Sunsets & Silhouettes
Spending time and falling in love with Connor was like sinking into a warm lake for a late afternoon swim, watching the yellow sun turn aflame in the sky with oranges, reds, and pinks. He accepted and drew me further out to sea. I had to stop myself sometimes and remind myself to breathe before diving into more of his gentle embrace.
He had a habit of sneaking out of his house to meet me and I had the habit of enabling him, unable to stay away for our better good. He lived on the second floor of a three-story farmhouse, his sneakers making scraping noises against the roof tiles. He used the tree beside his window to climb down and I greeted him with an attempted kiss on his freckled cheeks as he placed his feet on the grass. He ducked out of the way and my embrace was met with the company of air
At this point in the therapy, I was used to it. I didn’t like it. Each denied kissed took a toll, but I didn’t want to spook him. On some days, he was open to it, but on others, he was jumpy and avoided touch at all cost.
“The usual spot?” he asked. He put out his hand, his fingers trembling. It was one of his better days. They had taken it easier on him this week.
I nodded and gently clasped his hand in mine as we walked in the direction of the sleek black Harley, reflecting in the fading sunlight. His skin was soft like a freshly fluffed blanket and I did not want to let go of it. Butterflies swept through me in a flurry, their wings beating in rhythm with my heart. As he wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head against my leather jacket, he anchored me to the ground and the butterflies threatened to break free.
We had a secret hideaway at an abandoned dock along Woodhurst Lake three miles from his house, hidden from predators of beast and man, trees towering us in twisted stories. With it being a chilly April night, there was little chance that anyone would find and turn us in to his father.
It was our place, our legs swinging over the creaking wood, toes dipping into the dark unknown waters.
“I’ll be okay,” Connor reassured me. “The therapy isn’t that bad. At this point, it’s just a lot of talking.””
“I don’t care what they keep telling you, or what you keep telling yourself. It’s not therapy.” I muttered under my breath. “It’s not therapy. It’s child abuse. Simple as that.”
He said nothing as he pulled away, scooting over several inches and leaving me cold on my side of dock. “I can’t stay very long. Dad set me up on a date with my ex.”
I snorted. “Adaline is definitely not another boy. Somehow, that’s worse.”
“Well, of course she’s not.” His leaf green eyes, resembling the color of the blooming spring, were glazed over in an emotion I couldn’t describe. He tried to hide behind wavy brown locks of hair which wasn’t quite long enough. I was surprised his strict Baptist father had not made him cut it. Maybe that was part of the therapy, too and the time would come to trim the remainder of the person he had been before.
“He said I won’t have to the group as often if I start dating girls.” Connor bit his bottom lip. “Maybe that’ll change me into the straight son he wants.”
Drawing near to him again, carefully enough not to scare him, I intertwined my pinkie with his. For the first time since winter, when he had first kissed me and accepted his fate, he didn’t flinch away from my embrace and took my whole hand in his. “You’re obviously trying very hard.”
He didn’t laugh. “Can’t you just be serious for one second, Andrew? Not everything in life is a joke.”
The smirk fell from my face and I turned my attention to the sunset heading toward the company of the blue waters. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s just hard seeing you go through all of this.”
His father, Pastor Shepard, had found out about us when he walked in on a chilly February night we were having a moment during a study session for midterms. His gelled silver-black hair burst as he grabbed me by my t-shirt and threw me out into a snow bank. I could still remember the deafening cries of Connor as his father screamed at him. He didn’t show up for midterms or to the lake.
Pastor Shepard pulled him out of school, despite being so close to the end of junior year. He was only allowed to leave the house for therapy, church, and tutoring, which was required for him to complete the grade.
Of course, he did not follow these rules for long. Two weeks into his therapy, we reunited through passed notes in the convenience store I worked in downtown. The bells clinked against the glass door and there he was. Connor had wandered in, around, and out, leaving a perfectly penned note on the counter behind him. He had not looked like himself, but he gave me a small smile and somehow, that was enough.
I gazed over at him, watching how he tried to keep a brave front. I knew what they did to him when he was in those sessions the tormentors labelled as therapy, trying to save him from eternal damnation. His father thought that they were helping him and that he wouldn’t burn in hell for being attracted to other boys, for looking at me the way that he should be looking at girls.
He was afraid of me and who I was to him, but he was more afraid of himself because of them.
We remained silent for a few moments, engrossed in the rare time we had together. I didn’t know the next time he would be able to get away from his family long enough to meet me at the dock. Time wasn’t a luxury we could afford, so we spent it wisely, settling on the rotten and creaking wood, our Converse sneakers reflecting on the surface of the frigid water.
After a few moments, Connor’s quiet voice entered the chilly atmosphere. “I don’t know why he thinks I chose this. Why would I choose for my family and God to hate me?” He buried his head into my shoulder and I rested my chin atop his brown wavy hair.
I murmured, “I’ve been there. My parents kicked me out over me being gay and left me nowhere to go. Then again they had never understood me.” I paused for a moment, a smile pricking at the corners of my mouth. “Your parents don’t hate you. I think they wonder what happened to the son they raised when you being gay has not changed the star athlete and honors student that you are. Who you love…It has nothing to do with you as a person. Just a small part.”
“I wish I had the same amount of confidence in me that you do.” He pulled away from my shoulder after a few moments later, holding my hand tighter. “And I do.”
“You do what?”
“Love you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Silence sat between us. It wasn’t awkward. It was just the truth simmering on the stove, waiting to be stirred again. I didn’t think he was waiting on my answer; something I could not give him. I did not know what it was, let alone what it felt like.
“What is going to happen, Andrew?” He looked over at me. “What’s going to happen when I go out with my ex and pretend that everything was how it was before you came around?”
“Take her out, be a gentleman, and take her home. Maybe give her a smooch.”
“You’d be okay with that?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
A slight twitch drew at the corners of his lips. “I have to say goodbye soon. I am supposed to pick her up and go to a baseball game. Opening night at the high school. I’ll hang out with her and some of the guys.”
“Are you going to be okay? Going out with them?” I looked at him.
He shrugged, his eyes following his feet as they swung beneath the dock. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.” He wrapped his arm around me and, as the April evening grew colder, he kept me warm. “Maybe after, I can find a way to go to your house.”
“I think that can be arranged.” I snuggled closer to him, nestling my face into the nape of his neck.
