by Noah Harris
The thing is that it was just one regular night. One night in a long string of nights, no different from the night or the week before. There was no indication everything was about to change. In my memory, I’ve added all kinds of omens stormy weather, cracking thunder. But it was just a regular night.
We spent every waking moment together that year. Slept over whenever we could. We had our routine down so well my parents didn’t even really care if it was a school night, by then. By the end.
Dominic could have had the entire marching band sleeping over and I don’t think his parents would really have noticed. Dominic’s parents cared about his grades, their lawn, and him sitting still in church. Or at least, that’s how it seemed to us. I’m sure they had their own stuff going on. But to us, they were either invisible and forgotten, or enraged and appalled. Intrusive. He didn’t like them very much. To be honest, neither did I.
I had stricter parents and rules, but I didn’t hate it at my house the way he hated his. I could never understand why someone would have a kid if they didn’t want kids. Especially a kid like Dominic Tarrant.
Back then, he was the class hero. Gorgeous, physically maturing faster than anybody else. Good at sports, sweet, but smart too.
And then there was me. Everybody thought I was gay, which usually just pissed me off. But Dom didn’t care about that. He just said they didn’t know what they were talking about, and to keep my head up.
Outside school, I was the more stable influence. I could read the temperature at home and decide when to scram, or which house was safest for the night. Survival. But in school and with other kids, I was happy just to follow along behind Dominic. He seemed to have a charmed life, from the outside, and that reflected well on me.
I always thought that without Dominic, I’d have been bullied pretty severely. But since he was popular, and we were inseparable, I got a special pass for being me. Softer, quieter, probably weirder. Definitely an omega in the process of being born, but of course I didn’t know that then. I just knew my best friend was the coolest guy in town, and everybody knew it, and I was grateful every day that he seemed to see something special in me, too.
We’d become a little more self-conscious when it came to bodies and boundaries. Deliberately so. We didn’t just drop our pants and jump in the pool or sleep with arms and legs thrown every which way. We developed a kind of modesty and tried not to sneak peeks at each other, tried not to be curious about those things.
Before puberty we could talk about private things all day. Nothing was more fascinating than our bodies. But for some reason, around thirteen, it just stopped being okay. Maybe it was parents sending us messages, or the other kids starting to notice things. However it happened, we lost our innocence.
Boys police each other all day long, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Girly, gay, too soft or too loud. Anything that doesn’t fit the program gets mocked and tortured, and eventually you learn to stop doing those things. At least around the other boys.
But since we never talked about it, we never got away from it. There’s no way Dominic and I could have escaped the gravity of what was happening, inside us. Then when he finally tried…
I was falling asleep. I remember that. We were watching a movie, the third one that night I think, and there was a love scene. I was awake just enough to notice, and kind of giggled. I guess Dominic didn’t know I was still awake, because he jerked away when I did that. Startled. Which just made me giggle more. I tried to razz him about it, but he seemed really upset. The longer it went on, the weirder he got. Me trying to figure it out and defuse the situation, and him looking like he was going to have a heart attack.
He was everybody’s Captain America. He didn’t sweat things. He didn’t back down from things. Even when we were all very little, he was the ringleader. Fearless. So his nervousness made me incredibly nervous.
What I know now, and of course I’m sure he’s realized too, is that we were in and out of shifter mode pretty much constantly that year. One or the other of us, sometimes both, would get wild, the wolf inside would wake up, wondering if it was time to howl. As overwhelming as those sensations could be, appetite, sexual curiosity, heart racing, the grownups had spent plenty of time preparing us. Or so they thought.
But puberty comes in through the front door, everybody knows what that looks like. Everybody knows when to give kids room to grow. Shifters, on the other hand, wouldn’t survive very long if they were common knowledge. The time before the first real moon, when our bodies are just short-circuiting, just practicing, can be tricky.
At least for some of us. The other thing I’ve noticed is that solitaries have a much easier time coming of age without shifter backup. When it’s boys like us especially, as it turns out, an alpha omega pair, those hormones and pheromones can get all tangled up. You don’t know who’s who, or who’s smelling what. It can push you to develop certain responses faster, it throws the natural cycle out of whack. And if neither of you know what’s happening…
I guess I knew Dominic was gay on some level. He never hid it. He never had to figure it out, either. He was just aware of that part of himself. For me, it felt more like the phase people kept telling me it was. That my crushes on other boys were normal and would eventually end. That was before sex came into the picture, of course, so I only had my heart to go on. Once Dominic and I realized we didn’t need anybody else, there was just us.
