“I’m a cocksucker! I’m queer! And to anyone who takes pity, or offense...I say, judge yourself. This is where I live. This is who I am.”

*****

It had been a little over a month since Brian had made the decision to move to New York. He and Ted had explored all of the available options for teleconferencing until they found what they thought was the best and would allow him to still run his company even if he was 400 miles away. He’d gotten referrals from the laundry list of medical professionals he begrudgingly required now for their counterparts in the Big Apple. He’d given his 30 days notice for his apartment in the suburbs, and used a real estate broker in New York to find himself an apartment in the city that would be comfortable for both him and Justin, assuming of course that Justin wanted to move in. Brian hadn’t asked him yet. He didn’t know what he was waiting for. Sure, he’d let Justin know over the phone that he wanted to be partners again, only he wasn’t sure exactly what that meant at this point in their lives. And he was too nervous to ask what Justin thought it meant, not wanting to fuck things up again as he had so many times before.

All of this fucking self-doubt that kept bubbling up was yet another somewhat unsettling characteristic of the “new” Brian Kinney. Definitely a stark contrast to the cocksure, ego-driven man he’d once purported to be. Although, if he was being honest with himself, the self-doubt had always been there, lurking...lying dormant. And he hadn’t been the egomaniacal version of himself for a long time where Justin was concerned. But when he was away from Justin, that was still the public persona he projected, and reveled in. It gave him power over others, and he always enjoyed that.

Power was important to Brian -- feeling in control at all times. After spending most of his childhood cowering in corners and behind closed doors and under the covers in his twin-sized bed, trying to evade his abusive drunk of a father, teenaged Brian had developed a deep-seated need to gain control of whatever situations he could when he was away from his house. Balance, he supposed. As he grew older, graduated high school and went off to college, he found that what he craved most was power, after spending so many years feeling powerless.

Throughout college, Brian had used his outward sex appeal and confidence to gain power over others. He was who he was, and anyone who didn’t like that could fuck off. But underneath that air of unequivocal confidence, he’d been hiding his insecurities. And in the past several months, many of those insecurities had risen straight to the surface.

Brian vaguely remembered waking up in the hospital, panicking, feeling like his back was on fire and his lower half was completely gone. He’d never been in so much pain in his life. He wasn’t allowed to sit up or move around, and the medications they had him on made him feel like he was suspended somewhere between reality and a dream world. He remembered Michael and Ben being there that first day, and talking to him, but not what had been said. He’d been too blinded by the pain, and was relieved when the nurse helped him slip back into unconsciousness for awhile. The first conversation he remembered from the hospital was the one he’d had on the second day with his doctor. That is, if you could count lying there silently, staring at the ceiling while someone else handed down your life sentence, as a conversation.

He wasn’t sure why he had refused to look at the doctor while he was speaking to him. As if not looking at the man might make what he was saying not real. But it was real. The words had continued to echo in his head long after the doctor left: car accident… spinal cord injury… paralyzed… permanent… independent… doing great things. Two of those things were not like the others.

He remembered Michael asking him after that if he was okay, and thinking what an idiotic question that was, even for Mikey. No, of course he was not okay. Brian felt powerless, completely stripped bare. Everything that had made Brian Kinney who he was had been blown to bits on a winding, two-lane country road in West Virginia. He had no idea where he would go from here. What was next. What possibly could make his life worth living from here on out.

That was the state of mind he’d been in when they sent him to rehab. He’d been so incredibly angry, although he wasn’t sure at what or with whom, or if that even mattered. At the same time, he felt deflated and despondent. He didn’t want to be there, but he also didn’t have a choice.

They sent him there to learn how to fucking take care of himself. How to do basic shit like get his ass out of bed and into the goddamn wheelchair that he’d be stuck in for the rest of his pathetic life. How to put on a pair of goddamn pants. Putting socks and shoes on feet you couldn’t move or feel, attached to legs that you couldn’t move or feel either, was much more challenging than it ever should have been. And having people teach him how to take care of his basic bodily functions was far more of an invasion of privacy that he’d ever wanted to willingly allow, although he had to admit it was better than pissing and shitting himself. He’d felt like he had about a dozen people all up in his business, all the time.

