The Bones of You

by Laura Stone

  Oliver wrapped his arms around Seth and pulled him into a warm embrace. He whispered in his ear, “I have a mind to be very charming tonight, I’ll have you know.”

  Seth looked him in the eye. “Is that so?” Oliver couldn’t tell if he was being coquettish or guarded.

  Oliver gave him a quick peck and turned them back to the building. He was ready to get inside, get settled in and tell Seth all about his day so they could talk everything through. The anxiety of the past several weeks was building to a head and he just wanted to get everything out on the table.

  He also wanted simply to be alone with Seth. It was amazing to hear that over the years Seth had longed for him, had thought about the affection he’d shown Seth when they were together and wanted more. He wrapped his arms around Seth from behind as they waited for the elevator and began softly kissing his neck.

  Seth hummed and wrapped his own arms around Oliver’s to keep him close. He seemed to be having difficulty making eye contact.

  “What other sort of fantasies did you have, hmm?” Oliver asked, lightly dragging his teeth over Seth’s earlobe.

  Shivering slightly, Seth laughed as the door opened and a young man stepped out with his dog, giving them a curious look. Seth pushed the button to the fifth floor and draped his arms over Oliver’s shoulders when the doors closed.

  “Mm, one particular favorite had you giving me a foot massage that led… to other things.”

  Oliver drew his nose along Seth’s cheek. “What things?”

  Seth backed out of the opening door, towing Oliver along with a cheeky grin. “Maybe I’ll show you later.”

  They got inside and dumped their things in the appropriate locations. Seth stopped in the middle of the room, clapped his hands together and said in a forced tone, “Kitchen? Living room? Where would be best for our life-altering discussion?”

  Oliver held his hand for a minute. He needed to feel centered and calm. Maybe Seth could, too.

  “Kitchen. I bet you’re hungry; I know I am. We’ll start here and see where the night takes us?”

  Seth cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Hmm. That sounds like it could be ominous,” he said softly.

  Oliver saw worry creeping into Seth’s expression so he leaned in and kissed him, whispering, “Don’t close off, okay?”

  Seth hopped onto the bar stool and watched Oliver pull containers of food from the refrigerator and heat up dinner.

  Oliver had been so involved in Seth’s performance that he’d almost forgotten about the other part of the day. Almost. Now he was trying to sort through all of his thoughts from earlier,

  “So. Silver,” he said, pushing a napkin and fork toward Seth, who put the napkin in his lap but left the food untouched as he waited with growing impatience for Oliver to elaborate.

  Oliver sighed, but when Seth started, he grabbed Seth’s hand and shook his head. “No, no bad sighs, that wasn’t a bad sigh,” he reassured him. He kissed the back of Seth’s hand and softly on the lips over and over again until he felt Seth’s body relax against him.

  He leaned against the edge of the counter next to Seth and drew the tip of his finger along the prominent knob of bone at Seth’s wrist. “It was… well, it was great today.”

  “Really?” Seth clutched at Oliver’s hand, a nervous smile on his face.

  “Yeah,” Oliver exhaled, nudging Seth’s plate toward him and pulling his own closer. “I met with the staff, and they’re all pretty great—easy to get along with, you know? But that was what I’d expected.”

  “Mm hmm?”

  “They all knew about TMMaT, which was surreal. I mean, it’s a small world, but still. Pretty cool to be asked questions about it. Dr. Jones was impressed that the government had taken an interest in it so quickly.”

  Seth poked at his food, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration or worry, Oliver couldn’t tell which. “That great, Oliver. You’ve worked hard on it.”

  Oliver ran a hand through his hair, still jittery and jumpy and unable to do more than push the food around on his plate. He had worked hard on it. He and Moira had poured their lives into the program and the government wanted it. It was incredibly flattering, and incredibly difficult to think of handing the keys over to someone else.