I guess I knew too, at least partially, that he was exploring those feelings. He’d made a few jokes, offhand remarks about how hot some actor or football player was. Watching my reaction. Meanwhile, I was doing everything I could to keep from reacting. My whole life, even with Dominic, was about not being gay. It was a show I was putting on.
There’s me, on the edge of sleep. Dominic, having some private feeling that was probably pretty intense. Me laughing, him shaking…and then he started to cry.
I didn’t know what to do. I was profoundly uncomfortable, but I couldn’t tell you if it was because a boy was crying, or because it was my best friend in such distress.
I grabbed him, and held on, but to be honest it was more so I wouldn’t have to look at him. He’s an ugly crier, and on top of everything else it was just too much.
Snot bubbling out of his nose and tears running into his mouth, he mumbled into my shoulder, more and more insistently as he went on. More clearly, too.
It wasn’t a story, exactly. Or a confession either. He skipped around in time, from now to last summer, to when we were eight and back to last week, talking about things we did. Fun we had, pranks we pulled. I was confused enough to just stay silent.
And then he told me how he felt during those times. About me, and us. How guilty and awful he’d felt, for so long. Looking at my body. Feeling something new.
“I just don’t want you to think I’m a creep," I remember him saying. “That’s why I’m being honest.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was scared and confused. Worried about him. Strangely elated, although of course I didn’t understand that. I just stashed it away entirely. There was something funny about it, too. He was the boy everybody wanted to be. I wanted to be him. Strong and fast and beautiful. I still found it strange sometimes that we were even friends, much less…something like that.
When he could have any girl, and every boy looked up to him like he was a man, what could I offer?
“If I were going to be with any guy, it would be you. No question.”
I hoped, prayed that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.
“Then what do we do? Because I am in love with you, I think. And it’s hurting me.”
I went still. My skin felt cold.
“I don’t know what to say. You’re my best friend. Why does anything have to change?”
He pulled away, eyes red, and stared at me.
“I’m telling you I’m miserable, and you’re saying you want it to stay that way?”
I shook my head, tearing up.
“We can figure
it out. We’re a team. It doesn’t have to be sad. We can just…”
He nodded. There was a firm set to his mouth that I recognized. The face he made when his parents were hurting him, and he didn’t want to show it. Now I was the one hurting him.
“Okay, Dominic. I’m sorry. I don’t really understand what’s happening. I just don’t want you to be sad. So let’s…we could take a little break? Sometimes that helps.”
He looked sick again, almost angry.
“When we’re fighting. When we’re getting on each other’s nerves. Not when I’m…”
I was starting to get exasperated. The tension, the adrenaline, the intensity of his emotion, it was getting on my nerves. But I couldn’t express that feeling. I wouldn’t have been able to put it into words.
I just squeezed him one more time, like a friend, and patted his back, and scooted back so I could look him in the eye. I could promise whatever I needed to promise, to make this stop. To get him to go home, so I could freak out in peace.
Not my finest hour. But it was a lot to throw at me.
I didn’t think he was a creep. At all. I just felt like my friend was gone, and this was a stranger. He looked like him, smelled like him. He loved me just as much. But I didn’t know him at all. Betrayed wasn’t the right word. I knew that. He hadn’t tricked me or pretended. He told me as soon as he could find the words.
If he told me all this but it was some other boy he was crying over, would I react the same way? Of course not. I thought. He was terrified and in pain, and he was my best friend. Outwardly, I would be the same.
Inside, a different story. I would be the strong one. I’d feel good. Needed.
So what made it different that it was me?
I mean, I know why now. It was because I didn’t want to get pulled into it. I was sick of everybody calling me gay all the time. This just felt like more of that, in a way. Like he secretly agreed with everybody else that I was gay. But more than that, it felt dangerous.
Which was worse? My best friend seeing through me so clearly, he could even see this? Or was it worse if he was just imagining it? Didn’t that mean he never knew me at all? If Dominic had the wrong idea about me, then I really had nobody. I was all alone.
Or did I want it to be true? That’s the funny thing, I did.
In that moment, to make him happy I would have done anything. If there was a pill to turn you gay I would have gladly downed it. I wasn’t afraid of being gay. I was just sure that I wasn’t.
Which meant we had a problem. Because I couldn’t live without him, but I felt like he was killing me.
I guess he was. The part of me that was so afraid of looking into myself and seeing what was there. The part that just wanted to tell the story about how I wasn’t gay, over and over, to anybody that would listen. Like if I got enough people to agree with it, it would be true.
We were just kids. It wasn’t about sex. I wasn’t thinking about sex. I don’t really think Dominic was either. He was aging faster, he was getting stronger, but he was still just a boy. This was all about the heart.
What his heart wanted was me. What a precious gift!
