Anthony had been avoiding his parents' house all week since spending last weekend sleeping over - staying the weekend because the ache for Sören was getting worse all the time, and the flat they'd shared felt haunted - and his mum had heard him crying. Again. He felt pathetic. I'm thirty-five, for fuck's sake. His mum had been understanding, compassionate, not shaming him about it like he feared, but he still felt embarrassed.
And then of course the text from his mum had come, and he was obligated to go out there for dinner. It felt strange, spending a Friday night having a meal with his parents instead of at the pub with his friends, but it also meant that there was less chance for the mask to slip and for his friends to see how deeply unhappy he was. Because that wouldn't be fun. They weren't the kind of people he could vent to about his life - Anthony didn't have people like that around - and all of the things they'd suggest, go out and do things, go out and get laid, he'd been doing that for over a year and none of it actually worked to get rid of this constant pain inside him.
So here he was. His parents weren't the most terribly exciting people in the world, his father Roger was an accountant and his mother Elaine was an architect. She'd designed their spacious home in Blackheath, full of windows and natural light, complete with a high-walled garden of herbs and greens that his father liked to putter in, a garden where Anthony liked to escape for quiet moments when he could get away with it. A garden that Sören, too, had liked, when he'd taken him around. Sören had wanted to have sex in that garden, and it was bad enough they shagged in his old room, in his boyhood bed, with the deliciously wicked, kinky game they'd played throughout their relationship. Brother. Our little secret.
Dinner was the usual - his parents talking about their jobs, Anthony talking about this past workweek. Finally, the inevitable discussion of his gran came up, who was about to have her ninety-third birthday and was in increasingly frail health. It hurt to see her like this, knowing she was suffering, and it was really going to hurt to go out for her birthday, probably the last one she'd have.
"I went shopping for her birthday present," Elaine said. "Antiquing."
"Ah." Anthony nodded. "I... ah. I have no idea what to get her."
"I know. I took the liberty of picking out something on your behalf too, since I know you're very busy and it's hard to think about all of this."
"Yeah, thank you for understanding."
"Mhm." Elaine nodded. Then she looked at her husband and said, "Roger, can you excuse us for a moment? I have to talk to Anthony about something in private."
Roger nodded and patted Anthony on the shoulder before he got up, a conspiratorial look passing between Elaine and Roger, as if Elaine had briefed him to whatever this talk was going to be before Anthony arrived.
Anthony waited for it.
"I saw someone at the antique shop today," Elaine said.
"Oh?"
"Sören."
Anthony tried to not react, keeping his expression as neutral as possible, but his mother knew him too well, and when their eyes met Anthony felt like he was going to lose it. Just a single name could undo him.
Elaine reached across the table and put a hand on Anthony's arm. Anthony still tried to keep calm, but he was losing the battle of keeping the pain off his face, the tears out of his eyes. Elaine got up and came back with a box of tissues.
"I didn't talk to him long," Elaine said, "but we did... talk... for a few minutes. And I told him honestly how you've been."
"Oh Jesus Christ, Mum."
"And I gave him your business card and told him to get in touch with you. To at least talk about things."
"Mother." Anthony blinked back tears. He was touched and furious at the same time. "Mum, you can't do something like that."
"I did it. And now... hopefully he'll call or e-mail you."
"He will not." Anthony closed his eyes, remembering when he'd seen Sören back in late November, just before Sören's birthday, and Sören had rebuffed him. "It's. Been. Done. Since. October. 2013."
Elaine gave him a look.
"He's. Moved. On. With. His. Life." Anthony shook his head. "It's over. It's ended."
"You know it's not really over, Cornelius Anthony."
Not only did she have to meddle like this, but now she was calling him by that fucking name. Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed against his forehead, feeling himself wince. "Well, it is."
"It is not. You still have feelings for him, and Anthony, when I told him how you were, he almost cried."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything." Elaine shook her head and leaned back, looking annoyed. "So yes. I gave him your business card, but you know, you were the one to do him wrong -"
"No shit." It was something he'd been kicking himself for every day since that day in October 2013, and even before he was caught. Hurting Sören, who had already been through too much in his life, was the very last thing he wanted to do, and as much as he couldn't stop himself from reaching out the two times their paths had crossed since the breakup, he'd felt like he had some nerve for daring to do so. Of course he would reject me, after what I did. I don't deserve him. The sex with the man he'd cheated with hadn't been worth it to scratch an itch - he didn't scratch it the way Sören did. Sören had ruined him for other men, not that he'd been able to admit it when they had the big blowout that ended it all. It wasn't just the sex, but the feelings behind the sex.
"And it should really fall on you to go to him and apologize -"
"I tried that already."