He wanted to walk home alone, to clear his head. After a kiss on the forehead and “see you soon,” I drove home on the Harley, shivering from the cold April night and the recent memory of how hard Connor’s green eyes were.
#
It smelled like rubbing alcohol, a stinging in the nostrils of whoever decided to walk through the doors of the metropolitan hospital. Even the bathrooms near the bubbly nursery were dumped with the stuff. Death crept along every corner, between the moans of the dying and the muffled cries of the living.
I sighed, rubbing my eyes and settling back into a waiting room chair. The cushions were worn and battered, much like those whom sat on them. Bile and unshed tears took turns burning my insides, hands trembling and knees shaking. I knew this was going to happen, that the therapy would turn him on himself. I wanted to hold him through the aftermath, but the images and shocks they put him through during the sessions had him flinching away those few times he’d found the spare moments to meet me at the dock.
Connor had to be okay. I needed him to be okay, craving his touch and yearning to play connect the dots with the four freckles on his cheeks.
Pastor Shepard had barred me from seeing Connor when he was first brought in two nights before. He had dragged me by arm, my fighting him the whole time. The other patrons watched as the older man shoved his gay son’s boyfriend into a corner of the psychiatric wing’s waiting room, but ignored us, turning back to their used magazines or staring at the floor.
“You’ve got quite the nerve showing your face here.” His eyes had been puffed and bloodshot, pink cheeks flushed with anger. “He was doing well, dating Adaline again.” He had swallowed deeply, clearing his throat. “He was doing great, but you had to tempt him and make him doubt the progress he’d made.”
I had pushed myself from the wall and into his face, his berated breath on my skin. I’d hissed, “I’m the reason he tried to kill himself? I’m not the one who sent him to people who put him into an electric chair to shock the gay out of him!”
“My son is not gay!”
“Really? Because he seems to enjoy kissing and holding hands with me!”
“Stop it!” Pastor Shepard had snarled. “Your parents were right in sending you away, but I just wish they would have sent you somewhere other than this town. Now my son is hurt, declared insane, all because you couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
“I think you need to reconsider this therapy you put him in instead of blaming me for making your son like other boys.”
“Why would I reconsider it? All I am trying to do is get him the support he needs so he can live a full life. No matter the cost.” The pastor had started to head back in the direction of Connor’s private room. “Stay away from him. His progress depends on you not being around anymore.”
I’d yelled after him, as hospital security had dragged me out. “This is his progress, you fucking prick!”
The third floor waiting room was empty, a few scattered toys on the worn russet plaid carpet from the likes of children earlier in the day. A few nurses were finishing rounds before the overnighters came in. They recognized me and my worn leather jacket from the night before and shook their heads.
I made my way toward the vending machines, my muddy Converse sneakers scraping against the tiled white floor. I popped two quarters into the coin slot and chose the best option. A can of Sprite tumbled out and I popped it open immediately, the carbonated soda spraying all over my jacket and ripped jeans.
“Fuck you, too.” I mumbled before taking a long chug from the can, feeling the liquid soothe and fizzle in my dry throat.
Steadying the can in my trembling hands, I wandered in the direction of Connor’s room, knowing that he needed me to be there for him. I was breaking at the seams, being only together by duct tape and Elmer’s Glue.
After confirming that no one was around, I slipped into the dark room, the moon casting little fragments onto the tiled floor. The room smelled even worse than the hospital hallways.
I took a deep breath as I sank into the chair beside Connor’s hospital bed. Wisps of his brown hair tickled his forehead as he slept soundly, not moving an inch. The screaming stopped and he was resting in a peaceful sleep.
“Hey, Con-man.” I murmured. He kept sleeping. “I had no idea that it was this bad. I knew – I knew it getting worse but you kept telling me that you would be okay.”
I brushed my clenched fist against his limp hand, purposefully ignoring the bandage on his wrist. “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier. Your dad wouldn’t let me see you. I think he’s convinced himself that he was just trying to help you and it’s my fault.” A trail of salt water traced down my cheek. “Maybe it is my fault. After all, you were Mr. Golden Boy until I came into town, the light of their lives.”
Placing his hand in mine, I kissed the top of it. It was soft and warm, just as always. “I thought I’d lost you for good. Please don’t ever do this again. I am going to do everything I can to make you feel safe, even if it means watching from the distance.”
I heard the door open, but apathy was my strong suit for a reason and I did not turn to acknowledge the nurse behind me. “What are you doing in here?”
My jaw clenched, not moving from Connor’s side. “I’m his boyfriend.”
“This patient’s family has asked us to keep you out of his room. They don’t find it to be…appropriate.” The nurse laced in pink scrubs placed a wrinkled hand on my leather-clad shoulder. I flinched away, drawing closer to the boy in the hospital bed. Her hand fell and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Come with me or I will call security.”
I cast one last look at Connor, feeling so torn and helpless. Is this what it felt like to have one’s heart outside of their body and walking around, vulnerable and open for anyone to step on and crush?
“I love you so much,” I whispered to him. “I know I should have told you that the other night, but I hope you can hear me say it now.” I pressed my lips to his hand again as I placed it gently on the bed. He did not stir, but I watched as the cardiac monitor picked up, as if his heart were a playlist to soothe me.
Before him, I never thought I would find someone to love and hold while watching the sunset. People told others like us that what we feel wasn’t real and that we couldn’t love fully. If this feeling that I had in the pit of my stomach every time I looked at Connor wasn’t love, the world needed to change its definition.
I followed the nurse out of the room, once again being swept up in the scent of rubbing alcohol and imminent death. She turned to me, a frown gracing her mouth right above the mole on her wrinkled chin. “I think you better go home. You can always see your friend when he is released.”
I shrugged and stuck my hands into my pockets. “I doubt his family would allow it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I saw what happened the other day with your friend’s father and I wish there was more I can do. But I could lose my job.” She touched my arm. This time, I didn’t pull away. “Do you need to call your parents to pick you up?”
“No, but thanks anyway” I muttered, already turning to the stairs leading to the ground floor as more tears made their way down my face.
#
A single candle burned at the altar of the hospital’s chapel as I sulked in and sank into the front worn pew. It smelled of burning vanilla and dried tears, a box of tissues nearby for the emotional worshippers who ventured in. A wooden cross hung on the wall, accompanied by stained glass windows, reflecting in the still water of a baptismal cup that sat tranquil on the podium.
