by T. J. Klune
“Jesus Christ,” I groan. “Give it a rest.”
“Why?” she snaps at me. “So I can just sit here and watch you flirt with this tool?”
“You’re flirting with me?” Isaiah asks, arching an eyebrow. “I’m flattered. And I’m not a tool. Unless you want me to be.” He flashes a lascivious grin.
“I’m not flirting with you,” I reassure him. “You’re nice, but not my type.”
Ha! it whispers. Hilarious. I thought we were done with the whole “less than the truth” thing. Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward recovery. Hi, my name is Bear, and I’m attracted to men who are not my boyfriend.
I don’t have a problem, I remind it. I have hormones and errant blood that seems to wander down to my dick without my consent. It’s called being in your twenties.
It’s funny how you always have an excuse for everything, it says as it chuckles. Lord knows your life will never be boring. Not honest, either, but at least it’ll never be boring.
“Not your type?” Isaiah scoffs. “I’m everyone’s type.”
“So what you’re saying is you’re a slut,” Anna says.
“If the cockring fits,” Isaiah says, grinning wickedly.
“It’s sad that you think you’re funny,” Anna says with faux sympathy. “Quick, cover up your narcissism before someone sees it.”
“You and me,” he says seriously, “we’re going to end up being best friends.”
“I highly, highly doubt that.”
Actually, I could almost see that happening, if they don’t kill each other first. But for once I keep my mouth shut. I don’t need to be under Anna’s wrath any more than I already am.
OTTER had planned for us to get a hotel in Portland to stay the night so we wouldn’t have to drive back so late. I understood the implied message behind his words was that he didn’t want to drive back drunk. This caused me to pause for a moment and to try and think of a time that I’d ever seen Otter drunk, and I realized that in all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him drunk; beyond that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him even tipsy. Otter is a model of self-control, and when I told him this, he thought for a moment and shrugged, saying there was only one thing in the world he couldn’t control himself over. I’d asked him what that was. He said I shouldn’t have even had to ask and kissed me sweetly before heading off to take a shower. I realized what it was about two seconds later and ran in after him, showing him just how much I enjoyed that loss of control of his. I was even able to put Eddie Egan and his idiotic questions about dominance out of my head long enough for Otter to have me pressed up against the shower wall, his massive body pressed against mine as I writhed under his lips and teeth attached to my neck and his dick up my ass.
If that’s not devotion, then I don’t know what is.
Isaiah had lived up to his promise and given me some clothes that he said would send all the boys running after me. I told him that I didn’t want boys chasing me. He said that I probably shouldn’t go, then. I told him that was my plan to begin with. He told me to stop being such a baby and then made me try on jeans that felt like a second skin but made my ass look a lot better than it actually is and a black, collared button-down that he said to leave unbuttoned halfway down. It made my chest look huge, the white skin there contrasting with the dark shirt so much that I looked like I glowed in the dark. Isaiah rolled up the sleeves, rubbing my forearms appreciatively while Anna scowled in the background. He took some goopy sticky crap and rubbed it through my hair, making it look messy on purpose. He then gave me a leather bracelet thing that I normally associate with douche bags and told me to snap it around my wrist.
When he finished, he stepped back and said I looked hotter than fuck.
Anna agreed, although it killed her to admit it.
I looked in the mirror and realized I looked like a whore. It was weird, because I knew it was my reflection I was looking at and I could still see the faint outline of the real me buried in there somewhere, but this Bear looked slutty and ripped and hot and gross. It didn’t help when I found myself flexing at my reflection just to see what it’d look like. Isaiah came and stood behind me, brushing invisible somethings off my shoulders, grinning at me in the mirror. That grin that said I told you so. That grin that said you love the way you look. I was never one for these things, because what would be the point? It was easier to focus on the reality of life, that Tyson needed a new coat or new school supplies. That the water bill was due. Our cell phone bills. I needed gas. Or food. I didn’t have time to care about the little bullshit stuff that some people get to worry about. But I wasn’t bitter because I’d never had them in the first place. And looking at myself in the mirror, all sheen and pretty and fake, I didn’t know if I wanted it.
And then my phone alarm when off, reminding me I had ten minutes to go pick up the Kid from school. I didn’t have time to change and flew out of the house with Anna trailing behind me and Isaiah shouting that he’d see me at the club because he wanted to see what happened when the sharks at PDXers got wind of fresh bloody meat in the water. Oh, and that he wanted to meet Walrus for the first time.
I was almost late picking up the Kid, who was standing on the corner impatiently, his eyes scanning the approaching cars, a nervous tilt to his shoulders. He saw me approaching, and the tension released, and he waved at me as he grinned. He opened the door and said, “Hey, Papa Bear! I wasn’t worried at all, you were just a little later than you—” And then he stopped. And stared.
“What?” I asked him as I started pulling out into traffic to get over to the high school. I glanced over at him, and his eyes were wide and one corner of his mouth twitched. “What’s the matter?”
He just stared.
I scowled at him as I pulled into the high school and waved Dominic over. He got into the backseat and closed the door behind him. He reached up and patted the Kid on the shoulder twice, saying Ty’s name softly in greeting. Ty didn’t move. He followed Ty’s gaze until it hit me, and then his jaw dropped, and he started the same staring weirdness that the Kid was doing.