"Maybe try again. Try harder." Elaine pursed her lips. "When your father and I had our... issues... while you were a teenager, we reconciled because he was persistent. He wouldn't leave me alone so easily."
"Yes Mum, I believe that's called stalking these days." He had to make the joke at his father's expense, but that was a concern too as a criminal defense lawyer, not wanting to be in trouble for harassment. Above and beyond that, not wanting to make Sören feel unsafe, threatened in any way. If Sören needed space, he had to respect that. He'd already done enough damage.
"Would one more try really be enough to qualify? Can't you just do something like when you were first dating, send flowers to his job -"
"Mum. I know you mean well. But could you not." Anthony buried his face in his hands and made a noise.
"I just want you to be happy. And I want him to be happy. He was such a sweet, dear young man. The two of you were such a nice couple. Even your father liked him, and you know he's been, well." Elaine made a vague hand gesture. "He wants to be supportive but it's -"
"Yes, I'm aware he's a little uncomfortable with his only child being a gay man. He tries." Anthony made another crack. "I try to be supportive of him being straight, too. I know it's so difficult."
"Now is not the time for being snarky, dear."
"Isn't it? It's how I cope. And right now, I need to cope."
"Anthony, your problem is that you've been coping for the last year and a half and not actually fixing it."
"There is no fixing it."
"I beg to differ."
"All right." Anthony got up from the table. "I need to... go... before this turns into an argument. I do enough of that all week."
Elaine walked him out to his charcoal grey Audi and gave him a hug. "Please do consider what I said."
"Bye, Mum."
Anthony didn't feel like going home just yet, nor did he want to go to something like a pub and deal with people, especially people he knew. The tears were about to come on. He needed to just drive and clear his head.
He put on his car stereo, defaulting to the Jamiroquai playlist, his favorite. Usually that was upbeat enough to put him in a better mood, chase away the funk with the funk. But there were a few songs that hit painfully close to home with what happened with Sören, and that one in particular came on.
There you were freaking out,
Trying to get your head around the fact that me and you and love is dead
See how I'm trippin out
'Cause you can't decide what you really want from me
Why does it have to be like this?
I can never tell
You make me love you, love you baby
With a little L
Of course, he hit repeat.
And then he saw a car charging, running a light, and before he could react it was too late. The car slammed into his, and Anthony watched his entire life spin out of control, the airbag springing as he was jolted again and again, windshield shattering, glass shards impaling his shoulders and chest, his hands bloody. He heard himself screaming involuntarily until he couldn't scream anymore, his voice giving out, the terror of the crash giving way to numb blackness descending on him.
Great, I've been killed by some twat in a red-and-yellow McLaren. Thanks, God.
"Mr. Hewlett-Johnson, you're awake."
Anthony made a noise. Even through whatever the hell he was on, his entire body hurt. Like he'd been in... well, a car wreck.
"You're also very lucky to be alive." The Black woman in scrubs and a white coat gave him a concerned look.
"How... bad is it," Anthony croaked out.
"You took some wounds to your torso that needed to be stitched up. And you've got concussion, whiplash, dislocated shoulder, fractured ribs... and spinal contusion."
"Spine." Anthony frowned. Even that hurt. "That's... I'm... not... paralyzed, am I?"
"Not quite. You'll need to be in a chair for awhile, will need physical therapy to walk again, but you should be able to walk again with time and work."
"Fuck." Anthony winced. "Er, sorry."
"It's quite all right, Mr. Hewlett-Johnson. Very understandable. But the good news is, you're alive, and nothing that's wrong with you right now can't be fixed."
Except my broken heart. Anthony wasn't so sure it was good that he was alive, either, and he hated that he thought that, even for an instant. "What... what about the other driver? The one that hit me."
The doctor wouldn't answer that question.
The answer to that came in the morning when Anthony read the newspaper with an unappealing breakfast, which he was already struggling to finish and absolutely couldn't once he saw it had made the news. They'd protected his identity - for now - but the poor sod who hit him was some bloke he didn't know named Justin Roberts, an up-and-coming football star. This Justin Roberts had been killed in the crash.
It wasn't Anthony's fault - Justin Roberts had run a red light, and he'd been under the influence, according to the paper. Anthony had very little sympathy for drunk drivers, always disliking it when he had to defend them in court. Even so, someone had died in that accident, and Anthony felt terrible about it, the weight of survivor's guilt piercing him as surely as the glass from his windshield had.
"Mr. Hewlett-Johnson," said the lady doctor who'd seen him yesterday. "How are you this morning?"
Anthony just made a face that said everything.
"Yes, I get it. You have a hard road ahead of you. But you'll pull through."
I'm not so sure of that. Anthony closed his eyes and tried not to cry.
chapter 3 | return to Learning To Fly | return to Other Tolkien Fic | return to index