Page 14 of Help Me Remember

His eyes shifted to me, brow furrowing. “Yeah, man. I mean, you were and are a pretty good-looking dude, and you’ve always taken care of yourself. They were real interested, especially because you had that whole quiet and mysterious thing about you. And it’s not like you were actively a dick to anyone, so that probably helped.”

“Well, that’s comforting…I guess,” I said, again finding myself unsure what I was supposed to say or how to react. I wondered if that lack of sureness was because I couldn’t remember anything or if it was a part of my personality I had somehow managed to retain.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. From the sounds of it, I don’t have any parents, no siblings. Doesn’t sound like I made friends much. Maybe I had someone waiting…wherever I was living before. But now it sounds like that’s not the case either.”

Christ, just how lonely a person was I?

“Eh, I always thought you were asexual,” Eric said, doling food onto plates. “At least, that’s how it came off to me since you never showed any interest in being with anyone.”

I remembered how struck by his looks I’d been before I learned who he was and shook my head. “Yeah, I…don’t think that’s the case.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked with a chuckle, pulling everything off the stove and turning the burners off. “Already managed to find someone you’re into?”

“I wouldn’t call it…into someone,” I muttered, deciding immediately that there was no way in hell I was going to tell him about my flash of attraction. “Just…I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Right,” he said with a smirk, setting a heaped plate of food in front of me and sitting down. “Well, I won’t interrogate you over what girl you found yourself naked and horizontal with.”

“Horizontal?” I asked dryly, picking up my fork.

“Well, it could be vertical if you wanted. Or any angle.”

“You’re a little disturbed in the head, aren’t you?”

“Probably. But if that’s the case, I’m in good company.”

The joke made me blink in surprise at the sheer bluntness of it, and then I laughed, stabbing a piece of the scrambled egg. Eric stopped to eye me in surprise before smiling back and picking up a piece of bacon. I had seen the look on his face a few times now, and it always seemed to accompany moments when he was piecing together the similarities between the Dylan he had known before and the one he was dealing with now.

“So,” I said, chewing through the egg and swallowing. “What about you?”

“What?”

I was beginning to feel like we were sticking to some absurd script. “Well, I asked about your home life after you told me about mine. Then I asked about my love life, so…”

“Oh!” Eric said, snorting and giving a nod of his head. “Right, right. Yeah, no, I don’t really have a lot of luck in that department. I’m usually pretty busy at the clinic, so I don’t get to go out all that much. And ya know, when I do, I realize dating isn’t something I have time for either. Lord knows my past couple of exes made that more than apparent. You’d think me telling them early on that I’m busy all the damn time with work would get through, but nope.”

“Are you sure they were even listening?” I asked. Most people I’d dealt with in the past couple of days hadn’t been all that interested in listening to me, so I was beginning to suspect that was the nature of the average person.

“Ugh, Tony never listened to anything I ever said. I can promise you that,” Eric told me with a roll of his eyes. “It was, hands down, the biggest complaint I had…well, until he cheated on me, then that took the top spot.”

“Toni?” I asked, thinking it could be a unisex name and absurdly thinking it was a shame I couldn’t find this woman and find a direct way to remind her what decency was.

“Yeah, Tony,” Eric said and then paused. He looked up at me slowly and then let out another soft laugh. “God, that’s going to take some getting used to.”

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“Like, I know I’ve been sitting here telling you about your life because I know you don’t remember anything, but here I am, still forgetting you don’t know anything. I totally forgot.”

“What don’t I know?”

“Well, I guess I get to come out of the closet to you again. I’m gay.”

“You’re…” I paused and then cocked my head. “Oh, Tony, not Toni.”

He squinted at me. “Is it weird that I can hear you using i instead of y? Yeah, that is kinda weird. No, Tony is a guy, Anthony is his name, and being a cheating dick ended up being his game.”

“Oh,” I said, picking up a piece of crispy bacon and taking a bite. “Well, I guess I don’t have to feel bad about wanting to hit Tony now.”

---