“What is wrong with you two?” I snapped at them.
“You… you look… different,” Dominic offered.
I looked down and realized I was still wearing Isaiah’s clothes, the douchey leather bracelet on my arm, my hair all over the place that was supposed to be cool but reminded me of pretentious slacker assholes.
“That’s what people wear to gay bars?” Ty finally said. “Good grief, Bear. Don’t you think you should leave something to the imagination? You look like one of those out-of-control teenage girls on Maury Povich who get sent to boot camp to correct their miscreant ways.”
I’ve got to stop recording that damn show. “No more Maury Povich for you,” I said, scowling at him. “Stick with Anderson. At least he reports real news.”
“Be nice,” Dominic said. “Your brother looks good.”
“Thank you, Dominic.”
Tyson looked in the backseat at his friend and frowned. “It’s not very nice to tell lies to people like that,” he said. “He doesn’t look like Bear.”
Dominic shrugged. “It’s just for going out, Ty. He’s not going to dress like that all the time.”
“If it makes you feel better, Kid,” I said, “I think I look ridiculous.”
Tyson rolled his eyes. “The only things you need to complete the outfit is a little soul patch on your chin and a diamond stud in one ear. I’m sure the women over on Miracle Mile would run in the opposite direction because they’re afraid you’re going to bitch-slap them and demand they give you the money they owe you.”
“Tyson McKenna!” I shouted even as Dominic dissolved into that rusty laughter of his. “You need to learn to watch your mouth!”
“Why!” he shouted back, sudden anger flashing in his eyes. “You obviously don’t give a damn about what you look like, so why should I care about what I say?”
“What are you talking about? I care about how
I look!”
“No, you don’t,” he retorts. “Not if you’re showing up dressed like that.”
“I was at a friend’s house,” I told him. “He was letting me borrow some clothes, and I didn’t have time to change back. I’m not going to dress like this all the time.”
“Whose house were you at?” he asked suspiciously. “Nobody we know has clothes like that.”
I was exasperated. “A friend from school. Anna was there with me, and she said I looked okay. Kid, just because I look like this doesn’t mean I’m doing anything else different. It’s just dressing up. It’s like… it’s like playing pretend.”
“You’re twenty-one,” he told me. “You shouldn’t have to pretend at anything. And who is this friend of yours, and why have I never heard of him?”
“Because I don’t have to tell you every damn thing I do!” I said through gritted teeth. “Christ, Tyson. Sometimes I think you forget who is in charge around here, that you forget who is adopting who. You’re the kid. I’m the adult. You need to remember that. I don’t have to go over every single thing with you!”
“Since when?” he asked incredulously. I tried hard to ignore the hurt I could see in his eyes. “We’ve always told each other everything. You said to me that it was the only way we could survive, that as long as we were honest with each other that we would be okay.”
“That was before—”
“Before what?” he cut me off angrily, his little fists clenched at his sides. “Before Otter? Before this… this whatever you are now? Otter isn’t the magical cure you make him out to be, Bear. I love him, and you know that, but he isn’t everything.”
“And you are?” I snapped before I could stop myself. “Is that what you’re trying to say? That you’re everything? I hate to break it to you, Kid, but you’re not. You are the biggest thing in my life, but you’re not all there is. You don’t control it or me. We’re finally able to actually live, and you sound like you wish things were back the way they were!”
“Maybe I do!” he shouted at me, and I could no longer ignore the crack in his voice, the angry tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “At least then I’d know who the fuck I’m looking at!”
“I told you to watch your goddamn mouth! I won’t ask you again, Tyson. I mean it this time!”
But he was on a roll. He wouldn’t stop, not for me, not for anything. And when he spoke next, my heart broke: “How long, Bear? How long is it going to be before you don’t need me anymore? You’re going to school, you’ve got Otter, and you’ve got new friends who make you look like someone you’re not, who want you to go to bars and drink and be stupid! One day you’re going to wake up and be like her! You’re going to walk out and leave me behind because you won’t need me anymore! Are you going to leave a note? A fucking letter that says you’re sorry, but you just couldn’t take it anymore? That I was too much for you to handle and you had to leave? What then, Bear? What about me!” By the time he finished, he was breathing heavily, his face was bright red, his cheeks wet. I tried to reach out my hand to him, but he knocked it away with a snarl. We pulled up into the driveway of the Green Monstrosity, and he jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind him before tearing into the house, leaving Dominic and myself to stare after him in a stunned silence.
I had no words, no ability to speak, no ability to even really think. I should have expected something like this, I knew. The Kid had gone through this transition more seamlessly than I’d ever expected, to the point where I’d become complacent when it came to him, assuming that he was as okay as I was, or at least on the road to being so. We’ve shared everything, from our neurosis to our inability to trust people, so why wouldn’t I think he’d be on the way to normalcy like I was?
