Forever Young
Aiden stands before the stove with his weight balanced on one leg. He pokes at the yellow glob on the pan with his spatula. It quivers expectantly before falling quiet. He might be wincing, but all Matt catches is slivers of his back and he can never tell for sure.
“Are you done yet?” he yells from behind the windows between his fingers.
“No!”
“Bugger this,” Matt scrambles up. “I’m coming!”
“Bugger this,” Aiden echoes, and chucks the pan into the sink. The butter sputters and whimpers and Aiden’s sympathy for their new enamel sink is interrupted by Matt’s arms which have looped themselves around him. He looks down at Matt’s fingers, cross-linked above his belly and suddenly realises that he’s getting fat. What marriage does to peo-, he sighs, but Matt has swivelled him around and already they’re kissing.
It’s nine in the morning.
The kiss is slow, tender, the way pinks turn their faces up to greet the sun. The hot desperation of their first few encounters has mellowed into something muskier, the fast staccato of their hearts eased into the slurred murmur of lips against shoulders. Aiden likes it this way, likes the general ritardando that has dotted its line over their melody, but sometimes he catches himself missing the dizzying sensation of stumbling into love.
“Mmmhmmm,”
“Morning,” he says, smiling.
“Morning.”
*****
Matt walks down the street and enters a mall, negotiates his way past three autographs and a photo snapping spree before arriving at the jewellery store. Despite all these interruptions he’s early, and Aiden’s nowhere to be found. Matt considers calling him, then shrugs and walks past the glass doors.
Sifting through the stacks of shiny things, he spots a metal bracelet that he thinks Aiden might fancy. The dull black embedded in silver makes him think Aiden might even like it enough to displace the stack of leather bands that he still keeps tight around his wrists. He takes note of its serial number and heads for the counter.
Five years into marriage and the sheen of it has dimmed a little like the easy silver of their wedding bands. He still loves the way Aiden is his, of course, loves the sound of the word ‘husband’ as it leaves his lips when he says he’s got plans for the evening; it spills out heavier than ‘boyfriend’ and means he’s taken, too.
There’s a lady behind the shelves, and when she smiles at him in her over-friendly way her lips pull back to reveal blinding white teeth.
She says, “You’re Matt Cardle!” in an almost-squeal.
Matt laughs, yes, he is, and can she please help him to take out the piece labelled No.-
“Matt Cardle,” she chimes, and simpers coquettishly at her good fortune, and before Matt can repeat his question she launches herself at him and presses her mouth to his.
Matt coughs and pulls back but her hand has found its way around the back of his head and he is kind of stuck and he needs to fucking breathe and he finds himself returning the kiss.
When they eventually part Matt directs his eyes over her shoulder and scans the shop. Suddenly her strawberry scent makes him nauseous, and the look on Aiden’s face makes him want to take it all back.
*****
The drive back is fraught with tension. Matt doesn’t want to see Aiden’s livid face and be reminded that he was the cause of it, so he keeps his eyes on the buildings that roll past them, singular and monotonous.
Back home, Aiden unwinds the scarf from his neck and chucks it on the table. Matt follows him into the room, grabs his arm which Aiden immediately twists out of his grip.
“Get out.”
“Damn it, Aiden, it was only a kiss-”
“Fuck,” he spits. “Fuck, you.” What he hates is that Matt has stringed his name and the act together in the same breath, and what they have between them is forever tainted by this association.
The hinges cry shrilly at the impact, and something is knocked over before the front door slams. “It didn’t mean anything!” Matt yells in the direction of the door, to no one in particular.
*****
Backstage, Aiden tugs uncomfortably at the ear monitor before ripping it out completely, shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He knows the girl wasn’t anything more than a rabid fan; the disgust on Matt’s face when he glared at her was more than enough to confirm that. But he feels that even then it shouldn’t have been for Matt to say, it should have been his call to judge, not Matt’s, not when there have always been rumours flying every which way about Matt’s promiscuity that recur like the seasonal ‘flu, not when he has tied his youth to a man nine years older and assured him again and again that he does not regret anything.
