Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

him and he waited, waited, waited for his chest to stop rising, and when it
did, his grief was tempered by savage relief.
Years. Wallace saw years flashing by where Cameron was alone, where
he wasn’t alone, where he was staring at himself in the mirror, wondering if
it would ever get any easier as the dark circles under his eyes bloomed like
bruises. He was a kid riding his bike in the heat of summer. He was fourteen
and fumbling in the back seat of a car with a girl whose name he couldn’t
remember. He was seventeen when he kissed a boy for the first time, the
scrape of the boy’s stubble like lightning against his skin. He was four and
six and nineteen and twenty-four and then Zach, Zach, Zach was there, the
sunshine man, and oh, how his heart skipped a beat at the sight of him across
the room. He didn’t know what it was about him, what drew him so quickly,
but the sounds of the party faded around him as he walked over to him, heart
tripping. Cameron was awkward and tongue-tied, but he managed to get his
name out when the sunshine man asked, and he smiled, oh god, he smiled and
said, “Hi, Cameron, I’m Zach. Haven’t seen you around before. How about
that?”
It was good. It was so damn good.
In the end, they had three years. Three good, happy, terrifying years with
ups and downs and blinking slowly in the morning light as they awoke side
by side, their skin sleep-warm as they reached for each other. Three years of
fights and passion and trips to the mountains in the snow and to the ocean
where the water was cerulean and warm.
It was toward the end of the third year when Zach said, “I don’t feel
good.” He tried to smile, but it split into a grimace. And then his eyes rolled
back into his head, and he collapsed.
One moment, everything was fine.
The next, Zach was gone.
The destruction that followed was catastrophic. Everything they’d built
was razed to its foundations, leaving Cameron screaming in the rubble. He
howled and raged at the unfairness of it all, and nothing, nothing could pull
him out of it. He faded, he faded until he was a shadow moving through the
world by pure force of habit.
Wallace said, “Oh no, please no,” but it was too late, it was already too
late because this was in the past, this had already happened, it was already
done.