It was. The flakes were larger. The curl in his mind was stronger. His jaw ached. His hands were shaking. “Just a few minutes,” he whispered. Hugo joined him at the guardrail. “Why here? What’s this place to you?”
“My father used to bring me up here,” Hugo said, face awash with dying sunlight. “When I was a kid. This was where we’d talk about all the important things.” He smiled ruefully. “This is where I got the sex talk. This is where I got grounded because I was failing algebra. This is where I told him I was queer. He told me if he’d known, the sex talk would have gone a hell of a lot different.”
“Good man?”
“Good man,” Hugo agreed. “The best, really. He made mistakes, but he always owned up to them. He would have liked you.” He paused. “Well, how you are now. He wasn’t fond of lawyers.”
“No one is. We’re masochists that way.”
As the sun set, they stood side by side, Hugo’s shadow stretching behind them.
“When I’m gone,” Wallace said, “please don’t forget me. I don’t have many people who’ll remember me, at least not in a good way. I want you to be one of them.” His fingernails began to break apart.
Hugo’s throat worked as he swallowed. “How could I ever forget you?”
Wallace thought it would be very easy. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
The sunset was brilliant. He wished he’d taken more time to turn his face toward the sky. “Do you think we’ll see each other again?”
“I hope so.”
It was the best answer he could ask for. “But not for a long time. You’ve got work to do.” He blinked away the burn in his eyes. “And it will—”
But he never got to finish. The curl deepened. It tugged. It pulled. It yanked. The cable flashed. “Oh,” Wallace grunted as he stumbled.
“We have to go back,” Hugo said, sounding worried. “Now.”
“Yeah,” Wallace whispered as the sun dipped below the horizon.
* * *
He felt as if he were floating on the ride back. Hugo pushed the scooter as fast as it could go, but Wallace wasn’t worried. He wasn’t scared, not like he’d been before. There was a sense of calm about him, something akin to relief.
“Hold on!” Hugo shouted at him, but he sounded so very far away. The whispers had returned, growing louder, more insistent.
His head cleared when they hit the road that led to the tea shop. By then, his hands were gone, his arms were gone, and he thought he’d lost his nose. He groaned as they reformed, the bits and pieces snapping back into place like a complex puzzle. He gasped when Hugo jerked the scooter to the right. He thought they were going to crash, and for a wild moment, he wondered why he hadn’t insisted Hugo wear a helmet. But the thought was gone when he saw what had caused Hugo to lose control out of the corner of his eye.
Cameron.
Standing in the middle of the road.
I’m still here.
Rocks and dust kicked up around the tires as they skidded. A tree loomed in front of them, a great old thing with cracked bark leaking sap like tears. Wallace reached through Hugo, wrapping his hands around the handlebars, squeezing the brakes as hard as he could. They squealed and the scooter wobbled. The back tire lifted off the road momentarily before slamming back down as the scooter stopped, the front tire inches from the tree.
“Holy crap,” Hugo muttered. He looked down as Wallace pulled his hands back. “If you hadn’t—”
Wallace was off the scooter before Hugo could finish. He turned toward the road.
Cameron’s face was turned toward the stars, mouth open, black teeth bared. His arms were limp at his sides, fingers dangling. He lowered his head as if he could feel Wallace watching him, eyes flat and cold.
The hook in Wallace’s chest vibrated as hard as he’d ever felt it. It was almost like it was alive. The whispers were now a storm, spinning around him, the words lost, but Wallace knew then what they meant, why he’d felt the drive to leave the tea shop in the first place.
It was Cameron calling to him.
Behind him, Hugo lowered the kickstand on the scooter before switching it off, but Wallace wasn’t to be distracted. Not now. He said, “Cameron. You’re still in there, aren’t you? Oh my god, I hear you.”
Cameron blinked slowly.
Wallace remembered how he’d felt in the tea garden, Cameron’s hands wrapped around him. The happiness. The fury. The bright moments of the sunshine man, of Zach, Zach, Zach. The thunderous grief that overtook him when all was lost. He’d been told later it’d only lasted seconds, their strange union, but he’d felt a lifetime of peaks and valleys. He was Cameron, he’d seen all that Cameron had seen, had suffered alongside him through the extraordinary unfairness of life. He hadn’t understood the nuances then; it’d all been too much, too fast. He didn’t think he could understand it now, not completely, but the bits and pieces were clearer than they’d been before.
Even as Hugo screamed for him to stop, Wallace reached out and took Cameron’s hand in his. “Show me,” he whispered.
And so Cameron did.
Memories rose like ghosts, and Zach said, “I don’t feel good.”
He tried to smile.
He failed.
His eyes rolled up in his head.
Alive, then dead.
But it hadn’t been that quick, had it? No, there’d been more, so much more that Wallace hadn’t been able to parse through the first time. Now, he caught glimpses of it, flashes like staccato film, reels of tape that jerked from frame to frame. He was Cameron, but not.
His name was Wallace Price. He’d lived. He’d died. And yet, he’d persisted, on and on and on, but that was insignificant, that was minor, that was gone, because Cameron took over, showing him all that lay hidden beneath the surface.
“Zach,” Wallace whispered as Cameron said, “Zach? Zach?” moving forward, but he （they?） couldn’t catch Zach before he collapsed, head bouncing on the floor with a terrible thunk.
Wallace was no longer in control, caught up in the bleeding memories that surrounded him like an endless universe, Cameron on the phone, screaming at the 911 operator that he didn’t know what was wrong, he didn’t know what to do, help us, oh please god, help us.
“Help us,” Wallace whispered. “Please.”
Another jump, harsh and grating, and Cameron threw open the front door, paramedics pushing by him, lights flashing from an ambulance and a fire truck in front of the house.
Cameron demanded to know what was wrong as they loaded Zach onto a gurney, the paramedics talking quickly about pupils dilating and blood pressure dropping. Zach’s eyes were closed, body limp, and Wallace felt Cameron’s horror as if it were his own, his mind blaring WHAT IS HAPPENING WHAT IS HAPPENING over and over again.
He was in the back of the ambulance as they opened Zach’s shirt, asking Cameron if he knew of any history of illness, if he took drugs, if he’d overdosed, you need to tell us everything so we know how to help him.
He could barely think. “No,” he said, sounding incredulous. “He’s never taken a drug in his life. He doesn’t even like taking aspirin. He’s not sick. He’s never been sick.”