Because he’s not normal, and I knew this. I’d told myself as long as he’d been around. He’s not like the other kids. He’s never going to be like them. He’s scary smart, scary fragile, scary scary. He’s opinionated, he’s loud and brash, he’s a vegetarian by choice, he’s my biggest supporter, my harshest critic. He’s funny and sad and happy and crazy, and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I realized all of that in a few short seconds after the door slammed shut on the house. I realized that regardless of what had happened in the past, our mom leaving, how we cut ourselves off from the world, those nights we both lay awake wondering if we were doing the right thing, I realized that I would do it all again. In a single heartbeat. If it meant he would be by my side, if it meant I got to see the little guy he’s grown up to be, then yes, of course yes. There would never be any other choice
I realized I’d lied to him. When I told him he wasn’t everything, I’d lied. How can he not be everything to me? He’s grown to be the kid that any parent would hope to have, that any person would be proud to say is his own. He is my own.
Fuck.
“He’s been worried for a while,” Dominic finally said, causing me to jump. I’d forgotten he was in the car with me.
“About what?” I said, my voice sounding almost as rough as his. I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror.
Dominic watched me for a moment as if gauging my sincerity. He must have seen something there because he took a deep breath, his eyes looking a little sad, and he said: “That you’re changing. That you’re leaving him behind. He doesn’t know what his place is anymore.” He sighed. “He thinks now that you have Otter, you won’t need him. That he’s really just been holding you back from the life that you’ve wanted to have but couldn’t because you had him. And then you show up today, looking like you do…. I think it just confused him.”
“He told you all of this?” I asked him, feeling heartsore.
He shrugged. “Some. I kinda figured out the rest. You and Tyson are the same. You show so much on your faces. Maybe too much. I see how he looks at you sometimes. I hear things that he’s not quite saying. When you don’t talk a lot, you’d be surprised about what you actually hear.” This last part sounded almost like an admonition, but it was said in that same quiet voice of his, which sounds like it should have been harsh, but came out as kind. “Just reassure him, okay? That’s all he needs. I can handle the rest.”
As he stepped out of the car, I finally I asked him the question I’d been thinking the entire time I’d known him: “Who the fuck are you?”
He turned back to me, and his lips quirked into a smile, one that felt rare because it was directed toward me and not the Kid. “Someone who cares about your brother,” he rumbled. “Oh, and Bear? One more thing, but don’t tell Tyson I said so. Or Otter. He’d probably kill me.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
His smile widened, and for the first time, I saw a mischievous glint behind his eyes. “You do look pretty fucking hot in those clothes. It makes me wish I was a few years older. But I prefer the other Bear as well. There’s just something about him, you know?” And then he turned and shut the door behind him and walked down the sidewalk toward his house, leaving me to gape after him, wondering what the hell had just happened.
THE Kid had refused to speak to me for the rest of the night, going so far as to ignore me pointedly through dinner and then barricading himself in his room after. I told myself I was lucky he hadn’t made his way to the bathtub, that at least there was that, but I walked by his door more than I should have that night, pacing the hall on pretenses of folding towels and putting them in the hall closet, or getting Otter something from the bedroom. Each time I walked by his door, I’d slow down almost to a pause, listening for anything from inside his room. I heard his cell phone ring out once in the tone he’d put for Dominic, but I could only hear the murmured whisper of conversation.
Obviously Otter had known something was up, and I gave a vague description of what’d happened, not fully explaining because I did not know yet what I’d thought of it. He understood I needed time to work it out on my own and knew I’d tell him when I was ready. He got the Kid ready for bed that night, and I could hear
them talking about whatever from my position at the table, my homework splayed out in front of me but forgotten for the past hour. Otter said something that made the Kid laugh quietly, and the sound pierced my chest so much so that I thought I would bleed out right there.
And of course he ignored me the next day as I drove him and Dominic to school. I reminded the both of them that Mrs. Paquinn would be there to pick them up (and that they both needed to sit in the backseat in her car) because Otter and I would be on our way to Portland to check into the hotel and go out to an early dinner before having to go to the gay bar. Dominic nodded, and the Kid maintained his silence, and as he opened the door, I realized that this would be the first time in since I couldn’t even remember that he and I would be apart for any length of time. I wasn’t going to pick him up from school. I wasn’t going to make him dinner and listen to him chatter on about his day, or about how he thought Sarah Palin was a sure sign of a coming apocalypse. I wasn’t going to tell him some stupid story that I made up about how he’s the king of the world and that everyone converted to vegetarianism because he decreed it so and that PETA gave him a lifetime achievement award. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t be away from him. What if something happened? What if he needed my help and I wasn’t there? What if there was a fire or a flood or any other biblical thing my mind could wrap itself around? But even as I reached out my hand to stop him, to stop myself, I knew that he needed to see I’d be okay on my own, and that he needed to see that he’d be okay. The thought knocked me breathless, and I almost stopped, but I grabbed his arm anyways.
He turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed, but not cold. Never cold. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” I told him quietly, “and I don’t care if I have to tell you this every day for the rest of our lives, but I will never leave you. You are my brother, Tyson McKenna, and I will never leave you behind.”
He watched me for a moment with those eyes that looked so very much like my own before he gently pulled himself from my grasp and shut the door behind him.
