Who We Are

by T. J. Klune

“I just made this worse, didn’t I?”

  “I could have died happily not knowing… certain things,” she agrees.

  “That’s an image that will never go away. Ever. It’s kind of up there with the thought that my new boyfriend wishes he could sleep with my old boyfriend.”

  Ouch. For the both of us. “I had nothing to do with that,” I say quickly.

  “You know that, right? I would never do anything with Creed. Otter would kick my ass.”

  She arches an eyebrow. “And that’s the only reason?”

  “And it’d be gross,” I add hastily.

  “So you’re saying I have bad taste, then.”

  “Wait, what? No! No. Creed is hot, I guess.” ( Ew.) “It’d just be weird because… you know, it’s Creed.”

  “Oh, so now he’s hot, is he? Are you going to try and take him away from me? Can’t just let me be happy, can you? Maybe do the whole brothers thing Mrs. Paquinn was talking about?”

  I start to sweat. “Jesus Christ, what the hell are you talking about?”

  Anna bursts out laughing, a bright sound that’s loud and raucous. She’s always laughed big, and my heart flutters in my chest a bit, more at a memory than anything else. It’s nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, because I haven’t heard her laugh like this in the longest time. That door is shut, but I can’t help but to jiggle the handle a bit, just to make sure. “I’m just messing with you,” she says with a giggle, wiping her eyes. “It’s so easy to do now, I just couldn’t resist.”

  “Yeah, well, try harder in the future,” I mutter.

  “What’s your first class? I’ll show you where it’s at.”

  I mumble something.

  “Sorry? Didn’t catch that.”

  I clear my throat. “Psych 101.”

  She bursts out laughing again. I swear to God she’s projecting.

  AND I’m bored within the first ten minutes. Crap.

  I knew going back to school was a big thing, but I guess I couldn’t remember just how much I hated it sitting in a desk, listening to someone drone on and on and on about something that I really don’t care about. I would probably consider walking out if I didn’t have the Kid’s voice in my head admonishing me for being a college dropout after only attending one class. You know I’d never hear the end of it.

  I look around, studying the people in the room with me. I feel much more at ease when I see that it’s a mixture of younger and older, knowing I’m not sticking out like a sore thumb at the ripe old age of twenty-one. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked in today, whether everyone in the class would be fresh out of high school, but half the class is older than I am.

  There’s someone that looks like he is around Mrs. Paquinn’s age.

  Retirement must suck if he’s enrolled in a community college class.

  I’m about to turn back to the front of the class when my eyes stutter across a guy one desk forward and two desks over who glances back at me, a small smile on his face. He’s about my size, which makes him smaller than most, but bulked up, which makes me want to flex my arms to assert my male dominance. Somehow, I’m able to resist the urge. He’s older than me, I think, maybe by a couple of years. His black hair is all over the place, in that intentionally messy way that I could never pull off. Thick eyebrows, dark eyes. White teeth that flash at me. His Henley shirt is stretched across his broad shoulders and clings to his chest. His cargo shorts look worn and comfortable. White shell-top shoes, no socks. His skin is tanned, a rarity in Seafare. I wonder if it’s his natural color. Black leg hairs look thick and soft.

  His calves are well defined, the muscles cut and solid. And then there’s—

  Whoa. What the hell am I doing?

  I turn away from him, feeling my face heat up, knowing he’s still watching me by the boring sensation that’s on the side of my head. Was I checking him out? I feel a dawning horror as the answer to that question rings throughout my head, saying yes, yes, and I don’t know what it means.

  You can’t be gay for one person, Bear, Otter had said to me once. It’s not how biology works.

  Fuck me sideways. First David Trent, now this dude. I totally don’t need this right now. I’ve never been one to check people out, not even when I was with Anna, and I’m not going to start. I don’t know what that would lead to, what kind of person I could potentially become, so it’s easier to curb it before it starts. I have what I want. I don’t need anything else.

  I steal a glance over at the guy. He catches my eye again and grins. He has dimples. Shit. Apparently I like dimples. Abort! Abort!

