Every Shade by Nora Phoenix

5

As soon as he was outside the Portland airport, waiting on the curb, Forest pulled out his phone. Three messages had come in from Micah.

Micah:How was your flight?

Micah:I know you’re still in the air, so you can reply when you land

Micah:Or whenever you have time

Forest smiledas he read them. It was the first time he smiled since he’d said goodbye to Micah in New York. How had this man managed to invade his heart in such a short time? It felt like he’d been with him for weeks instead of just one day. No, he needed to stop thinking about that, because he would get sad all over again. It had taken all his willpower not to bawl his eyes out the entire flight to Portland.

He quickly tapped out a reply to Micah.

Forest:I just landed. Happy to see your messages. The flight was sad if that makes sense.

He wantedto add “I miss you already,” but he wasn’t sure if he should. Sure, they had exchanged phone numbers, but they’d been pretty clear this wasn’t a relationship. It couldn’t be, not with them on opposite sides of the country and them being so different. It could never work, his head said, but his heart squeezed painfully at the thought of never seeing Micah again.

A car honked, and he looked up, spotting his sister Rain a few cars down, waving at him frantically. He made his way over, throwing his backpack in the back seat of her car.

“What’s with the sad face?” Rain asked after he’d hugged her.

He’d always appreciated his older sister’s mad skills as a psychologist, but not today. “Can we not talk about it?” he asked. “I need to settle a bit first.”

She sent him a smile, then drove off. “Of course. Just know that I’m here to listen.”

It was about an hour’s drive from the airport in Portland to where he lived, in a small log cabin on his parents’ property. It was far enough away from their house to have independence and privacy, but he loved living close to his parents and siblings.

His mom and dads had bought a gorgeous piece of land out in the forest and had transformed it into a little piece of paradise, if you asked Forest. He’d debated moving to Portland multiple times, but he couldn’t make himself leave behind the sound of the birds singing that he woke up to, or the deer that came to his yard in the early morning, or the calming sound of the little brook that passed by his cabin.

It was another strike against even the possibility of the relationship between him and Micah, because they came from different worlds. Forest couldn’t see himself living in the city, and it was a safe bet Micah would never want to leave his job in New York. And never the twain shall meet, he thought, and let out a deep sigh.

“How was Munich?” Rain asked.

The simple question stabbed Forest in the heart, and he felt his eyes well up. “I can’t, okay? I can’t talk about it.”

Rain shot him a concerned look sideways, then took his hand for a second to squeeze it. “Okay.”

They drove in silence until his phone beeped with an incoming message.

Micah:I know all about sad.

On some level,knowing that Micah shared his sadness comforted Forest, but only a little bit. It also stressed the impossibility of their situation, and as they got closer and closer to his cabin, he had to ball his fists to keep himself from crying.

* * *

They talkedand texted and video-called every day, as much as they could both squeeze in. For the first time in his life, Micah was slacking a bit on the job, his head more with Forest than with the processes and procedures that had always been his passion.

“What’s going on with you, baby?” his mom asked that night. “Ever since you came back from that trip to Munich last month, you’ve been different.”

He put the mashed potatoes on the table and checked to make sure he had everything, then took a seat across from her. It had been a miracle he’d been able to keep this from her this long, especially considering they lived in the same house.

It was a sad reality that at twenty-eight, he still lived with his mother, but what else could he do? After his brother died, he couldn’t move out. He couldn’t leave her by herself, even though she was in good health and worked a full-time job. It just didn’t feel right, as if he was abandoning her.

“I know, mama. Something happened on that trip, and I’ve had a hard time bouncing back from it.”

His mother’s eyes narrowed in concern. “Something bad? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He added some green beans to his plate. “No, mama, something good. I met someone, but…it’s complicated. We really connected, but our lives are miles apart, literally and figuratively.”

“Complicated can be good,” his mother commented, and he couldn’t resist a smile. It reminded him of what Forest had said, that he was starting to appreciate complicated.

“I know. But sometimes, the complications are too big to overcome.”

Thankfully, she let it go. “Thank you for cooking, darling. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes, because I know your friends are coming over.”

