I Become Shadow

by Joe Shine

  I WOKE UP IN a dark room on a couch. Junie was sitting next to me, holding my hand and smiling down at me.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he said.

  My face flushed red. I wanted so badly to jump up and hug him, kiss him, lose myself in his arms. I couldn’t move. I weakly gave him a “Junie.” I could feel the all-too-familiar sensation of the hard gel bandage over my stomach and back wounds.

  “Put a scare in me there for a bit,” he said softly.

  I scratched my stomach, and Junie gently lifted my hand away.

  “Let it be,” he said sweetly.

  “Where’s Gareth?”

  “Asleep. Or passed out to be more exact,” he added with a sly grin. I gave him a look he knew all too well. “I may have taken a little more blood than was needed so he’d pass out and shut up for a while.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned guiltily. I glared at him. “I’ll apologize when he wakes up.”

  My glare melted into a smile.

  “I’ve missed that,” he said, grinning back. I realized he was lightly stroking my hand. I liked it. It felt right in every way that Gareth’s touch didn’t. I squeezed his hand in mine.

  “You feeling okay?” I nodded and he continued, “Because you look awesome.”

  “That good, huh?” I grunted, struggling to sit up. He moved to stop me, but knew better and helped me instead. I caught my reflection in a mirror across the room. Wow. One black eye, a cut over my other eye, a badly bruised jaw, and who knows what was going on beneath my clothes. My clothes …

  “Who put me in these?” I asked staring down at the extra large gym shorts and old T-shirt I was wearing. Junie’s silence told me all I needed to know. Angrily I started with, “Junie Miller …”

  “I didn’t peek when I was doing it, I swear,” he said holding up his hands.

  “Oh, really, how’d you do it then?”

  “Not easily.”

  I guess they were more hygienic than the filthy rags I had been wearing. I took a deep breath to calm down and caught a whiff of something. Something clean and flowery. Is that me? I smelled my arm. Soap. I’m clean! I looked up.

  Junie smiled and raised his hands up even more, “Okay, the bath was a little harder and I may have seen some stuff.” He started to laugh a little.

  Of course I wasn’t mad; how could I be? My anger was less about him and more about how crappy the circumstances had been that had led to it. There was nothing attractive about cleaning an unconscious, limp, bloody body in a tub. He’d done what was right, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a little fun with him.

  “Stand up,” I said flatly.

  Still grinning, he hopped up from the chair beside me, even stood at attention to be an ass about it.

  “Now take off your clothes.” I commanded. “It’s only fair. You saw me, now I see you.”

  He started to smile, thinking it was a joke, but when I didn’t return it, he got straight-faced again. I glanced at the stereo in the corner and added, “You can put on some music if it makes you feel better.”

  He took a deep breath. His shoulders dropped, and he lowered his head a bit. He grabbed the bottom of his baby blue T-shirt and raised it over his head. The moment it blocked me from his eyes I forced myself to my feet and stood directly in front of him. The good thing about not feeling any pain is that you can ignore injuries. When he got his shirt off I was right there, my face inches from his.

  “Hi,” I said softly.

  “Hi.”

  “Thanks.”

  He shrugged and said, “It’s you. I’d do—”

  But that’s all he got out before I kissed him.

  I WOKE UP WRAPPED in Junie’s arms, curled up on the couch. He was warm and smelled like summer. I wished we could stay that way forever. It felt right.

  I pushed the blanket aside and wafted some air into my shirt to cool off a little. Yeah, I was still clothed, not naked. Get your mind out of the gutter. What we did or didn’t do last night is our business. Stop prying.

  Yes, this was good, this was real, but it wasn’t everything I needed. I needed something else, something I couldn’t control, and fighting it any longer wasn’t an option. By my count it had been over twelve hours since I’d last seen Gareth and that equaled the longest I’d gone without seeing him since that first day on campus. It was too long. Painfully so. I needed to see him. As great as being with Junie was at that moment, I had to see Gareth with my own eyes to believe he was safe. The beast inside had to be satisfied. It’s like when you’re in the backyard and you know you blew out the candle in your room, but that little voice inside you nags and nags until finally you cave and you go to check on it even though you know the answer. I tried to fight it but I couldn’t. I had to check on my candle.

