You've Done Your Job, Now Please Leave

“Give me a few more hours to tidy up around here, then I will be home.” Bryan told Edmond over the phone.

Edmond had just returned home from speaking with his editor in New York about his first novel. An exciting time for Edmond, that Bryan was beyond proud of. The whole week Edmond and Bryan spent apart. It was the first time in their ten years together they’d ever spent any significant time apart. The idea of getting to see each other after this time apart, Bryan almost felt like crying with excitement. Edmond was already home, and Bryan was at his flower shop closing down for the night.

“I’ll just wait for you, babe.” Edmond said.

Bryan hung up and got back to cleaning up the shop, sweeping and tagging everything that needed to be tagged for the following work day.

Minutes away from leaving for the night, a knock came to the shop’s window. It forced Bryan to jump in surprise. When he saw who it was, Bryan almost yelled out in shock. Craig Mitchel stood on the other side of the window, red eyed with fresh tears shining on his face.

“Shit,” Bryan said, then walked over to the door and cocked it open. “Craig, you can’t be here right now. Edmond is home and we don’t need any drama tonight.”

“You said everything so perfectly the other night. Nights together make everything else in life easier. When you’re not with me, I feel like I can’t breathe.” More tears fall from Craig’s face.

“Oh God, Craig, this has gone too far. I know what I’ve said, which I can assure you in those moments, I wasn’t lying.” Bryan sighed. “Come inside for a minute. I’m not having this conversation in the doorway.”

Once in the shop, Craig looked a little more relaxed. Bryan felt more relaxed as well, though he still felt uneasy with Craig in the shop, with Edmond in their apartment just above the flower shop.

“You don’t really want to give me up, do you?” Craig asked.

Bryan stood at the register and looked at Craig. He felt his hands sweating, his heart racing.

“No, I don’t want to give you up.” Bryan said. “Even though I know in my right mind that everything involving you has made my life almost completely unmanageable. And if I think of what’s good for me, this thing we have here just isn’t the best thing anymore. Not if we want to keep a hold of the lives we’ve made for ourselves.”

“While I can understand what you’re saying, and can respect it, I call bullshit on a lot of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you really wanted to give me up, you wouldn’t have let me into your shop tonight. You would have ignored me and just told me to go. Or did you just let me in because you think you can help someone else by taking the brunt of my idiosyncrasies?”

This stopped Bryan cold. This had been something to pop into Bryan’s mind more than once, though this was the first time he’d actually taken the time to think about it.

“When is Edmond expecting you?” Craig asked.

“An hour and a half at the most.” Bryan said.

“That’s more than enough time. Come on, live a little.”

“I’ve been living, once a week for the past few years. All it’s done for my life is create tension with Edmond and contribute to a lot of sleepless nights. Well I’m telling you I’m finished, I’m over it, and I don’t want to play this game anymore.”

Craig walked toward the front of the shop, then he stopped. “You won’t last. You really won’t. You will come crawling back to me the second you feel unloved and unsatisfied. You may think I’m a stranger you’ve just let into your life every once in a while. But here’s the real deal here, I probably know you than your sweet Edmond does at this point. You won’t survive without your fix.”

“The fuck you know me, and the fuck I won’t survive.” Bryan snapped. “You’re done your job, now please leave.”

Craig said nothing else, he knew he had nothing else to say, so he turned and walked out of the shop.

Bryan didn’t watch him leave.

An hour later, Bryan locked up the shop. Then he stepped out and walked over to the dumpster across the street. From his back pack, Bryan took out what he called “The Craig Kit”; a spoon, a lighter, a syringe, and a recently purchased bag of Craig, or what could also be known as crystal meth.

Bryan took out the entire kit and tossed it into the dumpster. Garbage would be collected the next morning. Bryan would just have to sit on his hands if it meant keeping himself from digging through the trash.

Whatever it took, he wasn’t going to let a drug ruin his marriage, or destroy his life.

Edmond’s smile departed when he saw the sadness in Bryan’s eyes when he entered the apartment.

“Bryan, what’s wrong?” Edmond asked.

“I think I need rehab, Edmond.” Bryan said.

Edmond said nothing.

Instead, he just walked over to Bryan and wrapped his arms around him. Bryan couldn’t stop himself, he sobbed until he felt he couldn’t stop.

“Whatever you need to do baby, we’ll make it happen. We will make it work. I’m not going anywhere.” Edmond said.

With a sigh of relief, Bryan felt much of his fear leave him.

They would be okay.

The road ahead would be a long and hard one, but they would be okay.

The End