Limentum

As If You Know the Story

why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? ‘Cause you don’t love me anymore.

I stood by the pickup counter, lightly tapping my foot as I waited for the employee to ring the bell on the counter and shout my name. The cafe was surprisingly busy, much more so than I remembered it usually being. I had ordered two egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, along with two coffees for Liam and I. There wasn’t many tables to sit at, and they were all taken long ago. Thankfully we weren’t planning on eating in here anyway.

While I was getting our breakfast, Liam went to the store a few doors down so we could get some groceries to hopefully last us the trip. He never really learned how to cook much, with the exception of instant ramen or microwave dinners, so I thought of this as a good idea to fix that. I wouldn’t call myself a good cook or anything, but I used the shared kitchen in the dorms pretty damn frequently because I never signed up for the university meal plan.

I never really know what to do with my hands when I’m just standing around like this. I switch between checking my phone for notifications and then just putting my hands in my coat pockets repeatedly. I keep my eyesight generally trending towards the floor, trying to avoid making awkward eye contact with the other customers.

While looking at my phone again, someone new walks up to the till right next to the order pick-up area. I don’t look to see who it is, but I vaguely recognize the voice, a feminine one. I keep looking down at my phone, not wanting to say anything and risk it being a stranger. I hear her handing cash over the counter, thanking the employee a bit loudly. I guess she noticed my behaviour, because she walks over to me as I pretend to remain ignorant of her presence.

“Jake!” she says, mildly surprised. “It’s been a while! What are you doing back in Vestige?” she asks, a smile on her face.

I instantly recognize her. Ms Addams, the therapist I started seeing in grade eleven. I didn’t really think I needed to see a therapist back then, but my parents made me choose between that or weekly visits to the school guidance counselor who was notorious for preaching confidentiality and then telling the parents basically everything anyway. She turned out to be cool, at least to sixteen-year-old me, and I kept seeing her up until I left for university, although infrequently.

“Oh, Allison! I’m in town visiting everybody for spring break,” I replied, in the sincerest voice I could conjure.

Her eyes widened, “Everybody? As in everybody everybody?” she asked, a hint of concern in her voice.

“Yeah, everybody.” I said, a smile of acceptance on my face.

“That’s good to hear!” she said, a smile of her own forming. “I’m glad you’re doing well. I was worried about you when you left for university.”

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have done it if Liam didn’t insist.” I say, quickly realising that she has no idea who that is.

“Liam? Is that-“ she starts, but I cut her off.

“Friend from school. I asked him to come with me, probably against my better judgement,” I say, jokingly.

“Ah, ‘friend’, right,” she said, laughing. Allison was the one who helped me make the apparently obvious discovery that was my sexuality, so I was usually comfortable talking about that stuff with her.

“Ms Addams making a joke at my expense? That’s something new,” I reply sarcastically.

“You aren’t my client anymore, so there’s no obligation to be entirely respectful, at least to some extent,” she jokes, pausing for a moment. “So, is he here?” she says, subtly scanning the occupied tables. I could never understand how she manages to act so professionally when she needs to. That was a huge insecurity of mine back in high school, when I wanted to be seen as an adult who could make their own decisions.

“Nah, I’m just grabbing us breakfast,” I said, realising that the food I had ordered was taking a weirdly long time to be ready. “But…” I grab my phone from my pocket, opening the photos app and scrolling, trying to find a specific picture. There aren’t a lot of them since he’s really picky about how he looks and makes me delete the bad pictures. After a bit, I found the photo I’m looking for, “Here,” I say, turning the phone over to her.

The picture was from back in October, when we went to an outdoor concert with Liam’s friend, Nathan. October was always hit or miss when it came to warmth, and we definitely got a miss that day. Liam and I spent the last half hour or so of the concert in the back of Nathan’s pick up truck with blankets, listening to the performance. The last song the band performed was pretty dramatic, and they set off fireworks during a really crazy guitar solo. So, I obviously had to seize the moment and get a picture of Liam with the fireworks in the background, even if it was just with my phone camera. That was probably one of the best photos I had ever taken, to the point that he actually asked me if he could post it online, which was pretty flattering.

“Aw, he looks really sweet!” she says with the kind of tone I’d use to talk to an eight-year-old.

“Yeah! It’s too bad you can’t meet him right now, I don’t think he’s gonna come in here, we’re heading straight back to our rental cabin after this,” I sigh, making an effort to have it sound mildly disappointed.

“I have an order for Jake?” The cafe employee calls out. I grab the bag with the breakfast sandwiches in one hand, doing my best to hold both coffee cups at the same time and thank the employee, turning back to Ms Addams.

