he was lucky.
Chapter Nine
Raphael stared at the pills on the counter, then at the clock. He had twenty minutes before Lorenzo arrived to drive him to his appointment, but the thought of choking back the pills had his stomach twisting into knots.
They were working—maybe. Probably. It had been two weeks now, and he hadn’t had another seizure, but the side-effects had him stuck on the toilet for half the day, and the pounding in his head had only eased some. The dizzy spells, which started the first week, had whittled down to nothing, and he had appreciated Wilder’s sympathy care package in the form of Lorenzo and his keto pasta, heavy on the chickpea noodles and sausage.
It wasn’t Raphael’s first medication change. The curse of his condition meant sometimes his body would just get used to what he was taking. His seizures would happen anyway, and he’d be back to ground zero of adjusting and tweaking and surviving through it.
This time he didn’t have anyone with him—to hover and fret. This time, he was very alone on his sofa with no one to run fingers through his hair and dab his forehead with wet cloths whenever his stomach wouldn’t stop heaving.
And he liked that he could take care of himself, but it was lonely.
He hadn’t paid a visit to Isaac since their last little tryst after his bad date, but he was starting to crave some sort of intimacy and his prospects were frighteningly small. Summer was easier for dates—if he really wanted them. With the new restaurants and shops opening up by the lake, and with the expanded Market, Lorenzo had been a wingman a time or two and had secured a couple of hook-ups. But Cherry Creek was always quiet in autumn, and winter brought a new set of people with a different mindset.
Something about the holidays, and the snow, brought in couples. Cute little families with their little tow-headed children and their bright smiles. He watched with vague envy as they strolled the winter market stalls holding hands and sharing cocoa and living a life he had always quietly dreamed of.
But that was months away.
September’s end loomed, with hints of brisk winter on the breeze. The last of the rain washed away, and the first flurries were within reach. His legs ached more in the cold, and his fingers didn’t want to cooperate as much. His birthday would skate by mostly unnoticed, just the way he preferred, and he wouldn’t think about another year passing where he hadn’t made much of a difference in his own life or in anyone else’s.
Taking a breath, Raphael grabbed his juice, laid the medication on his tongue, and swallowed. The effects would be later, and he’d have enough time to get through the appointment with Lorenzo waiting for him, choking back the bitterness that his car keys sat unused on the kitchen counter.
It was a ticking clock, to the day he’d never pick them up again. And maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but he’d lived a good portion of his life with his mother’s belief that every accomplishment he made in life that allowed him to live the way other people did was on borrowed time. Each step was a miracle that would be revoked the moment God saw fit to take them. Each moment on his own without some nursemaid hovering over his side a gift that was meant to be given back.
Someday.
Of course, he knew, logically, it was just fear talking. Escaping her tragic clutches had allowed him to meet other people and understand that his life was just as good as anyone else’s. He had never been the sort of activist to surround himself with people of like body, but he had socialized enough that he no longer believed in her fear like the fifth gospel.
But there were days it was hard to shake that old conditioning. There were days, when his doctor told him no more driving, and to come in more often, and to use his chair a little more. Those were the moments he wondered if maybe she wasn’t right about some things.
Right then, he just wanted to be fucked a little, and loved a lot, but he wasn’t sure there was space for that in his life. And the worst of it was, there was no one who held a candle to the man firmly wedged in his heart, and he wasn’t sure how to remove him.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Raphael was drawn