  Wow, from heterosexual male to homosexual whore in four months, it says. That’s got to be some kind of land speed record. Give it another three months, and you’ll probably be a butterfly. And you were getting all pissed off at Otter for shaking David’s hand, and here you are blushing like a schoolgirl over dimples. For shame. Could you be any more obvious?

  It’s right and I hate it. I know I can be a hypocrite with the best of them, especially given my jealousy over Otter’s parade of exes, which still makes me burn with anger. And it’s not that I focus on it, but Otter’s voice comes back into my head, telling me of course people check me out, why haven’t I noticed? I haven’t noticed because I didn’t have time to notice. I didn’t care if people noticed. I didn’t want to be noticed. I still don’t. I would have no problem passing through life in my little corner of the world, content with what I have. I don’t need anyone to check me out. I have Otter. I only care what he thinks. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me. I don’t.

  Class is over before I can even register that time has passed. People start shuffling their way out through the door. I shove my books back into my backpack and am about to stand to leave when he stands in front of my desk.

  “Transformers, huh?” he says, his voice deep. “That’s… different.”

  “Long story,” I mutter, standing and walking toward the door.

  He falls in behind me. “So, what is it?”

  “What’s what?”

  “The story? Anybody that carries that around and says there’s a story can’t just walk away without explaining it first.” He walks quickly around me as I leave the classroom, standing in front of me, forcing me to stop. I almost collide with him, my arms brushing against his. He smells like spicy apples. Cider. Sharp. My eyes collide with his. They’re dark. Almost black.

  Way too close. I take a step back.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Bear,” I say, looking everywhere but at him.

  “That’s unusual.”

  “Long story.”

  “You seem to have a lot of those.” I can hear the smirk in his voice.

  “I guess.”

  He reaches out and grabs my hand and shakes it. His palm is warm, his hands feel rough, and I try not to notice the way his fingernails scrape against my skin as he grips tightly. “I’m Isaiah.”

  It’s official: God does hate me. Jonah. David. Isaiah. He’s put these men on Earth specifically to fuck with me, to mess up my head. I try to remember who Isaiah was in the Bible. A prophet, maybe. But then, weren’t they all a prophet of some kind? It doesn’t matter how biblical it is, I guess.

  What matters is he’s still shaking my hand, even though we stopped shaking a while ago, and now we’re just holding hands, and he’s watching me, waiting for me to say something, to do something.

  What should I do? Congratulate him on his name? Tell him I’ve got to go? Run in the opposite direction?

  Or you could tell him thanks, but no thanks, it points out. You could open your mouth and say, “I know what that look in your eye means, and I’m flattered, but I’m seeing someone. Well, more than seeing someone. I live with someone. I love someone. He is the best thing to have happened to me in my short and somewhat miserably eventful life.” Speak up, Bear; you’re embarrassing yourself.

  “Nice to meet you,” I manage to get out, pulling my hand free.

  Oh, Bear
.

  Isaiah flashes another smile at me before folding his arms across his chest. I try not to notice how the muscles in his arms bunch against his shirtsleeves. I almost win that one. “So, Bear and Transformers. Long stories. Pick one and go.”

  “My little brother,” I explain. And then stop.

  He cocks his head at me. “Your little brother….”

  “He did both. The Kid is like that.” Oh, please for once, let me not speak!

  “I see,” Isaiah says, so clearly obviously not seeing.

  But I don’t want to explain further. It feels wrong. Suddenly, I want nothing more than to see Otter, to hear his voice. Even though it’s only been a couple of hours, it feels like days and weeks since I’ve seen him last.

  Years. We’d made a cocoon this past summer, wrapping ourselves up while we clashed and fought and loved and lost. But we couldn’t stay away from the real world forever, from the future becoming the present. I don’t think I care, though. All I want right now is to have his arms around me, my forehead against his chest, his chin on the top of my head, those big hands of his rubbing my back slowly, telling me that it’s going to be okay, that everything is going to be just fine.