The last time I went to any sort of church was when I was in the fifth grade and sang in the choir during Easter mass, casting curious looks at another boy across the row of singing children. I knew I was different and how the church felt about it. I ostracized myself from all religion by the time I was fourteen before the pews of loyal Catholics could even try.
I clasped my hands together and looked up at the cross, “Hey there, God. I know it’s been a while.” I chuckled, trying to ignoring the prickling of tears in my eyes. “I don’t know what to believe. All I do know is that my boyfriend just tried to kill himself after he was sent off to be de-gayed.”
A lump formed in my throat. “They electrocuted him while showing him pictures of me, of other men. They put ice in his hands. They told him what our relationship is sick and wrong. Every time I even move towards him, he flinches. How is that holy? How is that helping him?” My voice kept rising, the words tripping over the bundles of the thorns in the way. “Do you really hate him? Do you hate gay people? Did you want us to suffer at the hands of our loved ones, by a Holocaust, torture or by a plague?”
I pushed myself to my feet and marched up to the altar, pointing an accusing finger at the cross, “Are we just a mistake? That’s what my parents told me when they kicked me out! Connor’s dad sent him off to people to torture him!”
With a quick hook of my hand, I swished the baptismal cup onto the velvet red carpet, soaking it with water and hypocrisy. “What’s the point?” I screamed at the cross, slowly sinking to my knees. “You made us this way! Did you want us to live a life of misery? Answer me!”
The sanctuary stood at a still silence. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to open them but a few tears managed to escape from the corners.
I looked back up at the crucifix, the fury set afire in my insides calming. “I may not know what to believe. But Connor believes enough for the both of us. He thinks-no, he knows that there was something bigger than him out there. So, God, Yahweh, Allah, whatever, keep him safe. You owe him that much.”
As I turned my back to the cross and walked out the room, I noticed a shadow in the back pew. Through blurry vision, I recognized the broad-shouldered Pastor Shepard, his usually neat hair falling over his forehead and his button up wrinkled. His head hung between his shoulders with his hands clasped in silent prayer.
I cleared my throat, wiping my face with sleeve of my leather jacket. “Pastor Shepard.”
“Andrew.” He never looked up, but he nodded in the slightest. His hands clenched tighter. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
A moment passed. “Saving him that night.”
The images of finding my boyfriend in a pool of his own blood flashed behind my eyes, screaming for his parents to come. We’d been discovered again, only now with my compressions into his chest and breathing into his mouth, tasting his soul as it slowly left his body through the vertical slash on his wrist, crimson staining my bare knees through the holes in my jeans.
After a moment of hesitation, I sat beside him on the worn cushions, keeping an arms-length distance between us. The indigo fire of rage had been all-consuming within the pit of my stomach for so long, subdued and faded away like morning mist. The candle continued to burn, illuminating our silhouettes as he clasped my shoulder; a gentle encircling of fingers of comfort that he nor a loving God could ever provide.
But, in that moment, it was enough and I did not pull away.
Time Won't Fly
present // call me up again
The summer heat was long gone, the humidity dissolving on the surface of Virginia’s rolling hills and open fields. Crunchy leaves replaced it as they rustled in the trees with the small breeze.
Cloudy skies, cooler days, and empty phone calls.
The breeze did not stand a chance against the white-trimmed house with the termite-eaten porch and black shingled roof but it managed to chill the bones of the scruffy, long-haired man sitting in an old white chair, which creaked under his weight.
He’d managed to put the weight back on after treatment for whatever disease the government had given him. Or the mental toll that he had lost track of and it had paved a freeway and started taxing the poor. Him, the poor, unlucky bastard.
His phone vibrated and he glanced at it. His heartbeat picked up a beat, but he let it go to voicemail. It was too early for her to call, though he wasn’t surprised. She had the bad habit of checking in. Even though she had checked out years ago, like a disgruntled patron at a fancy hotel in Manhattan and didn’t manage to leave any kind of clue other than a short note on the dinner table that her mother had given to them as a wedding gift.
A separation at most and distance at the least; the Catholic indoctrination in her bones told her no divorce and for once, he was grateful for the Pope and all his outdated rules and abusive bishops.
He turned his attention back to the rustling leaves. He ought to call the kid from fifteen minutes up the road to rake them up and burn them. Maybe tomorrow. Or never. He didn’t mind them piling up as much as he had when she was still living here.
He watched the rain’s intensity pick up, pools of water gathering in the ember colored veins. They reflected the grey sky, promising a downpour and an intense breeze.
#
“Mulder, it’s me. I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday. Would you like me to drive up and see you? I can bring dinner if you’d like. Call or text me. Love you. Bye.”
The l-word slipped off her tongue like a verbal tic she couldn’t get rid of. Old habits die hard, but fortunately, she was immortal. Or so he joked whenever she’d find a grey hair in his ear as she spooned him in their bed. Their old bed. His bed.
Ancient habits don’t die. They haunt.
She gazed out the window. The trees didn’t bloom with color like the ones around his house did. They’re just bright, borderline neon yellow here in the city, staring at her from her third level Georgetown apartment. They fell in heaps, not gracefully on the autumn breeze.
The drops of rain streamed down her window. She hugged the afghan blanket closer to her small frame, fiery hair tumbling around her face. She still hated fall, but not as much as she once had.
He had eased her into the apple picking and jumping into leaves while they were supposed to be raking them into piles. Hot apple cider swept through and warmed their insides as they’d laughed and frolicked on the crunchy, cool ground.
1993 // autumn leaves falling like pieces into place
“Let me guess. You’re going to murder me up here in Appalachia,” she scoffed as she looked over at him. Maybe he was lost and didn’t want to admit it. She had a map and a full cup of coffee and yet he kept turning on dirt roads.
His beat-up Ford Taurus wasn’t meant to be driving on northern Virginia’s winding roads. It chugged along and groaned as they turned on another hill. The late afternoon sun set the back windshield ablaze, showing off the intensity and depth of the dirt that was caked on there. He’d meant to clean it before she arrived.
But she’d been early – no, she’d been early again and he’d barely been able to get a sweater and a pair of jeans on, let alone take out a washcloth and spray bottle. He didn’t drive it often enough to warrant wasting a dollar worth of quarters on a car wash.
