Author's Note:
Sorry about the wait for this fourth and final chapter of Unrequited! All the time working up to finals week proved to be a little too much for me and it took a toll on the pace of my writing here. I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations if not the title of the series...
I must say once again that I love you all and please keep the criticisms/comments coming!
-your city bird
One year later...
Caleb's feet pounded against the concrete path as he jogged the loop around Prospect Park. Brilliant rays of sun punctured the canopy of trees, covering the ground in patches of warm, yellow light.
Lungs desperate for air and throat desperate for water, Caleb paused to take a breather. He leaned against the back of a park bench, his gaze stretching across the sun-dappled pond, when he saw a man standing by the water, skipping stones across its surface. As Caleb watched each tiny flat rock magically bounce across the pond, his legs began to feel heavier and heavier. Each stone made perfect little ripples of mesmerizing concentric circles with each pass across the water. Caleb suddenly felt like running again, but found himself completely incapable of movement. His legs were suddenly cemented in place as he became entranced by the water's surface.
Without a second's warning, Caleb felt a cool hand forcefully cover his lips, completely sealing off his breath. In the same way that he couldn't force his legs to move, the rest of his body remained still through the panic as Caleb felt his body being dragged away from the path from behind.
The hand left his mouth as he felt his body being spun around and his back slamming into what felt like knotted trunk of a massive tree.
Caleb's mouth hung open, his lips moving frantically and soundlessly in surprise as he tried to form words for the man who stood before him now. Countless cuts and bruises, fresh and sweating blood, nearly spoiled the complete pulchritude that was Thom's face. Caleb felt the sudden urge to caress that face, to hold Thom, to ease his pain, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force his arms to move.
Thom simply stood before him, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Not yet," Thom whispered, laughing with his mouth full of blood.
Caleb's eyes widened as Thom raised his hand. Thom's open palm hovered beside his scarred countenance. Caleb watched as Thom slowly curled his fingers, one by one, until his open palm turned to a white-knuckled fist. Before he even had a moment to think, Caleb felt that fist collide with the side of his face. He could feel the bones in his face bend to the point of breaking, his teeth rattling in his skull as he learned the taste of his own blood.
Caleb looked to Thom, a pained expression staining his own newly bruised and bloody face. Thom smiled and took a step closer to Caleb, planting the hand, that had just done such violent damage, gently on the tree beside Caleb's head.
"Are we even?" Thom said, his words slipping huskily past Caleb's ears. Caleb watched helplessly as Thom licked a drop of blood from the corner of Caleb's mouth before forcing his tongue between his lips. Caleb felt his tongue respond, desperately twining with Thom's as the kiss became increasingly needy and passionate.
After a moment, Thom quickly pulled away. His eyes were shining with a steady flow of tears. But he was smiling, his mouth curling up in the corners, his crying eyes smiling too.
"It's time, Caleb."
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Caleb rolled out of bed and with a THUNK landed on the cold hardwood floor. He groggily wiped the cold sweat away from his face and neck and ruffled his messy white-blonde hair as he slowly pried his eyes open to the invasive and vivid light of the sun.
Though it was far from pleasant, Caleb wasn't startled by this rude awakening–he had woken up this way every day since he moved. Caleb figured a change of scenery would eventually stop the nightmares, but they had only gotten worse.
And tonight's was the worst of all. That dream was the most vivid. But why was it getting worse?
Because today was the day.
It had been exactly one year since he had run from Thom–since he had hurt the thing he loved the most.
Before Caleb could push himself to his clumsy feet, his bedroom door swung open, a wiry figure standing in the doorframe silhouetted by a flood of late morning sun.
"So, you're finally awake? I was about to come in and wake you up when I heard you make a damn mess of yourself!" Elliott laughed, stepping into the room and helping the shaking and sweating Caleb off the cold floor. "Today's your big day, right?"
Caleb groaned. Elliot need not remind him. How could he possibly forget.
"C'mon, let's get some food in you," Elliott smiled, a sort of melancholy weighing down the usual flush of happiness in his features.
As Caleb stiffly slid into his seat at the kitchen table, Elliott served him up a quickly reheated plate of scrambled eggs and french toast. "I assure you the food was much much better this morning, but I didn't want to wake you too early. That was the most sleep you've gotten since you've been here, Cay," Elliott said, plopping down across the table from his voracious and anxious-looking friend as he sipped heavily from his coffee cup.
When the crumbs stopped flying and Caleb showed signs of slowing down with his late breakfast, Elliott spoke up again, "So are you really gonna go through with this today?"
Caleb put down his fork and swallowed a bite of toast as his eyes widened in response. "Of course I am! I'm the one who set myself up for this, so I'm the one who has to follow through. It's not an option..." he said, with both disconsolation and conviction.
"I know you think it's not," Elliott said, his expression softening as he furrowed his eyebrows, "but it really might be better for you if you didn't go." Caleb opened his mouth, looking as if he was about to speak up in his defense, but Elliott continued on, "I know your nightmares have been getting worse, but I think they'll eventually stop. And if you go to see him and nothing comes of it, what then? Are you going to start talking and walking in your sleep? Night terrors? Ambien sleep-gambling?"
"And I know it's a terrible way to look at it, but really, think of your career! Your last series sold in less than a week! All those portraits with the same sad blue eyes... I know they're his. I know I'm going to sound like a dick thinking like this, but you've made more money being broken up about him than you ever have..."
Caleb stood up abruptly, slamming both hands down on the tabletop, shaking his silverware against the ceramic of his plate. He squeezed his eyes shut firmly and bit down painfully on his bottom lip. Without so much as a glance in Elliott's direction, Caleb turned on his heel and marched back toward his room. "I'll be getting dressed. I don't want to be late."
Elliott sighed as he leaned back into his chair, cradling his hot coffee cup, "That's what you get for trying to help, Elliott," he said, shaking his head.
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Caleb stripped quickly out of his pajamas and slid his black jeans up his legs. He grabbed a comfy, over-sized sweater off the floor of his room, sniffing it just to make sure it wasn't offensive.
After that day at Thom's, not only had Caleb changed his phone number and moved in with Elliott in Brooklyn, but his lifestyle had taken some huge blows as well. Once he had graduated, he rarely left the apartment at all, despite Elliott's endless petitioning, spending all his time holed up in his room, pouring himself onto his canvases. He was well aware of just how pathetic he was, and the thought of it only sent him deeper into his abyss. Gone were his neat-freak tendencies and zeal for oddball fashion. It was as if he had given up everything else that mattered when he gave up Thom.
He had no idea when he would stop feeling this way–so despondent and dispassionate. But he couldn't help but wonder if this meeting would do any good at all.
He proposed the idea, so he had to be there, for better or for worse. For Caleb, that was the bottom line.
