by T. J. Klune
He’s watching me now. He shrugs again. Maybe that’s Bovine Boy for “Keep talking. You’re way cool.”
“It means my brother and him love each other and that’s okay, because who really cares if someone is gay or straight or whatever Bear is? I know I sure don’t. But then I never understood why people are homophobic. Who cares what two guys or two ladies do in the bedroom, right? It’s not like anyone wants to see what those jerks do in their bedroom, you know? But it’s okay, I guess. For now. This whole past summer was this whole big… thing, but we all got over it and now we live together in the Green Monstrosity and it’s the best time ever. Do you live around here? I already asked you that. You know, you could jump in here anytime, really. How old are you? I’m nine, going on forty. That’s what my brother says. You should know he thinks he’s hysterical. Which he’s not. Do you live with your parents? It’s okay if you don’t. I don’t, so we’d have that in common, which would be rad. I don’t want to talk about my mom right now, though.” Oh crap. I should have asked already. “You don’t know her, do you?” I ask quietly, not sure I want the answer.
His eyes widen, but he quickly shakes his head. I believe him. I don’t know why.
“Whew!” I say, relieved. “That’s a load off. Do you eat meat? I guess it’s okay if you do. You should know that I’m a staunch vegetarian. That’s another word I learned: staunch. It means ‘faithful’ and ‘loyal.’ That’s another great word, huh? Loyal. So if you eat meat, I won’t mind. Heck, I might even be able to convince you to come back from the Dark Side. Do you like Star Wars? I do. Bear and Otter and me had this marathon one time and we watched all six in one day and Bear made me spicy edamame and it was sooo good. That was another good day. I wish lightsabers were real. Do you like to read? What’s your favorite book? I can’t pick just one, ’cause I like them all. Wow, you sure don’t talk much, do you?” Oh crap. “Can you talk? I feel bad now ’cause maybe you can’t talk. Were you in an accident? Or were you born that way? I wonder if that’s genetic. Or is it—”
“I don’t live with my parents,” he says quietly as he watches me. His voice sounds broken, like he’s gargling gravel, like he’s not use to speaking and it’s hoarse from disuse. But I’m so happy that he can talk and that he’s talking to me, I don’t give it another thought. Maybe that’s just how he’s supposed to sound. “I live with fosters,” he rumbles.
“Oh. Oh. Like, not your real parents, but people who watch you anyway? You don’t have to tell me why if you don’t want to. Maybe later, huh? Then I can tell you about my… mom.” That word hurts more than I thought it would, and my voice catches on it and almost breaks, but I push through it, blinking back the burn in my eyes. No. Not here. Not now. I don’t want to get in the bathtub today. There will be no earthquakes. So what if I’m still scared? So what if I worry that she’ll come back again and I’ll have to go away with her? So what if I’m worried that Bear is going to leave me too now that he has Otter, because now that he’s found himself, he won’t need me anymore? So what? Who cares? Blah, blah, blah. I don’t need the damn bathtub. I’ve been doing so good, dammit. I don’t need this. I don’t want this.
I hope he doesn’t notice my mini freak-out, but he does. Of course he does. I’m a little surprised when he reaches up and drops a hand on my shoulder, patting me twice before dropping his arm. I feel better almost right way. Weird. Whatever. He’s really cool.
“What were you doing over there?” he grumbles at me, pointing across the street.
I grin. “Following Helmholtz Watson as he carried a crumb back to the queen where I would have made the discovery of a lifetime and had my name emblazoned in the annals of ant culture.” I groan inwardly as I realize what I’ve just said. Crap, could I sound like any more of a freak? I blush and it’s my turn to look down as I shuffle my feet. “Just watching some ants,” I mutter.
“Can I watch with you?” he asks.
I look up at him, suspicious. “Are you making fun of me?”
His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No.”
He seems sincere. “You’re not gonna get made fun of for hanging out with some little kid? Even though I’m not. I’m practically ten. Well, in another nine months.”
He shrugs. “I don’t care. I’m bigger than everyone. No one makes fun of me.”
I sigh. “I wish I could be big. That would be so cool.” I grab his arm and start pulling him across the street. I glance back over my shoulder and see he’s watching my hand on his arm. “Do you like ants?” I ask him. “I do, because the colonies they make are just fascinating, and I hope that we can find out where….” I stop and turn around. He watches me. Still. “You never told me your name,” I remind him.
He looks down the road, toward what, I don’t know. “Dominic.
“Dominic,” I say. “That’s a good name. So, ants! Have you read Brave New World? That’s where Helmholtz comes from. It’s kind of a dense read, but I have it and I can lend it to you, if you want to read it. Oh! Or you could get your own copy and we can read it at the same time and I can help you with the parts that confused me at first. Is that okay? I don’t want you to have to do anything you don’t want to do. That’s not how friendships work. And we’re friends now, right?” We reach the sidewalk, and I look up at him again.
He smiles quietly. “We’re friends,” he says, his voice soft and broken. “It’s inevitable.”