  As gently as I could, I lifted Junie’s arms off of me and rolled off the couch. He gave a quiet, sweet mumble of something and wrapped his arms around a pillow, still asleep. I kissed him gently on the forehead and stood up. I crept upstairs to Gareth.

  When I cracked open the door at the end of the hall, that unnatural sensation of pleasure flooded me. He was fast asleep, comfortably nestled in the blankets. Having not had my fix for so long, the jolt was more powerful than usual. I could only imagine how great it would feel to curl up next to him. Would it feel like it did with Junie? Could it? Or were those feelings still a lie, a sham? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  I shut the door. As I walked back down the hallway the rush of seeing Gareth faded and left me light-headed and woozy. Side effects from massive blood loss, no doubt. I wall-walked my way back to the stairs, prepared to lie back down with Junie on the couch.

  When I got back to the living room, he was gone.

  He wasn’t upstairs; I knew that. A quick search of the ground floor led me to the basement door. It had been left slightly cracked open, like an invitation, and there was a faint bluish glow creeping out. I silently padded down the stairs. Walls hid my descent on both sides and opened up at a landing where the stairs turned. I stopped there.

  Junie was sitting on a couch in the middle of the room facing the video feed of a small child sleeping. Emily, of course. To the left of the huge image were many smaller feeds showing other places in the house: a dark, empty kitchen, a hallway lit by a single night-light. But Junie was transfixed on the sleeping child and nothing else.

  Junie looked so at home, so at peace watching her. I knew that peace. I did the same thing for hours on end each night with Gareth. It was a feeling unlike any other. I held my breath. I didn’t want him to know I’d invaded. This was his space, his moment, and I wanted to let him keep it.

  Emily gave the cutest little sigh and rolled over. A fatherly grin slid across Junie’s face. She was as much a part of him as Gareth was of me.

  “You gonna stand there all night?” he asked without so much as a backward glance. He motioned with his head to come join him.

  I slid into the couch, brought my knees up to my chest, and rested my head on his shoulder. He reached over and wrapped his arm around me. We sat there together in silence staring at the screen. Strange—having just gotten my Gareth fix, and now snuggling with Junie—for the first time ever I felt truly and fully complete.

  “Gareth okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry I got up. I had to.” I looked up at him. His face was a mixture of understanding and pain. I understood. It hurt me, too.

  He squeezed me tighter. “It nags on you, I know.”

  “It does. How’s Emily?”

  “Fine. It’s funny …” but he didn’t finish his thought.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s stupid.”

  “I like stupid.” I lifted my head off of his shoulder and stretched on the couch with my legs across his lap.

  “I know you do.” He took a deep breath. “Tonight was the first night I’ve missed her being tucked in. Every single night since I was linked, I’ve been there to tuck her in. I know not physically there, but … it’s hard to explain. It’
s dumb, forget it.”

  “It’s not dumb, Junie, not to me.” I reached over and grabbed his hand.

  “It was like the moment I missed it, I knew it in my gut. I got nervous. When I woke up and you were gone, part of me was glad. It made me feel better to know that you have the same sort of … sickness. That you have to know …”

  “… that they’re safe,” we said together.

  He absentmindedly began to pet my left calf with his free hand while his eyes went back to the screen. I closed my eyes, ready to fall back asleep. But my brain, doing what it does best, annoyingly reminded me of a promise I made to myself a long time ago. A promise to come clean, about everything, if I ever saw Junie again. One of these days my brain and I are gonna have it out. It ain’t gonna be pretty, either.

  Who knew how much longer we had here. The FATE team could arrive at any minute, or more attackers could bust in on us. Good timing or not, it was now or never. I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and sat up.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Like, really talk?”