“How can you even see behind you? What if cops come by?”
“They only patrol up here once or twice a month. A need be basis, Scully.” He glanced over at her with a smirk that she was already tired of. After only a week of working with him in the basement of the Hoover building, she was ready to throw his desk at his stupid, smirking face. “Besides, even if they did, it’s a good thing we’re the big cops in town, huh?” “Hm.” She rolled her eyes, which only widened his smile. He loved to annoy her. It was too easy. “We have an early flight to Oregon tomorrow, Mulder. What are we doing up here?”
Another turn, another groan from the Ford Taurus. “It’s one of my favorite places to see the fall color.”
Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Fall color?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “We live in Virginia, which accounts for a quarter of the Appalachian Trail. That means woods and woods mean leaves turning red, orange, and yellow.”
“I know that.“ She shook her head with another roll of her eyes. “That just seems so…normal compared to your other hobbies. Alien hunting, paranormal activity, fall color driving.” She looked over at him. “You should put that as your FBI email tagline.”
“Maybe so, though Skinner wouldn’t appreciate that too much,” he chuckled. “Not a fan of autumn?”
“It’s okay. I just never saw the appeal. It’s essentially just death of summer and the birth of winter. It’s not that exciting. Not to me, anyway.”
“Awfully morbid, Scully. Have a sense of adventure.”
“And you, Mulder, need to have a sense of realism.” There was that smirk. She could have smacked him with the map.
“We’re almost there. Just buckle in and enjoy the colors.” He peered over from the corner of his right eye. “I have the heat on. Why are you still wearing thing? You ought to be warm.”
“Now that you mention it…” She unwrapped the beige knit scarf from around her neck and tossed it on the floor behind her seat. “Remind me to grab that before you drop me off at my apartment later.”
“Sure, no problem.” He dialed the radio to the only station available up in the mountains: the local fiddler’s fiddlin’ to a Bob Seger song. There were no lyrics to sing along to, but he looked over at her and her fingers were gently tapping the outside of her left leg.
He turned it up louder.
present // just to break me like a promise
She settled into the creases of her couch, draping the afghan over her petite body. She hoped that he was okay. He didn’t check in as much and since his release from the psychiatric hospital in Massachusetts, he’d been even more distant. She and Skinner had to drag him in; he’d been found wandering in a fugue state along a freeway, only wearing a pair of basketball shorts and clutching an old beige knitted scarf.
He’d been so disoriented when Skinner threw him in his SUV that the Assistant FBI Director drove over seven hours at one in the morning to get him to the care he needed at the best hospital his pension would pay for. She’d hopped on a red-eye and met them there just as Skinner and two staff members were attempting to coax him out of the vehicle.
He’d only calmed when he saw her and fell into her arms, sobbing into her plaid blazer and she’d walked him to his room, where he would remain for a month or so for treatment and evaluation and then be sent to the rehabilitation center for daily individual and group therapy until he was cleared to be released; that did not happen for eight months.
She’d visited until his therapist advised not to, saying that she was the biggest problem and he’d needed time to recover from his dependency on her as an emotional crutch.
A crutch. She had to chuckle now, after so months of crying and calling her mother, even staying with her for a short time. She’d run out of tears and now she could only laugh. A crutch. She’d left nothing but a note that winter day all those years ago, because she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be a crutch for what was going on his head and she didn’t need a fellow doctor confirming what she’d already known.
They’d gotten back from the blissfulness of the island and his demons had just been waiting for him in his office, covered in National Enquirer clippings and a thin layer of dust. She’d spend time dragging him between double shifts at the hospital and to several mental health professionals in the area and he would be normal, for their eyes at least.
He’d needed help, she’d tried, and he’d thrown it back in her face in harsh, slurry epithets and midnight, drunken fights, the dim fluorescent light streaming from the open refrigerator. Fights about darkness, fallen angels, and their son wrapped in a blue blanket, hidden away in hill country and far away from the demons in his father’s head and the frustration crawling around in his mother’s flesh.
Had she stayed, she would have also needed mental health care; probably in the same wing and they could have been the ‘it’ couple of the McLean Psychiatric Hospital. Wouldn’t want to remove the crutch completely, right? The stubborn man she loved needed to learn how to stand on his own, so she caused the fall when she pulled away; something neither of them could neither forget nor completely forgive.
The redhead glanced at her phone again. No response. He was probably outside away from his phone. It was only eleven or so. She knew him well enough that he wouldn’t be up for talking until at least one or so today.
She called at least twice a week and sometimes he would pick up and others he would just text her an emoticon of a smiley face. Not in the mood was what she got from that. You’ve done enough. Leave me be.She couldn’t leave him be and deep down, she knew that he didn’t want her to either.
Wrapping herself tighter in the blanket, she flipped on the TV. The Price is Right reruns.
Perfect.
#
He wandered into the house, the porch creaking under his feet. He ended up in the kitchen, opening and closing the door, aimlessly watching the light pool on the old tile. He poured himself a glass of rum. Eleven in the morning? Hell, it was his birthday. He may as well celebrate, right?
He stroked his scruff and took a sip. Sharp. It stung his throat but he finished the small glass and poured a larger one. The whiskey swished in his empty belly, warming it and making him feel fuzzy.
Escapism, his therapist had told him in their last session. He was a professional at escapism; movies, television, old newspaper clippings, and alcoholism. He just asked the man, how could he not? His memory was not as old as the rest of him. It was picture clear, like a new HD TV and the feeling of his son’s fingers wrapped around his index. He had to stop thinking about his aging, his existence, the copious amount of empty time he spent chasing monsters in the dark with the woman he had so dearly loved.
He needed to escape. He traced the lines of the kitchen table. The note had sat there just a few years before. He just wanted to disappear into himself for a while, drumming his fingers against the whiskey glass.
Thoughts of her kept coming and he had to pour another. Her smell, the taste of the lip gloss when he would steal a kiss, and the way she would tuck locks of her red hair behind her ear as she bit her lip when she was thinking. He trudged over and collapsed onto his worn sofa and closed his eyes.
There she was, behind the lids that covered the tired pale green irises. Everywhere. She was everywhere in his mind, and at this point, maybe that was what he needed.
Scully. Come over. Need 2 c u 2day. Bring dinner if u can.
Message sent.