On stage, he tries to sing the memory away, hiding it deep beneath songs that don’t belong to him, never did belong to him no matter how hard he tried. He doesn’t understand what the fans see in him, five years on and still sporting the quiff he did as a teenager, mulling over the same old covers in a dark pub.
Tonight he screams into the microphone, I’m Mr. Brightside, a fifth higher than he usually does. The note catches in his throat and he prays no one notices. His eyes are burning and it’s a comfort to close them; he’s glad that it’s a perpetual habit of his and won’t be taken as a hint of emotion by the throbbing crowd of fans waving their hands at him, their palms raised up to the sky to catch he doesn’t even know what.
*****
By midnight, Aiden’s still not back and Matt’s drinking from a dark glass of guilt and indignation. He taps the cigarette case and it falls empty. He swears at nothing, no one and paces the hall, his footfalls alternating between a reproach and a reprimand.
He heads out.
*****
Aiden returns to an empty house and scoffs, to think I was worried, and doesn’t even bother flipping the lights on. His palms break out into little cold beads when he imagines Matt with someone else at a bar, someone faceless and composed of heat and alcohol, and throws himself into bed without taking his shoes off.
Two hours later, Aiden’s ringtone splits the night open. He reaches for his phone, almost drops it before bringing it up to his ear.
“mmmhello,”
“...”
“What? Where?”
“...”
“...”
*****
The fourth night of vigil sees Matt’s mother prying Aiden from the chair beside the bed and settling him down on the lumpy old couch that doubles as a bed for overnight visitors. She pats his shoulder and places a mug of warm tea in his numb hands.
Aiden doesn’t know what to do; the idea of swallowing anything makes his stomach heave and perform triple back-flips so for lack of a response he fiddles with the teabag label. It has strange symbols on it and he imagines being able to say them, imagines the shapes his lips make around them when he’s pouring them into the kernel of Matt’s ear.
But Matt never stirs.
*****
Sleep has caught Aiden with his head at an awkward angle, and Liam blinks at the crick in his neck Aiden will have to put up with for the next two days.
Harry stops Niall’s hand on the door handle, shakes his head. The boys (even though they were no longer in their teens, Matt still spoke of them as boys, and Aiden had laughed and said are you trying to-) crowd around the entrance and Zayn puts the player on the floor, snug in the gap between the door and its frame so it stays ajar.
“Our record’s out the end of the week,” Harry starts, barely above a whisper, “and I, we, just thought...”
“...we just thought you’d want to know,” Louis finishes, and pops their first single into the player, the one that might have been if they had won, but all that pales to insignificance for them here and now, huddled hapless against the sharp clean whiteness of the hospital corridor.
/let us die young or let us live forever,
we don't have the power but we never say never/
There shouldn’t be a dichotomy, they can fall in love and outlive both, die a little each time to let their love burn a little longer, what was he thinking, he can’t even-
/some are like water, some are like the heat,
some are a melody of some other beat,
but sooner or later they all will be gone/
Niall opens the second verse, and Aiden had always said it was his favourite part, because his voice was like the first whiff of air you get when you push the bay windows out to invite the morning in, not that he liked the others any less, but it was just this song, and-
/it's hard to get old without a cause,
I don't want to perish like a fading horse/
Aiden brings him breakfast in bed and kisses his creased forehead, his body leaning precariously over the tray which has something suspicious and yellow on it but Aiden’s mouth has slipped down to his now and in an absent motion his hand reaches out to steady the glass of juice that tips to the-
/youth is like diamonds in the sun,
and diamonds are forever/
Someone is running towards him along the shore, his eyes sparkling with a glint no one can match. Somehow he knows it’s important and he has to catch up, he needs to meet this person somewhere in the middle where the waves are crashing in, closer and closer, but it seems to take-
/forever young,
I wanna be
forever young/
Aiden’s hair is silver and slicked back, wet from his morning shower. There is tea on the table, toast, marmalade, an underused ashtray. He is old (very old, if you judge by what his wrinkled hands suggest) but he is patient, he is patiently sitting at a table on the balcony, waiting, waiting, for-
/so many adventures couldn't happen today,
so many songs we forgot to play,
so many dreams are swinging out of the blue/
His eyelid cracks open.