He’d tried to put on some semblance of a neutral, “I’m okay” face, and maybe even smile and laugh a little, when Michael would come to visit, because he knew if his friend got too worried about him, he’d be impossible to deal with. He almost was anyhow, and even now, eight months later, Brian had long ago grown tired of slapping Michael’s hands away and trying to tell him using only his eyes that he Did. Not. Need. Any. Fucking. Help. That was one thing Brian was not going to miss when he moved to New York.

Brian Kinney didn’t need help from anyone. He’d always been a self-made man, and this would be no different. He wouldn’t allow it to be. No one was allowed past that particular wall.

The pressure of trying to remain neutral for Michael would make his mood even worse after Michael left. When he was alone he would let himself freefall into the darkness, feeling like there was no way he’d ever get out of this hole he’d been plunged into the second his car hit the tree. He didn’t know what his life was going to look like now, and that scared him. Would it even be worth living? How could he possibly ever be the same person he had been again? What would he do if he couldn’t?

He had really just wanted to get the whole rehab thing done as quickly as possible, so he could go home and figure out for himself where the fuck he should go from here, without interference from any well-meaning do-gooders. He’d deal with this on his own, just like he’d wanted to do when he had cancer. Just like he’d done when Justin was bashed and he couldn’t stop seeing the blood pooling on the cold cement or feeling the weight of Justin’s lifeless body in his arms.

Only home this time wasn’t going to be the loft -- he would be going home to an apartment in the fucking suburbs. All that would be missing was the marriage and the kids and the church and the barbecue in the backyard. He remembered railing at Ted as they stood in the newly-purchased Babylon a couple of years before, telling Ted that he wasn’t going to become another dead soul. The setup might have been different, but his soul sure felt dead now.

Unfortunately for Brian, in addition to teaching him how to do preschool bullshit all over again, these sadistic fucks were also all about talking about your feelings. That wasn’t in Brian Kinney’s wheelhouse. It hadn’t been for a long time. He’d learned as a kid that feelings were best kept hidden, tucked safely away from prying eyes. And he’d found that if you ignored them, maybe they wouldn’t hurt quite so much. Justin, Michael, and Debbie were the only people he ever let know that he did have feelings and emotions, and that was only because they refused to let him totally shut them out. But he kept even them at arm’s length most of the time, as a measure of self-preservation. Old habits die hard.

So, suffice to say that Brian hadn’t been too keen on talking to the shrink who’d forced herself on him during his third day of rehab. She’d come into the room as he was settling into his bed, physically exhausted and wanting to waste an hour or two watching mindless television before dinner instead of thinking about the fucked up situation that was his life now.

He’d gotten into the bed by himself, using the transfer board, while an occupational therapist watched him, giving him pointers and making sure he didn’t fall. It had been difficult to pull it off -- harder than he wanted to admit -- because his arms weren’t strong enough yet to take up the slack for the rest of his body. He hated feeling weak. She had assured him that he would get there; he just had to be patient and keep working at it. Eventually, she said, it would feel much easier, and he wouldn’t need the board at all. But for right then, he did, and “eventually” felt really far away. So the board lay on the seat cushion of the wheelchair he was borrowing while he waited for his to come in -- the one that would be custom built to his specific body measurements.