  “Yeah, we did.” It had been in the back of his mind all day—walking away from something that was so important to him. That applied to either choice, really, but wouldn’t it be incredibly irresponsible to just walk away? To start something and not see it through?

  He set his fork alongside his plate and watched Seth not watching him. He’d be doing that to Seth, too, if the tables were turned.

  “So,” Seth said, affecting nonchalance. “I was right about you being a rock star.” He gave Oliver a smile and then looked back down at his plate. “Would you be one in Cambridge?”

  “Well, I would certainly be doing important things, I don’t know about rock star status. I would be in meetings and planning sessions; not very rock and roll,” Oliver said, smiling lamely. “Important. Good stuff, for sure. Just… hmm.”

  Seth cocked his head in question.

  “It would be a huge responsibility, Cambridge. Prestigious. I’d be the face of something important. Here I’m not that. And I just… I don’t know.” Oliver held on to the edge of the counter, chewing his lip. He’d been groomed since he was a child to want a certain type of respectable career that upheld the Andrews name. Cambridge would definitely do that.

  “What would you be here?” Seth asked. Oliver looked up and saw that Seth was trying so hard to control his features, to be supportive and thoughtful. The sight just made his confusion twist and writhe in his gut.

  “I wouldn’t be a nobody, but I’d be a grunt. I wouldn’t be the face of something huge; I’d just be one of the faces.”

  “Tell me about your day, then. Was anything about it satisfying?”

  Oliver pushed off the counter and started pacing in the small room. “Yeah. Very. I mean, I really liked the people I talked to today, and they got me right in the mix on some ongoing programs, which was really cool.”

  Seth regarded him for a moment and inhaled slowly and nodded, as if agreeing to something he was thinking. He picked up his fork and said, “Tell me about that. The people from the programs and things.”

  “Well, there was one person who really put the bow on the whole day.”

  Seth looked back at him expectantly.

  “Her name is Jen, she’s fifteen, and she has serious attitude.”

  Seth’s fork paused midway to his mouth. “Is she some kind of Doogie Howser? She’s in the doctoral program?”

  “No, no, she’s a part of one of the social programs they have. When I introduced myself to her, she gave me the biggest bitch glare. I don’t ever remember making an adult feel uncool and old when I was fifteen.”

  Seth bit back a laugh and patted Oliver’s arm. “And? This hateful wretch of a girl was the bow on the day?”

  “Oh, no, she was great. I knew the book she was reading, she didn’t know there was a sequel, and then we became BFFs.” Oliver laughed, thinking about her. It really had been a great visit. The more they’d talked, the more animated Jen had become. Her whole countenance began to glow with excitement as she told Oliver about the program she was in. It had been pretty amazing to see the energy and happiness that came just by virtue of having a place that accepted her.

  “Oh!” He grabbed Seth’s hand with both of his, his face also glowing with the excitement he’d felt earlier in the day. “Jen told me about the summer camp Silver runs that’s focused on arts for underprivileged kids. Underprivileged gay kids.”

  Seth blinked. “I can’t imagine what that would have been like when we were younger. Wait, yes I can,” he said dryly. “There would have been you and me, and that girl with the pierced lip from the Coffee Bean. No one could make a latte like her, come to think of it.”

  Oliver laughed. “I said that to her, too. Well, not the latte part. Jen is
training to be a peer counselor. She’s a graduate of one of their other programs. The fieldwork they’re doing here is amazing; it’s all of the things I’ve wanted to get involved with, honestly. Not to mention that all of the other aspects I love—direct policymaking and implementation—are here, too.”

  Seth pushed back from the bar, his hands neatly folded in his lap as he thought. This was why Oliver needed to always include him. When Oliver got excited and his words began almost to trip over themselves, Seth could focus and think. And he knew that he could be that for Seth, too.

  Seth seemed to be holding his breath. “So it seems like it comes down to that final question, doesn’t it?”

