After Today

"You're doing it again..." Nadine advised, as she watched him make his way to the water cooler by the office window for the third time in an hour.

Howard dismissed her with a wave of his hand, "I'm just extraordinarily thirsty today. It's nothing."

Nadine tried to suppress a smile and avoided making eye contact as she permitted herself a sassy retort, "Uh-huh. You have no idea how 'thirsty' you're coming off, Boss Man." She chuckled.

Howard stopped scanning the parking lot through the mini blinds long enough to shoot a glare Nadine's direction.

"I know you think that I'm much too old and out of touch to comprehend the intricacies of 21st century innuendo, Nadine, but I'm not as starved for intimacy as all that!"

"You could've fooled me," she responded quietly but still at a volume where her employer would be sure to hear.

Howard felt his grip tighten around the small, paper cup; full to the brim of freshly poured, frigid water.

"You're becoming far too comfortable in this office, Nadine. It's a breach of professionalism that will be featured prominently on your annual evaluation this year!"

Nadine grinned, used to her boss' empty threats.

He was always certain to deliver them in such a way so that she'd know they were only in jest. And it was true - he only made them when he was feeling particularly vulnerable... particularly seen.

He watched her turn her eyes back to her paperwork as he traipsed clumsily back to his office door.

"Just let me know when he gets here, ok?"

"Yes, sir," she responded, her clerical demeanor restored but her knowing smile still present.

Howard stepped back inside the office that so often served as his own personal fortress of solitude.

He had retreated many times over his years spent in the real estate business to the small, lamp lit sanctuary.

He always felt the illusion of protection from the outside world when he sat behind this desk and typed out emails on this keyboard.

It was in this office that he had spent the last decade making sufficient camouflage out of listings for overpriced houses, strategically placed mounds of binder clips and the paper weight that his nephew had made for him one summer at church camp.

He could hide here anytime day or night and the only person that he had to see was Nadine, his assistant... and even then only when he really felt the need to emerge from behind his office door to take a stroll to the water cooler.

But today the outside world was coming inside; into his personal space and in a way that felt almost like an invasion.

That is, if one could label something an "invasion" that they themselves were responsible for orchestrating!

Howard sighed deeply and sat in his office chair, taking out the little black notebook he'd carried since high school.

This thing was a time capsule of sorts.

It housed scribbles and scrawls from a bygone era in Howard's life and felt as much a part of his daily existence as his wallet or car keys. He felt a sense of panic when he didn't know exactly where it was.

By contrast, he always felt more centered... more grouded... more himself when it's familiar, worn cover could be readily thrown open to reference the little tid bits of information he kept inside of it for his own, personal reference.

No, he probably wouldn't need to ever remember the majority of life hacks he'd recorded in this thing; a good deal of them were entries inked on the memo sized pages back in high school, after all.

"Review Pythagorean theorem for Wednesday's math test!"

That was one he'd written on the very first page back in sophomore year.

Some people were in the practice of tying a piece of string around their finger when there was something important they needed to remember...but Howard? He'd find a spot in this notebook and scribble himself a reminder note. And even though the day was fast approaching when there would be no spaces left for scrawling, he assumed he'd continue to carry it even when it served no other purpose but to indulge his nostalgia.

Calm was at premium these days and this notebook? For some reason it was his security blanket... his security blanket with college ruled lining and paper that never let his handwriting bleed through to the other side of the page.

And yet Howard was, especially today, quite aware that any security blanket kept long enough develops some rough and frayed edges... pieces that betray the rest of the fabric.

Pieces like the one he'd kept for decades now smack dab in the middle of this catalogue of his life experiences... in the section chronicling his youth.

A simple photograph that had been - for the last few months, especially - the agent by which Howard's inner peace had undergone quite the breach.

"Aiden Royer," Howard muttered as he retrieved the picture from in between the leaves of dog eared paper.

He felt the hairs on his neck rise as he said the name out loud.