/forever young,
I wanna be-
*****
Aiden jolts awake. There are nurses in the room, hovering about, emanating concern. The doctor is shining a light into Matt’s eye and muttering things nobody can fathom. Aiden watches, wary of what to expect. Very slowly, Matt brings a hand up to his face and pinches his nose bridge as if in pain, and his face squelches together, falls apart. Then he screams.
*****
Matt spends his days sleeping, or pretending to sleep so he won’t have to entertain visitors. Aiden finds himself explaining the same scenario over and over again to concerned producers and managers and paparazzi, till finally he breaks and lets the boys haul him out of the room into the corridor, where he grabs the chance to flee for refuge in the washroom.
He leans against the locked door and his breaths come out in gasps and shudders. He mentally rearranges the situation but comes up with nothing certain. There’s a distant flush from the cubicle at the far end. Aiden covers his eyes with his hands, presses them till it hurts. He stops and thinks, afraid to reword the truth because that would only cement it further into reality. The only thing he knows is that for now Matt can’t see a thing, though it’s possible he might see again, but most likely never.
Aiden cries silently in the stall, thuds his head against the partition just to make the incessant buzzing in his head go away.
*****
The runny egg trickles sideways down the curve of his chin, its flow retarded by Matt’s scruffy beard. Aiden makes a mental note to help him with shaving later, and isn’t even aware that he’s made it out loud till the silence between them cringes with pain at being broken and Aiden’s eyes smart.
“Um, I can help you with it, yeah, later, if you want” he finishes lamely.
“Just leave me alone,” and it comes out harsher than he intended but fuck, what does Aiden know, and he makes to stand.
“Matt-”
“I said,” he snaps, but can’t bring himself to repeat something he doesn’t really mean, so he simply pushes Aiden away and rises. He sways a little like a snapped reed and Aiden lunges forward, reaching out to catch him but they don’t touch. Matt backs away, arms swinging wildly like wings, and his chair falls to one side and he jumps at the noise. His hand knocks over the bowl and it flies across the table unto the floor, its trajectory marked out in yellow streaks. And Aiden can’t help but think, now he’s got to clean this up, and forgets that Matt can’t even fucking see the mess, so what’s the use of complaining. He runs his fingers through his hair and pleads, “Matt.”
“Just-” Standing up too quickly has his head swimming and before Matt knows it he’s dropped to the floor. He’s too tired to be embarrassed anyway, so he thinks, fuck this, since he’s already down on his hands and knees he might as well crawl his own way into the dark, where he can be alone for once without Aiden’s pitying eyes boring holes into the back of his head.
“Matt.”
“Just leave me be!”
Aiden turns around because he doesn’t want to see any of this. “I’ve never even blamed you for-” he hollers, but Matt has managed to kick the door shut between them.
*****
Three hours later Aiden tries the door knob and it eases to let him through. Matt’s curled up with his knees against his chest on Aiden’s side of the bed, and his hunched back tells Aiden he’s wide awake. Aiden reaches down and traces with one finger the rise and fall of each successive vertebra and winds his hand into the curls at the base of Matt’s head. He flips over and looks at Aiden and Aiden can see that he’s been crying.
“Shh...”
“No,” Matt says, “no.”
“It’s all right, see,” Aiden points to his own frame, battered and bruised from the past weeks, holding Matt’s head on its shoulder, “it’s all right, I’m all right,’ till Matt quiets and turns away, ashamed for blubbering, but also secretly glad that he did.
*****
At night, they take their places beside each other with Matt’s back turned against him, a blank wall of dispirit that pains him to see. He taps his shoulder and receives no response, so he calls out his name, a search warrant in the dark.
Matt turns around, a scowl written across his face. “What?”
In answer, Aiden brings Matt’s fingertips to his own eyes and pulls them shut. Matt says, “What are you-” but Aiden shakes his head, forgetting that Matt can’t see him before he remembers and says, “Wait.” He pulls Matt’s hands under his shirt and guides them over his body, over the signs of age and every inch of skin before resting Matt’s thumb on the raised scar on his leg, a souvenir from flying down the hill on his bike with his hands creased behind his back in cocky, youthful abandon, as he grasps Matt’s hands even tighter, fitting their palms together in a gesture that says, see, I haven’t changed and I never will.