  Oliver rubbed his knuckles on his lower lip, trying to think it through. He owed it to Seth, hell, he owed it to himself to do that. “I can go the government route, which is awesome because you can effect change on a grand scale. I’d be rubbing elbows with important leaders, too. Or I can go the route of fieldwork, which is more of the hands-on stuff. One-on-one with families, schools, get involved directly.”

  Oliver paced back and forth in the small kitchen, his hands unable to settle anywhere as he talked about the different programs he’d visited during the day. The more he explained what was happening at Silver, the more energized he felt, as if he was waking up from a long sleep. He ran his hands through his hair, he paced, he occasionally grabbed Seth’s arm to make sure he understood how big a deal a certain part of his day had been.

  Seth watched with bright eyes as Oliver talked and talked, oh, God, probably boring him to death with details of social and behavioral intervention, the area he was especially interested in. It had been the driving force for his studies for the past five years, and he had seen it put to action today; it was just incredibly gratifying to finally see what could be accomplished.

  He stopped abruptly, realizing that Seth was laughing quietly behind his hand. “What?”

  Seth shook his head, still amused. “It’s just… you’re so excited.”

  “I know! I really am,” Oliver said, his hand on his hip as he looked into the distance and smiled at the memory of his talk with Jen earlier and how the center had saved her life, how it made her want to grow up and be a counselor so no other kid felt isolated and wrong as she had when she came out to her family. It was how Bakerfield, and then Seth, had made him feel.

  Seth pushed away from the counter and pulled Oliver into his arms. “Do you know the last time I saw you this animated?”

  Oliver shook his head, beaming back at Seth. He felt really happy after such a busy and momentous day; he’d met some great people, had come even closer to realizing a dream he’d had for years, and now here he was in the circle of Seth’s arms.

  “The last time you performed for an audience,” Seth answered. “You know that I was hopelessly in love with you the first time I watched you in action as Mr. Extemporaneous Speaker, right?”

  Oliver hid his face in Seth’s shoulder, feeling bashful and happy at the same time. Seth kissed his cheek and tightened his arms.

  “You were so alive, so poised and confident. I’d just transferred and met you, this square-jawed, green-eyed boy, looking like you’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie ad, so painfully earnest and happy. And on my way to class I saw you addressing the entire lunchroom, trying to get volunteers for some charity fundraiser, which of course they all signed up for. You looked right at me, this scared new kid you’d inexplicably taken under your wing, you smiled and winked at me, and that was it. I was done for.” Seth sighed and rocked their bodies side to side gently for a moment. “You were the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen. You have that same energy right now; do you realize that?”

  Oliver’s arms tightened at Seth’s waist with the realization of how right he was; Oliver felt that bouncing, barely contained energy that used to course through him before a swim meet or before he walked onstage. As if something was about to happen, something amazing was just around the corner.

  He tried to think about the last time he’d felt like this for something he was involved with. That first lecture of his freshman year at Brandeis; that was when he’d realized that someone just speaking to a crowd could command the same attention as they did singing at the top of their voice. That what a person said could move an audience as much as a turnaround from an underdog team or a perfectly executed note. And that the result could be sharing something that affected the world, beyond the room and the moment. He hadn’t realized just how much more there was until then.

  Seth rested his cheek against Oliver’s, his warm breath tickling Oliver’s ear. “You know what you want to do, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  He’d thrived at Bakerfield as a teenager, a place that had a strict policy of tolerance and that fostered acceptance. At the time, it was just what he’d needed to help him become himself and not the closeted automaton his father would have preferred. The culture there had—without hyperbole—saved his life. Other kids’ lives, too. But Bakerfield’s students were the only ones benefiting from that forward-thinking attitude. What about other kids, at other schools in other states, who didn’t have the chance to escape to a safe haven?