He felt himself wishing he could go back to the window by the water cooler again to see if his careless muttering of his high school classmate's name had somehow summoned his vehicle to pull into the lot outside before the appointed time.

"Calm down, Howard," he instructed himself. "He will be here when he gets here."

Howard hurriedly returned the photo to it's place back in the middle of the notebook.

After nearly a quarter of a century with Aiden's picture pressed between its pages, the small faux suede covered tome always practically fell open to the center when Howard would unlatch the clasp on its front.

He kept telling himself that there was really no reason to be this nervous but, in earnest, that was a lie.

In mere minutes, Aiden Royer would be sitting across from him at this desk and Howard's stomach churned at the prospect of having him there.

But it was past time to come clean and, silly as it seemed, the matter of this money had been robbing him of sleep at night.

Having the chance to converse with Aiden would undoubtedly remedy his insomnia, wouldn't it? Howard felt a lump rise in his throat as he realized that being honest today about what had transpired came with the very real threat of experiencing more than just a little embarrassment.

Would humiliation begin to cause him sleepless nights even after his guilty conscience ceased to do so?

Coming clean with Aiden was going to mean handing him the pieces to a puzzle that, when assembled, would reveal a lot about some of Howard's most private emotions... emotions he had worked hard to keep concealed since their time together in high school.

What kind of judgements would Aiden pass on him for having kept this notebook and this photo for as long as what he had?

What would it say about him that he had obviously returned to look at both frequently enough over the years that he had been able to commit each detail of that photograph to memory?

Well enough to replicate it...

When this conversation with Aiden had concluded, would he even want to go on remembering him?

He had admittedly romanticized things to a degree that was exponential but he couldn't help it.

Howard wanted Aiden to always keep being the boy in that photograph in the center of that dog eared notebook - even if it was just an illusion that brought him occasional comfort in his chosen solitude.

Even after today.

Despite having let himself agonize over every passing second that comprised the hour leading up to it, Howard still felt rather taken off guard when Nadine buzzed him over the intercom to let him know the moment had arrived.

...to let him know that Aiden had arrived...

Howard hurriedly rose from his desk and made a quick pit stop at the mirror on the wall before he received his guest.

The years hadn't been too unkind to Howard. In fact, in some ways they had been generous!

No, he wasn't going to be mistaken for a celebrity fitness guru or male model anytime soon but he had transformed into a reasonably attractive gentleman since graduation day.

He'd spent most of high school feeling like an invisible stick figure and now - if he permitted himself to put self-deprecation aside - he could make a reasonable case for having undergone a full metamorphosis into a respectable (and maybe even handsome?) middle aged man.

Would the same be true for Aiden, he wondered.

Howard couldn't imagine a world in which Aiden Royer had gone on to be anything other than the stunning, young, portrait worthy tribute to blossoming masculinity he had been in high school!

Once revealed, would today's reality match his expectations?

It was time to find out.

Howard inhaled deeply and finished off the last sip of water from the paper cup he'd been nursing all morning. He purposefully smoothed out his shirt front and began the stride out to the reception area.

Once outside his office, Howard immediately felt vulnerable.

He tried to keep his sensibilities about him as he trekked towards Nadine's desk, eager to lock eyes with someone safe who - even when he wished otherwise - undoubtedly understood him. He wondered if she comprehended how he was relying on those few micro seconds of her compassion and understanding to power him through the next few minutes of conversing with Aiden.

"He's here?" Howard heard himself asking her as he closed the distance between where he stood and where she sat.

Nadine nodded towards the chairs in the lobby and indicated Aiden's whereabouts, "Right out there," she half whispered, "in the purple button up."

Howard permitted himself a glance at Aiden from the safety of Nadine's cubicle before continuing.

See, Howard?, he said to himself, You can do this. It's not going to be as difficult as you've built it up in your mind to be!

But as he approached the place where Aiden sat staring at one of the wall hangings that Nadine had picked out at the home decor store, he felt himself begin to feel faint and to regress back to his insecure, stick figure self from high school.