Matt pushes himself up and he can feel Aiden beneath him. The bed creaks and his crown knocks hard against the bottom of Aiden’s chin and they both laugh; he’d forgotten how tall Aiden was, is, in his arms. They’ll learn how to fit together again, pulling apart the pieces where the fissures cleaved and fixing them back together, stronger this time and brand new.
Aiden kisses him now, kisses him like he wants to own him, every joint and rippled muscle, running his teeth sharp against his arm and neck and biting down hard, like every touch of his tongue is a mark of possession. A part of him strains at the need to punish Matt for, for (what? Aiden asks himself), but he can’t bring himself to do it, not when Matt is clinging to him like a lifebuoy in the ocean. As he rows his body over him Matt cries over and over, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and Aiden answers, it’s okay, even though the sting of betrayal still dyes his blood toxic he says, clear as night, it’s okay, for Matt he’ll make it okay, because that’s what he’ll always do.
The sheets have gone cold and Aiden pulls the blanket up around them both. Matt stays his hand and pulls him closer. He confesses to the thump of Aiden’s heart against his chest, “I kissed her. It was stupid. But that night, I, I went out to find you.”
Aiden doesn’t say, I know, or I forgive you, but merely kisses his eyebrow and exhales, the expiration of air speaking more than any words can say.
*****
This year it’ll be no different. Aiden sets him in the chair and presses his lips to his forehead just like he does every morning and goes to prepare breakfast. The familiar sounds of spoons chinking against crockery and butter sizzling lends the percussion to Aiden’s humming, and Matt picks out the rich brine of bacon from the myriad of smells that fills the house.
Matt weaves his thumb through his fingers, and his nail nicks a thread from the cuff of Aiden’s cardigan, the old one he’s taken to borrowing so often that Aiden has stopped asking for him to give it back. His fingers twine themselves nervously together. Matt blinks, once, twice, and then once more and there’s a faint figure before the stove, and while he can hardly make out its outline from the fuzz that is their kitchen wall, he’s pretty sure it’s Aiden doing eggs, just the way he likes them.
“Are you done yet?” he yells from behind the windows between his fingers.
“No!”
“Bugger this,” Matt scrambles up. “I’m coming!”
“Bugger this,” Aiden echoes, and chucks the pan into the sink. The butter sputters and whimpers and Aiden’s sympathy for their new enamel sink is interrupted by Matt’s arms which have looped themselves around him. He looks down at Matt’s fingers, cross-linked above his belly and suddenly realises that he’s getting fat. What marriage does to peo-, he sighs, but Matt has swivelled him around and already they’re kissing.
It’s nine in the morning.
The kiss is slow, tender, the way pinks turn their faces up to greet the sun. The hot desperation of their first few encounters has mellowed into something muskier, the fast staccato of their hearts eased into the slurred murmur of lips against shoulders. Aiden likes it this way, likes the general ritardando that has dotted its line over their melody, but sometimes he catches himself missing the dizzying sensation of stumbling into love.
“Mmmhmmm,”
“Morning,” he says, smiling.
“Morning.”
*****
Matt walks down the street and enters a mall, negotiates his way past three autographs and a photo snapping spree before arriving at the jewellery store. Despite all these interruptions he’s early, and Aiden’s nowhere to be found. Matt considers calling him, then shrugs and walks past the glass doors.
Sifting through the stacks of shiny things, he spots a metal bracelet that he thinks Aiden might fancy. The dull black embedded in silver makes him think Aiden might even like it enough to displace the stack of leather bands that he still keeps tight around his wrists. He takes note of its serial number and heads for the counter.
Five years into marriage and the sheen of it has dimmed a little like the easy silver of their wedding bands. He still loves the way Aiden is his, of course, loves the sound of the word ‘husband’ as it leaves his lips when he says he’s got plans for the evening; it spills out heavier than ‘boyfriend’ and means he’s taken, too.
There’s a lady behind the shelves, and when she smiles at him in her over-friendly way her lips pull back to reveal blinding white teeth.