It would be a few hours with D.C. traffic and rural Virginia’s possibly flooded backroads. He closed his eyes again, determined to sleep off the three glasses of whiskey before she pulled in the driveway. The Price is Right played quietly in the background, the glow of the TV warm on his face as he curled into the dusty cushions.
1998 // future was me
“Can you turn that down, Mulder?” She pushed herself up from the loveseat in his apartment, gently cradling her head. It still throbbed from surgery weeks before. “Bob Barker is pounding every remaining cell in my brain.”
“Coming!” He half-walked, half-jogged over to the dial on the TV set and turned it down to where it was almost muted. Loose hairs bounced against his creased forehead, jaw clenched. “Any good deals?”
“Weirdo #1 is dressed up like Cher from the ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ video. Missile and all,” she replied, laying back and groaning. “Weirdo #2 is channeling some kind of gypsy type costume. Not even sure if she realizes that’s culturally insensitive.”
“Culturally insensitive. Since when?” he asked.
“Dictionary definition, so since forever,” she replied. They fell silent momentarily before she groaned again. “If I have to keep watching daytime television, I am going to knock on Skinner’s door until I annoy him into letting me back.”
He bit his lip. It’d only been a short time since she was released from the hospital. Remission. Tentative. Maybe just a temporary thing before she’d be put back in that godforsaken deathbed.
Temporary, like her having to stay with him until she could go home. Maggie had to leave and Bill had to return to his family and career. Maggie had entrusted her daughter’s recovery with him and she scared him as much as he admired her. He had to take care of his red-headed partner, even if she was getting on his nerves with the strict soy diet she suddenly had to be on.
His tight shoulders grew even tighter as he stood there, his eyes going back and forth between the TV, the floor, and her. She knew that having her stay with him made him tense, nervous, on edge. He hadn’t shared space and late night secrets with someone since he was a little boy. She was a trespasser that claimed temporary squatter’s rights until she was well enough to be on her own again.
She patted the cushion next to her. Seeing her genuine smile – all lip, no teeth, the little dimple on the right side of her face – warmed the coolest parts of his heart and he felt as color rushed to his cheeks. His shoulders loosened a little bit. “Hey. Come watch the weirdos with me. They have a trip for two to Fiji.”
“Fiji, huh?” He took her offer and part of her blanket. Their hands brushed and remained there, between their still bodies as he settled in with a shuffle of his shoulders.
She took a deep breath as their skin brushed. She could smell, nearly taste his cologne. Musky and the multiple acres of woods he had dragged her into since they’d started working together five years ago. Armani was too expensive and uppity, but he seemed always smell nice, no matter what pit, swamp, or dank basement he had gotten trapped in. What for? Who knew what was going on in his head and what his motivations were? She could hardly keep up with him when she was healthy, let alone recovering from terminal cancer in his dimly lit apartment.
His eyes fell and rose against the powers of gravity to look at her as she watched the dusty TV set, her left hand supporting her head as her eyes started to flutter. The antibiotics and medications usually had her sleeping a lot. She was weaning off of them quicker to get back to work sooner than the doctors would like, but the naps were frequent and he would leave the apartment to do some paperwork at the office and come back and she would be snoring softly, wearing his old t-shirt and lying on his hand-me-down couch.
Their hands still hadn’t moved. Weirdo #1 lost Fiji but managed to rally and win a brand new Honda Civic.
She would be going back to Georgetown soon, within the next four or five days where she could care for herself. She was ready to leave, but he didn’t want to see her go. Even if it meant having his bathroom back, no longer having to worry about keeping her lavender shampoo and vanilla body wash from running out.
He liked her like this, without the blazers, without the eye rolling, without the stress of him getting her into dangerous situations. The little twitches of her smile were more frequent and she kept her hair up in a small ponytail. She would be engrossed in her books as he’d cook dinner. She liked his cooking, or at least the three dishes he could make really well.
Her eyes finally fluttered shut, but his remained on her soft face. He could remain like that for the rest of his life, watching as her breathing grew deeper and she adjusted into the couch. Her hand never left his, and he didn’t pull away.
He knew that he never wanted to, and, even if he did, he never would.
present // so casually cruel
He awoke an hour or so later. The empty glass was on the floor. The 6 o’clock news had started, reporting rain for the rest of the day and a robbery in D.C. near the Capitol Building. Political bullshit again and another worthless debate he couldn’t give less of a shit about.
The warmth of the whiskey was gone, but a slight migraine, right in the temple, replaced it and started to pound as he sat up with a grunt and a hiccup. A sleep crease wrapped around his right arm; the evidence of a nap well spent.
He turned the TV to a rerun of M.A.S.H and refolded the afghan. It’d been a gift from Bill’s wife many years ago. Though her brother could not stand the sight of Mulder, Tara had always welcomed him to their boys’ birthday parties and family luncheons.
Bill would scoff and escape to the basement to drink beer with his friends, while the disheveled FBI agent sat with Maggie and Tara, scratching meaningless patterns on the kitchen table with his fingernail.
She would be stroking his hand under the table, trying to keep him afloat for the afternoon. He would squeeze her small fingers to let her know that he was. A smile and a response of, “Yeah, that’s crazy.”
He wandered around the house again. He took his pills with a swig of water from the whiskey glass, rinsed it and put it on the drying rack. Not much else was lying around. The door to his home office was closed, not that he went in there that much anyway. It wasn’t the same without her sneaking him late night ice cream and stolen midnight kisses, their lips illuminated by his flickery desk lamp as she’d wrap her arms around his midsection.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Why had he asked her here? Sure, he had nothing but a lime in his fridge and some ice cube trays in the freezer, along with a package of frozen flounder that needed to be thrown away. He hadn’t spoken to anyone but his therapist this week, who’d warned him to not contact her for her good and for his.
Time was what they both needed, not silent conversation over the dinner table. It was selfish of both of them to want this day when no good would come of it.
He stepped outside and breathed in that cool air, the porch protesting underneath the torn socks on his feet. It was too late now. He could hear the rotation of tires on the dirt road over the gentle taps of the rain on the roof and see the trace of her head from his place on the porch.
#
It had been months since the last time she had been to the house with the white trim and broken porch light and even longer before then. It looked the same. The rain overflowing the leaf-filled gutters and dripping on the half-rotten porch.