  “What’s that fear that people have of going outside?” I ask Isaiah, because I can’t remember what it is. If the Kid was here, I’d ask him, but he’s not with me, either. This starts to bum me out even more, and I think it’s possible I’ve gone way past codependency to a place far scarier. I suck like that.

  “Agoraphobia?” Isaiah says.

  “That’s right,” I say excitedly. “I can never remember that!”

  “You’re a sort of… strange, aren’t you?” he asks me, taking a step closer. I smell the spicy apples again, and it reminds me of Halloween. I don’t know why my mind makes that connection.

  “Sometimes,” I tell him, trying to take a step back. “I try not to make it a habit, or anything.” My back hits a wall. People are walking by, not even caring what’s happening to me. I want to call out for help, to make them stop my own stupidity, but I can’t. It doesn’t come out.

  “I like strange,” he assures me as his knees bump into mine. I can’t help but think that since we’re roughly the same height, our groins aligned with each other’s. Otter’s so much bigger than me. That doesn’t happen with him.

  “And I like the way you were looking at me in there.”

  “How was I looking at you?” I ask, honestly curious.

  “Like you saw something you liked,” he says confidently, “but were too shy to ask for it.”

  “So you think I’m shy and strange?” I ask, wondering if I should run or stay right where I am. “And that’s why you’re talking to me? I don’t think that’s flattering. For either of us.”

  Us. We. You and I.

  He laughs, and it’s deep and masculine, a low rumble that crawls out from his chest. “I like you, Bear,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine. He moves forward just another inch, but it’s enough that the front of his shorts brush against the button fly on my jeans. “What’s your next class?”

  “Writing 101,” I think I say. “Core classes, you know. Just going back to school.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-one,” I say, even though I want to tell him it’s none of his business and won’t he please, oh please just step back?

  “I’m twenty-two,” he says, dropping his voice even lower. He brushes against my front again. “You’re kind of pretty, you know that?” I think of things like dead kittens and maggots because I can feel my blood rushing south, and I’m horrified, almost awestruck, that someone aside from Otter can get this reaction from me, that someone besides him can break me open.

  David Trent started it. Isaiah Whoever is continuing it. Pandora’s Box is open, and I don’t know how to close it again.

  “That’s… neat,” I tell him, swallowing past the lump in my throat.

  Then I’m saved (caught?) when I hear a voice call out, “Bear? What are you doing?”

  Anna. Oh, thank Jesus for my ex-girlfriend.

  Isaiah takes a step back, a look of annoyance crossing his face before it disappears. I don’t feel annoyed. I feel relieved. My heart is beating in my chest, and I’m sick to my stomach. I take in a gasping breath, and it smells like the ocean again, not like apples and cider and fall and pumpkins and whatever else I’m frantically thinking about. It helps to clear the fog from my head, even though I feel the ground trembling beneath me, like an aftershock to an earthquake I don’t remember. I slump against the wall as Anna walks over to me, glaring at Isaiah.

  “What’s up, Bear?” she asks. “You okay?”

  I nod.

  She doesn’t look like she believes me. “Who are you?” she asks Isaiah, her bitch voice out in full. I’ve been on the receiving end of that tone quite a few times, and I know exactly what it means. She’s pissed. I don’t know why.

  “Isaiah Serna,” he says, not offering his hand. “And you are?”

  “Anna, and I don’t like it when I come around a corner to see someone crowding my friend. There’s a thing called personal space. Learn it. Use it.”

  Isaiah’s eyes narrow. “What are you, his mother?”

  “No,” she snaps at him. “I stuck around.” This confuses him, but it causes me to feel like a tear or two might just leak out if I let it. I don’t, so none do.

  “Long story,” I say to his confusion.

  “Seems like everything is with you,” he says, finding his grin again, putting a little leer behind it. “She your girlfriend?”

  Before I can speak, Anna interrupts. “Used to be,” she says coldly, moving in front of me almost imperceptibly. She’s subtle, but I notice it.

