“Because it’s your life,” Nelson said, coming to the other side of him. “It is what you make of it. No, it’s not always fair. No, it’s not always good. It burns and tears, and there are times when it crushes you beyond recognition. Some people fight against it. Others … can’t, though I don’t think they can be blamed for that. Giving up is easy. Picking yourself up isn’t. But we have to believe if we do, we can take another step. We can—”
“Move on?” Wallace retorted. “Because you haven’t. You’re still here, so don’t you try to spin the same bullshit. You can say all you want, but you’re a hypocrite with the best of them.”
“And that’s the difference between you and me,” Nelson said. “Because I never claimed not to be.”
Wallace deflated. “Dammit,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it. Neither of you do. I…” He looked at Mei. “I’m proud of you. I’ve never said that before, and that’s on me, but I am. I can’t imagine doing what you do, the toll it must take on you. And dealing with people like him.” He swallowed thickly. “Like me…” He shook his head. “I need a moment, okay?”
He left them behind, thoughts swirling in a massive storm.
He walked up and down the rows of the garden, letting his fingers pass gently over the tops of the plants, careful to avoid the delicate leaves. He stared beyond, into the forest. He wondered how far he could get before his skin began to flake. What would it feel like to give in? To let himself drift away? It should have scared him more than it did. From what he’d seen, it was empty and dark, a hollow husk of a life once lived.
And yet he still thought about it. Thought about finding a way to rip the hook from his chest, and rising, rising, rising up through the clouds into the stars. Or running, running until he could run no longer. It was fleeting, this, because if he did just that, he could become lost, turning into the one thing Hugo feared most. A Husk. What would that do to him, seeing Wallace dead-eyed and vacant? The guilt would consume him, and Wallace couldn’t do that. Not now. Not ever.
Hugo was important. Not because he was a ferryman, but because he was Hugo.
Wallace started to turn back toward the deck, another apology on the tip of his tongue. He froze when he heard a sigh, a long, breathy sound like wind through dead leaves. The shadows around him grew thicker as if sentient, the stars fading until there was only black.
Movement, off to his right.
Wallace looked over, spine turning into a block of ice.
Cameron stood among the tea plants. Only a few feet away. Dressed as he’d been before. Dirty pants. Scuffed sneakers. Shirtless, his skin sickly and gray. Mouth open, tongue thick, teeth black.
Wallace didn’t have time to react, didn’t have time to make a sound. Cameron rushed forward, hands outstretched like claws. He grabbed Wallace’s arm, and everything that made Wallace who he was whited out as fingers dug in, the skin leathery and cold.
Wallace whispered, “No, please, no,” as Mei screamed for Hugo.
Cameron leaned forward, face inches from Wallace’s, his eyes pools of inky black. He bared his teeth, a low growl crawling from his throat.
The dark colors of the world at night began to bleed around Wallace, melting like wax. He thought about pulling away, but it was a distant, almost negligible impulse. He was a tea plant, roots deep in the earth, leaves waiting to be plucked.
Great flashes of light crossed his vision, the brightest stars streaking across all the blackness. In each of these stars, a glimpse, an echo. He saw Cameron and then he was Cameron. It was discordant, harsh and rough. It was brilliant and numbing and terrible. It was—
Cameron laughed. A man sat across from him, and he was like the sun. On the hazy outskirts, a violinist moved by, the music from the strings sweet and warm. There was nowhere else Cameron wanted to be. He loved this man, loved him with every piece and part of him.
The man said, “What’s that smile for?”
And Cameron said, “I just love you, is all.”
Another star. The violin faded. He was young. Younger. He was hurting. Two people stood before him, a man and a woman, both severe. The woman said, “Such a disappointment you are,” and the man said, “Why are you like this? Why are you so damn ungrateful? Don’t you know what we’ve done for you? And this is how you choose to repay us?”
And oh, how crushing that was, how it devastated him. He was heartsore and nauseous, wanting to tell them he could be better, he could be who they wanted him to be, he didn’t know how, he—
A third star. The man and woman were gone, but their disdain remained like an infection coursing through blood and bone.
The man like the sun rose again, except the light was fading. They were fighting. It didn’t matter about what, just that their voices were raised, and they were clawing and scratching, each word like a punch to the gut. He didn’t want this. He was sorry, so sorry, he didn’t know what was wrong with him, he was trying, “I swear I’m trying, Zach, I can’t—”
“I know,” Zach said. He sighed as he deflated. “I’m trying to be strong here. I really am. You need to talk to me, okay? Let me in. Don’t leave me guessing. We can’t keep going on like this. It’s killing us.”
“Killing us,” Cameron whispered as the stars rained down around them.
Wallace saw bits and pieces of a life that wasn’t his. There were friends and laughter, dark days when Cameron could barely pull himself out of bed, a pervasive sense of acrimony as he stood next to his mother, watching his father take his last breaths from his hospital bed. He hated him and he loved him and he waited, waited, waited for his chest to stop rising, and when it did, his grief was tempered by savage relief.
Years. Wallace saw years flashing by where Cameron was alone, where he wasn’t alone, where he was staring at himself in the mirror, wondering if it would ever get any easier as the dark circles under his eyes bloomed like bruises. He was a kid riding his bike in the heat of summer. He was fourteen and fumbling in the back seat of a car with a girl whose name he couldn’t remember. He was seventeen when he kissed a boy for the first time, the scrape of the boy’s stubble like lightning against his skin. He was four and six and nineteen and twenty-four and then Zach, Zach, Zach was there, the sunshine man, and oh, how his heart skipped a beat at the sight of him across the room. He didn’t know what it was about him, what drew him so quickly, but the sounds of the party faded around him as he walked over to him, heart tripping. Cameron was awkward and tongue-tied, but he managed to get his name out when the sunshine man asked, and he smiled, oh god, he smiled and said, “Hi, Cameron, I’m Zach. Haven’t seen you around before. How about that?”
It was good. It was so damn good.
In the end, they had three years. Three good, happy, terrifying years with ups and downs and blinking slowly in the morning light as they awoke side by side, their skin sleep-warm as they reached for each other. Three years of fights and passion and trips to the mountains in the snow and to the ocean where the water was cerulean and warm.
It was toward the end of the third year when Zach said, “I don’t feel good.” He tried to smile, but it split into a grimace. And then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed.