One Day Soon (31 page)

“What are you doing back here?” Yoss asked, looking up in surprise when I all but flew into his room. He took in my flushed cheeks and windblown hair and frowned. “What’s wrong, Imi?”

I put a hand over my thumping, thumping heart and tried to get my breathing under control. I hadn’t stopped to speak to anyone. I felt like time was running out. I couldn’t wait another moment.

I didn’t think about consequences. I didn’t think about outcomes.

I only thought about giving Yoss all the things he deserved. The things I had promised him. The things I had failed to give him.

“You’re coming home with me,” I announced.

Yoss’s frown deepened. “What are you talking about?” He put the magazine he was reading down on the table and sat up straighter.

I walked over to his bed, not bothering to take off my coat. I sat down and took his hand. I purposefully, slowly, laced our fingers together. Palm to palm.

“I want you to come and stay with me, Yoss. Right now. Tonight.”

Yoss stared at me long and hard and I couldn’t read his expression. I noted that he didn’t look particularly thrilled with the idea.

“Don’t, Imogen. Please, just don’t,” he said, almost angrily.

I squeezed his hand hard. Maybe too hard. I wasn’t being delicate. I was feeling sort of wild.

“Why can’t you?” I demanded.

Yoss’s green eyes burned. “Because you have a life, one that doesn’t include me. I won’t mess that up. I can’t. So just drop it, Imi. Because I’m not strong enough to say no to you. You need to be strong enough for both of us.” He turned his face away, towards the darkened window.

I reached out and touched his face. “I have a life, Yoss. That’s true. But it’s never been the life I wanted. Not really. I have a job. I have a house. I have friends. But it’s never felt like enough.” I gently gripped his chin and pulled his face back towards me. His cheeks were wet. It shattered me slowly.

“I have to know I did the right thing,” he implored so quietly that I had to strain to hear him. “Don’t tell me it was all for nothing.”

“I need you, Yoss,” I told him simply. Truthfully.

He shook his head. “No you don’t. You don’t need the horrible things I will bring to your life. I’m a fucking homeless guy with hepatitis and a shot liver who will probably die at any damn moment. Why in the hell would you want anything to do with my shit life, whatever’s left of it?” His voice quavered and his hand shook in mine.

I leaned in. He met me halfway. I rested my forehead against his. “Because I love you, Yoss.”

He let out a tiny sob. It seemed wrenched from somewhere deep down inside. “You love a memory, Imogen,” he argued.

I cupped his too lean face in my hands. His skin was rough under my fingers. “You’re still my Yoss. Years haven’t changed that.”

He closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. “You won’t love me when you see who I’ve become. I’m not the boy I used to be. I can’t give you sunsets and fairytales, Imogen. I’m dying. Because of horrible choices that have ruined me. I’ll only ruin you too.”

I kissed him carefully, in case he rejected me. I was prepared for him to pull away at the touch of my lips on his.

But he didn’t.

So I lingered.

As long as I was able to.

“You’re
not
the same. Neither of us are. But I know that I will love the
man
as much as I loved the
boy.”

I kissed him again. More urgently. He wouldn’t open his mouth. It was a pressing of lips. Scared and unsure.

“Come home with me, Yoss.”

I saw it. The softening. The moment when my words hit him exactly where I wanted them to.

“I don’t want you to do this because you think I need someone to take care of me,” he replied roughly, swinging his legs to the side and throwing off the blankets.

“I wouldn’t dare think that,” I said seriously, with only the hint of a smile.

“I’m terrified to want this,” he whispered.

“Don’t be.”

“I shouldn’t. I made a choice once. I thought it was the right thing. What does it mean if it wasn’t?” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me, but I answered him anyway.

“Then we’ll pave a new way together. Make new choices. The right ones this time. The ones that end up with us together.” Yoss looked at me and I knew he’d come with me.

It was written on his face.

Longing.

Desperate, heartfelt longing.

“How can I say no? I’d always do just about anything to see you looking at me like that.” He smiled and then looked down at himself. “I can’t leave wearing this though. I mean, I’m used to the cold, but this might be pushing it.”

I regarded Yoss’s pale green hospital gown. I got up and started opening the cabinets underneath the counter looking for the clothes he had been admitted in. I found them in a pile. Someone had laundered them but it was easy to see how worn and tattered the material was. I ran my hand over the threadbare cotton.

“I’m surprised they weren’t burned,” Yoss remarked. He took the clothes I handed him. “I’ll just be a minute. That should give you enough time to come to your senses, right?” He tried to laugh. It sounded harsh.

“Go get changed, Yoss. I’ll go start the discharge paperwork. But we’re leaving here together. Okay?” I needed his agreement. I needed to know we were doing this.

Yoss nodded, a strange look on his face. “Okay.” He slipped into the bathroom and quietly closed the door behind him.

I walked out to the nurse’s station. Jill was behind the desk, typing on the computer. “Hi Jill,” I said to get her attention.

The woman looked up at me and smiled. “Imogen, hello! Another late one, huh?”

“Actually, I’m here to help with Yossarian Frazier’s discharge. Can you start the paperwork?”

