The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

by Mariana Zapata

What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isn’t a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere. You just couldn’t give up looking for it, even when you really wanted to.

Just as I opened the door, and before I could talk myself out of it, I mouthed, “I deserve better, asshole,” making sure he read my lips as I did it. Then I raised my middle finger up at him and waved goodbye with it. I hoped they both got syphilis.

When I was a kid, I learned the hard way how expensive the truth was. Sometimes it cost you people in your life. Sometimes it cost you things in your life. And in this life, most people were too cheap to pay the price for something as valuable as honesty.

“You’ve been with me for two years, but I figure I’m barely beginning to understand,” the big guy claimed, his expression solemn. “Understand what?” “I should probably be scared of you.”

He had known kids didn’t come out to trick-or-treat in his neighborhood—his freaking gated neighborhood. So he’d come out to keep me company. How about that. How about that. “Aiden?” “Huh?” “Why didn’t you tell me there weren’t little kids here?” He didn’t bother looking at me as he headed into the house with his chair tucked under an arm. “You looked excited. I didn’t want to ruin it for you,” he admitted without a shy note in his voice.

The Wall of Winnipeg stared down at the much smaller man, and in a voice that was as close to a cool, unattached statement as possible, he said, “Touch my wife again and I’ll break every bone in your goddamn body.”

“I’m starting to understand that you can always make time for the things that matter.”

“You don’t ever have to worry about me not wanting you somewhere. Got it?”

tried firing you at least four times.” What? Trevor’s lip snarled. “You didn’t know?” “When?” I coughed out. “Does it matter?” It shouldn’t but . . . “It does to me.” The angry, bitter man simply gazed at me like I was dumb. “He wouldn’t let me.”

“That’s my girl.” His girl? “I am?” I just outright asked him, hoping more than a little he wasn’t just . . . that was stupid, Aiden wouldn’t just say that. “The only one,” he said it like there was no other choice in the world.

“That’s my girl. That’s my fucking girl.” “What are you doing here?” I practically bawled into him. “I missed you.” “You what?” His arms tightened around me. “I missed you very much.”

“How do you not know that you mean the world to me? I haven’t made it clear enough?” “I don’t know,” I stuttered. “Do you love me?” His gaze was so intent the entire world seemed to stop. “You tell me. I never stop thinking about you. I worry about you all the time. Every beautiful thing I see reminds me of you. I can’t finish my practices in Colorado without wishing you were around,” he said in a steady tone. “You tell me what I feel.”

“Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me to be there.” One of Aiden’s palms slid down the length of my spine, ending at the small of my back. He seemed to talk into my hair. “I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”