What Remains
The basement felt colder than usual. I sat on the bench unlacing my shoes while Mikey came out of the bathroom, already wearing his knee brace. He rolled his shoulder once as he stepped onto the mat, testing it.
“Shoulder’s been tight since I was showing Leo that cradle the other day,” he said. “Kid hasn't learned when to ease off.”
I smiled faintly. “You were worse at his age.”
“Yeah,” Mikey said, almost to himself. “I know.”
We didn’t say anything else about it. We just moved into each other the way we always did.
It was slower than it used to be, and we both knew it. Mikey was protecting his shoulder without making a show of it, and I was being more careful with my lower back than I would have been even a few years ago. We adjusted for each other without needing to talk about it. When he took me down, it was controlled and heavy. We rolled for a while until he worked his way around behind me and swung his legs up.
The headscissors came on steady. His thighs settled around my neck, and the pressure built in that familiar, thick way. My face pressed into the inside of his thigh. I let my body go slack against the mat and stopped trying to fight it.
Mikey didn’t squeeze hard right away. He just held it there, one hand braced on the mat beside my head, letting the weight of his leg do the work. Every so often he’d shift his hips slightly, changing the angle, tightening for a few seconds, then easing off again so I could breathe. It wasn’t the frantic kind of hold from a few weeks ago. This was something else. Slower. More deliberate.
I stayed in it longer than I normally would have. I didn’t tap when the pressure started to build. I just lay there and let it keep going. The quiet worry that this might not last forever started to settle under the steady pressure.
After a while, Mikey spoke, his voice low.
“You’re quiet tonight.”
I made a small sound against his leg.
He adjusted his hips again, tightening the squeeze for a few seconds before easing it. “You’ve been quiet since the cabin too.”
I waited until he eased the pressure again before I answered.
“I don’t know,” I said. My voice came out rough. “Sometimes I think about how long we’ve been doing this. Since we were seventeen. And it still feels like something that matters to me.”
Mikey was quiet for a few seconds. When he spoke his voice was low.
“Leo’s looking at schools that cost more than I made in my first five years training people. Some days I wonder how long I can keep the business where it needs to be.” He adjusted his hips slightly. “Clients already talk to me about more than the training. Their lives, their problems. I’ve thought about doing something more direct with that. Counselling, maybe. Working with kids who are struggling.”
“You’d be good at it,” I said.
He let out a short breath. “Maybe.”
A few more seconds passed under the steady pressure. Then he shifted the conversation, the way he sometimes did when things got too close.
“Obama’s catching up to her,” he said. “Hillary’s ahead in the polls, but he’s gaining on her.”
I made a small sound against his thigh. When he eased just enough for me to speak, I managed, “You think he’s got a real shot?”
Mikey adjusted his angle slightly, tightening for a few seconds before relaxing again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “People seem excited about him in a way they’re not about her. Feels like something’s shifting.”
I didn’t answer right away. I was focused on breathing through the next squeeze. After a while, when he gave me a bit more room, I asked, “Would you want him to win?”
Mikey let out a short breath that might have been a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so. We’ll see what happens.”
He didn’t say anything else for a minute. He just held the lock, one hand braced on the mat beside my head.
The pressure settled deeper. I still got a rush from it — the steady force of him, even now — and it drew me close the same way it always had.
Eventually Mikey eased the hold and let me go. I stayed on my back, staring up at the ceiling, breathing. My neck was warm. My head felt clearer than it had in a while.
Mikey rolled onto his back beside me. We lay there without talking for a minute.
“I love you, buddy,” I said quietly.
He didn’t look over. “I know.”
I smiled at the ceiling. “That’s the same thing Han Solo said when they were lowering him into the carbonite.”
“Is it now? You’re such a nerd.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He was still smiling when he spoke again.
“You don’t have to worry about it going away,” he said quietly. “Just because it’s different now doesn’t mean it’s less.”
I turned my head to look at him, as if he’d heard the thought I hadn’t spoken.
He kept his eyes on the rafters. “We’re not kids anymore. We both know that. But this still works. It still does something for both of us. That’s enough for me.”
I nodded.
After a while I said, “I keep thinking back to that day in the chess room. How you first caught me in the hold. And how it still feels the same, even after all this time. It still means something.”
Mikey let out a short breath. “Yeah. It does.”
He pushed himself up to sitting with a small grunt and offered me his hand. I took it. He pulled me up, steady and familiar, and we stood there for a second on the mat.
Mikey looked at me for a moment, then rested his hand on the back of my neck. His thumb moved once against my skin, a small, deliberate gesture. He didn’t say anything else. He just left his hand there for a few seconds, warm and solid, before letting it fall away.
The television flickered in the corner, the game long over.
He turned and walked toward the stairs. At the bottom step he paused and looked back at me. He didn’t smile. He just waited until I caught up, then started up ahead of me. I followed him up into the light of the kitchen, the sound of our footsteps on the wooden stairs the only noise in the quiet house.
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