Jill looked confused. “Dr. Howell hasn’t said anything—”

“If you look in Mr. Frazier’s chart he is cleared for discharge once I have secured arrangements for his housing. I’ve secured it. So can you please start the paperwork?” I interrupted her abruptly. My voice was firm. My smile brittle. I knew Jill would want too many details. Details I was not going to give her.

“I will need to check Dr. Howell’s instructions,” Jill stated primly, her back up to my tone. I didn’t make it a habit of alienating the nurses. I had a good relationship with most of them. But I was feeling antsy to get out of there.

“Of course.”

I waited while she pulled up Yoss’s file on the computer. A few minutes later she cleared her throat. “Yes, I see Dr. Howell’s note here. Were you able to get him into the shelter?”

That is none of your business!

“I’ve gotten him appropriate accommodation. I’ll update his chart tomorrow,” was all I said.

Yoss would require follow-up care. I would have to put in his file where he was staying.

I hadn’t really thought about that.

But I didn’t really care.

Those were hurdles I’d jump later.

Right now, I wanted to get Yoss out of the hospital before he talked himself out of it.

I felt as though I had to hurry. That when I returned to Yoss’s room he’d be gone. He’d have disappeared.

“Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll be along to have him sign his discharge paperwork and to give him the outpatient instructions.” Jill gave me a strange look. “Should I put the Salvation Army as his current address?”

She was still digging. I was getting annoyed.

“I said I’d update his chart tomorrow. But thanks, Jill.”

Without saying another word, I returned to Yoss’s room just as he was emerging from the bathroom. The torn jeans and old flannel hung off his frame. He had put on some weight since being in the hospital, but it was obvious he still had a long way to go until his clothes fit him right.

He stood with his hands awkwardly at his sides, his eyes on the floor. “Jill will be bringing your discharge paperwork in a minute,” I said, wishing he’d look at me. There was a strange tension between us.

Maybe I had pushed him too far. Maybe he didn’t want to stay with me. Perhaps I was transferring my own hope onto a man who had none.

“You’re still sure about this?” he asked, his voice rough. His words lacking all confidence.

He finally looked at me and I saw his fear.

Yoss was scared.

“It’s okay to admit that you weren’t thinking clearly when you offered me to come home with you. I understand that seeing me again has brought up all of these old feelings. What we used to have was intense. I don’t think either of us ever expected to see each other again. Not like this. So things are getting mixed up with who we used to be. I don’t want you to feel responsible for me, Imogen. I don’t want you to feel
obligated
to ghosts.” Yoss clenched his hands into fists and chewed on the inside of his lip.

His fear was about
me.

And my possible sense of
obligation.

I took a step towards him. Then another.

Then another.

“Yoss,” I said his name firmly. His green eyes met mine. “I’m doing this because of who we are to each other
now.”

He sighed. “It’s been fifteen years, Imi. You don’t know anything about the person I’ve become. How can you say we’re anything to each other?”

I put my hand on his chest, ignoring the feel of his ribs beneath his skin. I pressed my palm over his heart. Thud. Thud. Thud.

“I know who you are in
here.
I trusted the eighteen-year-old boy who made sure I was fed. Who protected me. Who
loved
me. And I trust the man he became. Sure, people can change, but I see who you are.” I patted my hand on his chest before withdrawing it.

“Now prove me right.”

Fifteen Years Ago

T
oday was my birthday.

I was turning seventeen.

One year older.

I gazed up at the steel girders above me. Stretching in either direction, vibrating with the constant rush of traffic.

It was noisy. My eardrums thrummed with the constant drone.

Seventh Street Bridge was the place for the people that life had thrown away.

I was one of too many in this unspoken side of a broken down city.

When I had first found myself beneath the bridge all those months ago, everything had seemed dark and dirty and more than a little scary.

But now, brutal and raw, I found it soothing. The never-ending noise. The stench of fires that burned in the trashcans. The wasted eyes of the kids around me. The shadows that lingered and never went away.

Now it was
home.

And that was the only place to spend your birthday.

The sun was bright. The air was cool. I felt the wind against my skin, my baggy sweatshirt and tattered coat doing little to keep out the air.

The rocks were hard and sharp under my palms as I leaned back on my hands, stretching my legs out in front of me, laughing at a lame joke Bug was attempting to tell.

Birthdays had never been a big deal for me. Often my mom forgot about them completely. I had grown out of the disappointment. I had come to expect little.

In some ways, this was better than any of my other birthdays before.

At least I was smiling.

“Shut up already,” Di groaned, throwing a crumpled soda can at Bug’s head. It bounced off his temple and fell to the ground without him even noticing. He continued with his badly recited joke as if nothing had happened.

“And the bartender said, ‘You can’t leave that lying there. Wait, that’s not right.” Bug frowned. “No, the bartender said, ‘You can’t leave that sitting—that’s not right either. Shit, I forget,” he grumbled. Shane rolled his eyes. Karla snickered and I only smiled.

“Just stop already,” Di said, though there was no malice in her voice. Bug never really made any sense.

“I’ve got another one! A really good one too—”

“No!” Shane, Karla, Di, and I all said at the same time. We shared a look and started laughing.