Chapter 13
THIS USED TO BE THE FUTURE
Micah - Present Day
The phone sat on the drafting table and Micah stood before it, legs wide and fingers twitching like a gunslinger ready to make his draw.
He was going to ask Cosmo to come over, and this time, he was going to let him inside.
They were going to sit on the brand new couch Micah had used his emergency credit card to buy, and Micah was going to kiss him.
After they’d ended their call the night before, he’d set aside his full-body sketch of Cosmo in lieu of drawing his hands in detail.
For more accuracy, he’d pulled up Cosmo’s Flashbulb profile and studied some of the pictures.
As he’d drawn each crease of his fingers, each white moon on his nails and the highlight on the garnet cabochon of his ring, he’d thought about what Cosmo was most certainly doing at that moment.
Navigating potential new relationships was always tricky.
Micah would bring up that he was trans before anything got too serious, and people usually understood.
That was a concrete concept they could grasp.
But broaching his asexuality often resulted in assumptions and offensive questions that he was tired of hearing.
It had been a relief to learn that neither his identity nor sexuality were a dealbreaker for Cosmo.
Micah had a sex drive, and sometimes he’d see a magazine ad of a man in nylons and high heels, or a woman who stared at the viewer like she wanted to step on their face, and he’d feel a tingle of something.
But he was pretty sure it was more the concept that interested him than the person’s body.
It was frustrating that he didn’t understand himself as well as he wished.
But oh, how he hoped that when he kissed Cosmo, it would feel more than just wet.
Snatching the phone, he typed:
He hit send, but was immediately met with Message Delivery – Failed. Hmm. Cosmo must have used up his monthly allowance of emojis and been punished for it.
That was okay, Micah was eager to hear his voice again. He dialed his number, and a piercing three-note tone entered his ear, followed by, “We’re sorry, but the number can’t be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.”
A bolt of anxiety jabbed Micah’s heart. Had Cosmo blocked his number? That didn’t make sense. Their conversation last night had been… Well, it had been something, and specifically a something that they’d both enjoyed, even if it was for different reasons.
Micah could go to Cosmo’s apartment, but he didn’t want to show up unannounced or go anywhere that Cosmo’s ex might see him.
His Flashbulb app was still on Cosmo’s profile. He navigated to the message box and wrote:
Almost immediately, Cosmo responded:
How was that possible? The chances of him seeing Cosmo and Micah together at the cemetery or that French bistro seemed slim. It could have been at the gallery or Micah’s apartment, though. Micah had come to the gallery with flowers, and Cosmo had accepted them.
This was bullshit. He was not going to let some jealous douchebag get in the way.
Micah typed.
Asking Cosmo to come over now was out of the question.
Micah couldn’t risk failing to let him inside.
That sounded nice, actually. Micah would put his arm around Cosmo in the dark theater as some special effectstravaganza flashed on the screen.
He’d press his nose to Cosmo’s hair and whisper that he wasn’t going anywhere.
Cosmo’s reply appeared:
No. Micah felt himself shaking his head. He squeezed the phone. No, no, no. They liked each other. It couldn’t end like this.
Micah waited for a response. Every second that went by constricted his throat even more. He wrote,
He struggled to swallow, his hand clenching around the phone. He whispered, “Cosmo. Please.”
The phone screen blurred in his vision, and eventually the screen went to sleep. He hurled it at the wall. It dented the drywall, then clattered across the floor. He yanked at his hair. This wasn’t fair! He was so close to letting someone in, in more than one way. So close.
Something dark and consuming reared inside him.
He’d been working on pushing it down for nine months.
Working on pulling himself up. Keeping his head above water, treading until he was strong enough to reach the shore.
But the tide was dragging him back, tugging him under, and it was so much easier to just give up and let it take him.
He took off his glasses, crawled into bed, and pulled the sheets over his head.
The phone rang sometime that evening, but it wasn’t Cosmo, so he dropped it back to its spot on the floor.
When it rang the next day, it still wasn’t Cosmo.
And the more time that passed, the more Micah stopped checking, and the less he got out of bed, resigned to let the dark sea of depression fill his lungs, swallow him, until he was completely numb.
Days blurred together and time seemed irrelevant. Ah, the irony in that.
His only comfort was the white cat, which he kept thinking of as “Phantom.” She’d jump into bed and stare at him with her mismatched shooter marble eyes.
If he ignored her, she’d butt her head against his face and mew loudly until he finally got up.
He wasn’t sure if she needed anything aside from attention, considering that she’d vanish back to her own timeline after a bit, but it had motivated him enough to throw on some sweats and go to the corner store for cat food.
That had been at least a week ago, and he hadn’t done anything since then except water his plants.
The plastic factory odor still emanated faintly from the couch.
Some kind of chemical they used in the dye.
Mostly, Micah could only smell himself. He lay with his nose pressed against the cushion, floating in and out of an annoying half-awareness.
He needed to sink deeper to forget he existed, but he had to pee, and the sensation wouldn’t leave him alone.
Throwing off the blanket, he staggered past a bag of mail Ximena had brought him, and a Tupperware dish full of something he hadn’t eaten. It was bad by now. He couldn’t remember what day she’d stopped by.
Avoiding his reflection as he passed the bathroom mirror, he relieved himself, then dropped back onto the couch. Something thumped, or rattled, or maybe it was the phone ringing again. Either way, he was too tired to go investigate.
As he slipped back into a half-sleep, he imagined Cosmo padding across the carpet, the couch creaking as he sat down. His teeth floating in the dark like the Cheshire cat.