She says, “You’re Matt Cardle!” in an almost-squeal.
Matt laughs, yes, he is, and can she please help him to take out the piece labelled No.-
“Matt Cardle,” she chimes, and simpers coquettishly at her good fortune, and before Matt can repeat his question she launches herself at him and presses her mouth to his.
Matt coughs and pulls back but her hand has found its way around the back of his head and he is kind of stuck and he needs to fucking breathe and he finds himself returning the kiss.
When they eventually part Matt directs his eyes over her shoulder and scans the shop. Suddenly her strawberry scent makes him nauseous, and the look on Aiden’s face makes him want to take it all back.
*****
The drive back is fraught with tension. Matt doesn’t want to see Aiden’s livid face and be reminded that he was the cause of it, so he keeps his eyes on the buildings that roll past them, singular and monotonous.
Back home, Aiden unwinds the scarf from his neck and chucks it on the table. Matt follows him into the room, grabs his arm which Aiden immediately twists out of his grip.
“Get out.”
“Damn it, Aiden, it was only a kiss-”
“Fuck,” he spits. “Fuck, you.” What he hates is that Matt has stringed his name and the act together in the same breath, and what they have between them is forever tainted by this association.
The hinges cry shrilly at the impact, and something is knocked over before the front door slams. “It didn’t mean anything!” Matt yells in the direction of the door, to no one in particular.
*****
Backstage, Aiden tugs uncomfortably at the ear monitor before ripping it out completely, shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He knows the girl wasn’t anything more than a rabid fan; the disgust on Matt’s face when he glared at her was more than enough to confirm that. But he feels that even then it shouldn’t have been for Matt to say, it should have been his call to judge, not Matt’s, not when there have always been rumours flying every which way about Matt’s promiscuity that recur like the seasonal ‘flu, not when he has tied his youth to a man nine years older and assured him again and again that he does not regret anything.
On stage, he tries to sing the memory away, hiding it deep beneath songs that don’t belong to him, never did belong to him no matter how hard he tried. He doesn’t understand what the fans see in him, five years on and still sporting the quiff he did as a teenager, mulling over the same old covers in a dark pub.
Tonight he screams into the microphone, I’m Mr. Brightside, a fifth higher than he usually does. The note catches in his throat and he prays no one notices. His eyes are burning and it’s a comfort to close them; he’s glad that it’s a perpetual habit of his and won’t be taken as a hint of emotion by the throbbing crowd of fans waving their hands at him, their palms raised up to the sky to catch he doesn’t even know what.
*****
By midnight, Aiden’s still not back and Matt’s drinking from a dark glass of guilt and indignation. He taps the cigarette case and it falls empty. He swears at nothing, no one and paces the hall, his footfalls alternating between a reproach and a reprimand.
He heads out.
*****
Aiden returns to an empty house and scoffs, to think I was worried, and doesn’t even bother flipping the lights on. His palms break out into little cold beads when he imagines Matt with someone else at a bar, someone faceless and composed of heat and alcohol, and throws himself into bed without taking his shoes off.
Two hours later, Aiden’s ringtone splits the night open. He reaches for his phone, almost drops it before bringing it up to his ear.
“mmmhello,”
“...”
“What? Where?”
“...”
“...”
*****
The fourth night of vigil sees Matt’s mother prying Aiden from the chair beside the bed and settling him down on the lumpy old couch that doubles as a bed for overnight visitors. She pats his shoulder and places a mug of warm tea in his numb hands.
Aiden doesn’t know what to do; the idea of swallowing anything makes his stomach heave and perform triple back-flips so for lack of a response he fiddles with the teabag label. It has strange symbols on it and he imagines being able to say them, imagines the shapes his lips make around them when he’s pouring them into the kernel of Matt’s ear.
But Matt never stirs.
*****
Sleep has caught Aiden with his head at an awkward angle, and Liam blinks at the crick in his neck Aiden will have to put up with for the next two days.
Harry stops Niall’s hand on the door handle, shakes his head. The boys (even though they were no longer in their teens, Matt still spoke of them as boys, and Aiden had laughed and said are you trying to-) crowd around the entrance and Zayn puts the player on the floor, snug in the gap between the door and its frame so it stays ajar.
