The cigarette inched down to the filter, a column of gray ash hanging from the end. He tapped it off, then took a final drag. After stubbing it out on the ground, he headed down the walkway toward the stairs.
He paused in front of number twenty-one. If he walked inside right now, he might see past-Micah. He could still be a ghost and warn him about the attack yet to come. If the attack never happened, Micah wouldn’t have to suffer with PTSD. But there was no way to know how a warning of the future would alter things, and they’d already made a mess of the timeline once. Besides, if presque vu was indication of the timeline trying to course-correct, that might mean that Micah’s destiny was always to be assaulted, no matter how he tried to change things. With Cosmo’s luck, his attempt at being helpful would only result in Micah getting attacked somewhere else or in a different manner, with possibly a worse outcome than the original. Cosmo had hurt him enough.
A door creaked, and he looked back. Micah peeked out, his mouth pulled in a hard line. Cosmo’s stomach clenched. He hurried back up the walk, then stopped before the door. Micah stood on the carpet inside, dressed in a pair of heather gray sweatpants and a crisp white tee, which molded to the contours of his chest and the soft slope of his stomach. His wet hair stuck to his forehead, and he held the doorframe in a grip so hard Cosmo expected him to rip off the molding.
Micah’s throat flexed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“But I am. I failed again. I don’t understand why this is so hard.”
Cosmo fished for something to say that wouldn’t be printed on a trite motivational poster. “I’mthe one who should be sorry. You asked me to, but I–”
“It was a bad idea all around. Not your fault.”
Gravel scraped beneath Cosmo’s shoes as he shuffled his feet. “When you first started drawing portraits, were you good at it?”
“God, no. All my faces lacked depth because I didn’t know how to shade right, and I couldn’t draw curly hair to save my life.”
“Those first attempts were failures, but you didn’t give up, obviously. My hair looks fantastic in all of the portraits you’ve done of me. There’s always ‘the gap,’ right? That space between our skill and our taste that we have to cross in order to get better. You can see when something falls short, but you don’t yet have the skill to know how to fix it.”
Micah’s cheeks inflated, and he blew out a breath. “I’m not sure you can apply art theories to my trauma.”
“I can, and I am.” Cosmo stared at the silver strip of metal dividing them. “This threshold isn’t a force field, the balcony beyond part of a separate world. It isn’t a portal that only opens when the planets of your mind align.”
Micah scoffed. “That’s exactly what it is.”
“It’s not. It’s something that needs practice, and with practice comes failure. You just try again, when you’re ready.”
Standing firmly on the carpet, Micah took Cosmo’s hands and stared down at their feet. Cosmo inched forward, ever so slightly, until the caps of his shoes were on top of the threshold.
Micah squeezed his fingers. “Stop. Don’t.”
Cosmo backed away, then sat beside the door. Micah stepped out and closed it, then slid down next to him.
“During my short-lived time with a therapist, she told me I needed to practice prolonged exposure therapy, gradually reintroducing things into my life that I’d been avoiding,” Micah said. “When I saw your handwriting on the mirror, for a split second it made my heart flutter, until the knowledge kicked in that you aren’t a ghost. This wasn’t very gradual, I guess, and I’m sorry I asked you to come do it.”
“I got to see your absolutely fantastic ass, so it was worth it.”
Micah chuckled. “Good thing you’re a ghost and not a werewolf, huh? Can’t have you transforming at the sight of my full moon. You’d get hair all over my new couch, and the cat already has that job covered. Where were you hiding? In the closet?”
“Darling, I came out of there way back in kindergarten when I wore a tiara to school and declared myself a princess. And then later on the principal called my mother in for a talk because I was kissing both the girlsandthe boys.”
Wet hair fell into Micah’s eyes as he tilted his head back. “I knew I was a boy when I was a kid, even though I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain it. My parents understood better than I did why I hacked off all my hair and got upset when relatives gave me dolls or dresses for my birthday. We read books, had a lot of conversations, but unfortunately, we lived in a state where transition for minors was criminalized. So I was forced to go through a puberty I didn’t want.”
“God. I’m so sorry.” Cosmo was realizing more and more that certain things he was uncomfortable with were really indicators of gender dysphoria, but he didn’t have any desire for medical transition. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have to endure a forced puberty with the wrong hormones.
Micah waved a hand, but his face didn’t have as much casual dismissal as the gesture. “It’s one of those things that I don’t think about often because it only gets me worked up. We moved when I was seventeen, and I was able to physically transition. But my romantic attraction took me a lot longer to figure out than my identity, and being ace had a lot to do with it. In junior high, my brother – Everett – stole a porno mag from our dad. When he started showing me the pictures, he realized I didn’t look very excited, and he asked me if I even liked girls. I insisted I did. I had a crush on a girl in art class. But I admitted to Everett that I had the same butterflies in my stomach for a boy in biology. At the time, it didn’t occur to either of us that I could be bi or pan, so – very logically – he asked me what I thought about when I jacked off, because surely that would clear it up. I said, ‘video games.’”
Cosmo laughed. A chilly wind gusted across the balcony. He scrubbed at his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits.
“You’re cold.” Micah thudded his head back against the door. “I hate this. I should be able to let you inside.”
“Or you could just warm me up.”
Micah reached back and opened the door. Warm air driftedout around them. He brushed back Cosmo’s hair and gave him a slow kiss. Micah smelled of clean and shampoo perfume, his cheeks freshly shaven and velvet soft.
Cosmo savored his lips and said, “You’re a fruit.”
