The heat of the water was almost scorching, but Luke endured it. He pressed his forehead against the wall of the shower and let the water run down his back as he tried to gather his thoughts. His heart and his head were a tangled mess.

A few hours ago, he thought being physically intimate with Hunter was something that might never happen for him again. So then why wasn’t he overjoyed right now? Why didn’t he feel as if he had achieved a massive milestone on his journey towards rebuilding his relationship with Hunter?

Perhaps it was because he still wasn’t sure of Hunter’s feelings for him. Sure, Hunter had initiated the entire situation, but in the end that didn’t really mean much. Did it?

He couldn’t be sure what was going through Hunter’s head. He wasn’t even sure what was going through his own head.

And his heart felt almost as if it were breaking all over again.

He had retreated almost as soon as they had collapsed onto the bed. A half mumbled excuse about needing a shower was all he had given before disappearing into the bathroom. He hadn’t trusted himself to say anything else. He hadn’t wanted to ruin that near perfect moment with ill-timed proclamations of love and devotion.

He expected Hunter to be gone when he emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. If their situations were reversed he was almost certain he wouldn’t have hung around afterwards. The awkwardness with which he’d ended their encounter had been almost stifling.

To his surprise, however, Luke almost immediately locked eyes with Hunter, sitting on the sofa on the far side of the room.

Hunter had gotten dressed again. His cheeks were still a little flushed, but his expression was one of confusion. Sitting before him on the coffee table was a box that Luke was all too familiar with. In Hunter’s hands was one of the unsent wedding invitations.

Panic immediately flooded through Luke. Panic and anger at having his privacy invaded. Hunter shouldn’t have been snooping around. The box had been tucked away beneath the table. Out of sight. Who just dragged out closed boxes that belonged to other people? Probably someone with insatiable curiosity and a lack of memories regarding social norms.

“What are these?” asked Hunter, slowly rising from the sofa. “The date...”

“Just after your accident,” finished Luke, shoving down his anger and alarm and trying to feel his way through this situation one moment at a time.

“So we were...engaged?” Hunter’s expression was unreadable.

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it or trying to evade the question. All of the proof was there in that box.

“So why isn’t there any proof? Why are there no pictures in my apartment? Why isn’t your number in my phone? Why weren’t you at the hospital when I woke up?” Hunter was growing more emotional with each question and each question drove another spike of pain through Luke’s chest.

“When you were unconscious,” explained Luke, “your parents and I started watching over you in shifts. It was your mom’s shift when you woke up. I was at home. She called and told me right away, but she also told me about your amnesia.”

Hunter looked like he was about to speak, but Luke rushed to cut him off. He had to try and explain this. Now that his plan had been shattered, his only hope was that Hunter would understand his intentions.

“I didn’t want you to be with me because you felt obligated to be,” Luke continued. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to try and honor a relationship and commitment you couldn’t even remember. I wanted to rebuild our relationship based on new memories we built together. I wanted you to fall in love with me all over again before you found out we had been in love once before.”

“So I erased myself from your life. I took the pictures from your house. I deleted my number from your phone. I even took the painting from your living room.” He looked away and his gaze fixed on the canvas, hidden under a sheet, beneath the window.

Hunter followed his gaze and approached the canvas on hurried feet. Luke didn’t even attempt to stop him as he pulled back the sheet and revealed the image beneath.

At first it looked more like text than a painting. The words “Hunter & Luke” were traced across the surface in a wide flowing script. However, upon closer inspection, each letter was made up of dozens of scenes from their life together.

Their meeting in the lobby of the apartment building after their mail had gotten mixed up. The time Luke had taught Hunter to make spaghetti. The walks in the park. Skating at the ice rink on New Year’s Eve.

Luke had poured hours into this painting. He’d agonized over the composition and the color choices. Everything about it had been detailed into perfection. He’d given it to Hunter on the night he had proposed. Nearly a year had passed since then and so much had changed. He could barely even remember which scenes had made it into the final painting.

“Why?” asked Hunter softly. “I’ve been running around feeling so lost and you kept this from me? I’ve been feeling like there was some secret that everyone else knew but wouldn’t tell me. I’ve been struggling to figure everything out and now what?” He turned and looked at Luke. There were tears in Hunter’s eyes.

“I told you why.” Luke had been so certain that his intentions were noble that he was a little taken aback by Hunter’s reaction.

“You don’t understand.” Hunter stepped towards him. “Why did you have sex with me? Was it because you like me? Or was it because you’re still in love with the person I used to be?”