Skinner had brought him home from Massachusetts and she’d driven out to the house to see him. He’d been a shadow of his former self, covered in an untrimmed beard crawling down his neck and hair touching his shoulders. His frame was nearly skeletal, his FBI windbreaker hanging loose from his body.
Their boss had told her that he’d been attending behavioral therapy sessions and would continue them, but he hadn’t said a word to her, just a nod. The meds, Skinner had said. He was still adjusting. BPD and PTSD weren’t difficult for the doctors to co-diagnose him with – she’d known that from her several observations of him and psychiatry wasn’t even her medical expertise.
However, he’d had manic depressive and suicidal thoughts about two weeks in with his meds, so he’d been put on two others to counteract them. His eyes were blank and his face was erased of any emotion. Not even the front he would put up and she would try to tear down with all the might she could. Just…nothing.
Now, however, there he was, dressed in a navy blue sweater and dark jeans, hands shoved in his pockets. The scruffy man she adored so much. Her eyes never left him as she pulled in closer and his eyes burned through her windshield, not breaking with the sweep of the wipers.
He seemed better, a little heavier in the face and middle. The beard was trimmed back and no longer trailing down his neck. She spotted his smile. It was a bit forced with no teeth showing, but that little pull on the right side of his face gave her what she needed; the indication that he was happy to see her, which meant that he had the ability to be happy again and not numb from those meds they’d had him on.
A warmth spread from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers. They tightened around the wheel, as she parked her car a couple yards away from the house, careful to stay away from the pools of water collecting in the potholes in the driveway.
She grabbed the bag of Thai curry from the restaurant down the road from her apartment; he’d drive into town and stop there to have lunch with Skinner or Reyes when he felt up to it. He would never stop by to say hi but would text her instead. Now the maybe next time was come over.
He opened the door for her and she caught the scent of a mixture of fresh rain, moldy leaves, whiskey and Axe body spray. “Welcome home, Scully.”
A twinge of worry twisted in her stomach. He realized this meant something but not everything? It was a disarmament and treaty, but in no way were they allies yet. It was a first step of her car in the driveway, not a uHaul truck.
He noticed. The smirk spread to the left side of his face, showing all his teeth. He took her hand and she took it tentatively as he helped her out of the car. “I’m kidding.”
“Very funny, Mulder.” She tried to stop them, but her eyes rolled anyway. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” he replied. He gestured to the bag of food. “This smells amazing. Is it…?”
“Your usual? It sure is. Thai curry with shrimp lo mein on the side.” Her hair swished against her cheeks as she shook her head. “Curry and shrimp? Odd choice.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, Scully.”
“Mhm.”
“I’ve heard that one before.” He winked at her. “Let’s get this inside before we’re all soaked to the bone out here.” He crooked his arm and she wrapped her arm around it. Old, haunting habits.
She ignored the ghosts for now, as he led her up the porch and into the house. His demons were nowhere to be found in his house, not even behind the closed wooden door that held old files and photographs.
He sat the food on the table and turned around to get two cans of root beer from the cupboard with cups of ice. She looked around.
Their old, unremarkable house and, somehow still, their home. Familiar in the furniture, the photographs, the dusty floors, and the afghan on the worn-out couch. The short note had sat there on the table not that long ago. An explanation to a man who deserved more time, more than I’m sorry and I will always take care of you, for better or worse.
He handed a glass to her and he did a cheers motion. His eyes held the pools of all they shared and the memories of the years before the separation; all the stolen moments they could not get back.
Slow dances in the kitchen, their only light pouring from the fridge. Crossword puzzles on the porch. Looney Tunes and sugar-free coffee cake after fucking on the living room rug on Saturday mornings.
2000 // one real thing
She never went into his room. They’d been partners for seven years, watching each other as they stole glances over his desk or on FBI cases and when their lives were in the most danger. She’d spent the night on the couch on late nights. But she’d never cross that line. It was messy, just as they were; he the volatile man that hardly ever slept in the bed, the sheets clean and untouched and she the woman who wanted to scratch an itch but had to resist. It would only leave more scars on them.
But some unanswered questions needed a reply and maybe tonight was that night. No more running away.
His hands were gentle as they slipped her blazer from her slight, tense shoulders. His eyes never left her face, the lace leaving no trace on her skin, falling to the carpet. Her naked silhouette lit with the moonlight trickling from the rips in his old curtains, breaking off into little fragments on the stained carpet.
She would not lose the game, taking her time like the tortoise. Her fingers did not shake as they unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his tie. He loved the way her body moved and how focused she remained. He stood completely still as he also became dressed in nothing but the thick, humid atmosphere. A drop of sweat traced the frame of his cheek.
They did not kiss until they were both fully defenseless from lust and unspoken words. Gravity drew them in and soon space they often chased was removed, the stars on her cheeks were covered with his lips, tracing a whole new galaxy as he moved down.
Shooting stars and meteors in the wide skies, they fell onto the bed.
The sheets trembled under their movements, gentle like a stream that flowed from him and into her. They didn’t make much noise and the sounds that did escape their tongues landed on the other’s lips brushing in the harmony of a tune only they knew. She held his hand, fingers intertwined in the familiar pattern of skin. As she moved, he groaned. Another kiss and slight smiles.
A husk of a human being, he collapses next to her, breathing heavily. “Did you…?”
She pressed a finger to his tremblings lips. He kissed it. “Yes.”
A pause. “Scully–”
“Sh. It’s okay.” She watched him and he gazed back at her as he traced his finger along what the sheet did not cover, the crevices of skin. that she only gave him access to, like the curve of her hips and her elbow that she was somehow ashamed of. Too pointy, she would claim.
She was so still, something neither of them knew how to do well. Not even the gold cross around her neck moved an inch; the only part of her she knew he was not ready to explore his fingertips and luminescent curiosity. Their breathing calmed, just slightly off pace with one another, as always.
She continued to watch with heavy eyes as he played connect the dots on her arm with soft tabs of his fingerprints. She was falling into something that did not welcome her with the explosion or oblivion she had always expected; rather, it was like a gentle dive into a Midwestern lake or drinking apple cider on a wrap around porch.
It felt so natural, it terrified her.
It almost seemed infinite, from the waves of his hair and the way it curled above his forehead to his naked shoulders, tight and toned in the bath of moonlight. His lashes never ended and kept batting the worn, slightly darkened skin beneath his eyelids.