She looks off for a moment, thinking about something. “…You know, you should come to my office one of these days while you’re in town! It’d be nice to see how you’ve been doing since you left,” she says, smiling.

“I’d have to see what days would work, but that’d be cool!” I didn’t really want to, but it would be nice to just talk to her I guess, even if I didn’t really need therapy anymore.

“Great! Well, my contact info hasn’t changed, so just let me know!” she replies, waving as she walks away. My phone loudly pings, but I don’t have a free hand to grab it from my pocket.

“Oh! That’s probably him,” I say, nudging my head down towards my pocket. “I should probably get going, but it was nice to see you again!”

“You too, Jake! I hope the rest of your trip goes well!” I nod in return and push the door open with my shoulder, trying not to spill any coffee.

I can see my car a bit further down the parking lot with Liam sitting in the passenger seat. It’s a bit hotter out today than it was yesterday. At least, hot enough to actually start melting the small amount of ice still on the ground. Hopefully that means we could actually go outside during the trip without having to wear multiple layers. It was mildly busy, though for a town like this it’s a pretty low bar to be considered such. When I get to the car, I have to set the coffees on the roof so I can open the driver’s seat door.

“Hey! Run into any problems at the store?” I asked, handing him his coffee.

“Nope! Pretty sure I got everything you said,” he replies. I grab my coffee off of the car roof and hop in the car. I put my keys in the ignition and start the car before taking a sip.

“Man, I ran into my old therapist in there, definitely not a conversation I was expecting to have today,” I said, chuckling as I shifted into reverse, ready to pull out of the parking lot.

“You had a therapist? Like, in high school?” Liam asked. Yeah, I guess there’s a lot I still haven’t told him about myself.

“Yeah, parents thought I was depressed, didn’t think so but it wasn’t really up to me,” I admitted. Kind of a weird topic while I’m trying to drive.

“…Were you?” he asked, a bit of concern in his voice.

“Uh- I don’t really know- probably? I never had to go on antidepressants or anything, but it helped with the teen angst,” I replied.

“Oh my god, please tell me you had a rebellious phase, that’s hilarious,” Liam put his hand on his forehead as he laughed.

“Incredibly regretfully, but yeah,” I replied, sighing, Liam still laughing. “What, you weren’t also embarrassing in high school?”

“Of course I was! I was the nerd that no one wanted to be friends with!” he said, still laughing.

“Ohhhhh, so you were a walking high-school-movie stereotype?” I remarked, laughing.

“Jake, I didn’t even go to high school with you and it is so clear to me that you were the misunderstood kid that desperately wanted to fit in. Literal stereotype!” he retorted jokingly.

I paused for a second, “…Closer to the truth than I’d like to admit. But I also hated everybody that I wanted to fit in with. A bit of a conundrum,” I confessed.

“Sounds a bit toxic, Jakey.” Liam said, clearly trying to sound serious, and failing.

“The first step is recognizing it, right? I’m probably on step nine by now,” I said.

“Depends on what process you’re following,” Liam replied.

“I’m following the process of ‘I’m going to pretend I’m not a huge mess until I actually believe it’,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

“I think that’s called ‘fake it till you make it’,” Liam said, chuckling. “But I don’t think that’s a very healthy process.” He was right, but I wasn’t going to admit that.

“I’m not exactly a beacon of mental health, Liam,” I said, smirking.

“That’s fair,” he replied, “I’m not exactly a beacon of mental health either.” I laughed.

“Except only one of us here is a Psychology major…” I joked.

“Have you not heard the stereotype of therapists being more messed up than their clients?” Liam said, laughing.

“What career path are you planning on following, again?” I asked, giving serious side-eye.

“I’m going to be the exception, obviously,” he said, smirking.

“I’m sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m sure.”

As we drive down the highway towards the cabin, the morning sunlight reflects off of the lake. I’ve always hated posting pictures of myself online, so my social media pages were typically just taken up by landscape photos, and the lake was a huge subject for me. I thought I wanted to be a professional photographer growing up, and I took basically any photography course that I could find at high school. But for a small town school photography department, they were definitely limited in the availability of equipment that wasn’t twenty years old.

I eventually moved on to music as my main hobby- I mean, I didn’t really think I was ever gonna do anything actually important with music, but I looked up basically any guitar lesson video I could find, and I’ve kinda kept with it ever since. Plus I got the benefit of being the annoying asshole with a guitar at any campfire or social event whenever I wanted. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t impress Ty back then, along with Liam now.

“Hold on- weren’t we talking about your therapist? How’d we get that off-topic?” Liam wondered.