  I nodded.

  “Coffee?”

  “Absolutely.” I said, grateful for the postponement.

  He got up from the couch and walked over to a coffee machine in a small kitchenette in the corner. He pushed a few buttons and it filled two mugs. He carried them over to a small table and sat down. I sat down across from him.

  I cupped my hands around the steaming mug, staring into the dark liquid. “If you could just let me say it all without interrupting, it’d be easier.”

  “Sure.”

  I took a sip of the too-hot coffee and before I lost my nerve let it all out. A rush, a jumble. I started from the very beginning, from the moment he jumped off of the balcony and left me alone in my room. I told him about the first time I’d seen Gareth and the feelings that came with it. He nodded, having felt something similar with Emily, though obviously not in the same way—his devotion was paternal. I told him about the mugging and the unbelievably amazing, almost indescribable sensation I felt from Gareth’s touch. Our fake relationship and subsequent breakup from the kiss were covered too. Then to Gareth’s wheat breakthrough, and finally to the attack that had brought us here.

  Junie kept a poker face throughout, but his eyes gave him away. The kiss bothered him a lot. It pained him, which pained me. It was a hurt I never wanted to be responsible for. Only the anger from the attack made it go away.

  When I finished I took a big drink of coffee, which was much cooler now, and looked at him. It felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders. I felt free. I felt great. Except for one thing.

  “Sorry about the kiss,” I finished.

  “Nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t kiss him, right?” he asked.

  I aggressively shook my head.

  “And you didn’t enjoy it, right?”

  I looked at him. My non-reply was confirmation enough.

  “Oh.”

  I scrambled to explain it to him. “No, not like that. Not like that. It’s just, you know that feeling when you see your FIP?”

  He nodded.

  “Times a thousand. I’m programmed to like it. We both are,” I then added, with a smile, “I pushed him into a wall after he did it. He won’t do it again.”

  He turned back to the Emily screens. “I know it wasn’t your idea, Ren, and I get it. I do.”

  He leaned across the table and kissed me. It was genuine and gentle and said everything Junie couldn’t say in words. And I knew what I felt was real and not fabricated. That was all that mattered.

  When he leaned back into his seat he looked troubled.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I took a lot of blood from that kid yesterday. Let’s just say he’ll wake up with one hell of a headache.” He smirked impishly. “I don’t feel bad about it now.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  He blinked and then started talking. The next part tumbled out with the right amount of guilt and with a pinch of it being something he’d been dying to say, “I’ve been babysitting Emily for over a month now. Like, really babysitting. As in spending time with her and playing with her and—”

  “Seriously?” I interrupted. And I had to admit, I felt pretty freaking awesome. I always assumed I was the only idiot. The only one who had broken the rules. But Junie too? Follow-the-rules, top-of-the-class Junie? How many more Shadows were out there like us?

  He smiled. “It all started a couple months ago. I was in my front yard working on my flowerbeds. My boxwoods weren’t rooting.”

  I shot him a look. He flushed.

  “Shut up. So I was gardening when I felt a tiny little tap on my shoulder. It was Emily. The feeling was, like you said, indescribable. I nearly passed out right then and there. Anyway, Chris and Michelle, her parents, were nowhere to be seen, so I took her hand and walked her back to her house. As we were going up the stairs her mother came running out scared out of her mind. We laughed and, well, one thing led to another … and I’m now their go- to sitter for Thursday date night.”

  “You, the stay-at-home writer?”

  He laughed. “We read! She’s really smart, and loves to cook so …”

  At that moment the fourteen-year-old kid I fell in love with so long ago was gone. That kid was replaced by the adult sitting across from me. As he spoke, I began to see him doing all of these things. I saw him reading her stories, baking cakes, being, well, a father. He loved this kid like she was his own flesh and blood. She was more than a link to him now. The glow in his eyes, the enthusiasm—it was love, real love. But if his feelings for Emily ran deeper than the link, could my feelings for Gareth be that deep as well? Could I honestly brush them off as nothing more than side effects?