Thinking about that had made all of this feel uncomfortably real -- forcing him to acknowledge that this wasn’t just some temporary condition that he’d eventually recover from. Borrowed wasn’t good enough. He was going to need a wheelchair to get anywhere, to do most things, from now on. He was never going to feel his full height, standing, ever again. He was never going to feel the stretch of his long legs after climbing out of the Corvette. Never going to run his toes down Justin’s leg as they lay together in bed after sex. Would there still be sex? He didn’t know at that point. But he did know that he was never going back to the loft apartment that had been so much to him, such an integral part of the man -- the legend -- that was Brian Kinney, Stud of Liberty Avenue. It was a status symbol, his fuckpad...and the place he and Justin had made love for the first time, even if Justin had been the only one who thought of it as love at the time. And now this shrink wanted him to tell her how he felt about all of this.

Brian Kinney didn’t do therapy. He didn’t do psychology or psychobabble. He did silence. Push it aside until it goes away, or at least until you don’t feel it anymore. She could ask him all of the questions she wanted; it didn’t mean he had to talk to her. So he didn’t. At least he tried not to. He sat in the bed and ignored her and turned up the television louder in an attempt to drown out her voice.

“Mr. Kinney...can I call you Brian?” she asked, after she’d introduced herself. Her name was Rebecca.

He grunted and shrugged one shoulder.

“How are you doing?” She paused, waiting for an answer that would never come if he could help it. “I know this is a lot to deal with...a lot to take in.”

She closed the door, crossed the room, and took a seat in the chair in the corner, about five feet from the bed. He hadn’t told her she could come in or sit down. Yet another person all up in his business, invading his privacy. He would have left at that point, but he was stuck in the bed until someone came to supervise him getting back into the wheelchair so he could go to the dining room. He’d have to call a nurse, and that would take too long. Not to mention the fact that she’d probably come find him even if he did manage to leave the room. Fuck this shit, he’d thought to himself as he turned the TV up even louder.

“It’s okay to not be okay.”

He could feel her eyes on him as he tried to focus on the television and shut out her words and her presence. Fuck, she’d sounded like one of those motivational posters you might see in an elementary school counselor’s office.

“I’m sure you’re angry. That’s okay. It’s normal. I’m sure you’re sad, too. That’s normal. It’s okay to have feelings about this.”

He swallowed and turned his head slightly in the direction of the door, enough to where he could only see her just out of the corner of his eye. She was talking to him like he was a fucking child.

“You can talk to me about anything. It’ll be just between us.”

Brian hadn’t wanted this to be between him and anyone else. He didn’t want to be here at all. He didn’t want to be having any of the thoughts or feelings he was having. He really just wanted to wake up in his bed in the loft and have all of this be one particularly vivid nightmare. But he knew that wasn’t going to be the case, and that thought only pushed him deeper into the quiet rage that lay overtop a blossoming depression, which threatened to consume him. At that point, he had been more than willing to let it drown him.

“Denial is a part of this as well, Brian. It’s one of the stages of grief. You’re grieving right now.”

“Nobody died.” The words had come out of his mouth before he could stop them. So much for not talking to her.

“No, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a loss. You’re dealing with a huge loss right now. And feeling all of these things...moving back and forth between them, even...it’s all normal.”

Normal. She sure liked that word. What the fuck was normal, anymore? He’d asked that question silently to himself as Rebecca sat and looked at him expectantly. The only time he’d felt normal back then was when he talked to Justin on the phone, because Justin didn’t know.

Funny how even now, in the present, the only time he truly felt normal -- or at least something close to it -- was when he was with Justin. And now, Justin knew.

Brian was well aware that he still hadn’t moved all the way through those stages Rebecca had talked to him about ad nauseum during his month in rehab. She’d told him over and over again that the stages weren’t linear; that it was okay to be exactly where he was and feel exactly the way he felt, but he needed to talk about it, get it out, work through it -- he couldn’t keep it all bottled up inside forever. Bullshit, he’d thought to himself. He’d do just that, just like he always had, and she was welcome to watch and learn from the master.