“Our record’s out the end of the week,” Harry starts, barely above a whisper, “and I, we, just thought...”
“...we just thought you’d want to know,” Louis finishes, and pops their first single into the player, the one that might have been if they had won, but all that pales to insignificance for them here and now, huddled hapless against the sharp clean whiteness of the hospital corridor.
/let us die young or let us live forever,
we don't have the power but we never say never/
There shouldn’t be a dichotomy, they can fall in love and outlive both, die a little each time to let their love burn a little longer, what was he thinking, he can’t even-
/some are like water, some are like the heat,
some are a melody of some other beat,
but sooner or later they all will be gone/
Niall opens the second verse, and Aiden had always said it was his favourite part, because his voice was like the first whiff of air you get when you push the bay windows out to invite the morning in, not that he liked the others any less, but it was just this song, and-
/it's hard to get old without a cause,
I don't want to perish like a fading horse/
Aiden brings him breakfast in bed and kisses his creased forehead, his body leaning precariously over the tray which has something suspicious and yellow on it but Aiden’s mouth has slipped down to his now and in an absent motion his hand reaches out to steady the glass of juice that tips to the-
/youth is like diamonds in the sun,
and diamonds are forever/
Someone is running towards him along the shore, his eyes sparkling with a glint no one can match. Somehow he knows it’s important and he has to catch up, he needs to meet this person somewhere in the middle where the waves are crashing in, closer and closer, but it seems to take-
/forever young,
I wanna be
forever young/
Aiden’s hair is silver and slicked back, wet from his morning shower. There is tea on the table, toast, marmalade, an underused ashtray. He is old (very old, if you judge by what his wrinkled hands suggest) but he is patient, he is patiently sitting at a table on the balcony, waiting, waiting, for-
/so many adventures couldn't happen today,
so many songs we forgot to play,
so many dreams are swinging out of the blue/
His eyelid cracks open.
/forever young,
I wanna be-
*****
Aiden jolts awake. There are nurses in the room, hovering about, emanating concern. The doctor is shining a light into Matt’s eye and muttering things nobody can fathom. Aiden watches, wary of what to expect. Very slowly, Matt brings a hand up to his face and pinches his nose bridge as if in pain, and his face squelches together, falls apart. Then he screams.
*****
Matt spends his days sleeping, or pretending to sleep so he won’t have to entertain visitors. Aiden finds himself explaining the same scenario over and over again to concerned producers and managers and paparazzi, till finally he breaks and lets the boys haul him out of the room into the corridor, where he grabs the chance to flee for refuge in the washroom.
He leans against the locked door and his breaths come out in gasps and shudders. He mentally rearranges the situation but comes up with nothing certain. There’s a distant flush from the cubicle at the far end. Aiden covers his eyes with his hands, presses them till it hurts. He stops and thinks, afraid to reword the truth because that would only cement it further into reality. The only thing he knows is that for now Matt can’t see a thing, though it’s possible he might see again, but most likely never.
Aiden cries silently in the stall, thuds his head against the partition just to make the incessant buzzing in his head go away.
*****
The runny egg trickles sideways down the curve of his chin, its flow retarded by Matt’s scruffy beard. Aiden makes a mental note to help him with shaving later, and isn’t even aware that he’s made it out loud till the silence between them cringes with pain at being broken and Aiden’s eyes smart.
“Um, I can help you with it, yeah, later, if you want” he finishes lamely.
“Just leave me alone,” and it comes out harsher than he intended but fuck, what does Aiden know, and he makes to stand.
“Matt-”
“I said,” he snaps, but can’t bring himself to repeat something he doesn’t really mean, so he simply pushes Aiden away and rises. He sways a little like a snapped reed and Aiden lunges forward, reaching out to catch him but they don’t touch. Matt backs away, arms swinging wildly like wings, and his chair falls to one side and he jumps at the noise. His hand knocks over the bowl and it flies across the table unto the floor, its trajectory marked out in yellow streaks. And Aiden can’t help but think, now he’s got to clean this up, and forgets that Matt can’t even fucking see the mess, so what’s the use of complaining. He runs his fingers through his hair and pleads, “Matt.”
