You're 18. Your future is in front of you, dreams and possibilities at every crossroad. Someday you're gonna do something big and good and get out of this damn village. Someday. Days become years and years add up to decades, and you've got a life, maybe one you never wanted, but you do the best you can with what you have, and you find you're like everyone else, just trying to get through the day.
At 48, Aaron Livesy is trying to make it through the hour. It's sixty minutes until quitting time, and he's looking to make it out of the garage and pound back a few lagers.
His head throbs, mostly from listening to the newest mechanic Jeremy go on about his plans with the in-laws. Jeremy came out, at what, fourteen, and his family just said, cheers, and started introducing him to other gay kids and encouraging him to date. Everything came so damn easy to him. Nothing like in his day, and Jeremy was too daft to listen to anything he had to say. He really hated him nattering on about his husband and his two kids, like listening to a hen cluck all day.
And those lagers weren't going to drink themselves.
###
You know that moment between sleep and rousing, when you're aware you're still dreaming, but you don't want to wake up because it's the only place you know happiness.
Jackson Walsh.
Jackson, young, beautiful Jackson was smiling at him. What was he saying? The words made no sense. Aaron didn't care. He had him for these moments, and he didn't want them to end.
Daylight.
Aaron grimaced, rolled over, his head pounding. Where was he? On the floor, beside the sofa, spittle dripping down his chin, surrounded by empties.
Jackson.
He had been with Jackson in that dream, and he felt a fresh pang at the loss. He had actually heard Jackson's voice.
Wait.
He was awake, sure, hung over, but he could still hear Jackson's voice.
He looked up. "Jackson?" he said softly, trembling.
He blinked at the TV. He had left it on, as usual, his only company.
Some blonde slag was interviewing a handsome bloke in a wheelchair about disability rights in Great Britain.
"We're pressing for more legislation to make the workplace more accessible to those who are handicapped," Jackson told the reporter.
"Oh, God," Aaron said, frantic for the flipper. He found it, hit the DVR button, and it immediately started recording the segment.
He stumbled toward the TV for a closer look.
The caption scrawl identified him as Jackson Walsh, disability rights activist and author of the new book, "Stories from the Other Side: Building Lives Beyond Broken Bodies."
Jackson.
He was, what, fifty-three, but could easily pass for forty. Sure, there were a few signs he was older, flecks of silver in that ginger hair and trim beard, but he was more handsome than ever. God, those beautiful brown eyes, so rich and deep, Aaron couldn't help himself, he reached out to trace the outline of Jackson's face on the telly.
And there was one more thing Aaron realized. As Jackson talked, he gestured with his hands, naturally, fluidly, to emphasize his point.
###
Aaron sat in the back of the tiny room, dressed in his black suit, the one he hadn't worn since Paddy's funeral. He had gone online after the TV interview and found a listing for Jackson's book reading and made sure to purchase a copy before the talk. He couldn't stop staring at the picture on the back.
Jackson. Smiling.
He tried to focus on what Jackson was saying, but his heart was in his head and he couldn't focus. At the end, there was scattered applause, and a few people approached the table to get their books signed. Aaron made sure he was last in line.
"Can I get your autograph?" he said timidly.
"Sure –" Jackson's face colored immediately. "Aaron."
"Hello, mate," Aaron smiled shyly.
Jackson extended his hand. Aaron hesitated, marveling at the moment, admiring Jackson's ease of movement. For so long, it was all he hoped for him. Aaron gripped his hand and felt the warmth and strength run through him.
"You look amazing, mate," he managed.
"So do you," Jackson said, his brown eyes shining.
"No, I don't," Aaron said, suddenly self-conscious about his weight and his appearance.
"So did you like the talk?" he asked Aaron.
"Always knew you had the gift of gab."
"You mean you could never get me to shut up," Jackson smiled.
Aaron inhaled deeply. God, why was it so hard for him to think? There were so many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't summon the words.
"You actually got a copy of my book."
"Well, sure," Aaron said, sliding it over across the table in front of him. He would have paid double the price for the picture on the book jacket alone.
