Adam
ADAM
“ A dam … wake up. Please wake up.”
Water is tickling my toes. Air is burning in my lungs. I feel the shower speaker around my neck pressing into my sternum as my body hugs wet sand. Roland. He came after me. It must have taken him ages to float all the way down here. How long have I been unconscious? Or am I dying? Part of me would be relieved for all this to be over; part of me wants to fight through the pain. Waves whoosh somewhere behind me. Up on Roland’s lawn, they sound soothing; down here, they crash at a threatening clip.
“Adam, come on. Get up. Tide’s going back … don’t want … pulled out.”
I wiggle my toes. That appears to be the full inventory of body parts I can move without sending pain shooting through me. Still, even though I’m one big bruise, I think I’m alive. And if I can manage to walk or crawl away before the water washes me back out to sea, I just might stay that way.
“I can’t … lose you, Adam. Being dead … it’s not … all it’s cracked up to be.”
Roland’s stuttering badly now, his voice fading in and out of clarity. He sounds as weak and faint as he did that first day, after he struggled to figure out the driveway gate. I try to comfort myself with the thought that the speaker could just be waterlogged. But he was sounding off back at the house, too. And he floated such a long way to get down here. Too long. Am I losing him? Will he be able to come back from the edge after expending so much energy chasing after me? Or did I kill him by doing what I did? The guilt jolts me back to consciousness faster than anything else could.
“Adam, come on. Stand up … now.”
Stirring, I feel something else, too, clutched in my right hand: my Moleskine. That’s impossible, right? How did I not lose it in the fall? But I remember grabbing it as I hurtled toward the water, foolishly clinging to it instead of trying to protect my head or my ribs. His voice croaking through the speaker, Roland tries to rouse me again.
“Adam … please … MOVE.”
Putting my wrists below me, I push off against the sand and stumble to my feet, scooping up the notebook, even though bending over to grab it sets the nerves in my lower back ablaze. The suction of the tide tugs at my feet as the water ebbs behind me, trying to pull me out to the deep. But I walk forward, lifting one sloshing shoe after the other. I’m in a sheltered cove of sorts, with a long wooden staircase on one side leading all the way back up the limestone cliff. I wonder if it came with the place or if Roland had it built at great expense in one of his many celebrity pissing contests with his Malibu neighbors. Either way, I’m grateful it’s here.
Slowly, I plod my way up to the first landing, waterlogged sneakers squishing against the planks. Sitting down on the steps for a moment to catch my breath, I recollect myself, unwrapping a piece of seaweed from the cuff of my jeans and looking up to see how much I have left to go. Only then do I realize how far I fell: it must be at least eighty feet to the top of the cliffside. It’s lucky there was water to catch me; it’s not like I checked the tide charts before leaping.
“Why did you do that?” Roland asks me. “So … stupid.”
“I didn’t jump,” I sputter. “I fell. Just like you did.”
“Book … doesn’t matter. I told you.”
“Roland, your story does matter,” I protest, pausing to indecorously spit out some briny water. “It’s going to help people.”
Roland takes an eternity to respond, but when he does, his words are clear: “Adam, I’ve been trying to tell you: the reason I’m ready to let go of the book isn’t because of Zoya. Not really. It’s because I found you.”
Maybe it happens because I almost died. Maybe it’s because the last movie star in America came to rescue me. Or maybe it’s the past decade of regrets slipping into the sea. But I sob on that step harder than I’ve ever sobbed. I cry like the night I did when I tried to call my parents from a new number and they hung up the phone. I cry like the day Richie left. I cry like I did on the train on the way to that steak dinner with Paul, certain that I would never write a book again. I think about how draining it must be for Roland to put together complete sentences right now, and that only makes the tears flow faster.
“But the nightmares,” I blubber, snot dripping out of me, falling through the slats between the stairs onto the sand below. “Roland, are you going to be all right? I’m worried about you. I don’t know anything anymore. I don’t know where you’re going.”
“I don’t either, but I’m at peace now. You’re why I can go now, Adam. It’s time.”
I am destroyed. I am a puddle on the stairs.
“I’ll never forget you, Roland,” I stammer.
“Of course you won’t,” he jokes, maddeningly, but he’s already said enough.
I don’t need to squeeze any more words out of him—not anymore. He proved how he feels with what could be the final minutes he has left. But as gratifying as that might be to an insecure man who nearly drowned, there are lonely queer kids out there whose lives his story could save.