“Oh right!” I said, snapping back to the conversation. “There’s not really much to say, I saw her monthly for most of high school, found out I was kinda depressed, probably fixed it - but who really knows - anyways this is not important because we have plans that need to be put in motion!” I reach down for my phone and unlock it, handing it over to Liam and trying to keep my eyes on the road. “Can you go to the group chat I have with everybody? Ask them if they’d be free tonight to come over for food and stuff - maybe word it better than that but you get the idea,” I say, trying to keep my eyes on the road.

“Ah, a truly extended vocabulary,” he laughed, the soft clicking sound of the phone keyboard audible as he typed the message.

“I think they have to have gotten used to my inane word choice at this point,” I said. I could tell we were nearing the cabin. “You could probably add your number to that group chat too, if ya want,” I offered.

“Oh, uh, sure!” he responded, his tone faltering somewhat.

“…You don’t have to if you don’t want to?”

“No, it’s cool! I just barely know them still,” he said, ending with an awkward chuckle.

“I thought you and Elliot actually hit it off last night? Plus Alex really seemed to like you, too,” I said, trying to reassure him.

“Well, yeah… probably just me being irrational anyway,” he paused for a moment. “I don’t think Ty directly spoke to me at all last night, either.”

Oh… yeah, I wasn’t really paying attention to that. Sounds about right, though,” I sighed. “Don’t worry. He’ll definitely warm up to you eventually, he’s like that around new people.” I turn into the cabin driveway. A soft silence continues on as I drive through the dirt and gravel up to the front of the cabin and shift into park. I hear the message send sound effect from my phone.

“Well, I sent the text and added myself,” he says, handing the phone over to me.

I grab the phone from his hand, “well, we just need to go put all this away and we can head down to the water!” I said, attempting to change the mood.

“Is the beach, like, sand? I don’t think I’ve actually paid attention to that anytime we’ve been on the highway,” he asked, chuckling. I got out of the car and opened the backseat door to grab some grocery bags.

“Kind of, close to the water. Mostly grass, though, which is arguably better for sitting on,” I answered.

“I think any sane person would probably agree with that, sand gets literally everywhere and you still end up finding it months later,” he complained. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast sandwiches as well and headed to the front door.

“Oh definitely, that’s the one thing I hate about going to the beach in Vancouver.”

I have to set a few of the bags on the ground so I can grab the key out of my pocket. unlock the front door and swing it open. I head inside after picking up the bags, Liam following closing behind with the rest of them. “Did Shae go somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah, pretty sure her parents needed her to do some stuff since she’s in town,” I replied. She didn’t get specific about the details, she never liked talking about family stuff anyway so I was used to it.

“Ohhhh, right! I think she mentioned that yesterday,” he acknowledged.

I set the bags on the kitchen counter and took another sip of my coffee. After making sure we got everything out of the car, we started unloading the food into the fridge and cupboards. I was planning on making a tofu stir fry for everybody tonight, hoping they were even gonna be able to come, given the kinda short notice. Which reminds me…

I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the group chat.

Jake: Hey! Planning on making dinner tonight, would you guys wanna come over?

Yeah, he definitely worded that better than my suggestion.

Shae: If I can get out of here in time to actually be there, then sure

Shae: if not ill just eat all the leftovers lol

Nobody else had replied yet, which made it obvious that Shae was bored out of her mind and probably just scrolling on her phone. The only one in the group with a sporadic work schedule was Ty.

I then came to the very apparent realization that I had left Liam to finish putting away everything. And, not wanting to be an asshole, I go back and help him with the last few bags, an apologetic grin on my face. Although, he doesn’t seem phased by it, so I don’t mention it.

Once everything’s put away, I put my hands on my hips and look around the room, “So, we good to go?” I ask.

“I think so, let me go grab my jacket,” he answered, and went to our room. I check the time on my phone, 11:43 AM.

“I should probably get a head start on my research paper today too, as much as I’d like to procrastinate it until the last second,” I shouted towards our bedroom.

“Oh! Right, ugh, thanks for reminding me,” he shouted in return, clearly not excited about spending spring break working on his own assignments.

A few more moments pass as I drink my coffee, waiting for Liam. It tastes nowhere near as good as the coffee at the campus cafe, but I appreciate the nostalgia. Eventually, he comes back to the kitchen with his coat in his arms. I take our sandwiches and one of the blankets off of the couch and we head out the door. I stick close to Liam, leading a bit in front as we walk down the patio steps and down the driveway. It’s not necessarily summer weather but we should be good for an hour or two, especially with jackets. The cabin is pretty thickly surrounded mostly of pine trees, so you can’t see too deeply into it at all. The only thing on this highway past Vestige is houses, a campground, and a boat launch area for the lake. Most of which don’t get any real use until the summertime, so cars were an infrequent sight out here.

