The weeks passed. Scott looked forward to his daily morning and afternoon meetings with Mitch. He had tried getting him to have lunch with him, but Mitch always said he already had plans. Scott tried to get him to come have dinner at his apartment with him or just come over to hang out, but he would always have an excuse.
It was frustrating, but he decided not to give up on him. He was determined to break through the wall he kept around him and he just kept extending the invitations.
He tried harder and harder, making it nearly impossible for Mitch to evade him or his questions, but somehow Mitch always seemed to find a way.
Scott was also singing again. He loved his sessions with Mitch. Mitch always looked at him as if he was proud of him, as if he truly believed that Scott was talented. It meant a lot to him. He found himself smiling like an idiot, staring at the boy randomly while he tried to give him instruction, but Mitch didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.
But Scott would notice the sideways glances and the tiny smiles that Mitch thought were secret. The boy's eyes were almost always on him, and he worked that much harder to show off for him.
He managed to get some answers to a few of his big questions. Where are you from? Do you have a girlfriend? Oh, a boyfriend? Do you live alone? Y’know for a germaphobe you touch an awful lot of stuff. What is it about people? - that last question had earned him a long diatribe about how disgusting people really are and how gross their hands are after touching everything in sight.
But, even after he offered to use hand sanitizer first, Mitch still refused to touch him and had looked at his hand with a sad look.
He guessed it really was a mental thing. He wasn’t sure how someone could live without human contact, but it was Mitch. Nothing about him really made sense anyway.
He’d also asked him about where he lived, curious if the building was all in his head. Mitch had stated he lived in an apartment building downtown. It had caused Scott to jump up as soon as Mitch had gone and he pulled out his file again. The address was different than the one he remembered. He put it into google maps and a normal apartment building was what he found.
It was all so confusing, but it kept his mind off of anything to do with Alex for a few hours. The nights were still hard, the moments when he was left alone with his own thoughts and insecurities. The lonely weekends that dragged on were the worst. Those were the times he couldn’t seem to shake Alex’s memory and he fell right back down into the rut he’d been in.
This particular Sunday found him curled up on the couch, his brain going a million miles an hour. Last night had been a particularly bad one. Alex had tried calling him twice, and even though he’d found the strength to not answer, the 12 or so text messages that had accompanied those missed calls were hard to ignore.
They were all full of lies. “I miss you.” “I love you” “I want to come home.” “Please talk to me.” “Give me another chance.” “I’ll be better this time.”… etc
He’d been spending the last few hours debating with himself. Should he give him another chance? It would be better than feeling like this. He stared at his phone, wanting to send a reply. He wanted to say come home, but he kept hesitating.
A knock on the door shook him from his internal war and he stared at it. What if it was Alex? Would he be happy about that?!
He slowly got up, and approached the door as if it were an angry wild animal. He looked out of the peep hole in the door and got quite the surprise when he saw Mitch making a face and sticking out his tongue, eyes straight at Scott as if he knew he was there checking to see who was there.
He laughed to himself and opened the door.
“I’ve been trying to get you to come visit me for weeks and you say no. The one time I don’t invite you and here you are.”
Mitch grinned. “What can I say, I like to keep things interesting.”
Scott laughed and stood aside letting Mitch come in. “To what do I owe this visit.”
“I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d see if you wanted to go for a walk with me.”
“A walk.”
“Yes, you do know what walking is right? If I have to explain the concept…”
Scott rolled his eyes and shot him a look. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed.” He watched Mitch’s lips twitch as if he wanted to respond, but the cool smirk told him pretty much exactly what he had almost said.
“If you want anything to eat or drink help yourself.”
He disappeared into his room, all thoughts of Alex suddenly gone.
-
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I literally flubbed the words, and then burst out laughing like a 5 year old. Right on stage. I was practically crying I was laughing so hard.”
Mitch laughed and shook his head. “Way to be professional.”
Scott laughed. He was about to respond when he noticed Mitch’s entire face suddenly light up. He followed his line of vision to see a little corgi puppy come bounding towards him as fast as its tiny legs could go.
