Galaxies and Oceans

by N.R. Walker

“So, if you’re wondering why I’m helping you out—” “I don’t do that,” he interrupted quickly, frowning. He shot up from his seat. “I mean, yes, I’m gay. But I don’t put out for favours or money. I’m not a hooker.”

“I see something that’s beautiful and ancient. That’s unforgiving and unyielding.” Those were strong words, as I imagined the emotion behind them was too. “Unyielding? How so? When it bends and breaks.” He looked at me then, smiled, and shook his head. “It’s not the ocean that bends and breaks. You think those rocks down there are unmovable and a solid force because the water crashes around them, but it’s the opposite. The ocean shapes them and breaks them down. It moves them, not the other way around. The ocean is a constant force of energy. It yields for nothing.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said to him. I could almost hear him laugh and say, “You’re navigating uncharted waters, Patrick.” I blinked back tears. “I don’t know how,” I replied. And the answer was as clear as a bell. By following the stars. I gasped back a breath. “Oh God. Aubrey.” Scott’s eternally-smiling face smiled now as if I’d finally clued in to what he’d known all along. I could just imagine him shaking his head at me, laughing. Trust the waters, Patrick. The ocean was mapped out from the stars.

I realised then that I was still holding his hand, and I reluctantly let it go. “Aubrey, to be honest, I don’t think he was checking up on you so much. I think he probably saw my car and wondered what I was doing here. If I was seeing Frank or you. He…” I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, but I was pretty sure Aubrey needed the truth. “He kind of made his interest in me known, but I turned him down.” Those big brown eyes pierced right through me. “Will it ever be the right time?” “For him and me? No.” “For anyone else?” Oh Jesus. “Three weeks ago, I would have said no, not ever.” My stomach twisted and my heart just about galloped out of my chest. “But now I’m not so sure.”

Patrick pulled me to my feet, bringing me close, our chests almost touching. I looked up at him, so close, so perfect. He was everything I needed: strength, warmth, and all man. It had been so long since I’d felt anything, since another man had touched me, wanted me, since I’d felt safe in strong arms. And I needed it. I needed to erase the bad with something good. So without thinking, without thinking at all, I leaned up on my toes and kissed him. His beard tickled my upper lip, making me smile, and it took a stupid-long second to occur to me that he wasn’t kissing me back. He pulled away with a shocked look on his face. “Aubrey, I can’t…” Oh God.

How was I supposed to move on after his death? By living your life. I could have sworn Scott’s voice whispered in my mind. By letting yourself be happy. You’re allowed to be happy, Patrick.

I snorted. “So you’re only staying with me for the food, the in-house toilet, the fire, and the cat?” Aubrey laughed and squeezed me, snuggling in that little bit more. “You’re forgetting one very important thing,” he murmured. “Yeah? What’s that?” I asked, fully expecting some smartarse remark. But he didn’t joke at all. His reply was quiet and made my heart bloom. “You. I’m only here because of you.” He fell asleep in my arms and I stared at the ceiling for a long time, listening to him breathe and to the voice of reason in my head. Tell him to stay another day, Patrick. It was strange how the voice of reason sounded a lot like Scott. Tell him to stay forever.

“Everything about you means comfort to me. The way you wrap your arms around me is like a blanket. Your voice is never loud or angry, just warm and safe.” I ate the bread without looking at him. I felt if he saw the vulnerability in my eyes, I’d break apart. “Kind of like I’m lost at sea and you’re the lighthouse and safe harbour. I know when I’m with you, no one can hurt me.”

“When you look at the stars, what do you see?” “Impossible possibilities,” I answered in a whisper. “Movement and stillness, incomprehensible vastness. Infinity.” Something flashed in his eyes, something that might have been wonder, and he held my face like I was the most precious thing in the world. “That’s what you become when you look at them. You find peace up there.” “Yes.” I barely made a sound when I spoke, but he heard me. Or felt it in the moment between us. I nodded slowly. “No one has ever understood that, but you.”

Time simply didn’t stop. It trudged on while you wandered aimlessly, helplessly, with only grief and loneliness as companions. Time mocked and ridiculed, passing slowly when you were the one left behind, and at the same time flying by so damn fast, reminding you that you were stuck. Time was a cruel beast.

“And you’re a great, sexy-as-hell live-in boyfriend too. Who’s a really good cook and who’s really kind and has a heart the size of this ocean.” He smiled, and his cheeks tinted with the sunset. “I used to think you were this coastline personified. Eyes the colour of water, and your beard is the colour of the brown rocks and grey like the storms, and you were as beckoning and as strong as your lighthouse. So having a heart as big as the Southern Ocean kind of fits.”

“My name is Aubrey Hobbs,” I said. “Ethan Hosking died that day. The man who was too weak to leave Anton died in the fire, and Aubrey Hobbs walked out.” Fresh tears spilled down my face. “I became a different person that day. Stronger, better. Aubrey Hobbs was my grandfather’s name. He was the one good thing in my life I could take with me.” A tear rolled down Patrick’s cheek, and he pulled me back against him. He held me, rocking me, as we sat under the table. He kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Aubrey Hobbs.” And instead of his words setting me afloat, they felt like a burden. I was a burden to him. These declarations of love from two broken men should have been a revelation. It should have been our very own nebula; the birth of something wonderful. But how could it be when it was all falling apart? I clung to him and ran my hand up to his face, and I kissed him. Our tears mixed, became one. I kept my forehead pressed against his, my eyes closed.

“As it’s written in the galaxies and oceans, I promise my heart to you,” Patrick said. With shining eyes and tender hands, he slid the ring on my finger. I blinked back happy tears, my heart completely full. “May the stars forever guide us, and may this lighthouse bring us home.”