Darcy hasn't been sleeping well. He is perpetually afraid that Shayne will hyperventilate or freak out or stop breathing in the night. So he has taken to keeping longer and longer hours, staying up well into the night and awaking before the alarm clock has a chance. He occasionally admits to himself that this has become annoying. But Shayne is his brother-in-law, Shayne is family. In moments of honesty he knows that Shayne may well be the love of his life.

“Darcy,” Shannon whispers against his back, wrapping sleep-heavy arms around him, “come back to bed. Where are you going?”

“Shayne needs me,” he murmurs in reply, untangling himself from her embrace and folding her arms tenderly atop her chest.

“My brother can take care of himself,” Shannon protests with drowsy annoyance. “It’s all in his head. You know that.”

Darcy kisses her forehead and slips out the door.

From morning to night, every minute he can spare, he’s by Shayne’s side. Making elegant excuses for him when he invariably refuses an invitation to dinner, then running halfway across the city at all hours to bring him food he hardly touches. Holding him as his panic rises and seizes him, holding his body together as it attempts to fall apart. His traitorous body, which used to move like a well oiled machine beneath his command. The words he thought were his are heaved into the toilet with bile and tears; Darcy flushes the handle and watches them disappear, leaving Shayne strangely empty. His words are laying at the bottom of the ocean somewhere; they have been cried out, vomited out, bled out, every one, and Darcy wonders what is left.

Darcy knows it wasn’t always like this. He remembers a time before, when Shayne was young and he was even younger; mere kids living big in Montreal, that city of romance, that beautiful, filthy city. Drinking wine and spending money freely; they had more than they’d ever dreamed, more than they could spend in a lifetime. Young kids in love, in a city whose language was love.

Mounting the steps to Shayne’s apartment, Darcy pauses on the landing and closes his eyes, recalling those early days. Shayne was so different then; young, carefree, so full of life. Darcy often wonders what their lives would be like if they had never come to Toronto. If Shayne had not introduced him to his family. If he had not met Shannon. Would things have been simpler? Without Shannon to tie them to one another, would they still be together? Still in love? Darcy likes to think so.

Darcy remembers love. He remembers the way it feels, like fresh-cut grass on bare feet. He remembers being in love like falling from a great height; the terror, but also the thrill, and falling isn’t so different from flying. Sometimes, when Shayne is shaking in his arms and he’s rocking him to sleep, he wonders if they’ll ever fly again.

Shayne’s face is pale and shadowed by sleeplessness as he answers the door. He stares at Darcy for a moment as if he does not recognize him; then slowly a curious sort of confusion fills his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. His voice is soft as ragged velvet from lack of use.

“You needed me,” Darcy replies simply.

“I didn’t call.”

“I know.”

“It’s actually been a good night,” Shayne says, but he opens the door wide enough to allow Darcy entrance. Inside the apartment the lights are turned low; from what he can see, the living room is in a state of comfortable chaos. Darcy turns to Shayne as he closes the front door.

“Then maybe it was me that needed you.”

Shayne laughs hollowly. “Maybe you should go home to your wife, Darcy,” he advises bitterly. “Does she know where you are at this time of night?”

“She knows.” His words are brief and careful, hiding the flash of pain he feels at Shayne’s cruelty. “Please leave Shannon out of this.”

“I’d like to.”

“I didn’t choose to fall in love,” Darcy offers helplessly.

“With her, or me?”

Darcy has no answer for that.

“I was thinking of Montreal,” he says instead, sinking deeply into Shayne’s brown corduroy bargain-basement couch. “It seems so long ago.”

“Seven years,” Shayne replies, relaxing beside him. “I was 28. You weren’t quite 21.”

“We were kids,” Darcy says, to which Shayne makes a noncommittal sound that could be agreement. “We were- were in love. We were happy. What happened?”

Darcy looks at Shayne as he speaks, as though searching his face for the answer. Shayne reaches out and cups his face in one hand, cradling his jaw, and Darcy thinks he’s going to kiss him; but the kiss never comes, and his voice when he speaks is tired and cold. “We grew up.”

“I still love you,” Darcy whispers.

“I know,” Shayne acknowledges. “It’s just not enough anymore.”

Later, as they fall into bed and Shayne’s soft mouth covers his, Darcy thinks that he could make this enough, that he could learn to live with this. In between worlds, belonging to neither; one half of him a husband and father, the other half a brother and lover. If he tried hard enough he could make this work, if he wanted it badly enough. Making love to Shayne, watching his head tip back and his eyes fall closed in ecstasy, he can’t imagine ever giving this up. They could make it work, if they tried. They have to try.

Sometime around 3 a.m. Darcy creeps out of Shayne’s bed and throws on his clothes, leaving the older man deep in sleep. He goes home to his wife, who is still lost in dreams, and he sits at the edge of the bed and watches her sleep. Seeing her like this, soft and unguarded, Darcy knows he loves her. She is a good woman, a good mother and friend. She is a comfortable companion. He can imagine growing old with her; it is a pleasant way to live.

And then he thinks of Shayne, and he feels a rush of heat, and he knows that this isn’t enough. He feels a deep affection for his wife, yes he even loves her, but Shayne is his world.

Shayne is his heart, and his heart is breaking.