“The book, Roland. Don’t give it up because of me. People still need it.”
“But Zoya …” he protests, his voice fading again. “And Matt … before I go … I need to email … time stamp … for your sake.”
That last part is confusing but I know what he means. He has to tell his team he sent me home, and to do that, I need to get him to his computer. They need to think he was alive up to this date, at least. As for Zoya’s concerns, I’m not sure why I didn’t see the obvious solution earlier. Maybe the fall rattled some brain cells loose. But it’s come to me. Right now, though, Roland needs me. I have to push myself as hard as he did.
“I’ve got you,” I tell him. “Stay in the speaker.”
My wet shoes have to come off first; they’ll only slow me down, even if it means my feet will be riddled with splinters by the time I get to the top. I am powering my way past the next landing when the exhaustion and shock catch up with me, but I can’t stop. I have to keep walking. I can only hope this works.
On the fifth landing, I lose the jeans, too. Wet denim isn’t going to stop us. Finally, calves aching, lungs gasping for air, I reach the top of the cliff, only to find Zoya, mouth agape, standing right where I left her, frozen to the spot.
“You’re alive!” she shouts. “Oh, thank God!”
“In the flesh,” I mutter. I want to berate her for trying to throw my notebook into the Pacific, but I need her now. And Roland needs her, too.
“Is Roland …?” she asks.
“Hi … Z …” he croaks out of the speaker.
“He’s saving his strength,” I explain. “I’ve got to get him to his computer. He’s dying, Zoya. Like, actually dying.”
Zoya’s relief at seeing me in one piece dissolves into genuine anguish for Roland. It’s dawning on her now that he wasn’t lying about getting weaker. And even though she has been nothing but a nuisance in nylon workout sets since she first appeared, I think back to the flashes of honesty in our contentious conversations: She loved him and resented him at the same time. She couldn’t always find the line between wanting to be with him and wanting to have his draw. As complex and contradictory as her feelings might have been, I can’t deny that she protected him. Zoya spent years being a private source of comfort, then came here and asked for something in return. Her timing wasn’t great, nor were her methods, but I understand why she did what she did. It came from a place of pain and need.
“He’s in there now?” she asks me, pointing at the speaker.
I nod.
“Roland, are you really—?” She stops herself short of finishing the question.
I feel ill, and not just from the fall. I didn’t know this day would come so soon. Zoya apparently thought it might not come at all. But my heart hurts for us all.
“I think so,” Roland says.
Zoya looks up at me. It would be impossible for her to understand what I share with Roland, despite the years they spent together. We built a universe between us, made out of fantasies fulfilled for the first time and words that had never been uttered. But even though that dynamic will always be untranslatable, Zoya regards me now with the same pity I feel for her.
“Adam, I’m sorry,” she says.
Forgiveness doesn’t come easy, but it has to come fast. I don’t know how long Roland has left. This woman spent six years shouldering his private anxieties; sometimes even an hour with him made me want to pull my hair out. We can litigate how she handled things later—well, realistically, that probably won’t happen at all—but I can understand why my presence would be confounding for her.
Especially when my presence is what it is: a poor writer, pantsless in front of her for the second time, begging to be taken seriously.
“It’s OK, Zoya,” I tell her. “I needed a refreshing dip anyway. But we don’t have much time and I’ve got a proposal for you.”
“Adam …” Roland whispers
“Just hang on, OK?” I say, looking down to him, then returning to Zoya: “What if Roland delayed the book release? Would two years be enough for your brand launch?”
The answer was obvious, but we were so at odds I never thought of it before. Zoya looks down at Roland, her chest heaving now. It’s hard for her to focus, and I can’t blame her, but we need to sort this out quickly.
“Roland, honey, I’m so sorry we spent all this time fighting,” she says between gasping breaths. “If I had known it was our last opportunity to talk … Oh God …”
“I love you, Z,” Roland says, effortfully. “Two years?”
Zoya collects herself, locks eyes with me, and nods. “It’ll be enough,” she confirms.
“Take me … computer,” Roland whimpers. “Both of you.”
“We’ll get you there,” I say, swiping away at my tears. “See? We’re going now.”
We walk together toward the courtyard. The sun beats down on us through gaps in the palm fronds, but I’m still shivering from my accidental baptism by immersion. Zoya and I don’t say a word to each other, but I know why Roland asked her to accompany us on this last leg for a reason—the same reason he was with her for the better part of a decade in the first place. As special a connection as we share, he needs her now.