“So, where is this place?” Liam asked, his voice somewhat faint from behind me. I turn around and he glances past me towards the highway. There’s a small forest there blocking the potential view of the lake.

“It’s a little path, kinda hidden. The owner of the cabin told me about it, you just follow it down and it goes to a little clearing by the water,” I said, trying to point towards the path with the hand holding our food. The path is definitely not too noticeable to someone driving down the highway, but I can see it pretty easily from here. It’s a small clearing between a few trees, with a visible lack of grass forming a pathway. The gravel driveway is not enjoyable to walk on, being a bit slushy from the melting ice.

“I’m starting to think I didn’t need my jacket,” Liam said. He was probably right, the sun was beating down now, negating the effect of any windchill.

“It might get cooler by the water, I wouldn’t rule out a jacket so fast,” I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was talking about.

Liam quickens his pace, trying to walk next to me. We stop for a moment when we reach the road, making sure we don’t get run over by some truck driver going thirty over the speed limit. The wind seems to pick up significantly here, ruffling my jacket sporadically. Standing at the entrance of the pathway, I can tell it’s a bit of a bumpy walk down to the spot.

I grab Liam’s hand, leading him behind me down the small path. The ground is fairly uneven, and I almost trip a few times, trying my hardest not to take Liam down with me. I can see a bit of the water through the trees, and it doesn’t look like the path goes on for long. There isn’t much of any ice on the path, but the dirt is somewhat wet.

After a minute or two, we reach the clearing on the side of the lake. It’s the exact same lake I’ve been so familiar with for about sixteen years, but I’ve never been to this part before. The sun is shining across the lake onto the nearby mountains, and the water is crystal clear. I had absolutely zero interest in swimming in a freezing cold lake, but it was a nice scene to sit next to. Liam made some comments about how adorable this place is, and I had to agree, at least for this specific area. The rest of the town? I might be a bit more inclined to object, but if he liked it, that was good enough for me. I take the blanket out from under my arm, unfolding it out onto the grass.

“You know, this is pretty cliche for a date idea,” he says, I’m assuming jokingly from his laugh afterwards. We both sit down on the blanket as I grab the sandwiches out of the bag.

“Well- I wasn’t really thinking of it as a date… Just like, I don’t know, something fun to do I guess?” I said, my usual ability to construct proper sentences lacking. I hand him one of the sandwiches.

“I mean, that’s literally what a date is.” He takes the sandwich from my hand, “But I get what you mean,” he said, taking a bite.

“If you prefer to consider this a date then I am happy to oblige, but I usually try to put more effort into that stuff,” I reply.

“More effort? This is like, par for the course for the kinda dates I plan,” Liam claims.

“But there’s so many variables! I can’t just say ‘Hey let’s go here’” There’s a light breeze rustling the trees around us as I take a bite of my breakfast sandwich. Just as good as I remember it.

“Can’t you? We’re doing that right now,” he remarked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t consider this anything special. And even then, I got the idea like three days ago and still had to do some planning,” Liam laughed under his breath, “What?” I ask.

“It’s just funny to me that you’re the one putting all this effort into our dates,” he says, smiling genuinely.

“…What do you mean?” I asked, taking another bite. We never really had actual plans for when we would spend time together, we would usually just suggest whatever came to mind. But I would still plan them a few days in advance. I don’t really know why, I’ve just always liked having any potential issues accounted for, which would always kind of freak me out when I couldn’t do that for spur of the moment plans.

Liam didn’t say anything for a few moments, “…You remember yesterday, when you told Elliot how we met?”

“…Yeah?” I replied, not really knowing where this was going.

“That wasn’t the first time we met,” Liam said.

“What? Before the party? …I honestly don’t remember ever talking to you earlier than that.” Hopefully this wasn’t significant enough that I would actually be an asshole for not knowing the real first time we met.

“Yeah! I don’t really blame you, it was like the beginning of our first year at university,” he said.

Really?

“It was a group project for… I think the class was called ‘Writing About Images’? I don’t even remember what the project was about, but I made a couple friends there, and you ended up joining our group since we needed one more! And we obviously only really talked through the project group chat so I didn’t know anything about you, other than I thought you were cute. I think I asked for your social media at one point? You gave it and said you’d follow me back.”

“And I obviously didn’t,” I said, kinda mad at myself.