"Aiden?" he hard himself say.

Aiden snapped to attention and stood to his feet.

Sweet God, Howard thought. He's still every bit the looker.

"Hi, Howard..." Aiden greeted him, extending his hand, "It is Howard, right? Not Howie?"

Howard laughed.

"Um, no. Howard is fine. The only person to ever call me Howie was my grandmother and even she stopped with that nonsense once I reached the age of twelve or so!"

Aiden seemed to relax and cracked a faint smile. "Oh, ok. I couldn't remember, man. High school was a long time ago and I know you and I didn't really swim in the same circles back then so I wasn't sure."

"Understandable," Howard said, returning Aiden's smile and trying not to let himself gush.

Honestly, if Aiden Royer wanted to call him "Howie" he was more than permitted to do so.

"So," Howard continued awkwardly, "I'm sure you're probably wondering what someone who was barely an acquaintance in high school is doing requesting you drop by his real estate office in the middle of the week."

Aiden kept his smile intact, "Yeah, actually I am!" he confessed. "I'm definitely not in the market for a new home."

"Well, maybe we should take a seat back in my office and I can talk you through it." Howard replied, congratulating himself on how well he was carrying the conversation thus far.

"Sure thing." Aiden agreed.

Howard turned and began to walk back to his office with Aiden in tow, offering him a drink as they passed the water cooler.

Once behind the closed door, Howard took a seat behind his desk and motioned for Aiden to do likewise in the arm chair across from him.

The two silently stared at each other for the briefest of moments before Howard forced himself to launch into the explanation he'd been dreading having to supply all morning.

"Do you, um, remember the high school carnival fundraiser for prom, Aiden?" Howard asked through a shaky voice.

Aiden paused before exclaiming, "Oh, wow, man! That has been a minute or two ago!"

Both men laughed again.

"Yeah, it definitely has been," Howard agreed, before continuing. "Well, you may or may not remember that I was one of the photographers for the yearbook and so, obviously, the day of that carnival I was there getting in a lot of snapshots."

"Right on," Aiden replied, clearly struggling to piece together why he was here in this office listening to Howard talk about an event they both attended as seniors in high school.

Howard sighed and picked up the little, black notebook from its resting place next to his computer mouse.

He placed it in view of Aiden and let it flop open to the center the way he'd watched it do a hundred times before.

"The, um, photograph there..." Howard stated, trying not to trail off or let his nervous energy betray him, "that's a picture of you from that day."

Aiden's eyebrows arched as he leaned forward to retrieve the snapshot from the notebook's center.

Howard watched Aiden's pupils widen in diameter as he processed the image on the matter card stock.

"Wow," Aiden said, "Look at that young stud!"

Howard chuckled as he realized that there was no way that Aiden could possibly know just how many times over the years that he had looked at the crush-worthy classmate in that photograph.

"Yeah, it's all kinds of 1994, isn't it?" Howard responded. "...down to the neon colored cotton candy that you're holding!"

Aiden was genuinely tickled as he continued to pore over the photo.

"Can't say as I've worn a tank top emblazoned with a Calvin Klein logo anytime in the recent past!" he said, assessing the image of his younger self, "And certainly not one that fit THAT snug!"

Aiden held the picture up closer to his face before exclaiming, "Damn, I've even got a legitimate nip slip happening here! Side boob for the win!"

Even Howard had to let himself briefly relax long enough to laugh.

"Jonathan Taylor Thomas, eat your heart out!"

The two were both laughing rather uproariously now and Howard was sure Nadine must be stationed outside wondering exactly what kind of conversation was unfolding between the two men in the office.

The butterflies came home to roost in Howard's stomach as the laughter died down.

"But I don't get it, man," Aiden stated as the dialogue turned back to business, "Why am I here in your office looking at this random photo of myself from some high school function from a thousand years ago?"

Aiden picked up the notebook and began to examine it as he waited for Howard's reply.

