Your eyes light up like the sun through the clouds. "Disney World! Yay!" You screech as you jump about. "Watch-" I yell over to you, but it's too late; you've tripped over the.."play toy," and I say that with quotation marks, laying on the floor. "Silly me.." You say softly as you stand up and walk over to me. You lean in to give me a kiss.
I can hear a rustling next to me. I look over and see your torso shoot up in the air, a confused look on your face. Through my glaucomatous eyes, I can see you struggling to make out where you are. "Hello." I say to you, and you turn to look at me, noticing for the first time that you were not alone. I hold out my hand to you, hoping that you will not be frightened by this gesture.
"Brian. Nice to meet you." Still looking confused, you slowly slip your hand in mine. "I'm, I don't really remember what my name is." You say the comment with a thick New Jersey accent. Your face falls and I walk over to the dresser that I placed your clothing on.
"Here." I say as I pick up a small plastic card. "This might be an I.D of some sort, but I can't make out what it says." You look from the small, shiny card I handed you to my face, and back again. "It says my name's Mathew and I'm from New Jersey. Is that where I am now?" You look carefully around the room, as if to take a mental picture of it. "No, actually, you're in Disney World. Orlando, Florida."
I stand up and make my way on to the balcony, and I can hear you footsteps behind me. I lean against the dark green metal railing and close my eyes. "Do you know how I got here?" You say, as you stand next to me. I sigh, and say what I have rehearsed for so long.
"I was walking along the shore of the lagoon, and you were lying there. So I brought you back to my room." With the mix of the still, Florida air and your lack of movement, I could practically hear you think. "So, why are you wearing those sunglasses?"
I can feel your eyes tear into me, trying to figure out who I am. "I have glaucoma, a disease where your retinas become detatched. The sunglasses help block out the glare, because my eyes are sensitive and any light that I see will hurt it. Mind if I tell you a story?" We walk over to the small dinette set and I begin to talk slowly.
"Glaucoma?" You said, your voice unsteady. "That's what the doctor said. He said that it'll be a couple months before I go totally blind and when I do, I can get an operation." You sit down on the couch, looking uneasy. I move to sit down next to you as you put your head in your hands.
Rubbing my hand along the bumpy line that makes up your spine, I can barely make out your muffled words. "How will we make music? What about the band?" We sigh together, as if scripted in a play. Though this play would cause too many tears for it to reach broadway.
"I have the notes memorized anyway, Mats. Don't worry about that. We can just say we're taking a year off and BOOM!" I clap my hands together to emphasize the point. "Everything is back to normal." Your head slowly lifts from your hands. "Really?" You say softly, as my lips gently brush against yours. "Really."
"Wait, so then they were in a band?" You ask me after I pause in speaking. "Yes. A very famous one, in England." You stand up and I can hear you walk back onto the balcony. I go to follow you, but as I'm walking, you ask a question.
"So, tell me about yourself, Brian. I just want to hear something that's real." "Well, the story I'm telling you is true," I answer you. Deathly true, I want to say, but I know that saying those words will give away my secret. Instead of me saying the words, you sigh and speak softly again. "But how do I know? I can only believe what I see."
"So, tell me about yourself, James." How can I sum up myself to you? "Well, I'm sixteen years old, I live in England, and I like to play guitar and write songs in my spare time." You chuckle and slap my arm. "Well, state the obvious! Tell me something noone knows. You're-" You say the next words in a horse whisper and look around suspiciously before saying them. "Deepest darkest secret."
I think of something funny to say and then whisper back to you. "I wear women's underwear." Your eyes go wide before you realize I am joking and slap my arm again, harder this time. Your touch brings a chill down my spine, as if I am lying in a kiddie pool full of ice cubes. "No, seriously. If you tell me one, I'll tell you one."
I think for a bit before answering you with a hearty okay. "I came out of the closet last year." I tell you, waiting for the disgusted glares and disapointed comments. "You're turn!" I say to you, after a few moments of awkward silence. "I came out a year and a half ago."
Everything begins to click for me; the slapping my arm, the looks of me you think you're sneaking, the winks. I decide I must take a chance as I lean in to kiss you. After we kiss gently, you say softly, "I think I'd like to get to know you better, Mr. Bourne."
"So they were both gay. What luck!" I sigh and you notice my distress. "What's wrong?" I close my eyes and look up at the sky. "I just miss my boyfriend." You nod your head as if you know exactly what I'm feeling, though I know that there is no way you can even comprehend how I feel.
You gently place your hand on my arm and ask me what happened to him. I know saying the words I'm about to say will make it true, but I have to accept it. "He's..He's dead." I don't mean to, but the words I say come out emotionless. You mean the world to me; how could I do that? "Oh, god, I am so sorry. Do you mind me asking how he died?"
"You know, this was a fabulous idea." You say, regarding the boat that I had set up for us as we watch the fireworks from the Seven Seas Lagoon. I just wink at you, too in awe by your beauty. I don't want to ruin this moment, and I'm afraid that I will say the wrong thing. "Champagne?" I ask you, and pour us both a glass, knowing what your answer will be. But I don't hear your answer, for in your attempt to get a better view of the fireworks by standing on the edge of the boat, you have fallen in to the lagoon.