“Yeah!” Liam exclaimed, laughing. “I didn’t know you were gay at the time, so I didn’t wanna embarass myself, plus we didn’t talk after that anyway so I only knew you through your online posts and from seeing you in lectures. Fast forward a year and a half, I went to that party with a few friends and you know the rest,” he said as he put one of his arms around my shoulder, pulling me in for a side hug.

“Hmm… How do I not remember that? I feel like I should remember that.”

“It was almost two years ago, I don’t remember at least ninety percent of the shit that happened that year, other than the usual stress about being a new student and having no clue what I was doing,” he reassured.

“That entire year was basically one big blur, all I really did was go to classes and cower in my dorm room,” I admited.

“Was Eric your dorm mate yet?”

“Yeah he was, I mostly just avoided talking to him until the second semester though, so I just huddled up in the dorm half the time while he actually had a social life,” I joked, my self-deprecating humor in full-force.

“Well hey, now you’ve got me to drag you places against your will!”

I didn’t really know what to follow up with after that, so I opted to stew in my own mild embarrassment for a while as we finished eating our breakfast. I went to check my phone again, seeing if anybody else had replied to the plans we were making. To my surprise, everyone else was also able to come, which I wasn’t expecting to be honest. I let Liam know and set my phone on the blanket. A fair amount of time passed as we sat there, enjoying the moment.

Before I got here, I made it a personal goal to use my phone, and technology in general, a bit less. I didn’t tell anybody about that, just cause I thought it was kinda stupid, but I spend way too much time on campus using my laptop - most of the time not even doing anything productive. So, I thought of this return to my hometown where they had barely started getting rid of dial up internet at the start of the decade as a good opportunity. Of course, there was no escaping the assignments we had to submit when the break ended, but I was still gonna try.

“Thanks for bringing me here, by the way,” Liam said, suddenly taking me out of my head.

“To the lake?” I asked, mildly confused.

“No! Well, that too- I mean on the trip! I know you were kinda iffy about bringing me to see basically your entire childhood,” he said. I’ve started noticing recently that his voice gets a bit higher pitched when he’s being sappy. I usually try to avoid being over-sentimental simply out of embarrassment.

“…well, this is only the second day! Believe me, you’ll have plenty of time to start to regret ever thinking coming here was a good idea,” I joked.

“I’m sure!” he said, laughing. “But I’m serious, I’m really glad you invited me.”

As I finish the last few bites of my breakfast sandwich, I can hear Liam’s phone going off in his pocket. He sets his sandwich back in the wrapper and grabs his phone. I can’t see who’s calling from the angle I’m looking at, and he answers it before I can move over.

“Hey! …A few minutes away, why? Oh! Yeah! Yeah, just gimme a minute. Okay, we’ll just be a minute!” he hangs up the phone, putting it back in his pocket, “Did you lock the door to the cabin?”

“…Yeah?” I replied, thinking nothing of it.

He sighed, “Shae can’t get in.”

I groaned, dramatically, “I didn’t think she’d get back until tonight!” I quickly stood up, “wait here. I’ll go let her in and come back.”

“Hurry back!” he laughed, probably at how I locked the door of one of the most remote cabins within a fifty mile radius. Locking my door had become second nature at university anyway when someone broke into Eric’s and my dorm room, stole stuff, including my TV. It happened early on in my first year, so I’m over it, but I still kept the habit of locking the door. Besides, Eric had his own key, so it was never a problem.

Walking back into the forest brought the noticeable lack of noise to the forefront of my mind. All I could hear once again was the crunch of the leaves and ice underneath my shoes along with the occasional car driving down the highway. It’s noticeably darker from the trees blocking any sunlight from reaching the forest floor.

When I make it to the highway, I am greeted by fog, and lots of it. There’s no way this much fog showed up here while Liam and I were down by the lake. Although, fog wasn’t exactly uncommon around here, especially at this elevation near a mountain range. I start heading up the driveway, trying to see if I can spot Shae at the door. As the cabin comes into view, the only car I see out front is my own, and Shae doesn’t appear to be outside. Maybe she found a way in?

I step up the stairs onto the porch, the wood creaking under me. The whistle of the wind is high pitched, swerving throughout the nearby trees, rustling the leaves. I try the front door, seeing if Shae unlocked it, but it seems to be locked still. I grab the keys out of my pocket and insert them, unlocking the door.

As I go to open the door, my ears perk as I hear the sound of footsteps on the gravel near my car. I silently hope that it’s just Shae, but my irrational fears appear to be taking hold. I walk over to the patio fence, looking to see if someone’s down there. But there seems to be nothing.

Fuckin- god.

I turn around and head inside, not wanting to deal with whatever bullshit is currently happening. I figure I’ll just call Shae and see what’s up.

“there’s nothing for you in there.”