Luke felt like he’d been slapped in the face. “They’re the same person. You’re still you, Hunter. Your clumsiness in the kitchen isn’t a new development. You’ve always been like that. You prefer chocolate to pretty much everything and your favorite color is blue.”

“That’s the same with a lot of people!” insisted Hunter. “I’m not the same person I was. I’ve taken you, Vincent, and my parents all by surprise because they weren’t expecting me to act or react the way that I did. I’m different now, and you, just like everyone else, can’t seem to accept that I’ve changed. You’re all still trying to shove me in a Hunter-shaped box so things can go back to normal. Your version of that has me going back to being your loving partner, where we get married, and have ten kids or whatever.”

“Hunter...” Luke’s voice trailed off as he stared at Hunter’s quivering form in utter disbelief. It was true that he hadn’t expected this reaction at all, but was he really guilty of what Hunter was accusing him of? His entire desire had been to allow their relationship to grow naturally as they built new memories together. Had he truly been trying to impose his version of Hunter onto the current one? And were the two of them really so different from one another.

“I just need to go home,” said Hunter, crossing the room and heading towards the front door. “I need to process all of this.”

“Hunter, wait.” Luke caught hold of Hunter’s arm as he walked past.

Hunter stopped short and looked up at him. His eyes were brimming with tears, but the scowl of anger and confusion on his face seemed to be keeping them at bay.

“I had sex with you because I love you,” said Luke. “I love you. As you are right now. I’m not asking you to be something you’re not. I’m not asking you to remember things you don’t. I just want you.”

Hunter pulled his arm free of Luke’s grasp. “How can I know you aren’t just saying that to fix things? How can I believe you? I can’t.”

Hunter disappeared out into the hall and left Luke standing alone with what felt like a gaping hole in his chest.

***

“EVEN I COULD HAVE TOLD you that was a bad idea,” sighed Allen over the phone.

Luke was lying on the floor in the middle of the apartment, staring up at the ceiling beams. His back hurt, he was cold, and still wearing only a towel, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. He had barely been able to reach his phone when Allen had called to check up on his progress with the paintings.

“I got caught up in the moment,” said Luke. “I meant what I said to him. I do love him. As he is right now. He could have become an amnesiac quadriplegic, and I would still love him. I would do anything for him. But I can’t prove it to him because he refuses to believe that I love him now and not just who he was before.”

“He’s a little feistier now, and he may not remember everything, but he’s still Hunter,” said Allen.

“That’s what I told him, but he refuses to accept that. He’s obsessed with the idea that he isn’t the same person anymore.” Luke shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re going to have to alleviate his fears somehow,” speculated Allen. “He probably doesn’t even realize what it is he’s afraid of.”

“So what? Prove my love?”

“No, that’s not it. He’s just lashing out. I think this goes deeper than just not remembering things. He’s fixated on the fact that he’s someone different than he used to be. He’s pushed away his parents. He discovered his connection to you, and now he’s pushing you away. He kept Vincent close even though Vincent claimed a strong connection to him which was a lie. There’s some sort of clue in his actions,” reasoned Allen.

“I thought it was just his desire to be different than he once was.”

“Then what about Vincent? Why keep someone close who was supposedly so close to him? Why push you away now when he learns you really were that close to him?”

“Because he’s confused? Because he doesn’t know what he wants? Because I don’t know?” Luke was getting tired of Allen’s leading questions and cryptic answers. He was grasping at straws.

“I think he feels disconnected,” explained Allen. “He doesn’t remember anyone and doesn’t feel anything for them because he lacks that bond. He thinks it should be the same for everyone else. They shouldn’t feel a connection to him because what happened before is no longer valid to him. He kept Vincent close, however, because I think he was trying to establish some kind of connection with someone from his past. But it backfired on him because Vincent is a manipulative jerk who took advantage of him. Now he finds out you’ve got an extensive past with him, and he instantly recoils because no one he’s tried to connect with thus far has been able to avoid their attachment to his old self.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” groaned Luke, dragging himself up off the floor.

“That, I don’t know,” admitted Allen. “What I do know is that the gallery is opening in less than two weeks, and you’ve given me almost nothing. I don’t want to nag you about this, but if we don’t have a strong showing...”

“I know, we’re finished,” sighed Luke. “I’ll figure something out.”

“I’ll try talking to Hunter in the meantime. I’m supposed to be training him for the gallery opening tomorrow, so maybe he’ll be willing to talk then.”

“Just don’t risk your relationship with him on my account,” said Luke.

“Nonsense,” said Allen. “I’ve still got your wedding present sitting in my closet, and it’s too late to return it. So you two are going to have to get married eventually, or it’s going to go to waste.”