Cade was so much different than any other man I had ever met. He was gentle, kind, and compassionate, but there were words that I felt had never been invented yet that needed to be used to truly describe him. Although he was a man, he was beautiful. His features weren’t feminine, but he would be described by most as being so. He wasn’t a terribly masculine man, but he was one hundred percent man nonetheless. In summary, one would have to describe him as precious. Strangely, although I loved him dearly, the thought of having a relationship with Cade and only Cade caused me to worry. Ethan balanced out the relationship, and made me feel safe being with Cade. Ethan’s physical absence didn’t concern me. Ethan’s absence from the relationship, I was quite certain, would crush what little remained.

For me, it took the three of us to make one working relationship.

Ethan wasn’t overly rough by any stretch, and although having a relationship with Ethan might work, I believed I’d certainly yearn for Cade to be a part of it. Trying to choose one of them to be in a relationship with, no matter how many times I tried to do so, caused me tremendous grief, and eventually I developed an ice cream headache. As a result, I chose to continue to believe I was doing what was right by allowing myself to continue loving them both.

“The thought of having both of you in my life comforts me and makes me believe life happens for a reason. To think of only having one of you scares me,” I said, not fully realizing why or even that I intended to say it.

Cade looked up, and after a moment, nodded his head lightly.

“I never told you about when Ethan and I met, did I?” he asked as he shook his coffee cup.

“It’s empty. Do you need another?” he asked as he stood.

I lifted my cup. It was one fourth full. I shrugged my shoulders.

Cade lifted my cup and grinned, “I’ll get two more.”

After ordering the coffee, he returned to his seat, sat down, and seemed to take the entire contents of the coffee shop into his view before he spoke.

“I was a freshman. Ethan was 24, give or take. So, I’m 18 years old, and believe it or not, I weighed about thirty pounds less than I weigh now,” he paused and raised his eyebrows comically.

“Wow,” I said as I drained the remaining coffee from my cup.

“So I came here from Denver, where I lived with my mother and aunt. I hadn’t been here, I don’t know, maybe a month. I was petrified, I didn’t know anyone, it was a new city, and here I am, all of 18 years old and weighing 130 pounds. So, I’m in this hallway looking for a class, and these three guys started calling me names. They thought I was gay. It was terrible. And all of a sudden, one of them goes flying across the hallway. They were punching me a little, you know, showing off. I held my book bag up, and they were really hitting it more than anything. But anyway, this one goes flying down the hall and lands about twenty feet away. And then the other two turned around,” he paused and motioned to the counter.

He stood up, walked to the counter, and picked up the two cups of coffee. As he walked up to the table, he brushed my shoulder with his hand, rested it along the center of my back, and placed my coffee in front of me. After he returned to his seat, he continued.

“Okay, let’s see. So the other two. They turned around, and this guy is standing there. He was huge, covered from head to toe in muscle, a full beard, and he had tattoos from one end of him to the other. And you know how some guys wear the hats, you know, with the bill all flat in the front? And they say something like Sam’s Surf Shop or San Diego Skateboards or something on the front?” he asked.

I grinned and nodded my head.

“Well, he was wearing one of those and it was pulled down really low where you had to try and see his eyes. And the two guys looked at him and said, we don’t want any trouble. He laughed at them, shook his head, and said it was too late. He asked the one who had black hair, he stared right in his eyes and said did you call him a fucking queer? Just like that. And the one with the black hair nodded his head. And this guy blasted him right there. He hit him right in the face. It sounded awful. The guy hit the wall and crumbled on the floor. So now there’s one left. And this guy with the hat says don’t you or your buddies ever fuck with this guy again, he’s my little brother. If you so much as talk to him, I’ll find you and I’ll fucking kill you. And the last one just stands there shaking, and doesn’t know what to say. And the guy in the hat flexes his muscles like it’s out of habit and turns toward me. I was scared to death. So he turns back to the guy and says the dead kind of dead,” his eyes widened drastically as he paused and lifted his cup of coffee to his lips.

“So…”

He raised his index finger and grinned, “Just a second.”

“So they helped the guy who was bleeding up to his feet, and the kind of carried him off.  You know, helped him walk away. And the guy in the hat sticks his hand out and says nice to meet you, I’m Ethan Hawthorne,” he grinned.

“And that’s how we met. Right then and there he asked me if I had any friends. I told him no. And he shook his head and said you do now. We exchanged phone numbers right then and there. Later we found out we had the same major. He’s a genius, Rain. Like a true genius. But he struggles with things that don’t have numbers in them or something. I don’t know. Binary numbers and things no one understands? He gets it. But Biomedical Engineering Lab was hell for him. I helped him with it. He did well, but he had to study. The other classes for him were a cake walk.”

“Oh wow,” I sighed.

He lifted his coffee cup and nodded his head, “Wow is right. Ethan’s Ethan. He’s a strange one to try and figure out, but I love him like a brother, father, and best friend. All at the same time.”

I smiled at the thought of Cade and Ethan being as close as they were, “I love it that you two are so close.”

He clutched his cup in his hands, and as he gazed down at it, he responded. “I can’t imagine life without him. As hard as it is to understand what we have, you know, the three of us, knowing Ethan’s part of it makes me feel like if it can work, it will.”

“Everything will work out,” I sighed as I reached for his hand.

He glanced up and grinned, “I hope so, because now that I’m here, you know, feeling this, I can’t imagine ever not having it.”

And try as I might, I couldn’t imagine not having it either.

RAIN

When our life changes for the better, holding on to memories of the bitter portions of our past allow us to remember where it was we came from, and appreciate the progress we’ve made. Without making the comparison, we become off balance, and soon view our current situation as a standard of living. I certainly didn’t dwell on my past, but forgetting it wasn’t an option.

“Stop the car,” I said as I tapped my finger against the window.

Staring straight ahead, with his hands positioned on the steering wheel as ten and two o’clock, Cade sighed, “What’s wrong?”

“Just stop,” I said.

Cade pulled the car to the side of the road. We hadn’t traveled a block since leaving the house. As the car came to a stop, I opened the door and got out. Laying on one of the benches a block east of where we lived, a homeless woman struggled to get comfortable with her position on the bench.

My life had become a fairy tale, and I wanted hers to be the same. I realized there was little I could do to change her life, but providing her with a little help might make a difference in how she viewed her life today. As I walked toward the bench, I considered how a small change in perspective might spark a desire for her to make a permanent change. I realized the probability was small, but I needed to try.