Final Take | Chris&Will
“A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity. When for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. It’s as though it had all just come into existence.
I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.”
― Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Christian Broadmoor sat imperceptibly still on the park bench he’d frequented many times in recent months. He’d chosen the location because the train of thought he always allowed himself to fall into in the solace offered to him there taught him to associate the spot with the person for whom he waited. With the dandelion-apricot tones of the sky bathing his overwhelmingly graying hair and gingerly creased features in light, Chris closed his eyes for a moment.
Instinctively, his fingers played with the wedding band on his finger, a once permanent placement that he knew would soon become a thing of his past. Still, it served as an outlet for his ever restless touch for now as he passed it over his knuckle and slipped it back to the base of his left ring finger. Words swam in his mind from a variety of conversations he’d unafraidly carried out spanning a few days at best, ones that opened his eyes further than they had already been and offered him insight he didn’t think he’d receive from people he thought he would be hurting irreparably.
A spring breeze rushed by him in a way that made the hairs on Chris’s arms stand and he opened his eyes slowly, peripherals drawing right away to the man who had just approached at his side. The gentlest smile fell upon Chris’s lips, creasing the corners of his mouth. He thought about saying hello, about thanking Will for meeting him, but none of it felt quite right as Chris felt the warmth of Will’s arm come to press to the side of his own.
He couldn’t remember when exactly that had become acceptable between them, to simply share the same space, the same breath if given the chance. There was a time when Will might not have sat down at all when given the invite, but one day he did and never went back- and Chris held on to that moment, used it to tug Will closer and closer until the years had gone by like a flipbook in the hands of a child and they were not-so-suddenly sharing body heat on a cooler evening.
Chris’s smile ticked up slightly thinking of how he’d poured over this moment for hours, days even, yet he knew the right words wouldn’t come to him until he opened his mouth and simply fired. It seemed like an arbitrary starting point, to observe the swirling palette of colors of the sky reflecting off the bridge in the distance as he stated with an underlying confidence in his throat, “We’ve been through a lot, haven’t we?”
The nostalgic gaze he fixed ahead was apparent, as was the calm within him. Sure, he had slowed down with age, but there had always still been a ceaseless energy to him. Now, there was only serenity, a steady beat.
“You know, the older I get, the less tolerance I have for people.” Chris chuckled low, because Will had always been so in sync with him that there were parts of him wondering if Will somehow knew these things already. If he was simply repeating himself.
“There are days when I don’t want to see anyone but you. It reminds me of being a kid. When I would get so angry and frustrated with growing up that sometimes I wouldn’t want to look at anybody, listen to anybody but you. I’m not angry now...I haven’t been that kid in a long time but I still value you so much more than anybody else.” Chris blinked the orange hue from his eyes but still kept his eyes outward, now on the waterfront, small waves lapping against the rocks in the same manner as his thoughts. “I’d listen to you over anybody else, Will. You could tell me to dive off that bridge there and I would assume you knew something about me that I just didn’t myself. I’d do it; there’s a part of me that’s always been yours to have and to command.”
Chris licked his lips and shook his head. “Not just a part of me.” And then quieter, “Not just a part.”
“And it’s not fair to you. For me to say all this now,” Chris took a deep breath, feeling the burden of his words, finally turning his chin again to look at Will. “For me to understand now, when all this time you’ve been kind and patient and you’ve taken care of my heart even when you should’ve rightfully taken off, never looked at me again.”
His eyes narrowed on Will’s features, the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose, the slightly longer hair than what he’d spent his entire youth tousling with joy. Too many times in the last years he’d thought, he’d be alright if the time they spent together never ended. He knew he could very well be jeopardizing that time if he opened his mouth again, but the words that prickled at the tip of his tongue made him anything but afraid.
“I don’t deserve what we could’ve had the very first time we spoke about this- when it scared me how much we cared about each other but could still lose each other anyway. But I need you to know if nothing else…” His hand moved off his own lap so his palm could cover the back of one of Will’s. He squeezed tightly before pulling his hand back, knowing it would be entirely justified for Will to reject every last thing he was saying now. Not only would it be justified, it might only be right for how Chris himself had influenced their story in past years.
“There are a lot of things I wasn’t meant for in life, but what I am meant for is a short list.”
You.