“Talk to me … Z,” Roland says now. “Need … stay focused.”
Zoya slows down so I pick up the pace to try to tug her forward. We’ve got to walk and talk here. “OK, OK,” she begins, after a few halting steps. “Roland, remember the time we both went to the Kids’ Choice Awards because I did that song for the soundtrack of that animated movie about the alpaca who had alopecia?”
It doesn’t sound like the setup to a story I would choose as my last words to someone, but I don’t know their relationship, just like Zoya doesn’t know ours. In any event, it seems to make Roland perk up.
“Yes! You practiced … for weeks. What … name?”
“‘I’m Still Beautiful.’”
“Right … ‘Still Beautiful.’ You … sang live.”
I can hear the struggle in his voice, but whatever Zoya is doing, it’s working. We’re nearly there, and Roland is staying with us. I slide open the glass door that leads into the living area as they continue talking.
“I performed it on stage in that dress that Dolce lent me, remember?” Zoya is saying. “But then the second I hit the final note, those fuckers slimed me. They poured buckets of that disgusting green stuff from the rafters. They didn’t even warn me about it or anything, even though they told Bieber’s team before they slimed him.”
Roland laughs, faintly. A good sign. “You were covered … Z. You looked … sexy … angry Swamp Thing.”
We’re working our way past the kitchen into Roland’s wing, toward his study, Zoya remaining in earshot a couple steps behind us. We’ll have him where he needs to be soon. I’m glad she’s keeping him diverted. He’ll need some energy left for the emails, especially with the curveball I threw him: somehow, he’ll have to send a message that can convince the publisher to hold the book.
“I was about to storm off the stage,” Zoya continues. “And not in a funny way, either. But you were in the front row, and you saw how mad I was, so you came up next to me, and you gave me a big wet hug in your tuxedo.”
Her voice breaks. She lets out another jagged sob. But she rallies. “And then they slimed you, too. Everyone loved it. The kids went wild for Crag Dynamite covered in neon green goo.”
“Sorry,” Roland says. “Stole … your spotlight.”
“No, honey,” Zoya tells him, as we reach the desk. “It was perfect. That’s how I’ll always remember you.”
“Slimed?” Roland asks.
“No. Helping me.”
Zoya’s story ended up having a point after all, and it’s one that spears me through the heart. In the scarce time I’ve spent with her, I’ve caught glimpses of her underbelly. Her very toned underbelly. But it’s clear she relied on Roland, too, in ways she might never admit in front of me if the situation weren’t so dire. Roland doesn’t respond to Zoya right away. I wiggle the mouse on the desk, taking care not to drip any water onto the keyboard, and the computer comes to life.
“Thank you, Z.” Roland’s voice crackles through the speaker. “For helping me …”
It’s not my moment. But it makes me sob nonetheless.
“We’re here, Roland,” I tell him, gathering myself.
“Adam,” he says, longingly, then shifts his tone. “Now … alone.”
I wasn’t expecting to be exiled for this part. I thought I would sit down at the desk and watch over him as he faded.
“Roland, you really don’t want me to stay?” I ask him, but I’m already removing the shower speaker and setting it down next to the PC so he won’t have to float very far. Zoya clears the room, standing just outside the door to the study.
“Yes,” he says. “I can … do it … been saving strength. Typing … easier.”
I can’t pretend to know how any of it works, but I believe him. I start to move toward the door.
“Adam?” he asks.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll never forget you, either,” he says, and the fact that he pushed himself to produce an uninterrupted sentence moves me almost as much as what he said.
I want to tell him I love him. I want to tell him how much this last month has meant to me. But there wouldn’t be enough time, and only saying some of what I feel would be more painful than hoping he can feel it all through the silence. Instead, I take a few steps backward and lean against the doorframe to compose myself. I can break down in a second, but his last image of me shouldn’t be a sad one. I want to leave him with hope for the other side.
“Hey Roland, one more thing,” I call out through my tears.
“Yeah?”
“Shove it up Matt’s ass for me.”
“Attaboy,” Roland responds.
I keep watching just long enough to make sure Roland opens his email, and then I close the door behind me, pressing my back to it and slumping to the floor. Zoya looks down at me, her eyes as puffy and red as mine.
“What was that?” she asks, and for once, there’s no judgment in the question. Crying is the great equalizer, reducing her immaculate self to my everyday level of mess. We’ve seen each other at our weakest now, but also, perhaps, our best.
“Inside joke.” I sob.