, a faraway look reflected in the greenish brown of his irises.
And then after a long exhale, Colton told him about the birds. About the four black birds taking off from the crooked branches of the naked tree. Flying off to God knows where. Leaving the tree and the vast desert behind. Three larger ones; Manny, Hernandez, Shooter… Followed by a smaller one, which seemed to look back towards the tree before spreading its wings and taking off too. Will.
Colton didn’t have to tell him about the last bird. It was the bird that had caught Henry’s eye the night in the motel room, when Colton had made love to him for the first time. In stoic solitude it sat at the very top of the tree gazing in the direction of its brothers. Henry had never thought that a bird could look lonely or sad, but there was something about the posture of the bird that looked resigned and defeated. Broken, even, though Henry knew that the bird wasn’t broken. It was just sad and frozen in its grief.
When there was nothing more to tell, Henry kissed the birds. Every single one of them, before he trailed his fingers along the weather-beaten branches of the tree. It was a strange tree. Sturdy and massive. Regal almost. Not belonging in these parts of the world.
“What kind of tree is this?” he whispered against the thick trunk, placing a kiss at the roots snaking into the desert sand.
“It’s not exactly a real tree,” Colton spoke against Henry’s hair. “I mean, in real life it has leaves or maybe they’re more like needles… It’s called a Dragon’s Blood tree. It’s from Yemen. I don’t know… It doesn’t matter… It’s all in the past now, anyway.”
