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West didn't feel any better the next day. If anything, he felt worse. Exhausted. Wrong. Everything was wrong. Tension bubbled just beneath his surface and threatened to spill out of his every pore. He didn't feel the knob in his hand as he pushed open the door to Noah's studio. It was made of the same nothing air as everything else.
Noah looked up from the laptop perched on his knees and smiled. The smile faltered when West didn't return it. West tried. He tried until something in him cracked. But no smile came.
"You okay?" Laughter coated Noah's voice.
"Yes," he said. The answer was no, no he wasn't, but he couldn't say that any more than he could smile. He'd forgotten how to do either of those things.
Coming today had been a mistake. Better to have gone anywhere else, but he'd hoped that walking in the door would work its magic just like it had before and everything would come rushing back. The comfort. The sense of security. He'd been desperate for it ever since last night with Reese and his mother. If he could just get that feeling back maybe he could stop sinking. But the magic was gone. Maybe it had never existed. It wouldn't be the first time he'd fooled himself into thinking things were other than they were.
Noah nodded, eyes darting between the screen and West's face. He scratched a hand through his hair until it stuck up in every direction. "I tried calling you last night and you didn't answer so—"
"I was busy."
Noah fumbled at his pocket, fidgeting with something he found there. It looked like a coin. "Oh. Okay." His smile was a work of sheer will. West knew that, knew he should apologize. Those words were gone too.
"I think I've figured out which shots to use for the show. Come see."
I don't want to.
West went anyway.
Noah turned the laptop and angled the screen so West could see. It was full of thumbnails, all of them West. One of the first was the shot from the day they'd kissed. West spotted himself, body streaked with paint, head angled in challenge. He couldn't meet his own blindfolded gaze.
Noah brought up more images, explaining as they went how each piece would be arranged in the gallery, and West tried to follow as he mapped it out with words and enthusiasm, hands flitting through the air like butterflies as he spoke. This photo would be large as a focal point. These ones small. Noah scrolled his way down the thumbnails. West tied and untied, face lifted in ecstasy, teeth gritted, in shadow, in light, him, him, him. West's vision blurred white but he still saw it all. His eyelids were engraved with the memory of every one.
He looked...
He looked...
Even with his eyes covered and his face turned away, it didn't matter. They would know it was him the moment he stepped into the room. Everyone would know. Looking at him and wondering. Reese hadn't needed to laugh. A whole room might do it for him.
Shame burned in West's lungs. He couldn't breathe.
Who did he think he was? He didn't belong here. How had he fooled himself into thinking this was something he was allowed?
"Wait until you see them all up at the gallery for my show. It'll be—"
"I'm not going."
"What? Why?"
His eyes snagged on the picture Noah had pulled up. West's face filled the screen, the strip of gauze blotting out his eyes but not his mouth. That was a suggestive curve, lips parted and pink as he turned into the camera's gaze, bound and begging, Please look at me. Please. Now someone would be looking whether he wanted them to or not. His control stripped away. He had given it freely without realizing what that meant.
West standing there, daring them to make the connection. In front of all those people.
Reese might really show up just to hold it over his head. He hated art, but West had thought he'd hated this city too and here he was, back again anyway. His new condo was only a few blocks away. It was like some cosmic joke. They might even end up sharing a coffee shop and a mail route again.
If Reese ever found out, any of it, the jokes would never stop. The comments. The "I'm just kidding"s. It would never end.
There was a tug on his sleeve. West jumped.
"Talk to me, sweetheart."
West shook his head. He was sweating despite the meat locker temperatures. Or maybe he was the only one that was cold. Noah was dressed in a black crop top, a floral jacket hanging on the hook by the door. So it couldn't be cold. Noah was the one always diving into coats and under blankets, putting his cold hands on West's back with a plea to warm them up. It wasn't cold. That was only him. The shaking was him too.
"I can't do this anymore."
Silence. Then, almost in a whisper, Noah asked, "Can't do what? What is it you can't do? The photo? Because I have others. I have lots of others if you'd rather—"
"No."
Noah's voice and each new question made his head hurt. It was already pounding. He couldn't do this. He shouldn't be here.
"Did something—"
"Please just stop. Stop talking." West pressed his hands to his temples as if he might be able to squeeze the pain right out of it. Everything hurt and he didn't know how to make it stop. Maybe there was no stopping it. He was so tired of trying. Explaining didn't solve things. It only made it worse. He couldn't do that again.
All the anger he hadn't been able to use last night was still there, ready and waiting, burning through him like red hot coals in his hands.
At Reese for doing this to him again and again and again.
At himself for standing there and taking it. Like a coward. Because the alternative was arguing with them forever.
And at Noah for being in front of him, so close and somehow still untouchable. For being everything West wanted and everything he couldn't have.
There was a wall between. Always had been. And he'd thought just because he had his hands pressed against the glass that they were finally touching, but they weren't. He wasn't where Noah was. He'd only been lying to himself.
So he laughed. Like Reese probably had after West left last night. He must have laughed his ass off. Silly West who thought he'd finally gotten over caring what they thought. How wrong he'd been. He still cared. But he still wasn't good enough for them to care back.
Noah flinched.
"You've gotten everything you needed from me. Your show is all set. And I'm tired. So let's be done."
*****
NOT AGAIN.
Not again.
Not again.
"Can we talk about this—" Noah hated the pleading in his voice. It was the laugh though. He'd heard it before. Not from West but from other mouths, others that hid their cruelty in different shapes, but always resulted in the same thing. "I don't—did something happen? I thought..." He couldn't find the right words. He slapped the laptop closed and set it aside before he dropped it.
"There's nothing to talk about. I told you. I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore."
Not again.
Not again.
Please not again.
Panic welled up at the edges of Noah's vision. West looked too tall again but Noah couldn't stand so he let him be tall. "Did I—" He stopped. No. He didn't think he had done anything. There hadn't been time. But maybe he had and hadn't noticed. Too much? Not enough? What was the key he had missed? The phone call last night? They hadn't been together long but it had never taken West longer than an hour to answer a call or a message until last night. "Let's talk—"
"No. Just... stop." His eyes were a sledgehammer. Pulverizing bone. "You got what you wanted. Use all those pictures if you want, I don't care. But I'm out. I can't keep screwing around like this. I have things to do. I have responsibilities—"
"Get the fuck out." He was proud of how perfectly flat his voice was as he said it. Dead. It wanted to beg, to cajole, but he didn't let it. He was cold to the tips of his fingers.
West made a noise, some kind of protest or maybe an agreement, it was too hard to tell with the blood rushing in Noah's ears. A headache was already squeezing at his skull.
"I said get the fuck out. If that's how you feel, get out." His voice betrayed him at the end, the lump he'd been swallowing down finally reaching up to take him by the throat. He dragged in a breath and shoved the fucking thing back down with the rest of his feelings where it belonged. Straight down to the bottom, straight into the ground where it couldn't do any more harm.
"All right."
When Noah turned around West was gone. Where he'd stood was nothing. He'd even closed the door behind him.
That was what finally broke Noah. A closed door. Closed meant gone. Closed meant over. Done. Finished. Alone.