A hand shook his shoulder. He gasped and sat up. Words clogged in his throat so hard he couldn’t swallow. The pulse in his neck jittered. His eyes prickled and watered, but he was afraid to blink.
Stooped before him… was himself. The doppelganger stared at Micah, lines bookending his mouth and glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose.
“Hey. You should get up,” Other Micah said.
Was that what his voice really sounded like?
It seemed less reedy in his head. And his face was so asymmetrical.
God, he’d hoped the thick black frames on that pair of glasses helped disguise his scars better than his other pair, but he was fooling himself.
At least the reflection on the lenses helped obscure the fact that his pupil–
“Micah.” Other Micah patted his cheek. “Wake up. Hey, c’mon. It’s going to get better.”
The hair on the back of Micah’s neck stood up. “I’ve done this before.”
“No, you– Well, I suppose that’s sort of right because I’m doing it, and I’m you.”
Micah threw off the blanket, his mind insisting that this had already happened.
He scrubbed his stubbly face. He should be freaking out, right?
That was surely the natural response to meeting a version of yourself from another time.
But his initial shock was already being swallowed by the numbing tide.
At least the fabric of the universe wasn’t being rent apart. Or maybe it was. It was hard to care.
Other Micah sat next to him. “I stood over you for like five minutes, wondering if the fabric of the universe was about to be rent apart.”
“I don’t understand how you’re here. I thought the disturbances I’ve noticed were from the tenant before me, the cat–”
“Ah. Phantom is mine. Ours.” Other Micah shrugged. “She just showed up one day. I asked around, but nobody claimed her, and it seemed like she needed someone. I guess we needed her too.”
Micah scrubbed his forehead. His cat all along. No wonder she was so friendly during his first encounter with her.
“What day is it anyway?” Other Micah asked.
“I have no clue.” He picked up his watch from the coffee table and snorted. “Friday. The thirteenth.”
“Oh.” Other Micah slumped against the couch. “That day.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What happens today?”
“I don’t know.” Other Micah glanced at him with his disconcerting pupil. “Cosmo won’t say.”
His heart leapt. “We talk to him again?”
“Yeah. He’s going to text you around six this evening and say he made a mistake in breaking it off.
He’ll ask you to meet him at that taco truck always parked on the corner of Clementine.
He kind of threw himself into my arms. Our arms…
Your arms? You know what I mean.” His lips twitched in a smile.
“And we find out if it feels more than just wet.”
Micah sucked in a sharp breath then glanced at his neglected living room. Mail lay scattered on the floor, moving boxes were still unopened, and one of his pillows had fallen off the couch into a pile of dirty dishes.
Holy hell. He and Cosmo were going to kiss and this place was disgusting and so was he.
Other Micah continued. “But… Something happened that Friday before we met up. Someone did something to him while he was at the taco truck.” His nostrils flared, fists balling. “They spooked him. Maybe hurt him.”
“Who?”
Other Micah’s voice flatlined. “You know who.”
Hot anger flooded Micah’s limbs. “That motherfu–”
“I guess we can’t say for sure it was Zedd, but he’s the most likely. Also thought about–”
“Royce?”
“Yeah.”
Micah opened his mouth to continue voicing his thoughts, but there was no reason to. He was talking to himself.
Other Micah sighed and said, “Cosmo won’t give us details.
Just keeps pretending like nothing is wrong.
If it was Zedd, his plan backfired, because instead of pushing us away, it made Cosmo come running back to our arms. I feel completely useless though, because I don’t know how to help the situation. ”
Micah’s mind reeled with the knowledge that Cosmo was hurting, was going to be hurt, and the fact that his future self was sitting beside him on the–
“Wait.” He sat up straight and stared at Other Micah.
“Has it already happened today? No, no, that taco truck doesn’t open until five pm.
” Looking at his watch again, he confirmed that it was only three-thirty.
“I can stop it. I can go find Cosmo and make sure that whatever is going to happen, doesn’t. ”
Other Micah’s mouth fell open. “You have to! Oh my god. Go take a shower and get down there.” He pushed at Micah. “Go, go, go.”
Micah leapt off the couch and slipped on a piece of mail.
He turned back to Other Micah. “I doubt you’ll still be here when I get out of the shower, but if this doesn’t change anything for your Cosmo, you hold him close and tell him it’s okay not to be okay.
” He paused. “Same goes for you. Be good to yourself.”
“You can’t say that to me when you haven’t showered in two weeks. Say it to yourself, then go stop whatever is about to happen.”
Micah hurried into the shower and shaved with enough haste to nick his chin.
He scrubbed the depression off of himself, formulating what he was going to say to get Cosmo to come with him.
It sounded like Cosmo was close to wanting to be with Micah anyway.
Hopefully showing up and inviting him to go get ice cream or see an art exhibit would be an easy “yes.” And if he wanted to leap into Micah’s arms in the process, that would be more than alright.
When he got out of the shower, Other Micah was gone.
He still had time before he needed to go, so he dumped dirty dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet, then swept through the living room, picking up the clutter and throwing a load of laundry into the washer.
He wasn’t sure he’d be able to bring Cosmo here and be in the apartment with him at the same time, but if it was life or death, the last thing he wanted to worry about was Cosmo drowning in filth.
Maybe it would be best to start the conversation with what had happened. Cosmo would want to hear all about Micah meeting his other self, and how this new apartment had the future bleeding in instead of the past.
This complex had a serious paranormal problem, but now Micah had an advantage. This was going to fix things between them and prevent something awful from happening, if not to all the Cosmos out there in the block universe, at least to this one.