“Hey, little girl!!” Mitch grinned as she stopped directly in front of him and he knelt down, reaching right out and began to rub the small creature all over.
So, he won’t touch me, but he’ll touch an animal that has been rolling all over the ground.
Scott pouted as the owner of the pup finally slowed to a jog and stopped in front of them, a little out of breath.
“I am so, so sorry about that. She’s never done that before.”
Mitch was giggling, the little wiggling dog propping up on him to lick all over his face.
The guy was watching Scott with a bit of a blush on his cheeks.
Scott smiled at him. “It’s ok. I don’t think anyone would ever mind that amount of adorable coming at them.”
The guy pried his eyes away from Scott long enough to try and get his puppy to leave Mitch alone. “C’mon, Jazmine. Leave the poor guy alone before you lick his face off.”
Mitch laughed. “She’s fine, aren’t you sweetheart. Yeeessss you are!”
Scott couldn’t help but grin at the way Mitch cooed at the furry little girl. He was adorable, but then again so was the shy owner who kept stealing glances at him. “Disney Princess?”
The guy laughed. “Jazmine Sulliven. She’s this crazy talented singer-”
“Ugh, I know! She’s my QUEEN. I adore her.”
The guys face lit up. “Me too, she’s amazing.”
Mitch gave Jazmine a knowing smile. He touched noses with her laughing as Scott and the stranger got a bit lost in conversation with each other for the next few minutes.
“I’m Connor, by the way.”
“Scott. The lollipop is my friend, Mitch.”
The smile on Connor’s face seemed to widen.
“So, this may seem a bit forward, but um, do you think I could possibly call you some time?”
Scott froze. Seriously? Was he ready for this? He was about to open his mouth to politely decline, even though Connor was absolutely adorable, but Mitch spoke up before he could.
“Yes, you absolutely can.” He stood again, the excited puppy now making her way to Scott for love and attention.
Connor laughed and Scott nodded as he knelt to rub Jazmine, wondering why Mitch was so keen to give out his phone number.
Mitch held out his hand for Connor’s phone. Scott could see how careful Mitch was to only touch the phone during the exchange, but after he’d entered Scott’s info he clearly saw their fingers touch as he returned it to it’s owner. Mitch hadn’t even seemed to notice.
Connor smiled at Scott again as he stood back up.
“So I’ll see you around, Scott.” He leant down to clip the end of his pup’s leash onto her collar and went on his way.
Mitch smiled after him. “Well, now I feel like I need to bathe in sanitizer, but he was reaaallly cute, Skeeter.”
Scott looked at him. “Yeah, he was. So, I like how you’ve memorized my phone number.”
Mitch blushed. Scott just wanted to reach out and run his finger over that cheek, but he couldn’t.
“I have a good memory.” He chewed on his lip.
“Maybe you should use that number a little more. The one word text responses are getting old."
"Oooookkkaaaayy. I'll try to improve my texting skills."
"Also, way to try and set me up.” Scott started walking again and Mitch picked up step right next to him.
Mitch’s face fell a bit, but he took a deep breath and looked over at him. “He was cute, WAY cuter than that other douchebag.”
Scott laughed. Mitch REALLY hated Alex, and he’d never even really met him for more than a microsecond. “What if I don’t want to be set up with random cute dog owner guy?”
What if I just want to be with you?
Mitch looked at his feet thoughtfully, but Scott swore he could see a distance beginning to cloud his expression. “You do, you just don’t realize it yet.”
Scott shook his head with a laugh. “Way to be cryptic. Way to ALWAYS be cryptic.”
He smirked up at him, “You like that about me.”
Scott shook his head with a laugh. You have no idea how right you are.
Scott pulled his phone from his back pocket when he felt it vibrate.
Hi its Connor U know the guy from less than 10 min ago
Scott laughed at the screen as he began to program him into his contacts. He sent off a quick reply.
How could I forget u and that ferocious runaway beast?
-
Mitch watched as Scott got into a full on text conversation. He wanted to interrupt him, but he knew better. He would stay quiet and put his own feelings aside.