Stage one was denial, which had always been one of Brian’s go-to strategies for dealing with uncomfortable feelings or emotions. It was why he always numbed out with alcohol, drugs, and sex: pain management, he’d always referred to it. But his time in the hospital and rehab had kept him from engaging in his usual pain management strategies. Hell, he wasn’t even allowed to go outside to smoke a cigarette for weeks, and by the time he’d gotten to that point, one of his doctors had convinced him that he shouldn’t start up again because it would be bad for his circulation. So he hadn’t. Getting drunk had been out of the question then, too. And he was taking too many prescription drugs now to get mixed up in the illicit substances again. Then there was the problem of sex when the lower half of your body is numb, can’t move, and isn’t responding to your brain. So classic pain management a la Brian Kinney was out, which limited the amount of time he could realistically pretend that this wasn’t happening. Permanent paralysis was a difficult thing to deny, considering that it was in his face all the time, and there wasn’t much that he did now that wasn’t different somehow because of it. So denial wasn’t really an option. Sure, he’d kept denying in some ways while he was lying to Justin, but now all of that was out on the table. Maybe he was past the denial now.

Stage two was anger, which he’d had for a long time, although it didn’t enter his consciousness quite as much now. Sometimes he’d been positively Rage-ian, exploding and yelling and wanting to throw things, but most of the time, it had been a quiet fury, simmering just below the surface, bubbling over on occasion. Michael had been the recipient of most of it, but he seemed to take it for what it was -- directed at the world and this frustrating situation, and not him personally. Although sometimes Brian wished Michael would have taken it personally and left him alone more often. Now, the only time Brian really felt angry about his situation was when the fucking chair or his broken nervous system got in the way of something he really wanted to do. Although that still happened more than he wanted to admit.

Stage three was bargaining -- all of the wishing he’d done that he could turn back the clock and make things go differently somehow. Keep the house. Postpone the closing to a different day when it wouldn’t have been pouring down rain, and he wouldn’t have had an important meeting at Kinnetik concerning a two-million-dollar account. Keep his fucking mouth shut about Justin selling himself short by not wanting to go to New York. Marrying Justin and moving into the mansion together. Knowing that he’d give anything for this to all be an awful nightmare that he could wake up from and climb out of bed on his own two legs. The what-ifs and the wishing could go back pretty far, and they still did sometimes, although not as much as they had just a couple of months before. Now, he wasn’t sure he would want to be the same person he was before.

Depression, stage four, was lasting a really, really long time. It seemed to build on itself, as the darkness in his mind made it easier to retreat into his head and just get lost in there, which only dragged him farther down into the recesses. Those thoughts when he wished he would have just died in the accident? That was depression talking. Some people might have interpreted it as suicidal, although Brian didn’t think he’d ever truly felt suicidal -- he’d only felt like he was never going to be able to find a way out. Like he was stuck. He was going through the motions, trying to move on with his life and find a new normal -- going to work and spending time with the family, mostly -- but he still felt like he was moving through sludge, or like there was some separation between himself and the rest of the world moving around him. Being honest with Justin ended up lifting a lot of the fog and the heaviness -- Brian felt more like himself than he had in a long time when he was with Justin -- but it still wasn’t completely gone.

He’d come back from his surprise trip to New York feeling more hopeful and happy than he had in months -- seven months, to be exact. As he’d sat on the plane on his way back to Pittsburgh, all he could think about was how much he wanted and needed to be in New York. To be with Justin. To finally be free of the weight and the fog and the anger and the wishing and the avoiding. Maybe he could finally move into the final stage -- acceptance -- so long as Justin was there with him.

As Brian opened up one of his dresser drawers and started tossing folded-up pants and T-shirts into an open box by his feet, he glanced up at his reflection in the mirror. Who was the person staring back at him? In some ways, he still recognized himself as the old Brian Kinney -- prideful, egotistical, honest to a fault. In others, he felt like a new version of himself -- older, wiser, and a little more willing to be vulnerable, if only because disability had forced his hand. He wasn’t seeing the shadow in his eyes that had been so prevalent for a long time -- they were brighter now. More hopeful. Greener, instead of the dark, almost-black pools they’d been for the past eight months.