"You do know there are no comic strips in this one, right?" Jackson grinned, opening it and scribbling his signature inside.
"Jackson –"
"I'm feeling a bit thirsty after all that nattering. You up for a lager?"
Aaron's heart skipped a beat.
"Cheers, yeah, that would be great," he replied, barely above a whisper.
###
"When? When did you get better?" Aaron said. "I mean, I can see you still use a wheelchair –"
"It's okay, Aaron," Jackson said, taking a large swig of ale. "It must have been probably seven years after I left the village when I started getting some feeling back. You should have seen the look on my GP's face. I doubled my physio. My arms work pretty good – my right arm will always be stronger than my left, but the main thing is, I can feed myself and lift myself out of bed and the toilet and take care of myself. And look at this," he said, spinning his wheelchair out a bit and gesturing to his feet. In his black leather loafers, his feet wiggled ever so much.
"Jackson! That's a miracle!"
"Naw, a lot of hard work. But I'll never be able to walk. It's just not in the cards."
"But what you can do – what you got back – it's incredible," he said, impulsively stretching out his hand and caressing Jackson's.
Jackson averted his eyes. Aaron released his grip.
"I'm sorry, mate – you must have somebody."
"No. Nobody. You?"
"Single and free," Aaron replied.
Jackson drained his glass. "Listen, this has been great, but I should really get going. Early day at the office and all."
"Yeah, sure. It was great seeing you."
"Cheers, Aaron."
Stop him.
Say something.
Aaron couldn't find his voice. He watched Jackson roll out of the pub. Jackson didn't look back once in his direction.
###
"God, she's in one mood today, isn't she?" Jeremy snickered to his fellow mechanics a bit too loudly. Aaron pretended he didn't hear him as he worked, hunched over an engine. "I can tell you what happened, he probably went to last call at Bar West and hit on some young lad and got his ass handed to him," Jeremy laughed.
Aaron burned. He had spent the entire night thinking about Jackson, running through all the things he could have and should have said, and now he had to deal with this. He was about to yell at the prat when he felt a sharp pain in his left arm.
He must have pulled something.
Aaron took a deep breath. Suddenly his chest felt as if it were in a vise, and everything was spinning. Aaron dropped to the ground, slipping into the darkness.
###
Flashes of light. The beeping of monitors. People rushing about. Aaron couldn't make sense of any of it. Until one voice cut through the din.
"You'll be all right, mate, I promise. You're in good hands."
Jackson.
Aaron rested.
###
It took a few days for Aaron to rise above the haze and comprehend the diagnosis: a stroke. His right side frozen rigid, his right hand curled into a fist that wouldn't open, a leg that was barely functional, and worse, his mouth twisted so that every word required a Herculean effort.
Too many cigs, too many takeaways, too many late-nights and early mornings. The bill for abusing his body had come due with interest. The doctors told him that because he was so young, he stood a good chance of making a full recovery so long as he made some serious lifestyle changes and underwent weeks of speech and physical therapy.
All that he understood. What he couldn't comprehend was why Jackson kept coming round.
###
"Why?" he said, pushing out the word, his voice foreign to him.
"Adam found my book in your place. I put my business card in there – figured if you had ever wanted to talk. You didn't know, did you? Just like you, Aaron, to buy a book and never open it up," he teased.
"You here," Aaron said.
Jackson looked baffled, as if Aaron had asked why he was wearing pants. "I owe you, mate. I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
Now it was Aaron's turn to be confused.
Jackson continued, "After my accident, do you know how many times I thought about topping myself? You think I couldn't have done it because of the paralysis, but you're wrong. I had it all figured out: I would bang my head against the headboard until it burst like a watermelon chucked onto the sidewalk. A bloke I knew did himself in that way. Left a bloody mess for the nurses. The only reason why I didn't was because of you."
"Me?" Aaron croaked.
He didn't believe it. All he could remember were his mistakes, his awkwardness around Jackson, his stupidity about bathing him and his inability to show him affection. All those things cost him so much. If he could go back in time, he would beat that younger Aaron into a mash for letting the best thing in his life slip away.