  “We dress up and have tea parties. She calls me Miss Pippy Bottoms …”

  I started laughing. The image of Junie sitting in a tiny chair, wearing a dress, speaking with a high-pitched English accent, and sipping a tiny tea cup popped into my head, and soon I was in hysterics. “Miss Pippy Bottoms!” I was crying it was so bad.

  I wiped the tears from eyes and nodded. “Oh, wow,” I said slightly out breath. “That was a good one.”

  “Finished?”

  “Oh, I’ll revisit that one later for sure, but yeah, for now … Miss Pippy Bottoms.”

  “Hardy har. It reminds me of babysitting my little sister. Of being home. So make fun of me all you want. I don’t care. It’s the best part of my week.” He paused. “Well, that, and when you email.”

  There were footsteps upstairs. Gareth was awake and heading our way.

  I then realized this could be the last time we were together, alone, for, well … ever. “Quick,” I said and leaned in for one last kiss. We stopped as Gareth came walking down the stairs.

  His hair was messed up, and he was holding his head. “Got any Advil in this place?” he croaked.

  We shared a look before Junie said, “Far right, top shelf,” and pointed at a cabinet.

  “Morning?” I said with a smile. My voice had the tone of, Hello, I’m here and alive.

  Gareth stopped halfway to the cabinet and came stumbling over to me. He hugged me from over the back of the chair. Junie sighed and nodded.

  “I’m so sorry,” Gareth said to me. “Rude. I’m only … my head hurts so bad. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Go get your drugs.”

  “Thank you,” he said as if I’d released him from prison. He popped a few pills in his mouth and grabbed a cup of coffee to wash them down. Then he joined us at the table and slumped into the chair. The triumvirate. Too awkward. Too quiet. Somebody had to break the tension. I opened my mouth, but Gareth beat me to it.

  “So, I’ve been a pretty good sport about all of this, right?”

  “You’ve been great,” I said, exhaling.

  “You have,” Junie added sincerely.

  “So then when do I get to know what the hell is going on?”

  Junie and I exch
anged a glance. He’d been through everything and had no clue why. Went with the flow when he had no idea where it was taking him. He’d earned the right to know; I owed him that. He was injured, filthy, far from home, and still covered in what had to be my dried blood.

  I took the cup of coffee from him and said, “After you take a shower. Open book. Deal?”

  “Open book? You mean that? I can ask anything, and you’ll tell me?”

  I nodded.

  He looked at himself. “Shower’s probably a good idea.”

  “Linen closet is at the end of the upstairs hall. Blue towels are for company, so grab one of them,” Junie told him. I gave a snort of laughter and he added, “Shut up, Ren.”

  “Blue towels, got it.”

  As Gareth reached the top of the stairs, he called down, “You realize you’re both staring at a sleeping child. Add that to the list of creepy things that need explaining.”

  Once Gareth was upstairs, Junie looked at me. “Did you ever hit the beacon to alert FATE?”

  I nodded. “While we were running.”

  “And nobody came?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Weird.”

  “I know.”

  It had been something that bothered me—or didn’t, depending on how you saw it. But it was new information to Junie, so I let it sit before asking, “Be straight with me, Slick. How bad is this?”

  “Slick?”

  “It just came out, no idea why,” I said honestly. Total brain fart. “But come on. How bad?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Twelve … no, thirty.”

  “Twelve jumps to thirty just like that?” I said with a snap of my fingers. But my smile faltered.

  “I’m not very good at math,” he said. He tried to smile, too, with equal lack of success. This wasn’t good. “I mean, you’ve pretty much broken every rule we have, Ren, and there aren’t that many. But you broke them doing what you were supposed to do, so I wouldn’t worry about it. You can explain everything to them when they get here. I’m sure they’ll understand. It’ll be fine.”