"Oh, god, Mat! Someone help!" I yell to noone in particular, knowing full well that noone will be able to hear me. I rush over to the side of the boat that you fell off of and from my viewing point, I can see a red splash of color forming around your head, as you dangle miraculously from the rope which your arm has gotten caught on.
I lean my torso over your head and try to grasp your body, but my attempts to bring you back onto the boat have done nothing. I hear motorboats coming in the distance and I know that each passing moment I have with you could be my last.
I lift your head out of the water so you don't drown, lift the rest of your body out, and gently stroke your hair with my free hand. I don't even notice the pain shooting through my arm, all I can hear are my own whispers, pleas that you will survive. "Mat, don't leave me now. Please, god, don't take him away from me now."
"He died?" I guess the look on your face, for everything that I could see when you woke up now is pretty much covered with black spots, reducing my vision to a miniscule amount. "I think that's enough for now," I say to you with a sigh, as I sit down on the bed that you were laying on several hours before. "Can we go for a walk? I'm getting sick of this room."
"You're so shifty! Can't you sit still for one hour?" I yell at you, knowing that fighting will not get us anywhere. "Oh, and like you don't have any faults?" You retort, and I try to think of a comeback, though I know that you are right.
I stand up and show you how to guide me, like the doctor taught me before I told you about the glaucoma. We walk through the hotel and down the cement sidewalk along the smoothe moving waters of the lagoon, my hand resting on your crooked elbow. "Can I tell you a secret?" I force back a laugh, remembering a time someone said that to me.
"Of course." There is a slight pause, and I can almost see you looking around suspiciously. "I have this memory of having sex with a man in a hotel room just like the one I woke up in, and when we were done, I asked him if he loved me, and he said, 'Always and forever,' but I don't remember what he looked like, or anything."
Oh god. "And is that your only memory?" "Yup. Other than that, my mind is as blank as a..as a clean window." I chuckle and tell you something with a big smile on my face, as I whip out two park passes. "Well then, we need to go and make some!" After six hours of meeting characters, screaming on Test Track and eating English fish and chips, we settle on to a bench to watch the fireworks.
"Brian, I'm scared. I'm scared that I'll always be like this, and never remember anything." I almost want to ask you if that would be so bad, but I know that that is not appropriate. "Don't worry, you'll remember, just like you remembered the one memory you had. They'll come-"
I stop when I feel your hand gently placed on my arm. "Brian, I remembered what he looked like." No, this can't be happening. Not yet, this is too soon. "He had shaggy blonde hair that fell past his ears, deep, blue eyes, as if you're looking at the sky, a thin, pale body, and he has the largest grin I'd ever seen. So kind, so caring.."
You trail off and enter your own world, while I am left to ponder the future. God, how am I ever going to tell you this? I just have to wait until you figure it out on your own. The next day, we walk into the hospital for my eye surgery. I called the doctor last night after my eye sight had completely gone, and luckily he told me they had an opening today.
"I'll be here when you come out, okay?" I smile a little at this, loving the words you say. "Of couse." I move to go into the room that the doctor is leading me into to prep for the surgery when I hear you speak. "Always and forever."
This catches me off guard, and I turn around quickly to look off in the direction off your voice. "What did you just say?" I breathe, unable to make my voice sound any stronger. "I don't know where that came from," you say, a little wariness in your voice. "I just..it was automatic."
"Mr. Bourne, please follow me." The doctor says in his deep voice. After a moment of silence, you cut the tension. "I'll be waiting for you, Brian, don't worry. I will." Two days full of sleep later, I awake to darkness, as I realize the bandages on my eyes will prevent me from seeing anything. "Hey Brian." I hear you say, your voice laced with concern.
"You waited." I honestly didn't think you would, as you had every right to go. You don't know me, I'm not anything to you. "I never break a promise. I said always and forever and I meant it. But Brian, I have a question about Mat and James. What happened after Mat fell into the water?"
People are pouring in from all directions, as if this is a parade. Some men, much larger than me, place you on a gurney and rush you to the shore of the lake after one hour of trying to pull you out of the lagoon, where an ambulence is waiting. I jump into the ambulence with you and take your freezing hand in mine, blue with cold.
An oxygen masked is placed around your blue tinted head and your chest is moving almost mechanically. I don't take in my surroundings, as I am too busy praying to any god I can think of; the Michael Jackson gods, the Oreo gods, the Disney gods. I'm still holding your hand when they take you into the emergency room.
Finally someone notices I'm still holding onto you, holding onto the little form of life I know I have of you, and tells me to please sit in the waiting room. I close my eyes for a second, but find myself being nudged awake by an older nurse. By a look at the clock, I see that I have been asleep for three hours.
"Mr. Bourne, Mathew has suffered from hypothermia and he is and will probably be in a coma for the next week or so. We can't tell if he's suffered any permanent damage, but by the looks of it he may have severe amnesia."