His mom never failed to give him privacy during his monthly hang out with his friends, and he loved her for it. He had everything cleaned up and some snacks ready when his friends started coming in. He hadn’t seen them since he’d gotten back from Munich, and it didn’t take long for them to see something was different about him as well. He wasn’t sure what they saw, until Lex, one of his friends, put it into words.

“Micah, honey, what’s with the aura of sadness hanging around you? What happened?” they asked.

And looking at his friends, Micah knew he owed them the truth. “I met someone in Munich.”

Lex put their hand on Micah’s arm. “Judging by that sadness, I assume it didn’t go well?”

“It was wonderful. We really connected on every level, but it was just for one night, you know? He lives in Oregon, and I have my life here, and he’s an outdoors and travel writer who never stays in one place, and I am…me. How the hell would that ever work?”

He appreciated that none of them came with quick fixes and easy answers, but took their time asking questions about Forest and about their time together, and so he shared everything with them. Well, not everything. He kind of summarized their other activities in a single sentence, but they got the drift.

“If anything were possible, if nothing held you back, what would you do?” Kennedy asked.

Micah let out a deep sigh. “Well, we all know there’s a lot holding me back, but in a different world, a different time, and a different me, I guess I would quit my job, find another job near Portland, and move there to be with him.”

“You never liked living near the city,” Kennedy said. “You’ve talked for years about wanting to be in a less populated area, closer to nature.”

Micah scoffed. “I’ve talked about a lot of things, but I’ve never actually done them, have I? We all know it’s not gonna happen.”

He looked around the room to his friends’ faces. Kennedy gave a reluctant nod, and he saw the resignation on the faces of the others as well. The only one who looked like he didn’t agree was Thomas, who studied him, his head cocked.

“There’s an interesting dynamic at work here,” Thomas said.

The others started groaning, used to Thomas’s somewhat lengthy explorations in philosophy and psychology, but Micah leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy is well documented, and many psychological experiments show that it is legit. Now, we know that you struggle with change and that you have a hard time letting go of the need to know what’s going to happen. Right? It’s not exactly a control issue, because you’re not super dominant in nature, but you can’t let go and follow until you have clear expectations. Does that sound right?”

Micah nodded, curious where Thomas was going with this.

“We know where this tendency stems from. We’ve all seen the complete chaos your asshole brother brought into your life and that of your mom. But ever since you were labeled, for lack of a better word, with this struggle, ever since that shrink helped you define it and explained where it was coming from, you’ve kept stressing it to yourself and also to us. I’m starting to wonder if you’re not reinforcing it by doing that. In other words, how much of your struggle is real and how much is caused by self-fulfilling prophecies? If you tell yourself you’re going to have an issue with something, isn’t that exactly what’s going to happen?”

An almost revered silence hung in the room when Thomas was done, and Micah merely blinked, trying to process what his friend had said. Thomas had never finished his master’s degree, but he’d sure had fun experimenting with five different majors, and in moments like this, his knowledge showed.

“You’re saying that if he starts telling himself he’s no longer afraid of change, he won’t be?” Kennedy asked.

“I don’t think it will be suddenly gone,” Thomas said. “But I do think he’s reinforcing it with his attitude. And I realize it’s kind of a vicious circle, but if we can find a way to help him gain more confidence that he can change, he may be able to reduce it to a level where it won’t affect him so much.”

Micah swallowed. It wasn’t easy to be confronted with your weaknesses like this, but he couldn’t deny Thomas had a point. He’d almost used his diagnosis as a shield, as an excuse. “How come you never said anything before?”

“Because you never had something worth fighting for, but now you do. The way you talk about Forest, that sounds like someone worth changing for. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Micah’s eyes grew misty. “I think he is. I don’t know if he feels the same way about me, but I think he might. Our texts have grown more personal and intimate, and I know he keeps telling me he misses me.”

Lex took his hand and squeezed it gently. “Micah, babe, do you want to change for him? Because if you do, we will help you. We’re here.”

Nerves tore through his body, his hands clammy and his heart racing, but the truth had never been clearer to Micah. “Yes. Yes, I want to change.”