"This thing has to be as old as the tank top that I'm wearing in that pic!" he said.

"Yeah," Howard said, trying to summon the courage to continue, "Well, as it turns out, that photo is now actually award winning."

Aiden set the notebook down and gave Howard a look of surprise.

"Award winning?" he asked, clearly struggling to believe the claim.

"Really and truly," Howard insisted. "And that's kind of why I got on social media to hunt you down."

Aiden leaned in, his interest piqued.

"Ok, now I'm really confused." Aiden admitted, appearing overwhelmed.

Howard sighed.

"I'm afraid," Howard stuttered, "that there's probably not much that can be said from here on out that isn't going to be confusing to you, man. And I'm sorry for that. I have been agonizing over this meeting today and how I was going to explain to you what I needed to in order to get some peace..."

Aiden seemed both suspicious and anxious at the same time as he listened to Howard struggle to find his words.

Howard stared into Aiden's eyes, searching for the perfect phrase that would guarantee a response of compassion as opposed to one that would instead be rooted in anger... or worse yet, judgment.

"So, I don't know why," Howard slowly proceeded, "but that picture that I took at the school carnival was one that just always spoke to me. It's like a bookmark that I inexplicably just started to use as a mental place holder, I guess."

Aiden nodded, silently, trying to communicate that he was following along but Howard suspected all his words must sound bizarre and unintelligible.

Howard decided to try a different approach.

Frustrated, he closed his eyes and asked, "Do you have a wife and kids, Aiden?"

Aiden appeared to come back online now, "Yeah! I married Christina Steelman, actually! She was one of the sophomore cheerleaders on the squad the year we graduated. Do... do you remember her?"

"I... I think so?" Howard said.

He paused to make sure he knew what he wanted to say next. "...when you first saw Christina, before you were ever boyfriend and girlfriend, do you remember if you had a moment of initial attraction? Like, this moment where you took a mental snapshot of her and kept it at the forefront of your subconscious for awhile before you ever initiated your first conversation with her?"

Aiden laughed. "I don't know, man. You may find it hard to believe but I'm not sure that I'm that deep."

"I'm sure you must have!" Howard insisted. "That's human nature... we see something we know we are drawn to. Something important. And once we decide we're serious about it, we find a way to make sure we never risk being without it! We scribble a note in a notebook, for example," he said, pointing again to the memento keeper on the desk, "or we tuck an actual picture away where we can take it out and look at it when it's needed to help us get through the day."

Aiden cracked a sly smile, "This cheesy picture of me as a teenager in a tank top, eating cotton candy helps you get through your day? How?!"

"Life got kinda dark for me after high school, Aiden. I know I didn't ever know you all that well but, um, the boy in this snapshot? Well, I kinda went on to have a friendship with him during a time in my life where I was too fragile to attempt a friendship with anyone else. He became sort of a mascot of hope for me... kept me from doing some really stupid things a time or two."

Aiden's eyes darted around the room aimlessly as he listened to Howard speak. When he finally did open his mouth to offer a reply, it was simply one of a confused and unaffected, "Oh."

"I did finally come out of that dark place, though!" Howard continued hurriedly, trying not to let his vulnerability remain on display for any longer than it had to. "I 'came out' of a lot environments that felt like my own personal prison, actually."

"Oh." Aiden said again, this time with an inflection in his voice that suggested he was finally beginning to comprehend the turns in the road Howard was trying to get him to follow him down.

"Yeah..." Howard said, relieved that maybe progress was getting made.

"So, when you've been in that dark type of place for a long time... and it's imprinted itself on you the way that it had with me? You get really passionate about helping other people out there going through the same thing."

Aiden nodded, indicating he was still tracking.

"I get these magazines in the mail... they're, um, geared toward a certain demographic, shall we say?"

Aiden was beginning to seem more guarded the more that Howard spoke, "The kind of demographic that puts a rainbow decal in the back window of their car?" he asked.

Howard blushed. "Yeah, I take it you must've seen my car parked out in the lot then, huh?"