He forced his eyes away from the smiling man and looked out at the water from the lake they were walking next to. They continued to walk in comfortable silence.
________
A week went by.
Scott had gone out to dinner twice with Connor already. He was really fun and he enjoyed talking to him. It was always easy conversation and light laughter, but he couldn’t seem to stop thinking of someone else, and it wasn’t Alex.
He felt so close to Mitch and yet he felt like the boy was a world away.
Scott was left with about a million more questions than he had answers.
He needed to talk to someone. He was afraid his brain might explode if he couldn’t get some sort of grasp on it. He needed to share the millions of thoughts, to get them out of his head.
He needed another perspective.
There was only one person…
Kirstie.
It felt so odd to be calling her again. He hadn’t spoken to her for months. She had tried so hard to help him after Alex had ripped him to shreds, but he had just been angry and he'd pushed her and everyone else away.
The phone call was awkward at first, both wading in an uncomfortable quiet, but eventually he'd found the words to give her an invitation to dinner that night at his place.
He was nervous as he hung up the phone. What if things were different? What if she was mad? But when Kirstie arrived things went surprisingly okay.
They talked for awhile, mostly about things that weren’t really important, skirting around the what they ACTUALLY wanted to talk about. It was awkward at first, but they eased into the their friendship again, if a bit slowly.
She helped him cook dinner for the two of them and as they sat down to eat she started up a real conversation.
She had asked him how he had been doing.
Well, let’s start slow.
He opened up a bit about Mitch first.
He told her about how odd he was, about his visits every day, about the strange way he felt when Mitch was around.
“Do you ever feel, I don’t know, different when you’re near him? Like calm or... happy? It’s kind of like you can’t stay sad when he’s around, like he makes you feel lighter or better or.. I don’t know how to describe it. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Scott knew he sounded crazy, hell HE would think he was crazy, but he had to know if he was the only one who had an affinity for the small man.
“I think what you’re feeling is attraction.”
Scott knew it was more.
He picked at the cuticles on his fingernails as he thought about it. Yeah he was attracted to Mitch, ok REALLY attracted to Mitch, he’d come to terms with that.
But there was more.
“Kirstie have you ever touched him?” He had been thinking about all the unanswerable questions that seemed to be attached to Mitch.
The bruise... the building, the car...
Kirstie’s mind was gutter bound, initially, but she swept those thoughts aside as she noted the earnest look on Scott’s face YET again after he had asked an absurd question.
“You mean like at all? I don’t think so. Maybe?”
It didn't make sense, yet it all added up without a sum. He was jumping around and Kirstie seemed more confused than anything.
He decided to start over from the beginning. He told her every single tiny detail starting from the moment Alex had left him
She nodded patiently. Scott was going at full speed. He had to get it out no matter how crazy it sounded. The more he said the better he felt. Every word lifted more and more of that heavy load from his shoulders.
Kirstie had confessed she never really liked Alex.
That made Scott feel a little better.
He confessed the horrible things he’d felt after Alex left, the things that he’d thought, the things he had contemplated doing.
He’d cried a little, but Kirstie just let him lay his head in her lap as he did, stroking her fingers through his hair.
She cried more than he did.
He told her about how Mitch had shown up and how much he enjoyed those strange visits. He told her about the amazing way Mitch made him feel every time he was near him or even in the same room.
He cried a bit more, she cursed a bit…
He told her about what Mitch had done for him, how he had gotten him to sing again. He told her how special it had made him feel.
She had laughed a bit. “Scott you really have it bad for this guy and I’m not even sure you realize how much you are into him yet. From the way you tell it, it sounds like he has it bad for you too. He certainly doesn‘t talk to any of the rest of us.”
He looked at her.
“I don’t know why. He barely reveals ANYTHING and he’s so mysterious and weird, but so cute. He just always seems to be worried about ME. I try to talk about him, but he's so closed off sometimes.”
Kirstie smirked as she continued to play with his hair, watching him stare at the opposite wall as he spoke.