This experience had shaped him and changed him, although he was still very much a work-in-progress. He’d resisted the change at first -- there was that denial again, and the anger and the bargaining -- but now he could feel himself starting to embrace it and find his way out of the darkness that had seemed so heavy for so long. It was still there, because you don’t just flip a switch on depression and it’s over, but Justin was helping him find the light, and find himself again. The miracle of modern pharmaceuticals was helping too, even as much as he’d resisted them. No one had died in the accident, but there was definitely a loss. The person he had been for so many years was gone. And Rebecca had been right -- he needed to grieve that loss so he could move on with his life.

Brian looked down at his watch. He still had an hour before he needed to leave for the airport to pick up Justin. Justin was coming to help him pack up his apartment, and to accompany him on the six-plus hour drive from Pittsburgh to New York City. They were driving because Brian was keeping the Mustang, even if Justin thought it was impractical in a city with so many different transportation options and so little parking. But Justin didn’t know what it was like to depend on accessibility to get from Point A to Point B. Brian wanted to still have the option of 100% independence that his car gave him, so he would gladly pay to park it in a garage.

By the end of the week, he’d be living in New York. That thought still felt surreal. He was leaving Pittsburgh behind, and along with it, hopefully, the ghosts of Brian past. But as eager as he was to leave those ghosts behind, he also knew he’d be leaving behind people who loved him, who had treated him as family when his own had rejected him. He was going to miss them, but he knew he would be coming back to visit. He also hoped that if this change of scenery helped him to embrace Brian present and Brian future, maybe the ghosts wouldn’t have such power over him. This version of Brian Kinney needed to take some of his power back.

When he arrived at the airport to pick up Justin, Brian noticed he had a queasy feeling starting to take hold in his gut. What the fuck? Why was he nervous? This was Justin. He was fine, they were fine, everything was fine.

As he parked his car in the garage and started unloading the pieces of his wheelchair, his peripheral vision caught a woman turning her head and slowing down to watch. He wondered if he would ever stop being a fucking spectacle. Taking a deep breath, he resisted the urge to yell at her, to ask her what the fuck she was looking at, and reminded himself that he was close to being in New York, where there were so many people of so many different walks of life that he didn’t stand out so much from the crowd. She turned her head and moved on right as he shifted his body from the car to his chair, and he chuckled out loud to himself at her impeccable timing. Was she afraid he’d come after her now? At least she’d provided enough distraction to turn his attention from the unexplainable anxiety he was feeling.

He sat for 20 minutes outside the security checkpoint, trying to stay out of the way as he waited for Justin to emerge. His flight had landed 10 minutes before, so it shouldn’t be too much longer. The nervousness started coming back, and he didn’t know if it was because he was anxious to see Justin, or if he was just really uncomfortable with sitting alone in a public place. People kept walking by, glancing over at him, probably filling in the gaps in their minds with some story of why he was this way. A small chip in the black powdercoat on the front end of his chair caught his eye and he picked at it for awhile, as a way to avoid making eye contact with curious strangers. He was still looking down and running his thumb over the rough spot in the smooth surface when someone walked up to him and a well-worn sneaker came up to playfully kick at the toe of his shoe.

“Hey old man! What’s so much more interesting than me?” Justin said, his megawatt smile lighting up the entire airport terminal. Or at least, that’s how it felt to Brian.

Brian turned his head up and let his trademark smirk come over his face. “You know, you’ll be 35 someday too. You really should stop calling me old.”

“Are you saying it’s not that bad, after all?” Justin teased. “I seem to recall you thinking your life would be over at 30.”

“Yeah, well...let’s just say a lot has happened since then.” And God had it ever.