I grin. “I really like that word.”
1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
Six Years Later
“DO I really want to know why you’re suggesting getting a jumping castle?” I ask Bear and Otter, narrowing my eyes. They exchange one of those secret looks that couples do, full of smiles and memories and heat, and I’m giving serious consideration to vomiting right here and now. “Because I don’t think finding out your brother and his partner have a rubber castle fetish is something an almost sixteen-year-old should ever have to know. Think about what that could do to my eternally fragile psyche. I was in therapy for nearly four years. I’d hate to have to call Eddie to tell him I’ve regressed to the mentality of a nine-year-old, even if I was pretty much the most awesome thing in your tiny little world at that age.”
Bear rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair in the kitchen of the Green Monstrosity. “If that helps you sleep at night, keep telling yourself that, Kid. And jumping castles are awesome. Ask anyone, anywhere, ever.”
“Dominic is turning twenty-two, and most of the people coming are going to be cops! You know what? I changed my mind. Get the jumping castle so I can have you arrested for embarrassing the crap out of me. I’m pretty sure that’ll get you the death penalty.” God, Bear is so annoying!
“Jumping castles hold special memories for me and your brother,” Otter says, grinning at Bear like he’s the greatest thing to have ever existed. I might have to take umbrage with that.
“I so don’t want to know,” I mutter. “I don’t think I’ve recovered yet from Bear trying to fumble through the sex talk he had with me. You’d think he’d never had sex before the way that went. I’m giving very serious consideration to being a virgin for the rest of my life.”
“Hey!” he snaps at me. “Just because I didn’t know what a dental dam was when you asked doesn’t mean you can give me shit for it. You didn’t know either.”
“You told me you thought it was some kind of sexy dental floss used to tie people down during BDSM scenes! I couldn’t take going to the dentist seriously for a year afterwards because I was convinced Dr. Kao was some kind of kinky Dungeon Master.” It definitely didn’t help that he was at least four hundred years old and had removed my wisdom teeth right after Bear had told me this. I was absolutely sure I’d been part of some dirty scene while I’d been under the gas.
“Maybe he is,” Otter says thoughtfully. “I could see him in all leather.” We stare at him and he scowls back at us. “What? Just because I could doesn’t mean I want to. You’re both prudes. I still remember finding you
two hiding in the pantry looking at the ingredients of canned tomatoes after I explained what a dental dam actually was.”
“You didn’t have to use visuals,” I grumble. “I could have done without the demonstration involving a plastic baggie and a cantaloupe. I have the most humiliating parental figures out of everyone I know. It’s like you want me to be a social outcast.”
“Your awkward teenage angst is really neat,” Bear tells me. “I’m so glad you’ve morphed into a surly adolescent. Lord knows I don’t get enough of those during the day. And you better be a virgin for the rest of your life. I won’t hesitate to bust some little blonde girl’s head should she try to get up in your business.” He mutters about some whore named Tiffani.
“Sure, Teach. No unwanted teenage pregnancies for me.” And that’s pretty much true. What with skipping grades and applying for colleges, I don’t have time for girls in any way, shape, or form. Or, if we’re being honest, boys. I haven’t quite decided where I fall on the spectrum, though I’m pretty sure it’s about as full-on gay as one can possibly get. Of course, right? Of course that would happen. Just one more thing piled on top of all the rest. But hell, I figure I’m young enough that I don’t have to make up my mind about such things until I’m ready to. Or maybe never. People are too complicated. They confuse the hell out of me. Not Dom, though. He never has. Well. For the most part. There are times when I—
Nope. Not even thinking about it. Not today. Not again.
“That’s Mr. Thompson to you, Kid,” Bear says, winking at me.
I laugh, trying to distract myself. I still can’t get over the fact that Bear is an English teacher. Bear. Derrick Thompson. A teacher. It blows my mind daily to think about him standing in front of a classroom and opening his mouth and letting actual words fall into the impressionable young minds of the next generation. The world is so screwed. “You just wish I’d taken your class, Mr. Thompson,” I say. “We could have sparred back and forth on the relevance of Aldous Huxley to this modern age. I would have made it rain up in your classroom, and everyone would have been all like, ‘Oh, that Tyson is so awesome. I wish I could be like him one day because he’s wicked badass and he knows more than the teacher and we all love him more than life itself.’”
Bear huffs at me. “No, they would have been all like, ‘I wish that kid who looks like a faded Xerox copy of the stunningly handsome Mr. Thompson would stop talking so we could actually learn something instead of hearing blah, blah, blah.’”
“No! They would have all been like, ‘I wish Tyson would be our teacher so we didn’t have to listen to Mr. Thompson who sounds like he just started trying to learn the English language twenty minutes ago because he’s all like duh. Duh. Duh.’”
“No! They would all be like—”
“As fun as this conversation is,” Otter says, “and believe me, it’s the most fun I’ve had in at least sixteen minutes, we should probably focus on the party.”
“We’re the most fun you’ve ever had ever,” Bear says, tapping Otter’s hand. “You best remember that.”
