He did it though. He mastered cane skills so when he went home, he could walk the neighborhood and find the corner shop and go from his office to the little shawarma truck at the end of the street. And eventually, he got his first dog, and the world got bigger, and his understanding of it settled into something manageable, even if he didn’t entirely comprehend it anymore.
But there were moments in his life he missed the view. He rarely told anyone, but the little squeeze around his heart as he tried to conjure old images of the ocean or where the sky met trees often lingered. He didn’t think about it all the time, but right then with Ilan at his side, it was hard.
“Fredric?”
He turned his face and smiled. “Sorry. I got lost for a minute.”
“Are you okay?”
Fredric let out a small sigh and gave Ilan’s hand a gentle pat. “I’m struggling, but things could be worse.”
Ilan was quiet for a long while, and then he leaned into Fredric just a little closer than before. “You know it’s okay if this is all too soon, right? I get that you feel like time’s snapping at your heels, but you’re not old. You’re allowed to let things settle if you’re not ready for all of this.”
“It isn’t that,” he told him, but he wasn’t quite sure if it was a lie or not. “I was ready to leave her when she started sleeping with other people. I can’t even remember what it felt like to love her.” He let out a laugh that tasted bitter. “I don’t know if I ever did. I didn’t know better. I was so young, and she was so beautiful.”
“She still is,” Ilan said, though his tone was reluctant. “I mean, on the outside. She’s aged gracefully. But…” Fredric waited for him to close the pause. “She never did deserve you,” he finished on a sigh, and Fredric couldn’t stop himself from putting his arm around Ilan’s waist.
Every now and again, in moments like this, he became aware of the man Ilan had grown up to be. It was easy to forget how massive he was when Fredric kept his touches to gentle hand pats or holding his arm. He was taller than Fredric and strong and broad. He was the shape of men Fredric had let himself think about wanting in ways he should not be wanting Ilan.
But he couldn’t pull away, no matter that he suddenly felt strangely and compellingly nervous, standing there like that.
“She’s always been a force of nature,” Fredric said after a moment. “Destructive but enthralling all at the same time. I don’t know if I ever loved her—and if I did, it’s been a damn long time—but I could also never escape her.”
“You did, though,” Ilan told him, and a small part of Fredric wanted to argue that it wasn’t true. Because he still heard her voice in the echoes of his new life. He still braced himself for her sharp claws, still caught his breath in the quiet pauses of the day like she was waiting just around the corner to remind him that he would never, ever live up to the man he could have been.
But those were the ghosts of the life he’d shed, and he knew he needed time to heal. He just didn’t want to do it alone. And maybe it was wrong of him to go searching for a person to love him through all those terrible and tender moments that waited for him to drop his guard, but he was so tired of being strong by himself.
His knees were weak, his fingers ached, his head hung low.
He was ready to taste just a little bit of peace.
Ilan drove him home before dinner and offered to keep him company a bit longer, but Fredric was ready to be on his own for a while. He felt bad for guilting Ilan into helping him with the date stuff, but when he tried to apologize in the car, Ilan had just laughed and kissed his cheek.
“You know I’d help you with anything,” Ilan said with his hand wrapped around the back of Fredric’s neck, and the honesty of his statement was almost painful.
He gave himself a single moment to indulge in the touch, then broke away from Ilan’s grasp. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, then he climbed out of the car and took Bas with him to the front door.
The ghost of Ilan’s lips lingered against his skin as he went inside, and Fredric caught himself brushing fingers over the spot that still felt warm. As he stood at the stove, waiting for soup to heat, he wondered if he clung to those sensations because he’d been deprived of them for so long. He wasn’t sure he could withstand that as a constant—he was fairly sure he’d crack into pieces under too much softness, but there had to be a balance.
Ilan had seemed to find that in himself, he thought as he poured his soup from the pot into a bowl. He was sure of himself, and he was charming, but he seemed to know all the right moments to be sharp, and all the right moments to soothe those little nicks with kind words. It hit him, as he sat down at the table—he needed Ilan to teach him how to woo a man like that. To charm someone the way that Ilan had been subconsciously charming him for most of his life.
Fredric had the spoon halfway to his mouth when his phone started to ring, and the voice let him know it was Corinne. He contemplated letting it go to voicemail, the way he’d been doing with Julian, but unlike his son, his daughter would get in her car and interrupt his careful routine if he didn’t answer.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, then finally took his first bite. The soup was too hot, and just shy of too salty, but it was better than nothing.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
Fredric laughed and ate another bite. “Just sitting down to dinner. Everything okay?”
“Yes. Your son is still losing his mind even though apparently you’ve been carousing around town with his best friend.” Her voice was a little sharp, and too much like Jacqueline’s to make Fredric feel easy, but it had always been that way. “I should be asking if you’re okay. Is this some kind of midlife crisis? Are you going to buy a boat or get a tattoo or something?”
Fredric laughed again. “I hadn’t considered it, but you know, boating might be a good use of my time now that I’m retired.”
“You’re too young to retire,” she grumbled, and he almost choked on a potato. “You can’t even eat and talk, you’re not going sailing.”
He had no plans to sail, but standing on the docks with Ilan, he’d almost asked him to take him out on the water. And maybe he would. Maybe he’d go surfing. “Well, you and your brother can both calm down. I’m in my place, my entire house is unpacked. I even have real food in my fridge.”
“And no one to cook it for you,” she pointed out.
Corinne was too young to remember his therapy, and he was somewhat grateful about it. His memories were stuffed full of him dropping things, swearing, failing so many times in a row that he threw mugs and bowls across the room. He’d end the day with cuts on his hands from cleaning up shards of ceramic and depressions against his back from where he’d spent the night curled up against the cupboards, refusing to move for hours.
But he’d come away stronger for it, and he tried not to take Corinne’s accusation personally. “I’m doing alright, and Ilan is just down the street if I need help. I also have a neighbor.”
“Oh. I heard. Ilan told Julian all about her.” And every bit of that sentence was her mother.
“I love you,” he told her, because every time he’d ever criticized or chastised his children, he always started with that, “but you need to stop. I’m not a child, and I am not incapable of living on my own or socializing with strangers. I raised you and your brother—got you to adulthood. And yes, we had a chef, and yes, we had a cleaning service. But if we hadn’t, I would have done all of those things too. I don’t need you to remind me of my limitations, Corinne. I’m well aware what they are.”