“A therapist is a therapist. That’s okay.” Aaron waved a dismissive hand in the air. “But how am I supposed to sit with them for Mario Kart night when they know this ugly thing about me?”
“Ugly thing?” Oscar bristled at the sound of Aaron’s words, the way they sat on his tongue like poison. In two short strides, he was standing in front of him again, hands wrapping around his arms. “Nothing about you is ugly. A hard thing, yes, which we don’t know about for sure. But this is not a thing to be ashamed of, Aaron. So what would it matter if you sat with them on camera, and they knew?”
“It matters.” Aaron’s voice was thick. Oscar wanted to breathe into his mouth, to ease him, to scrape the emotion off the inside of his throat and swallow it. “If I talk about it, it’s real,” he whispered.
“Boo…” Oscar was still looking for his next words when his phone pinged loudly, cutting through the silence of their living room.
Aaron’s eyes darted to his, an invitation to look, and Oscarwitnessed the hope in them, unmistakable and true as his own name.
With shaking hands and a shakier breath rifling through him, Oscar pulled out his phone, tilting it so Aaron could look at the notification that had just shown up, a message sitting underneath the generous amount Lucas had just transferred into his account.
Lucas Miguel Herrero-White: Absolutely no interest owed and no rush to pay. Fine to spot you more if you need. Tell Aaron we’re rooting for him. Take care, chico, and stay in school. Here if you need to talk. X
For a breath longer, Oscar and Aaron stood quietly in front of each other and said nothing. Eventually, the phone screen went dark again, and it was Aaron who covered Oscar’s hand around it and pushed it down, drawing his attention back to his face.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s find out then.”
“Yeah?” Something inside Oscar loosened, another organ in a different part of his body tightening at the same time, heart and stomach battling for recognition he could not afford, standing in front of the only thing that mattered.
“I’ll call my doctor in the morning,” Aaron replied. “Now I’m going to pee and then you’re coming to bed, and we’re going to cuddle until I fall asleep. Maybe kiss for a little while as well.”
“Whatever you want, boo,” Oscar said, running his fingers up the line of Aaron’s jaw.
“You,” Aaron replied, rising to the tips of his toes to kiss him. “What I want is you. And it will always be you.”
25
LEGAL MAMBO [NO. FIVE]
Time passed differently after Papa died. Weekends were no longer short; every hour of Oscar’s Saturday and Sunday stretched out for what felt like days, crawling into Mondays, the long-awaited hour that would tear him from that cold empty home where his mother’s yelling echoed off the walls with no fleecy warm blanket left to muffle it anymore.
So Oscar wasn’t so surprised when every minute began to feel like an hour the moment they stepped out of that hospital with nothing more to do but wait. Aaron said that a diagnosis could take years for some people. Dr. Andrews had told them they’d have answers soon, that he worked with patients like Gemma on a daily basis—they had come to the right place. He’d told them not to worry, that the tests were going to be precautionary, but Oscar had been born anxious.
Two days had passed since they’d gone for Aaron’s last scan, but to Oscar, they had felt like two months, like every second he’d had to endure between being cleared for his top surgery and having it. He hadn’t known back then how in love he would be straight after, how every follow-up with his surgeon in the months that followed would be a date, almost,with Aaron scheduling his at the same time so they’d go and have pancakes and coffee after.
Oscar wished he was still panicking about Aaron standing him up for their date, wished he was still picking on Aaron about his long-term commitment to the dark bitter drink he loved. Instead, Oscar had spent hours trying to follow a YouTube video so he could repair the coffee machine, because someone had said in one comment on a sub of a sub of a thread that coffee could help with the kind of dementia Aaron’s mother had. So now he poured him cups every other hour, the ones he spent at home, at least.
Aaron had insisted on working as much as he could, on paying the greater portion of the debt they now had with Lucas and Philip. They’d argued about it, too, sometime in between dinner the night before Aaron’s tests and the hospital, their stomachs grumbling because Aaron had been instructed to fast.
“You’re not the only stubborn ass in this house, Spike,” Aaron had said.
“Clearly not,” Oscar had replied.
It hadn’t lasted long. Five minutes later, he’d been wrapped around him on the couch, kissing him on the temple and cheek, brushing his hair from his forehead, telling him how much he loved him.
Aaron was at work now, stocking shelves and cleaning fridges for Paulie, after Oscar had asked for a favor. That had been another fight; there’d been so much of it lately, the thread that held them to one another taut as a guitar string. And Oscar knew it needed tuning, that the notes were just a fraction off, and their music was discordant. But there would be time for that.
Fuck, Oscar hoped they had time.
He hadn’t believed in God since that day Papa had clutched his chest on the sidewalk, but Oscar prayed day andnight, to every deity he’d ever heard of, to the universe. Surely, the universe existed. Oscar lived in it, breathing proof, a speck of dust in a galaxy among many others, but if he was a planet, then Aaron was his sun, and if Aaron was a planet, then Oscar was a moon, andfuckdid he believe in that.
The beta feedback would be shit. Oscar’s head was as far from the game as it could be. He’d definitely passed a couple of NPCs without interacting, and he hadn’t even stopped at the market. Maybe he’d start over, not even log the hours, because it was hardly fair that Joe slaved away at two jobs while he did…this. Because he hadn’t even sat in on a single lecture since Aaron’s appointment.
And he hadn’t told him about it, either.
Oscar’s mind wasn’t in the game or on his degree. He wasn’t even sure what was going through his mind when he left his apartment and got on that bus. But he knew what he was thinking when he got off it.
The school gates were still open when Oscar passed. It had been years now since he’d come to this side of town, years since he’d walked through the winding not-quite-suburban streets lined with terraced houses that sat wall-to-wall on either side.