Aiden looked down at the floor, "I did. Didn't know it was your car but you confirming it helps me realize that we are talking about what I think we're talking about."

Howard wasn't certain how to feel after hearing Aiden piece together enough information so that he could identify the elephant in the room so he just decided to power through; to get everything said that needed to be so that this conversation could be over.

"So, um, this magazine recently sponsored a contest in tandem with some of the top supporters of a few of the country's most well known art museums... They were asking people from among their readers to design an ad for them to print on billboards and on posters in subway stations - things like that... just something that might get seen by someone who was experiencing some darkness and might be in need of a lifeline."

Aiden re-established eye contact now. "What are you telling me, Howard? Are... are you saying that somewhere out there that there's a bunch of billboards with my picture on them?!"

Howard could barely stand his embarrassment.

It wasn't shame over being gay or of having taken solace in a picture of a relative stranger over the last twenty five years.

No, it was shame because now the actual person from that picture was sitting here across from him and (just as he had feared!) was proving himself to be nothing like the person Howard had permitted himself to imagine.

His golden calf was melting before his very eyes and proving to have never been made of real gold at all.

Aiden wasn't the hero Howard had cast him as.

Aiden was just a pretty thing to look at that when held up to the flames stood up to the heat about as well as a mound of neon cotton candy.

"Dude," Aiden's voice exclaimed, forcing Howard out of his melancholy coma, "Are you... are you crying?"

Oh, God, please no... Howard felt himself silently praying.

Howard reached up and touched his fingertip to the corner of his eye, "I'm, uh, sorry man. I guess I was hoping you'd take this on the chin and, of course, that was a stupid thing to expect."

Aiden's upper lip started to turn upward as he continued to listen to Howard talk, prompting him to hurry to finish what he needed to say.

Opening up his desk drawer, Howard produced a folded up slip of paper that he scooted across the desk towards Aiden.

"I didn't actually submit this photo of you... I just created a representation of the image using your likeness. And, yes, there are undoubtedly some billboards out there that, if you were driving by one of them, you'd undoubtedly recognize a hand drawn image of yourself that I'd scanned into my computer and polished up with some digital effects."

The two sat silent, Howard trying to will Aiden's upper lip to uncurl telepathically.

"That's a check, Aiden." Howard spoke again, "It's $20,000 dollars that the donors from the boards of the museums awarded me for..."

"For coming up with the best fantasy smut to wall paper the subway stations in Boys Town with?" Aiden finished, his tone now unmistakably angry.

Howard inhaled sharply, "It's yours. I want you to have it and I've signed it over to you."

Aiden's temperature seemed to cool at this.

"You just want to give me $20K?"

"I do..." Howard insisted emphatically. "I feel like it's only right."

"You don't want it?" Aiden asked, in disbelief.

"All I've ever wanted, Aiden, was to pay tribute to the boy in the picture that got me through some of the loneliest nights in my life... and to hope that maybe the friendship I imagined I enjoyed with him could be real one day... and, honestly? To know that my life has more meaning than coming into this place everyday," he motioned with his arms to demonstrate the smallness of his office sanctuary, "and coasting through life as nothing more than a scared, little real estate agent who is brave enough to put a rainbow decal in his back window but absolutely fucking petrified to do anything - ANYTHING - else in life."

The two sat silent again for a moment before Aiden finally replied.

"Well, I'll take it, Howie..." he said, rising from his chair, "Because I feel like it's the least you can do for a person after you sell a picture of them to some queer rag magazine without their knowledge or permission!"

Howard felt himself start to crumble as Aiden turned to walk away.

But Aiden had one thing left to say as he opened Howard's office door and prepared to make his grand exit.

Raising his voice and attracting even the attention of Nadine several feet away Aiden stared Howard down and practically shouted, "Be glad that I was such a hot piece of ass in high school and gave you such a perfect model for your pervy, little art project, Howard. Because if you hadn't won that contest and didn't have this money available to use to try to make things right? We'd be seeing each other in court!"