Most of his life, Brian had thought that he wanted to die young, while he was still attractive and virile and not ever be some wrinkled old man, wasting away, dependent on others. But when cancer confronted him with the distinct possibility that he could die young, he’d realized that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He had people who loved him, that he loved, that he didn’t want to leave. Mostly Justin and Gus. Maybe Michael too. He had survived that. And now he was surviving this. Maybe not with the aplomb that was typical of Brian Kinney, but he was getting by. And he was glad he was still here, even if he was closing in on the back half of his 30s.

Justin bent down to hug and kiss him, much more deeply than your typical “hey-how-are-you-doing-I-missed-you” kiss that was common at the airport. Brian definitely didn’t care who was watching him or looking at him now. They could go judge themselves.

The pair continued down to the baggage claim area to wait for Justin’s suitcase. When they stopped in front of the carousel, Brian found himself reaching out to take Justin’s hand.

“I missed you,” Brian said.

“I know,” Justin said. “I can’t wait until we can see each other all the time.” Like he had promised that night in the loft two years before. A promise neither of them had kept.

When the suitcase arrived, they went out to Brian’s car, where Justin threw it and his messenger bag into the trunk and waited for Brian to get himself settled in the car before he climbed in. Brian kind of missed being able to get into a car without having to maneuver both seats around into strange positions to get himself and all of his crap into the vehicle, but whatever. There were a lot of things he missed. Most of them were never coming back, so he might as well just deal with it -- access his former self’s ability to just plow on through whatever life handed him, or to at least pretend to do so.

They went back to the apartment and talked as they packed boxes and stacked them up in the living room to wait for the movers Brian had hired, who would be arriving on Friday morning to pick everything up and take it to Brian’s new apartment in New York. The one he hoped to share with Justin, if he could only bring himself to ask. Maybe now he knew what he was anxious about, although knowing didn’t make it any easier to resolve it and just fucking ask him already.

He remembered the last time he’d asked Justin to move in with him -- if he needed to make room in his drawers for Justin’s drawers. It had been so hard to get the words out, and he’d delayed as much as he could by talking about inconsequential shit until he could see that Justin was getting irritated with him and he needed to just spit it out. Then Justin acted like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And he never really gave an answer. Instead, he left for Los Angeles a few weeks later, and didn’t move in until he came back to the Pitts after the Rage movie fell through, thanks to God being in and gays being out.

Brian had never really felt thankful to any God in his life, but Justin coming back home had been a moment when he felt like he’d been blessed, even if he didn’t want to admit it. Then his pride had fucked it all up again, and he’d let Justin walk out of the loft and out of his life, without saying what he knew he needed to say. What Justin wanted him to say. What he couldn’t -- no, wouldn’t -- say. The bombing at Babylon had been a huge wake-up call for Brian, because he realized in that instant what he stood to lose if he let the two people he cared about most slip through his grasp -- if he continued to act like he didn’t give a shit about anyone else, like he didn’t need anyone. If he refused to tell them how he really felt.

He knew he was being chickenshit again now, but he was afraid that he was moving too quickly and Justin would say no, that he wasn’t ready to move back in together yet. So, to preserve his pride, he kept his mouth shut, deciding to wait and see how things progressed once they were actually back in the same city again. After all, they’d been partners before without technically living together -- Justin had said it himself. In the meantime, Brian was enjoying what they had right now, and trying not to worry about the past or the future. When had he started channelling Zen Ben?

Thursday was Brian’s last full day in Pittsburgh. He was leaving behind the city that had been his home for more than 20 years. A place that had seen him turn from a boy into a man, and a man into a father. Even a partner. Almost a husband. This city and the relationships he’d forged in it had changed him in so many ways. He was grateful for who he’d become, but at the same time eager to find out what was next for him.

His final evening in the Pitts was spent at Debbie Novotny’s house -- the house that had become a home to him so many years ago when he was a wayward teenager, lost and confused. Back then, he’d found an anchor in Michael. Michael had always kept him grounded. But perhaps it was time to allow Justin to fully take on that role, without Michael running interference. He loved Michael -- always had, always would -- but somehow his ties to his past now were keeping him back, holding him down. Brian was looking forward to trying freedom and independence on for size, in a place where no one was remembering who he used to be.