Amnesia? That's a term you hear used on ER and in Lurlene McDaniel books (Not that I read those. Okay, maybe I do. But only for the useful information they share.). "Is there a way that you can..bring him to my hotel room?" I know that I sound like I am sending a package up from one of the stores in Disney World, but I need this to happen, I need you to love me all over again.
There's a long silence after I finish speaking. Then, you begin to speak softly. "Brian, I..I just wanted to thank you for..taking me in and helping me. I know you've only told me this story, but it's really helped me remember, which is really, well, kind of strange. But you didn't have to, and..I'm actually really glad you did. I may not remember many things, but one thing I do know is that I can see how Mat fell in love with you; you are amazing. I just, I want to know a little more about you. Where you're from, what you like to do, stuff like that."
I adjust myself on the stiff hospital bed and try to imagine what to tell you. I could make something up, but you would never know if I was telling you the truth, would you? I begin to speak, slowly, but softly. "I'm going to skip the beginning parts, because they're boring. So I'm going to get to when I met my boyfriend."
"Mat," you said, your voice strong and confident, just like the way your were shaking my hand. "James." I already had a preconcieved notion about who you were by the way you dressed. Your white, grass stained t-shirt told me that you were athletic, your wrinkled jeans told me you didn't care what other people thought of you.
"So, you're a good song writer?" I can feel my cheeks going red hot, burning my skin. "I guess." You tug at my arm, guiding me through the crowd that has formed to watch the band about to play. We end up outside of the club and on a splintering wooden bench.
After you break the ice by saying, "You know, a lightening bolt travels at 300,000 miles per hour," we talk for three hours about nothing, yet it means everything to me. At the end of the three hours, I feel closer to you than anyone I've ever met before. After there is a pause in the conversation, you say, "So, tell me about yourself, James."
You start to hum the tune to Sleeping with the Light On, and before I ask you how you know that song, you tell me you don't know, as if we have one brain. You continue to hum the rest of the song until you reach the end. I feel your eyes tear into me like scissors cutton saran wrap and I ask you what's wrong. "Brian, I was in a band. And I must have been in England."
My heart jumps a beat and I can feel myself starting to sweat. As I wipe the sweat forming on my forehead away, I say gently, "How do you know?" I feel you sit down on the bed next to my legs and I move them over to give you more space. "My bandmates had an English accent. One was really tall and quite handsome, if I do say so myself. The other bandmate was the same man that I was having sex with in my other memory." I desperately try to think of an excuse for you. Instead the only phrase I can think of is, "Well, what do you know?" After a short pause, you say yes, as if you're trying to confirm the memory for yourself.
Three days go by and my doctor comes in to remove the bandages from my eyes. "Okay, keep your eyes closed," he says in his deep, southern accent. I can feel him slowly remove the tape surrounding the gauze on my eyes and, though my eyes are closed, I see a large burst of light, causing me to squint, though my eyes are shut.
"Okay, open them slowly so there isn't too much of a shock." You take my hand in yours, and I immediately feel less scared. Someday, when I look back on this, I will see how foolish I ever was for letting it go this far. Following the doctor's orders, I open my eyes gradually and I'm suprised that I can see clearly with perfect vision. "What do you see?" You ask me.
"What do you see?" A big blurry mess, I want to tell you, but I'm too scared that if I tell you, you will make me go to the doctor, and I'm too scared of what he will tell me. I'm just scared. "I see Mickey Mouse ears right there." I point to a random spot in the mess of red, blue and yellow blurs that makes up a painting that you made me look at, and I look over to you for some sort of approval.
"James, what's wrong?" "Nothing's wrong." I say with a smile on my face. But you can read me. It's as if we have one brain. I lead you onto a wooden bench infront of the painting and I know that I can't hide the truth from you any longer. Hanging my head, I let you know about the blurriness, the pain in my eyes, the loss of peripheral vision. When I am done speaking, you envelope me in your arms and carress my skin, making me feel less worthless than I think I am. You make me promise to you to make an appointment when we get home and tell me you will be with me every step of the way. Always and forever.
All of this time I can't speak for the emotion of being able to see clearly for the first time in six months is overwhelming. I scan my eyes around the room and the first thing that I notice is you staring at me, your hand clasped over your mouth. "What's wrong?"
You take a sharp intake of breath, your black, matted hair shaking as you breathe, your eyes still wide with wonder. You remove your hand from your mouth, which is forming a perfect O shape, and when you speak your voice comes out as a whisper as you point to me. "You.." I chuckle and say "I, what?" trying to lighten the mood, and shoot the doctor a thank-you-for-fixing-my-eyes-but-now-is-not-a-good-time-for-me-to-stroke-your-ego-so-can-you-please-leave look. "You were the one in my memory."
Your voice is still in a whisper, and my heart begins to race as you say those words. "No way, how could I be? You're..you're probably thinking of someone else." You eyes are still wide in wonder and suprise and your mouth is still in an O shape. "I could never forget those eyes." A tear rolls down your cheek, imitating the one rolling down mine, and you take my other hand. "James." My breath catches in my throat as you say that name. "That story. That..that was us."