And just like that, the conversation was over.

Out of habit, Howard found himself reaching for the notebook so that he could let it flop open to the picture of Aiden, his comforter.

But, oh how badly it stung to realize that the boy in the photograph had in the span of a few moments lost the one super power that had always been available to provide Howard with the rescue he needed.

Howard ripped Aiden's picture in half and flung it into the wastebasket below the desk and then, for good measure, threw the notebook in with it.

He sat holding his head in his hands for what felt like an eternity before Nadine softly rapped on the doorway.

He looked up at her, embarrassed by the tear stains he was sure were obvious running down his face.

"I brought you a cup of cold water," she said, holding it out for him to retrieve as she neared his desk.

"Thank you." Howard whispered, depleted.

Howard half expected Nadine to scurry off the minute he had taken the flimsy, paper cup from her but she didn't.

Instead, she stepped one step closer to Howard and said, "You know, I'm sure such an offer will be deemed professionally inappropriate and be 'featured prominently in my annual eval', but... would you like a hug, Boss Man?"

Howard laughed, stood and stretched his arms out open wide to receive an embrace from his friend.

"You're really very predictable, Howard." she said as she pulled out of the hug a few moments later.

"How's that?" Howard asked, opening a lower desk door to look for a box of tissues.

"You forget stuff even after you've written it down!"

Howard looked at her perplexed, prompting Nadine to further explain.

"You've been writing yourself reminder notes in that shabby little notebook for decades now, right?"

"Well," Howard said, inviting Nadine to follow his gaze to his waste basket on the floor, "...not anymore."

"Good!" Nadine said, praising him. "Because you shouldn't bother writing something down unless it's something you already know so well that you don't need to be reminded of it!"

"I don't know if I follow," Howard stated.

Nadine sighed before she continued, "All those things I've watched you write in that notebook over the years... you scribble them down and then you have to go back and look at it everyday or else you forget them!"

Howard sat back down in his chair, as if to better be able to focus on Nadine's next words.

"I saw that ad you won that check for... it was behind a piece of plexi glass at my bus stop the other night... you did the same thing with it! You went to the trouble of putting that handsome man's image front and center... shirtless across a bubble gum pink background and holding the most unappetizing colored cotton candy cone I have ever seen and then you scrawled a message beneath it in glittery, gold writing that you OBVIOUSLY don't remember!"

Howard laughed as he realized Nadine was right but he tried to deny it.

"I... I remember what the lettering on the ad said..." he insisted, "It was the theme that the donors came up with for the campaign. All the entrants had to incorporate it!"

"Uh-huh," Nadine replied, skeptically, "So, if you remember it so well - what did it say, Howard? Or have you forgotten... just like you do with every other thing you take the time to write down?"

Howard wanted to have the answer at the ready but he didn't. He wanted so badly to prove to Nadine that he wasn't as easy to peg as she was accusing him of being...

"Mmmm-hmmm..." Nadine said, satisfied with herself, "Do yourself a favor, Boss Man. Stop focusing on the pretty faces that won't ever be there for you in the way you fantasize and start focusing on the truths that are important enough to remember that you write them down on paper!"

Nadine was no sooner out the door than Howard was moving at light speed through tabs on his internet browser to re-discover the ad campaign slogan he'd spent hours designing an image to accompany.

Accessing his favorited web addresses, he sipped on cold water from the office cooler and waited for the page to load.

When it did, there was Aiden. Or, more accurately, someone who looked an awful lot like Aiden.

His eyes were closed in bliss as he stood against the bismuth pink backdrop with his mouth opened in anticipation of a sweet bite of cotton candy.

Howard let his eyes run down the length of the character's body, appreciating every contour he had worked so diligently to re-create perfectly before he let himself read the gold, cursive writing below.

"No more tears... after today."

Howard smiled. Somehow he knew it was the only reminder he'd ever need ever again.

And this time, he didn't have to write it down.