There were words that they could not say aloud that night, or the next day, or the years following. More mysteries for them to solve, driving along abandoned roads and sleeping in cheap hotels, making love on the taxpayer’s dime.
present // walk home alone
Empty containers cluttered the coffee table, a few stray lo mein noodles strewn along the patterns of the dark wood. Their chopsticks remained unused; they had opted for an easier meal without the clumsiness that they would bring. He used them for drumsticks, she for mushroom and potato kabobs.
She’d fallen asleep beside him on the couch, her long, red hair falling over her shoulders. He smiled. Her face was soft and slightly twitching, warm with the glow of the TV. He longed to touch her, but her consent had been revoked then and long ago, so he kept his hands on his lap and just twirled his thumbs.
He turned back to the TV and flipped through the channels. Nothing interesting, nothing exciting, nothing to get his blood moving or wake her up. The click of the buttons must have brought her back to consciousness.
Her eyes flickered open and peered over at him. He’d removed his sweater, left in a Led Zeppelin t-shirt that bore nothing but holes of overwear. His hair ruffled and eyes creased, he seemed to be the most at peace he’d been in a long time.
He turned his attention back to her as he felt her gaze on him. “Well hey there, sleepyhead.”
She pushed herself up to a sitting position, her feet brushing against his. “What time is it?”
He glanced at his phone screen. “Just after 8.” He leaned back into the couch in a heavy sigh. Neither of them bothered to move their feet. “Do you have work tomorrow?”
“No, but I’m on call for the surgical unit.” She brushed his hand. “Have you heard from anyone else besides me today?”
“Yeah, your mom called and so did Skinner,” he said. “Maggie never misses an event. She calls me for every holiday, even Hanukkah, which neither of us practice. She called me to wish me a Happy Arbor Day.”
“She told me that she has a calendar on her phone to remind her to call you, and only you. Not me, Charlie, or Bill. Just you.” She laughed, her shoulders shaking under the weight of the rare noise she managed to make.
He beamed back at her. His eyes sparkled behind the smile creases on his face. The sound echoed in his ears. He wanted to cherish it longer than what this night could give him. It was probably detrimental to his struggling recovery, but he needed her, his touchstone, his savior, the mother of his child, like how the moon needed the sun. They would only cross in a rare eclipse, but when they did, it was a worldwide event.
The stars would align, comets would fall, and another crater would crash into them. Reality would set in and he would make her cry silent tears as he wandered down a highway. Or she would leave him on a Saturday morning, nothing to indicate a problem but a note on the kitchen table.
A scribble. Nothing but a paragraph. Temporary, turned into over three years. Both of them alone. No eclipse for years to come.
“Hey, Mulder?” He realized that he’d been staring at her for way too long, as her hand brushed his. “Are you alright?” “Yeah, yeah. I’m good.” “Are you sure?”
“Mhm.”
“Alright, if you say so.” She pulled her hand back. A pause and then her voice, smaller than she was, whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“What for?” His face creased up. “What do you need to apologize for?”
“You know that.” A tear dripped down her cheek and it hit his hand still resting beside her. She kept her voice clear, still barely loud enough for him to hear. He muted the TV. “I don’t apologize for leaving. We both knew that’s what needed to happen, but how I–”
“Sh. It’s okay.” He reached up and tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek. “You don’t have to apologize. It was awful, don’t get me wrong, but I have never blamed you. I was angry– furiously angry, actually, but deep down, I understood. You were unhappy and I was toxic for you.”
“Hey. Stop that,” she murmured to him. “You weren’t toxic. You were hurting, trapped, ill. You were ill and I was a doctor and I couldn’t help you.”
“All that time, all of the meetings with psychiatrists and specialty doctors, you tried your best, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying at all.” His hand never left her face. “You shouldn’t be apologizing for anything. I should be.”
“No…no, you were sick. You were ill and I couldn’t–”
“That’s not an excuse. Scully,” he interrupted her, watching as her face hardened with frustration, “Whatever is going on my head when I have episodes or whatever my therapist wants to call it, I have to take care of those I’ve hurt afterward. I have no control in that present headspace, but I would find myself completely alone if I don’t.”
“I appreciate that, but I can’t shake this feeling of guilt.” She slowly took his hand and holding it between their bodies. “I realize we weren’t right for each other at that time, but,” she breathed, her breath smelling of mint and caressing his skin in a down-fur blanket, “I worry for you.”
“Don’t. I’m on my meds. I need time away from people most days because I am still learning how to just be,” he replied. “I take a lot of walks now. I may get a dog soon. My therapist says it would be better than sitting in this house all day.”
“A dog would be good for you.”
“You’ll have to help me pick one out. I don’t know anything about dogs.” Moments passed before he looked at her again and asked quietly, “Do you think about him?”
“All the time.” She squeezed his hand. “You?”
He responded with a tightening around her fingers. “Only when I’m not thinking about you.”
In the warmth of the TV’s dim glow, the only noise between them being their breathing, they missed each other even then. He was her broken masterpiece, torn by time and space. She remained to be the foundation he based on the theory of gravity. She missed him and the way he held her close and breathed, settling his tired bones and his mind open wide. He longed for her blue irises watching him as he rambled on and on about what she disagreed with him and the sight of her being genuinely happy.
No questions were answered, the same words reflecting against a different time frame. No problems were solved on that couch. A puzzle with missing pieces, pieces that had disappeared under her favorite bookshelf or under his pile of papers on conspiracy theories where his demons hid in that dark office.
Memories stacked between them that they remembered all too well and forgot to think about all too often.
2001 // lost in translation
They should have been used to goodbyes. They were both bilingual in the language of brokenness and chaos; it had rolled off their tongues without hesitation so many times.
Yet, as he was lowered into the ground, she was left with a blank stare as tiny tears rolled down her cheeks.He was gone, a gravesite left in a field. No one left but the gunmen, Skinner, Maggie, and her. The rain dripped from the sky in heaps of misery, catching on the mostly empty trees.
Another tear dropped from her cheek. Her mother held her close and she held the last memory of him as it kicked her womb gently. He would never know the joy of not being his father and raising their child better than his parents ever did with him. No lies, no deceit, no question of paternity. Just baseball games and trips to the science museum.
The dash on the grave scarred the very soul she had once cleansed for God but had promised it to him on all those late night drives and motel room pizza binges. He was gone and she was left alone.