Otter smiles at my brother and it hits his eyes. Bear told me once that with Otter, you can tell everything he’s feeling all the time, that he can’t ever hide anything. I didn’t think it was true at the time, because I figured anyone can hide something if they really wanted to. I still don’t know about that.
But he’s not. Not now. Now he’s looking at my brother like he thinks Bear hung the moon and the stars, which, according to Otter, he might have. I’ve never understood how people could be so against them when they look at each other the way they do. All they’ve ever really wanted is each other (whether Bear knew it or not, but do we really need to go through all that again?) and to exist in their own little corner of the world. And they’ve gotten it, for the most part. Or, at least, I hope they have.
“I remember,” Otter says quietly, grasping Bear’s hand. Their wedding rings catch the low light as they scrape against each other. It’s nice, but it’s also getting to the point where if they keep swooning into each other’s eyes, we’re all going to drown in their saccharine sweetness as rainbows fly out their butts. I’ve got things to do today. Trust me when I say this moment, for me, is the equivalent of other kids walking in on their parents. It’s the same exact thing, and it’s really gross.
I make it my mission to kill the moment as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can talk about my problems again. I’ve learned teenagers are the most self-centered creatures on the planet. We preen more than show dogs. “This is lovely and all,” I say, quite loudly, “but I’d really like to move forward with the next item on the agenda.” I only called this meeting because I need their funds for the party. Bear has refused to let me get a job like normal people my age, saying that he wants me to focus on school.
I don’t normally ask, but on the rare occasion I need money for anything, I go to Bear and Otter. We’re not rich (or, at least, I don’t think we are), but we seem to do okay. Even so, I don’t want to ask them for money for Dom’s present. I want to be able to get it on my own, with my own money. This has seemed important for me to do ever since the idea first hit my brain a few months before. (Every so often, little things like that crash into me, worming their way into my head until they’re all I can focus on. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a little OCD buried in me somewhere, but I try not to let it take over if I can. Fact: do not go online to try and diagnose yourself. You’ll end up convinced you’re far worse than you actually are. Trust me; it took Otter and me three days to convince Bear he only had the flu when he was sure that WebMD was telling him he had all the symptoms of rabies. He told us we should probably go away before he started frothing at the mouth and developed a taste for human flesh. “Have you seen Cujo?” he growled at us. “You should probably just put me down now!” I looked at Otter and said solemnly, “I’ll do it, Pa, if you’ll get me the shotgun. He’s my dog. I should be the one to put him out of his misery.” I reached over and petted Bear’s head. “You’ve been a good dog,” I told him. “The best a boy could have. I reckon I sure am going to miss you.” Otter thought I was hysterical. Bear had just thrown up again. I tried not to take that last personally.)
So instead of asking for money, I got clearance to tutor kids in AP Chemistry and AP Calculus, seeing as how I’d taken both the year before. Bear tried to argue with me about it when I had to get his okay, but I countered that it would give me more human interaction outside of the family and that it’d probably be good for me to have better social skills as I was going to college in the fall. I might or might not have also given him that look he always falls for. He relented. And I wasn’t totally full of shit about the social-skills part.
Kids at my school were unsure what to do with me. I was too young to hang out with kids taking the same classes I was, too smart for the kids my own age, too weird to be appreciated by anyone who hadn’t been around for years. I didn’t mind. Well, not much. Okay, maybe a little, because I always felt that I was under a microscope, like some kind of weird freaky-looking thing that people didn’t quite know how to categorize.
So I figured I could improve my social skills by tutoring others and also earn money at the same time so I could tell Dom I’d gotten his gift by myself. For some reason, that last thing was very important to me.
I raised the money, yeah. But the social side of it? That was a freaking nightmare. I swear I was speaking English, but my pupils didn’t seem to understand a single word coming out of my mouth.
I don’t use big words just so I sound smart. I’m not like that. I just… I don’t know. I operate on a completely different wavelength, I guess. At least I know I’ll never be a teacher like Bear. How he has that much patience is beyond me. I wanted to pull my hair out ten minutes into the first session.
But it was worth it, because it let me afford his gift. At least, I hope it’s going to be worth it when he sees it. Is it the right thing to give him? Or is it stupid? Is it such trite sentimental bullshit t
hat he’ll take one look at it and roll his eyes?
Crap.
I shuffle through my list, trying to clear my head. It’s not working. I’m starting to feel anxious, that old feeling constricting slightly in my chest. I need this damn party to go off perfectly or else I’m going to have a minor meltdown. I try and focus on my breathing like Eddie taught me how to do years ago when I was diagnosed as having panic attacks. Bear too, though his are lesser in strength and frequency than mine. I didn’t want to go on medication, and Eddie is a little too Zen to write prescriptions anyway, so we tried meditation and breathing, and it worked for the most part. And it should work now. I’m not that far gone yet. I don’t have the clawing at my heart, the constricting of my throat, but it could get there. It could get there so easily. One little push and everything would get a little hazy because nothing will work right, and I—