Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,18

in someone’s head—and it’s welcome enough that someone buys him little gifts to let him know.

Avery is not his first love, but he’s the first who makes him feel like maybe he belongs. And yes, that’s the very reason he can’t let it go on much longer, because he loves him too much. There’s too much Avery deserves that Alejandro can’t give, but he’s being indulgent and selfish for this last little while. And maybe later Avery will hate him for it—he knows he’d deserve it if he did. But he’s also aware that if Avery knew the truth—and he will, by the time it’s over—he might not hate Alejandro as much as he should.

He runs his thumb over the smooth whale belly, and he thinks about the person who made the carving. He wonders about the story behind it, and if the carver told that story to Avery. He thinks if he was a better man with the ability to give more, Avery might have shared it with him when he handed the gift over.

In another universe, they would have skipped that bloody pointless dinner and curled up on the sofa with the pizza Avery keeps suggesting to him. They would’ve had wine and kept each other warm as they curled their limbs together. Avery would speak in those low, careful tones, and he would have touched Alejandro gently.

He would have told Alejandro important things about his day rather than the asshole baseball player who meant nothing to him.

Alejandro would have touched the side of his face with a warm palm and kissed him and maybe not worried that his touch—that his love—would put a black mark on Avery’s future. He might have laid him out along the sofa cushions and pushed his legs up toward his chest and fucked him so hard he had tears in his eyes and a prayer of thanks on his lips.

And the sky wouldn’t fall because of it. Everyone would go on breathing. No one would end the night in pain.

Letting out a sigh, he feels sleep tugging at his edges, and he holds the orca in a loose fist as he presses his cheek to the pillow. It doesn’t smell like anything personal—laundry powder and some sort of perfume to keep the place fresh. It reminds him of nothing, but that nothingness is the one thing that allows him to rest.

5

How It Was

Alejandro wakes well past dawn, his face in a patch of sunlight that has escaped through a split in the curtains. His body aches like he’s run a marathon, and his stomach feels hollow because he hasn’t more than a few bites since he left Avery standing at the curb of his building. He stretches carefully, aware that his body is aging, and he winces at the way it pops and shudders when he climbs to his feet.

He can smell breakfast—something baked, because there’s always something freshly baked, and he shrugs off a sudden and intense desire to sneak out and not see any of them. This day is always harder than the others. Eight years ago, he was lying in his bed, surrounded by pillows, holding Gabrielle’s hand as her lungs struggled to keep drawing breath. He ignored the whispers of everyone around him saying it wouldn’t be long, it would probably be today—watching on edge like she was some kind of side show. If he’d had the energy to kick them all out, he might have, but the only thing he cared about at the time was making sure she didn’t spend a moment alone.

It wasn’t the death that nearly destroyed him, but all the moments leading up to it, knowing that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make it all stop.

He doesn’t escape though. He showers, he takes his medication, he gets dressed. He takes his time packing up his medication bag and looping it around his wrist, then he heads downstairs to find his parents still at the breakfast table, though it looks like they’re both done eating by the empty coffee cups and the crumbs on their plates.

His father is reading the paper, though Alejandro catches him peering around the edges at him as he sits, and finally he sighs. “Good morning, Papá.”

“And nothing for me?” His mother scoffs, but there’s a fondness in her tone, and it makes his heart clench because he’s not really in a place he can handle her playful kindness. “Eat something, mi cielito,” she insists as