  A kernel of an idea had begun to grow when he sat down with the boy he’d been assigned to mentor, a boy with angry tears on his face telling him about his former school, the one he’d been bullied out of because they had no policy in place to help him. No teachers, no administrative staff, no rule books had intervened on his behalf, just an angry father determined to make them do something. Oliver had wanted so badly to give him some of the comfort he’d enjoyed; Bakerfield was like a security blanket for him, a safe and nurturing environment he could wrap himself up in. He wished there were places like it for struggling kids everywhere. It wasn’t fair that there weren’t.

  Before Bakerfield, he’d been a boy determined to hide himself, to be what was expected of him. Then he realized that it was okay to be himself, that no one was judging him. Not his peers, at least—he still had to pretend at home to appease his father. But until he reached out to Seth and watched him transform, Oliver hadn’t understood what real strength was, what the power of support could do for a person.

  Making a difference, helping others, giving them the tools to stand on their own and be strong individuals—that was what he wanted to do with his life. And it had all started with a simple moment of reaching out to a beautiful, hurting boy, taking his hand and just listening to him, just acknowledging that he was hurting. From that moment on, Seth had taught him the meaning of the word “brave,” made him want to be better. Made him capable of being himself, even in front of his parents.

  Standing here with him now and seeing him achieve everything because of that support? Oliver’s whole life was different because of his connection with this one, special person. He loved working for major change and would always push for it, but he realized that the differences in his life—who he was becoming—were the result of his relationship with Seth.

  Seth had asked him, “What would you be here?” His real self, that was what.

  Seth was holding him lightly, as if a tighter embrace would fracture him. He was waiting for Oliver to make a decision. Oliver sighed, the palm of his hand at Seth’s back, pulling him in. This was real; he really was holding the boy who set his life in motion.

  “I… yeah. I know what I want,” he replied, closing his eyes, his body thrumming with energy.

  “And?” Seth asked, breathlessly.

  “I told her that I needed to speak with you and sleep on it. But if I decided to take their offer, I’d come in just as soon as I knew and formally confirm.”

  Seth’s arms began to tighten around him. “Really?” he asked, bouncing on his toes.

  Oliver felt a little lightheaded. This was huge—this was his life, and he couldn’t look away from how it would affect Seth. Interacting with that young lady earlier, seeing how strong and confident she’d become because of the tools she’d been given through the program, how
she wanted to pass on her own confidence and learning… that was it. That was what he’d dreamed of doing himself since he was sixteen.

  Being able to look into a person’s eyes and know there was a difference, know that real change was happening, that was what he wanted.

  “Really.” He exhaled deeply as Seth pulled him back into a bone-crushing hug. After a moment he pulled back and held Oliver’s face in his hands. His eyes were shining and his lip was trembling. Oliver tightened his hold at Seth’s waist.

  “This is the right place, Seth. It’s…” He exhaled again and brought their foreheads together. “I want to be here.”

  “You’re really coming here? You’re not going to change your mind?”

  Oliver nodded. “I’m really coming here.” His chest felt tight, his limbs felt loose; he felt amazed and scared and excited and so in love and happy, all at once. “It’s… perfect.”

  Seth sighed shakily. “And it’s not for me, right? This is because it’s—”

  “Seth.” Oliver pressed their lips together, just long enough to get him to stop talking and relax. “It’s perfect. The school. The potential.” He traced his fingers along the button placket of Seth’s shirt, still thrilling at the sensation of the lean, strong chest under his hand. “And the best part is you.”

  “So it’s decided, then?” Seth asked, practically vibrating under Oliver’s hand. How did he get so lucky?

  “It’s still okay?” Oliver tipped Seth’s chin up with his hand and stroked the backs of his fingers along Seth’s jaw, his breath hitching when his touch made Seth sigh and close his eyes.

  “Of course,” Seth answered, kissing him. Relief and excitement raced through him in equal measure. He was doing this. Correction: They were doing this.

  The thought of them as a them again hit him like a ton of bricks and he swayed in Seth’s embrace. Then he held their foreheads together and he said quietly, “We decided, didn’t we?”