Avalanche

Content warning: Themes of terminal illness, grief, and emotional distress.

I watched the sky as I walked home, feeling closer to the moon than anyone else on my own planet. The shadows across the sidewalk felt alive tonight, to the extent that I stepped over each one so as not to hurt them for they also knew the pain of being present yet not always seen. I shoved my hands in my pockets to escape the bitter chill and heard the telltale shifting of pills inside their container. How many others were like me, now tied to the rattle inside their pockets? A constant reminder of the death rattle inside their chest. 

I walked past the bar where just hours ago I sat drinking, blissfully ignorant of what bitterness today’s cup would hold. Almost home, I told myself, but for what? There was no comfort in reaching my destination. I pulled my red beanie further down over my eyes as I passed the drunk college kids celebrating their team’s win, but knew they wouldn’t notice anyway. The winter wind had claimed the tears as they fell, captive to their environment, much like myself. I entered my building. It was empty save the homeless guy who spent his nights on our stairs. I stepped over his sleeping figure, another shadow in my path. I walked up one floor, two floors, three. What would I tell Tommy? I searched my other pocket for my keys. The cold metal burned my fingertips. What would I tell Tommy? I put the key to the lock then dropped it at my feet. I watched it fall to the ground, still. I wish my thoughts would be still. What would I tell Tommy?

A sliver of light illuminated the key suddenly, a stark contrast to the minutes it took to fall. The door slammed as I looked up, then the sound of the chain grinding through its track pierced the silence. More light. It stung. 

“Where have you been??”

Tommy…

A firm hand, a gentle hand, a loving, caring…oh god…what have I done….hand…pulled me inside by my coat. I heard the pills call my name again, a language only those terminally ill understand. 

“Mateo.”

I met his blue, worried eyes, but my voice stuck in my throat, dry from gasps of polluted Manhattan air. He touched my cheek, steering my thoughts back to center stage, to the speech I’d practiced since the moment I left the clinic. 

“You look terrible.”

He wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me towards the couch, my apparent theater. 

“Are you sick again?”

He took my coat, then my hat. Like a puppet I allowed myself to be arranged on the cushions by the man I loved, the man I’ve killed. 

“Your shirt is soaked. Did you walk home? It’s 15 degrees out there.”

“Tommy…”

My voice cracked as stage fright consumed me. I could see his eyes searching mine, reading back and forth from one to another as you do the lines of your favorite book. 

“We don’t have to talk now,” he whispered. “We can wait until you feel better.”

He knew…

As he stood I found the words, “No, don’t. Please don’t leave,” escaping my lips. He paused momentarily as if needing time to determine his own readiness to hear the news I must bring. Then, seeming to steel himself, he slid silently back down onto the cushion beside my stomach. He blinked at me, and I blinked back, trying desperately to remember my lines. I was exhausted from shivering and the long walk home in the frigid moonlight. I sucked in as much air as my tired lungs could hold and continued. 

“I’m not…going to get…better,” I choked. I felt the previously frozen tears begin to thaw on my cheeks, or maybe it was the dampness these fevers often left. 

His palm lingered on my forehead, then pushed back matted hair. His gaze was set but his lips trembled like a boy heading off to war for his very first time. He swallowed and I watched the grief travel down his throat and settle somewhere in the pit of his stomach. 

“Do you have it,” he asked, tight-lipped. “Did it get…you…too?”

In the semi-darkness of our one bedroom apartment, the question hung heavy as his trembling hand still set on top of my head. I shivered. The fever’s effects, having been disguised by the winter storm, were finally apparent again. Or maybe…probably…I was afraid. 

“Yes,” I managed in my softest whisper. “And…” I gulped hard, summoning my last bit of courage, thinking of the moon, the shadows, the bar, the college kids with zero fear, the homeless man who sleeps on our stairs, and…Tommy. My Tommy… My wonderful, terrified, Tommy. “You could have it too… Tom…we need to get you tested…”

People die in avalanches every year. The Times just released a story where one was triggered by a sound. Not an explosive one, but by the voices of two people who loved each other and subsequently died together under the freezing snow. 

Emotions are like avalanches. I watched as the words reached Tommy’s ears and eyes and tears spilled over, rolling down his cheeks as snow down a mountain, taking with it his joy, his resolve, his future, every hope he had for the two of us until all that was left was the crumpled mounds of two voices that loved each other, buried under the cold reality of AIDS. 

I pushed myself up, ignoring my aching muscles and the way my arms trembled under my own weight. I pulled on Tom’s shoulder until the last of him collapsed back down with me into defeated sobs on my chest. I kissed his hair. I held him close. I let him cry, knowing in my heart that I must take care of him now, while I still have strength. Because one day very soon, he would have to do things for me I could never imagine. But for now we lay on the couch, in isolation, together.