"No matter how nasty I was, you were there when I woke up, when I fell asleep," Jackson said. "Your stupid jokes, your stories about Clyde and Paddy and how your mum Chas drove you round the bend. You kept me alive."
Aaron grimaced and stared up at the hospital ceiling. "Obligation?" he choked back, a tear of frustration slipping down his cheek.
Jackson took that hook of his hand firmly in his own and repeated the words Aaron had said to him so many years ago. "I don't do anything I don't want to do."
###
"He gives everyone a hard time but me," Jackson said, shaking his head. "It's getting so bad, none of the physical therapists will work with him unless I attend the session."
Adam Barton, now a middle-aged farmer with a comb-over and a generous paunch, chuckled. "Nothing's changed, mate. You were the only one he'd ever listen to," he told him.
Despite Aaron's moodiness, Jackson came by every day, helping him learn how to hold a spoon, to dress himself, and to get up and down to the toilet.
After two months of physical therapy, the doctors pronounced him ready to return to his home and released him for outpatient care. Adam drove them back to the village, and the two helped Aaron get settled into his familiar home.
"I'll be by to check on ya twice a day, mate," Adam said. "And if you need anything, give us a ring, yeah? I'll be here in a flash."
But both could see Aaron was growing more agitated as the sun set.
"Adam, why don't you get a move on? I'll stay on here a bit," Jackson told him.
After he left, Jackson wheeled his chair over to Aaron, who was trying to get comfortable on the sofa and making a great act of using the flipper with his now-strengthened hand.
"It's the night, isn't it?" Jackson said softly. "Nights were always the worst for me. No one's around, and you get stuck in your thoughts and your fears, like a hamster running around on a wheel."
Aaron stared numbly at the TV.
"Would you – would you like me to stay the night?"
Aaron's face softened. "Please, Jackson."
###
They had to agree on where Jackson would sleep. Jackson thought the sofa would just be fine, but Aaron insisted that he couldn't let him sleep there. Besides, the sofa did have that odd odor coming from it that Aaron was too embarrassed to explain and Jackson didn't want to ask about. They would just have to share the same bed.
So it was sorted. Except it wasn't.
Aaron gave Jackson a pair of his pajamas, and the two settled into bed around 11 p.m.
And neither one could relax.
Aaron broke the silence. "Why did you leave the pub that night in such a hurry?"
Jackson sighed. "I knew. I knew if I spent a minute more around you – I'd end up just like this."
"Jackson –"
Jackson rolled over and unleashed a flurry of kisses on Aaron, across his forehead, his cheeks and his lips, each one rolling back a year, each one restoring their youth and spirits.
###
Two months later.
"I don't understand you, mate, you just got a clean bill of health, and instead of dancing, you're looking as if the Grim Reaper came by for a snog," Jackson said, shifting gears of his specially designed van.
Aaron said nothing, just bit at his lower lip and stared out the side window.
"You've dropped a stone, you've got the body of a thirty-year-old, you're perfectly heart healthy. That speech therapy has paid off – although I think you should get a second opinion." He glanced over at Aaron, who seemed oblivious to the joke.
"Look, the limp is not a big deal. It might go away, it might not, but that's no reason to worry."
Aaron continued to brood.
"I know what you're worried about. I'll have my stuff out by the end of the day, and you can have your place back all to yourself. I know how much my singing got on your nerves."
Aaron slammed his hand against the dash. "That's it. Stop the van! Just stop the van!"
Jackson scoffed. "Here, now? You remember the last time you told me to stop a van?"
That horrible night. When everything turned to shit.
"Oh, God, Jackson, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean –" Aaron stammered.
Jackson gently steered the vehicle to the side of the road leading into the village, parked the car, and turned the ignition.
"It was a joke, mate. What's going on with you?"
"These last weeks –"
"I know they've been hard –"
"They have been the best of my life," Aaron said, his voice cracking.
"What? Hours of physio and speech therapy and retraining your limbs and having to give up your precious cigs and actually eat a few vegetables? I'd like to hear your idea of a vacation."
Aaron was in such a state, he would not be deterred.