“His smile, I just love it. It makes me feel happy to see him happy and its just so adorable…”
“So tell him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“He tried to set me up with someone else, Kit.”
“Maybe he just thinks you aren’t into him. You have to tell him!”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “What if he never talks to me again? I don’t want him to go away.”
He said it quietly, but she was sure she’d heard a sob start in his throat.
She was right…
“I don’t want him to leave like…” He'd made it through the entire conversation with minimal breakdown... Even when he'd pulled up memories of hitting rock bottom and the horrible thought that maybe he'd be better off dead, he hadn't really gotten that upset. It was over and done with.
But one mention of Mitch leaving, leaving like Alex had...
Here came the real tears. Kirstie pulled him up and held him close as he cried in her arms. It wasn’t just the thought of losing Mitch, it was just a build up of everything and hitting that point where you can FINALLY get it all out. Still, he was terrified of losing the strange boy, but also scared of how much he actually cared about him. He was a mental disaster area.
She cried right along with him. Every tear healed a little bit more of him.
She stayed for hours, just talking and getting things out in the open, healing not only themselves, but their friendship. Scott felt so relieved to have Kirstie back in his life. He felt one hundred percent better having shared the thoughts that had been crowded into his brain. Even if her answers and opinions of his weird theories weren't helpful, she hadn't laughed at him or called him crazy.
She didn’t leave until nearly midnight. He didn’t really want her to, but she was going to the shore EARLY the next day with some of the girls. She almost decided not to go, but Scott insisted that she do and to tell them hello from him.
She hugged him tight for an extra long time.
“Call me if you need anything Scott…”
He nodded. “I will…”
"And tell him."
He smiled a bit sadly and nodded as she left.
~
Scott laid in bed that night and instead of worrying about Alex, he felt at peace. The Alex ship had sailed, the healing had started with Kirstie's help, and now he was intent on moving on.
Well, moving on with one person in particular.
Mitch had wormed his way right into Scott’s heart without even meaning to. All thoughts of Alex were gone when he was around and currently all Scott could do was think of him.
He closed his eyes and he could see him sitting in front of his desk, face screwed up in concentration as he began intertwining the rubber bands into a rubber band ball.
He could see him smiling, see him laughing…
Why did he feel like this? He just couldn’t understand it. And what about the bruise? He was so sure he’d seen it, but obviously he had been wrong. Kirstie had insisted it was a trick of light.
And Mitch’s file? It didn’t make sense. Kirstie said he'd probably just gotten dream mixed with reality. She was probably right. He had been high on the stress rating lately.
He kept thinking until for once he slid into a dream, without a tear in sight.
~
Things moved forward.
Scott was finding himself more and more infatuated with the brown eyed beauty, but said beauty was getting more and more frustrating. He remained distant, while still managing to get closer and closer.
It was getting ridiculous…
At least he had Kirstie now. Things had gotten so much better now that he had someone to talk to. He’d also made it a point to reconcile with all of his friends and his family.
He felt better and better with every passing day.
He had finally plucked up the courage to tell Alex to F off for good. He had actually smiled afterwards.
He still hung out with Connor occasionally, but as friends.
He was finally able to sleep again, to smile again, to sing for himself again. He was able to live again.
Just when he was sure things were at a turning point, something happened.
Something happened that changed everything.
____
Scott decided he was going to tell Mitch the truth. He was going to tell him how he felt about him. He was going to bare his heart and take that risk.
He would wait until the afternoon, but he still couldn't wait to see Mitch that morning.
But something was different when the door clicked open.
Mitch's feet seemed heavy. Gone was the light and cheerful smile that usually greeted him every morning.
Something was wrong. Scott could see it immediately...sense it...
He looked him over, completely concerned as Mitch picked up the pencil sharpener and started sharpening the pencils.
Mitch wasn’t looking at him.
“Are you ok?”
Mitch stopped sharpening. His face tilted up a bit, his eyes finally came into view from the shadow of his hat. Scott nearly gasped aloud as he took in the change. Mitch seemed sick. His eyes were definitely paler than normal, his skin seemed almost gray and dulled.
