Broken Pieces

He stared at the mirror in front of him, his mind struggling to come to terms with what he saw. The reflection stood tall, his black hair stylistically tousled, setting off his emerald green eyes framed with dark lashes. The tuxedo fit him to perfection, ordered and sized months ago. It had arrived just that morning in the hands of a personal delivery service, tipped well and thanked profusely. The crisp white shirt, a stark contrast to the pitch black tux, had not a speck of dirt on it and he had been told in no uncertain terms to keep it that way.

The man in the mirror wasn’t him.

It was the façade he showed to the world, the man everyone expected to see.

But today, the day of his wedding, he wanted the world to see him.

It was an impossible desire.

He was expected to walk into the church, stand at the altar, and say “I do” to a woman he had never met. A woman he had no chance of ever really loving.

It was tradition in his family for the oldest son to be married off to another prominent family. Had been this way for generations, and his father had made it very clear that, despite his predilections, he was not going to be the one to break it.

Ari forced his numb mouth into the approximation of a grin and cursed when it looked more like a grimace. With every passing moment, his dread mounted, his heart pounded faster, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it.

It wasn’t because it was a woman he’d never met.

It wasn’t even because it wasn’t his choice.

It was because his heart already belonged to someone else.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered to the mirror, whose lips moved in time with his own.

This wasn’t him.

After all the hours spent agonizing over the decision, it was deceptively easy to stride through the church in the opposite direction of the ceremony and simply walk out the door.

The cab ride was silent, his hands clenched in fists so tight his knuckles turned white and the consequences of what he’d just done started to seep through the haze that had surrounded him after stepping out of the church.

When the yellow car slid to a stop and he gazed up at the apartment building, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

He’d be disowned.

The first step was the hardest.

He’d be cut out of the will.

The second was easier, faster.

His family would hate him.

The third faster still.

His mother and father would never speak to him again.

The fourth jettisoned him through the lobby.

He would, for the first time, be on his own.

The fifth. The sixth. The seventh. The eighth.

They pounded up stair after stair until they brought him to the fourth floor and he exited the stairwell. His breath was labored as he swung around the corner, his legs carrying him without conscious thought until there.

4G.

He didn’t knock.

The knob turned easily under his hands.

This time, his first step was the easiest, and as soon as he passed the threshold he knew he’d done the right thing.

Maybe not for his family, who would scramble to make amends and assure the bride’s family it was not an intentional slight, and maybe their second son would do?

But for him, for Ari Knight, this was right.

“Ari?”

He didn’t realize he’d stopped moving until the voice called his name and his eyes snapped to the other person in the room.

And yes, yes, he’d done the right thing.

For there stood his heart, his beautifully sleepy and mussed other half.

Ari didn’t say anything for a moment and he could see the concern slowly taking over his lover’s face.

“Is everything okay? What happened? Aren’t you supposed to be getting married?” the last was said with a hint of bitter jealousy that Ari couldn’t help but chuckle at.

Yes, this was right.

He moved closer to his lover and slipped his hands around their waist, tugging them flush against his chest as he captured their mouth with his own.

“Everything is perfect, mi amor,” he murmured against those lips that he had lost himself in so many times, his hands roaming across the strong contours of muscles that he had, time and again, found himself memorizing, dreading the day they could no longer function as one. “Everything is just right.”

“But-”

“I couldn’t do it,” Ari interrupted, his eyes finally meeting the icy blues he loved so much. He saw the surprise, the curiosity, but mostly he saw the deep-seeded love. And that, right there, that was why he couldn’t marry some nameless, faceless woman.

“I love you, only you. To pledge myself to someone else, even for the sake of my family, would be wrong. I couldn’t do it,” he continued, placing deft kisses across his lover’s face until he was irrevocably pulled back to those lips.

They were opened in a slight “o” of surprise and Ari let out a slightly wet chuckle as he enveloped them with his own.

“I love you,” he said, pulling away slightly to make eye contact once more.

Damien McBryde said not a word as he wrapped his lover in his arms and felt, for the first time in a long time, that everything was going to be alright. They wouldn’t have to hide their relationship, they wouldn’t have to fear word getting back to Ari’s parents, that he was a deviant that couldn’t handle the family’s obligations. They were finally free.

“I’ll be disowned, broke, jobless,” Ari said, his voice low and serious.

“It doesn’t matter, Ari,” Damien assured, a blinding smile stretching across his face. “Because you are mine and I am yours. Everything else we can figure out.” He looked his lover over with practiced ease. “First, however, let’s get you out of the penguin suit and into something more you.”

They stepped together into their bedroom and looking around, Ari could actually say that this was more his home than his upscale apartment had ever been. His clothes were strewn about the open concept loft, his shoes by the door, his art supplies taking up the window seat and multiple surfaces around the living room, his own knickknacks blended so perfectly with Damien’s it was impossible to tell who owned what.

It was their home.

He had come home.

He let out the last heavy breath as he shut his eyes and let his body be maneuvered by the only person he’d every truly trusted. He felt the weight of the tuxedo leave his frame and soft, cotton joggers replace them, a threadbare shirt was settled around his shoulders and his hands lovingly placed through the arm holes. It would have been embarrassing to be dressed like a toddler, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt so cared for, so loved.

“That’s better,” Damien murmured, his calloused hands shifting through the gel in Ari’s hair, ruffling it slightly so it didn’t look so polished and neat. There was nothing polished about Ari, usually, and it was a miracle they got all of the paint out of his hair and from under his fingernails.

Not for the first time, Damien cursed his lover’s family. They didn’t see what their expectations did to him, to the man they all claimed to love. They didn’t see the way their determined ignorance of his true self weighed down his soul, how it slumped his shoulders, and made him feel so insignificant.

He pressed closer to Ari and felt the slight hitching of his partner’s breath, the only indication that while he was relaxing bit by bit, there was no stopping the emotional fallout from the day.

While it may have seemed easy at the time, Ari had well and truly walked out on his family for what may be the last time.

Damien nudged Ari’s chin, silently asking for his gaze, and when he got it, so full of tears and pain, Damien did the only thing he could. He wrapped his arms around his lover and held him. He held him when the tears finally came, when the sobs wracked his body and his hold became painful. He held him when his knees gave out and the sank to the floor. He held him when it all petered out and all that remained was two men who loved each other, holding so close to the other it was impossible to determine where one ended and the other began.

He held him until day turned to night and the moon shone through the window.

And he kept holding him because that’s what you do for the people you love.

You help them gather the pieces of their fractured selves, to put them back together again, to smooth over the jagged edges, and love them even when you get cut.