Dirt hitting the top of his coffin, she was left with the last sight of him: six feet under and in the dark. The dark he had been lost in for his entire life had encompassed him and swallowed him whole, leaving her with nothing but shades of grey and a nursery he would never see and a child he would never know.
present // trying to be my old self again, still trying to find it
“Thanks for coming by with dinner, Scully.” He walked her toward the door, keeping his distance. Hands to the side. Breathe in, breathe out. He would need to book a session with his therapist later this week. His fellow psychologist would need to know about the two steps forward, three hundred steps back.
“Like I was going to let you spend your birthday alone, Mulder.” She touched his arm, right above his elbow. Not as bony when he was checked into the hospital. He’d built up some of the muscle again. “Should we do this again?”
“Yeah, yeah, I mean–Of course.” He smiled at her. She looked happier. Less stressed and well rested. Her eyes remained on him and he got lost for a moment. “Maybe next time I can bring some of that gluten-free stuff I keep reading about.”
“Sure.” She shook her head at him with a slight smile. Her hand was still on his arm, but his sweater was soft and clean, the beige scarf around his neck contrast the little grey flecks speckled in his beard. It looked familiar and reminded her of dreary days and apple cider. She liked the lack of distance between them, the warmth passing through their bodies like all of the years of chasing the unusual and paranormal.
The rain had stopped, but the breeze kept blowing, her red hair flying all over her face as they walked down the creaky porch. A few leaves decorated the windshield of her car. Stars were starting to peek out from the clouds. The crescent moon lit up her face in the absence of the broken porch light. He’d been meaning to replace that.
Before she could even reach for the handle, he bent over and opened up her driver side door. “It’s getting late. You better get home, before the deer start popping out of the woods.”
“You’re right. I should,” she replied. He smirked and her eyes fell to his lips, but just for a millisecond. She slid into her car and shut the door. She started it and rolled the window down. She looked up at him. Those eyes in the moonlight stopped his world on its axis. “I’m really glad you’re doing well.”
He shrugged, shoving his left hand into his faded blue jeans pocket. “I’m trying, Scully.”
“I know.” She nodded slowly as she whispered, “Me, too.”
“For better or worse, I’ll always try.”
She bit her bottom lip. “I know you will, Mulder. I know.”
They remained in silence for a few moments, crickets waking up and chirping around them. The breeze came through again and he shivered. His gaze fell back to his muddy boots, hands shoved a bit deeper into his pockets.
“It’s a little chilly. I better head inside.”
“You’re right.” She pursed her lips. Those words were unfamiliar to her but they felt nice to say, like the pressure was off for her to prove him to be right all the time. He could just be and so could she. They could finally relax with each other. It had only taken 23 years. “Happy birthday, Mulder.”
“You don’t have to say it again, but thank you…again.” With a hesitant hand., he touched her cheek, and she didn’t pull away. In fact, she tucked her chin and held it there between her cheek and her shoulder. “Drive safe, okay?”
She gave his hand a kiss just as he pulled it away, her mouth grazing his fingertips. “I’ll text you when I get to my apartment.”
“Okay.” He watched as she rolled the window up, put the car into drive, and slowly moved away from his house – their home, leaving him behind in the driveway. The red brake-lights illuminated the road, the tires sloshing in the mud.
She glanced in the mirror one last time to see him standing there with his hands in his pockets and nothing but an atmosphere filled with her temporary presence. It was the best birthday gift she could have given him, other than the son she had graced him with.
He looked up at the stars as her car continued to trek through the overgrown, wet field until he could no longer see the lights reflect against the sky. The knit ends of the beige scarf gently fluttered with the rhythm of the fallen leaves as they fell around them.
2002 // innocence
The cool floor of the prison chilled his bones, but he welcomed it. His skin was darker than usual, the New Mexico sun having beat on him nonstop for months before his capture. Half hiding in caves, half in plain sight, all the while chasing for cold answers in the darkness of abandoned, humid craters.
On the run but from what? More importantly, for what? Some silly superstition that could be disproven with a roll of her eyes or the small squeeze from his newborn son’s hand, the hospital band tight around his tiny wrist? What other questions could be given answers in nondescript folders and midnight meetings in parking lots?
His answers were waiting thousands of miles away, all the way in Georgetown, holed up in her apartment, where she was clutching her – their son, their son, their son William, strawberry blonde hair illuminated by the bedside light in her bedroom. William, with her eyes and his nose, bearing more than his late father’s name, and a possible future without him in it.
They’d let him keep some of his things; a worn out photograph from his worn leather wallet and a dusty beige scarf. For now, at least. He hadn’t been here long. Or had he? He’d lost track. All he knew was that they knew he knew what they were hiding and they wanted to take that from him. He couldn’t care less of what they did to him as long as they left his memories: her blue eyes looking back at him and his son’s fingers around his thumb.
Even though the scarf was stained with blood and mud, he pulled it closer and wrapped it around his neck. The long knit ends tickled his nose as he inhaled deeply. It’d been years since she’d worn it, leaving it in the backseat of his car, but somehow, through a myriad of miracles like her heavily-sighed ‘I love you, too’s’ and the defining of nature in the creation of their beautiful son, there was a faint whiff of lavender and vanilla.
Maybe it was his imagination and the demons were finally taking away his voice of reason, but he smelled it again. It was definitely her. All those lonely hikes in the desert, under the blistering heat and the frosty nights, that pathetic piece of fabric was the only thing that reassured him that he did not and would not forget her.
Her voice, her eyes, her smell. That little hair that would always brush up against her cheek and he would tuck it behind her ear. Those nights in musty motel rooms, nothing between them but scratchy, half-washed sheets.
He clutched it tightly in his hands; driving upstate and seeing the fall colors, stopping at an apple orchard and cider mill, getting out for a quick photo on his Polaroid just seemed so simple and boring, and so, so long ago.
As he lied there, staring at the grey ceiling and the prison floor chilling his sore muscles and bruised bones, his mind wandered to the wooded Appalachian Trail and his favorite spot at the edge of the clearing, surrounded by nothing but nature and her warm breath on his skin. He wanted nothing more than to gather up his little family and drive to where the leaves fell in heaps of reds, yellows, and oranges.
No more running, no more hiding. Just them, playing in the leaves and buttoned up in scarves, the cool October breeze rustling their hair.