“What-”
“It‘s nothing.” Mitch interrupted him.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Nothing. I just have something I have to tell you.” Mitch’s eyes were dancing around the desk, the walls, anywhere but at Scott.
“You can tell me anything."
“Scott, I’m leaving.”
“What? No! Why??”
How could this be happening? Not now... not today! NOT YET!
“My job. It's done.”
“What do you mean? I don't think I understand...!”
“I have to go….”
“You can't. You have a client in an hour.”
“No, Scott. You have a client. You're singing again. That spot isn’t mine, its yours.”
“No its not. I don’t want it.”
“Yes you do! And you deserve it.”
“I can’t…” Not if it’ll make you leave.
Mitch slammed his palms down on the desk giving Scott a firm look. Scott jumped a bit.
“You can! STOP doubting yourself. You’re BETTER than that. Don’t shut people out or shut yourself down. Go out there and show the world that you’re strong, that you’re BETTER than that asshole. Show them that what he did to you only made you stronger. Haven’t you seen yourself? You’re smiling again. You’re singing and you’re feeling and you’re reaching out!"
Scott couldn't look away from the intensity of Mitch's eyes. They had finally locked on to his own and he felt trapped by them. He could see the tears sitting there, just waiting for the perfect moment to fall.
"There should be no doubt in your mind that you are beautiful and that you are smart and funny and perfect in every way. There should be no doubt that you can out sing every person in this building because I know you can and you know you can.”
Scott felt tears sliding down his cheeks. The way Mitch said it… how could he not believe him?
“There should be no doubt that you could have any guy you ever wanted, any girl for that matter, because you can Scott. You will love again and he will treat you the way you deserve to be treated you just have to let him….and you can’t do that…if I’m still here…”
Mitch forced himself to look away from Scott. He closed his eyes trying to hold it together for this moment.
“You said I could have any guy I wanted….” Scott whispered.
“I have to go…” Mitch's voice even sounded weak.
“Mitch just wait. We can’t wait to talk about this…”
“I won’t be back.”
“But we’re still friends!!”
Scott felt his chest tighten as Mitch gave him that sad look again. He looked so fragile.
Mitch was leaving for good. But why?
He felt himself start to panic, but that warmth was there wrapping itself around him like a blanket, refusing to let him shrink back into himself.
He wanted to get upset and he wanted to cry. He almost fought that wonderful feeling.
“What did I do?”
“It’s not you, Scott. I just finished what I came to do. I did everything wrong, but I thought I could take care of you. I thought I could help you, but all I did was….” Mitch’s eyes were glossed with tears now as he tried to get out the words but they wouldn't come.
“Please don’t go…” Scott’ voice was small…whispered…
“I don’t have a choice.”
Scott wanted answers. He wanted to know why, but he was too upset to even say anything else.
“Years from now if someone says my name you won’t even remember who I am.” and with one last horribly sad look, the man who had turned his world upside down walked out the door.
Scott wanted to throw a tantrum. He wanted to throw everything on that desk onto the floor...into the wall. He wanted to break down. He wanted to go backwards. He wanted to draw up and feel sorry for himself and cry and scream…
But something wouldn’t let him. That stupid feeling…
He stood there for minutes just staring at the door.
He finally found the will to cancel Mitch's sessions, but he couldn't stay there in that office. He went home and just moped around his apartment, waiting for the feeling to go away so he could be upset like he wanted to be, but he could still feel Mitch everywhere like he was all over him.
He couldn’t shake it.
Mitch was leaving. But why? Something wasn’t right with him. He swore he looked sick. Maybe he needed him. What if he really was sick? What if he was really sick?
He couldn’t let him just leave. He couldn’t lose him like he’d lost Alex. He couldn’t just let Mitch push him away.
He jumped up and ran into his bedroom and found the copy of Mitch's file he had refused to get rid of and headed out the door.
Somehow, even though the address showed an apartment building downtown, his feet carried him in the opposite direction, towards a place he was sure he'd only dreamed about.
That feeling stayed with him the entire way.