“Just-” Standing up too quickly has his head swimming and before Matt knows it he’s dropped to the floor. He’s too tired to be embarrassed anyway, so he thinks, fuck this, since he’s already down on his hands and knees he might as well crawl his own way into the dark, where he can be alone for once without Aiden’s pitying eyes boring holes into the back of his head.
“Matt.”
“Just leave me be!”
Aiden turns around because he doesn’t want to see any of this. “I’ve never even blamed you for-” he hollers, but Matt has managed to kick the door shut between them.
*****
Three hours later Aiden tries the door knob and it eases to let him through. Matt’s curled up with his knees against his chest on Aiden’s side of the bed, and his hunched back tells Aiden he’s wide awake. Aiden reaches down and traces with one finger the rise and fall of each successive vertebra and winds his hand into the curls at the base of Matt’s head. He flips over and looks at Aiden and Aiden can see that he’s been crying.
“Shh...”
“No,” Matt says, “no.”
“It’s all right, see,” Aiden points to his own frame, battered and bruised from the past weeks, holding Matt’s head on its shoulder, “it’s all right, I’m all right,’ till Matt quiets and turns away, ashamed for blubbering, but also secretly glad that he did.
*****
At night, they take their places beside each other with Matt’s back turned against him, a blank wall of dispirit that pains him to see. He taps his shoulder and receives no response, so he calls out his name, a search warrant in the dark.
Matt turns around, a scowl written across his face. “What?”
In answer, Aiden brings Matt’s fingertips to his own eyes and pulls them shut. Matt says, “What are you-” but Aiden shakes his head, forgetting that Matt can’t see him before he remembers and says, “Wait.” He pulls Matt’s hands under his shirt and guides them over his body, over the signs of age and every inch of skin before resting Matt’s thumb on the raised scar on his leg, a souvenir from flying down the hill on his bike with his hands creased behind his back in cocky, youthful abandon, as he grasps Matt’s hands even tighter, fitting their palms together in a gesture that says, see, I haven’t changed and I never will.
Matt pushes himself up and he can feel Aiden beneath him. The bed creaks and his crown knocks hard against the bottom of Aiden’s chin and they both laugh; he’d forgotten how tall Aiden was, is, in his arms. They’ll learn how to fit together again, pulling apart the pieces where the fissures cleaved and fixing them back together, stronger this time and brand new.
Aiden kisses him now, kisses him like he wants to own him, every joint and rippled muscle, running his teeth sharp against his arm and neck and biting down hard, like every touch of his tongue is a mark of possession. A part of him strains at the need to punish Matt for, for (what? Aiden asks himself), but he can’t bring himself to do it, not when Matt is clinging to him like a lifebuoy in the ocean. As he rows his body over him Matt cries over and over, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and Aiden answers, it’s okay, even though the sting of betrayal still dyes his blood toxic he says, clear as night, it’s okay, for Matt he’ll make it okay, because that’s what he’ll always do.
The sheets have gone cold and Aiden pulls the blanket up around them both. Matt stays his hand and pulls him closer. He confesses to the thump of Aiden’s heart against his chest, “I kissed her. It was stupid. But that night, I, I went out to find you.”
Aiden doesn’t say, I know, or I forgive you, but merely kisses his eyebrow and exhales, the expiration of air speaking more than any words can say.
*****
This year it’ll be no different. Aiden sets him in the chair and presses his lips to his forehead just like he does every morning and goes to prepare breakfast. The familiar sounds of spoons chinking against crockery and butter sizzling lends the percussion to Aiden’s humming, and Matt picks out the rich brine of bacon from the myriad of smells that fills the house.
Matt weaves his thumb through his fingers, and his nail nicks a thread from the cuff of Aiden’s cardigan, the old one he’s taken to borrowing so often that Aiden has stopped asking for him to give it back. His fingers twine themselves nervously together. Matt blinks, once, twice, and then once more and there’s a faint figure before the stove, and while he can hardly make out its outline from the fuzz that is their kitchen wall, he’s pretty sure it’s Aiden doing eggs, just the way he likes them.