He knew this probably wouldn’t be a typical family dinner, and he was right -- it was a going-away party. Complete with memories and tears and hugs that were a little too tight.

“You’re all acting like I’m never coming back,” he said as he took a sip of his beer at the dining room table. “I’ll probably be back in two fucking weeks after something blows up at Kinnetik.”

“Let’s hope we can keep it together for longer than two weeks,” Ted said. “Besides, you’ve got Cynthia pretty well trained. She can bust balls with the best of ‘em.”

“You’d have to be quite a woman to put up with Brian for this many years,” Emmett interjected.

Cynthia was quite a woman, indeed. And she’d be stepping up into a much more active role in the company, alongside Ted, so that Brian could be an entire state away without fearing that his company would fall apart. He was thankful that both of them were up to the challenge, and that they fully supported his need and desire to get the fuck out of town.

As the evening wore on, one by one, people started to say their goodbyes, until the only people who remained in the house were Brian, Justin, Debbie, and Michael.

Michael cried, just like Brian knew he would, and he had to promise that he’d be back to visit before too long. Brian hoped he’d managed to successfully blink back the tears that were threatening to fall from his own eyes. He was thankful that they were alone in the living room, at least. Ben had already wished Brian well and gone outside, to give them some privacy, Brian assumed. Justin was in the kitchen with Debbie.

As he and Michael embraced, Brian whispered in his friend’s ear: “Thank you.”

Michael pulled away just enough to look him in the eyes. “What for?”

“I don’t think I ever thanked you for being there through...you know. Everything.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I know I wasn’t easy to deal with. I’m still not. I wasn’t okay, and in a lot of ways I’m still not. But I wanted you to know how much I appreciated you being there, even if I didn’t always act like it.”

“That’s what friends do, Brian.”

“Well...thanks. For being a friend.” He could feel his breath getting shaky, and it was becoming more difficult to hold his emotions in.

“So I guess this is it.”

“Until next time.”

“I love you.” Michael bent down and kissed Brian on the lips, then stood up and wiped his cheeks with the back of one hand.

“Always have.”

“Always will.”

Brian watched Michael go out the door, his own vision blurred with unshed tears. One of them slipped out of his eye just as he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder.

“You okay?” Justin said, his voice soft, as he tightened his grip on Brian’s shoulder.

“Yeah. I’m fine. It’s just weird, knowing that for the first time in 20 years, we won’t just be a few streets apart.” Even when he and Michael weren’t speaking to each other, they’d never been physically separated by much distance. Now, he felt like he needed that distance -- that separation from his past -- so he could work on becoming whatever this life meant him to be.

Brian turned to face Justin, right as Debbie came into the living room.

“You’d better plan on coming home for holidays, you little shit,” she said as she bent down to hug him. “You know how I feel about family.”

“I do, Deb. Thanks for letting me be a part of yours.”

He couldn’t stop the tears this time, and he found himself overwhelmed with memories of Debbie welcoming him into her home when he was just a kid, scared shitless of his father, who really just needed a hug. For someone to love him. She’d loved him when he desperately needed someone to care. She was more of a mother to him than his own flesh and blood ever had been or ever would be. Debbie had given him many hugs over the years, but this one felt different somehow, and he didn’t really want to let go. She held him for a long time, before pulling away and wiping the tears from his cheeks with her hands.

“Now, that’s enough of that,” she said, sniffling a little. “Go out there and show New York who’s boss. If anyone can do that, I know it’s you. I’m proud of you, kid.”

He and Justin sat in the car for a few minutes so he could regain his composure before driving back to his apartment one last time. In the morning, the movers would come to pick up the boxes, and he and Justin would embark on their journey to New York -- the place where Brian hoped he could find himself, once and for all.