"Having you around, waking up beside you, seeing you every day– it's all I dreamt of all these years and now you're gonna leave me again."
"I just thought – with you fit – you'd want your life back."
"You thought wrong! Just like you did all those years ago when you made that decision for us!"
"Aaron," Jackson pleaded, his eyes tearing up. "I thought – I thought I was doing the right thing for you – I wanted you to have a life."
"Some life it turned out to be," Aaron said bitterly. "I'm a junior mechanic in a third-rate garage in a piss-poor village. Other than Adam, nobody can put up with me."
"So you blame me," Jackson replied sadly.
"No. No."
Blast, it was coming out all wrong. The last thing he wanted to do was make Jackson feel guilty.
"I'm saying we were both young and stupid. So focused on the future and not appreciating what we had right in front of us. You doing the right thing by leaving, me doing the right thing by letting you go, and look where it left us. Look where it left me."
In a voice so faint, Jackson had to strain to make out the words, Aaron added, "Sometimes your first love is your only love."
Jackson winced. "Aaron – I never – I never wanted to hurt you."
Aaron nodded. Right. Now it was time for him to man up.
"You've got a great career going, Jackson. You help a lot of people. They need you. You should go back. You should go back to your flat. I've taken too much from you."
The two were locked in silence for several minutes.
"Do – do you really want me to stay, mate?" Jackson's voice was thick with longing.
Aaron stared out the window and chose his words with razor precision.
"Just until the eleventh of forever, Jackson," he said softly. "Then you have to get out," he added.
"I think I can handle that," Jackson offered.
Aaron nodded, holding his emotions in check.
"And one more thing. You're all wound up," he said, meeting Jackson's gaze. "I'll drive."
Jackson smiled.
###
That night, the two of them rested in bed, their bodies cozy side by side one another, Aaron's back to Jackson, Jackson's arms wrapped around Aaron's waist, and his hands atop his.
"Jackson, there's something we need to talk about," Aaron announced.
"Aaron, I know I promised you this weekend we'd go and get a puppy from the pound, and I meant it, but for the last time, we are not naming the dog Hazel. Me mum would get on the first flight from Greece and would kill me and you both. You'll have to come up with something else."
Aaron grinned and squeezed Jackson's hands.
"I love you," he said.
He felt Jackson sidle closer and the warmth of his breath on his neck.
"I love you, too, mate."
Aaron exhaled, closed his eyes and drifted into the deepest sleep he had known in years, safe at last, loved at last, whole at last.
# # #
"What is the deal with those two?"
Holly Barton looked up from the bar to see her server giving a stink eye to the two handsome, middle-aged men sitting quietly in the back of the Woolpack.
"What do you mean?" she asked Kelly, her newest hire.
"Two old blokes coming in every Saturday night."
Holly's hackles were raised. Aaron was her age, but then she reminded herself, anyone older than twenty-five was ancient to this twit.
Holly stopped wiping the counter. "That's just Aaron and Jackson. They've been in love forever," she said quickly and then stopped herself and smiled when she realized the truth of her words.
"Kinda weird if you ask me. They each order one lager, never finish 'em, just sit in the back for a spell, holding hands like they were teenagers. What are they getting at?"
Holly took a closer look. The men clasped each other's hands, just staring into each other's eyes, gentle smiles curling their lips.
"They're saying loads to each other. You just need to know how to listen."
"What are you going on about?"
"Oh, go do something in the kitchen, will you?" Holly shooed the obnoxious girl.
Holly looked again at the pair, lost in their own world. God, what she wouldn't give to have somebody look at her that way.
Holly impulsively stepped from behind the bar, walked over to the back and greeted the two, giving each a peck on the cheek, and asked if they wanted anything from the kitchen. Or maybe some fresh crisps? They two smiled at her and shook their heads no, and Holly let them be.
A few minutes later, Holly got a glimpse of them as they slipped out the door, Aaron leaning on his cane, Jackson keeping pace in his wheelchair.
# # #
Where does your life go?
Sometimes, if you're very lucky, just where it's supposed to.
# # #