  “Now I’m dating Bear’s boyfriend’s brother. Who happens to also be Bear’s best friend. And both are hell of a lot bigger than you. So I suggest you back off, Isaiah.”

  “Anna,” I sigh, feeling like my penis has grown into a great gaping vagina. “Maybe you could rein it in. Just a bit? I can speak for myself, you know.”

  Yeah, ’cause you were so quick to speak up earlier? it mocks. What’s that one guy’s name again? The one who is your heart and soul? Octavius?

  Othello? Bah. I can’t be bothered to remember, either. How interesting, your hypocrisy.

  Don’t I know it.

  “Boyfriend?” Isaiah asks, a look of surprise disappearing from his face before I can even be sure it was there.

  “Boyfriend,” Anna confirms. “Partner. Love of his life.”

  “He’s really pretty neat,” I agree. “Kind of my first… everything.”

  “And your last,” Anna says sharply.

  So true. I hope.

  “So you were just window-shopping, then?” Isaiah asks, a smirk on his face.

  And of course, I sputter. “What… you… I would never….”

  Anna frowns. “Really?” she asks. “That’s… peculiar.”

  “Hey, I’m standing right here,” Isaiah says, insulted.

  “It’s not you,” Anna reassures him, even though I know that tone of voice of hers, the one that says she doesn’t give a crap. Isaiah doesn’t know it, but Anna’s just humoring him. “Bear has only had eyes for Otter for as long as I’ve known him.”

  “What?”

  She flips her hair in that way she does so well. “Oh, please, Papa Bear.

  Don’t even try and spin that one out. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. You and I just haven’t said it out loud. You know.

  To each other.”

  Her eyes widen. “Holy shit, did you just admit to that?”

  I shrug. Only because I don’t know what else to say. It’s something I’ve thought on long and hard over the past few months, and regardless of my actions, regardless of what I might have said in the past, I’ve come to that same conclusion, that some part of me, whether I knew it or not, always wanted Otter. Intellectually. Mentally. Physically. Growing up, he was t
he one I looked up to, the one whose face I couldn’t wait to see. He was the cool older brother who could do no wrong. He was the one I turned to when everything went to hell. My mother might have broken me when she left, but Otter destroyed me when he ran. I’m not fooled by the difference. I know what it means. That is one thing I’m not confused about. The rest…

  well, the rest I don’t know. I’m weirded out by how I seem to be noticing other guys, and that the feeling is growing exponentially beyond my control.

  It’s not right. It shouldn’t happen.

  “What’s with that look?” I hear Isaiah ask.

  “That’s his thinking face,” Anna replies.

  “Oh.”

  “I need to call Otter,” I tell them. I feel weird. I need to hear his voice.

  “His name is really Otter?” Isaiah asks. “And you’re Bear? Let me guess: long story?”

  I start to tell him the story for some reason, but I get cut off. “Bear and Otter,” Anna agrees. “How about you and I walk away and let Bear use the phone? Or better yet, how about you walk away. Forever.”

  “Anna,” I scold. “Don’t be rude. Isaiah’s… nice.”

  Nice? it laughs. That’s one way to put it. If by nice you mean he gets your dick moving, then yes, Bear. He’s nice.

  “See?” Isaiah says. “I’m nice.” He gives her his nicest smile, full of white teeth and dimples, and I look away. He’s very nice.

  “I know nice people like you. Just because Bear’s naïve doesn’t mean everyone else in his life is.”

  “Hey, I’m not naïve—”

  “You know what’s fun?” Isaiah asks. “When you meet someone for the first time and they turn out to be bitchy. I love that.”

  Uh-oh.

  Anna’s eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

  “We were just leaving,” I say hastily, grabbing Anna by the arm and pulling her away as fast as I can. “I’ll see you later.”

  “You will because we’ve got the same class,” he says, grinning at me, causing fluttering in my stomach. “Which starts in fifteen minutes. I’ll save you a seat.” He winks at me and then turns on his heel and walks in the opposite direction. I stop myself before I check out his ass.

  “What in the hell was that about?” Anna snaps at me as we round the corner. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”