So I lifted his chin to kiss him, just once, softly on the lips, to tell him it was going to be okay. That I loved him no matter what. It wasn’t a movie star kiss. It wasn’t hungry. It was sad, and sweet, and it was goodbye. And it was the best I could do.
Which is, of course, when my dad came to check on us. I guess Dominic had been crying louder than we realized. Or maybe my dad just had a sixth sense about that kind of thing. He’d thought I was gay longer than anybody based on the way he treated me.
After that everything went so fast. So much shouting and so many tears. Dominic begging my dad desperately to just drop it, just forget it, let it go. He’d leave forever.
I lost track of myself. It was all too much. I didn’t really come back fully until I was sitting on the couch, numb, and Dominic’s parents were apologizing, to my parents, more than to me. I looked at them and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The most wonderful boy in the whole school, the one they should be proudest of. The best looking, strongest, smartest kid in school. Prom King for life.
And they were apologizing to me? Trying to make up excuses for me?
“No, he didn’t give me alcohol. He didn’t do anything but be my friend. You have no idea what you had with that kid. He’s the best. You’re sitting there acting embarrassed by him? I’m embarrassed by all of you. His heart was breaking. He was scared to death, and you threw him away like garbage.”
His parents stood, stone-faced. Clearly, our teatime was over. My parents were horrified. But there wasn’t a lot to add at that point, so they walked the Tarrants to the door. Everyone shocked into silence. My parents came back to stare at me. Hot tears of anger on my face, fists clenched in my lap.
“Care to explain yourself?”
I’d never heard my father so pissed. I realized he was ashamed. Which just made me angrier. I wanted to hurt them, badly. My mom’s a ghost in my memories of that day. She just hung back, quiet and looking ill. But my father was red-faced and spitting everywhere. I scowled at the carpet and tried to imagine a way they might ship me off to wherever he was.
“You were happy when they came over here. Blame their son, watch them cry and be ashamed. I took that away from you. That’s what I think. That’s my explanation. And I think it’s disgusting.”
My dad was beyond rational thought by this point. It was like he was fighting another grown man. I thought he might physically hurt me.
“I don’t remember you saying anything last night. Or this morning. You were perfectly good letting them send that kid off, weren’t you? Playing victim. God knows what else you two got up to,” my father hissed at me.
My mother finally stepped in. It’s the only clear memory I have of her in all of it. She was always in his shadow, wilting.
“All right. Both of you. It’s been a rough day. We can’t turn on each other.”
I looked at my lap, and Dad went quiet. She rarely spoke so many words in a row.
She was right. They were all I had left now.
Twenty-four hours after I kissed him, Dominic Tarrant was gone, as if he’d never existed.
At least, in the house. Out in the world, the rumors started immediately, and didn’t stop until graduation. Even after the pack saved my life, absolutely saved it, I would have left town the second I could if it weren’t for Ernest.
If it weren’t for Ernest, stepping out into that shady green clearing less than two years later. After that I could live anywhere. As long as I was with him.
“And then?”
Dominic laughs, swirling his ice around in his glass. He seems almost embarrassed not to have a better ending to the story.
“And…now. Basically. Not a lot else to say.”
Obviously, that’s not true. He didn’t just decide to move back to Salt Flats for no reason, that’s not what people do. But he’s asking for mercy.
I think he’s also saying I don’t have to tell him my sad stories, either. I don’t have to tell him how my mate died, or how much fear keeps me awake at night, crying.
He nods, like he’s agreeing with a statement nobody said, and stands.
The alpha scent of him is powerful this close up. Sweat and leather, salt and smoke. I can feel my body responding to it, without any urging or thought from me. I wonder if he can smell my arousal. Ernest always could. Sometimes before I even noticed I was getting turned on, he’d give me that look.
“Christian. It’s been killer and I’m glad you’re doing well. I am glad we’re…okay. But I need a place to live. So, I should probably get back to that.”
I stand too, looking up at him in the sunlight. Suddenly terrified he’ll leave.
“Don’t leave,” I say sharply, making us both jump. So much for not being weird.
“I mean, you don’t have to leave. You don’t have to find a place. You can stay here.”
He shakes his head with that off-center grin I always loved so much.
“I’m a mess. I don’t want to bring all that into your life. I figured if I didn’t like the family much that I might get my hopes up. But…you? This wouldn’t work.”
I put my hands on my hips, getting more excited about the idea the more he blows it off.
“Dominic, how am I supposed to make it up to you if you can’t…”
He shakes his head, firmly.
“Nothing to make up for. Don’t worry about that. Just worry about finding someone normal to stay here with you and the kids.”
When I don’t answer, he turns back. My hands cover my face, trying not to scream. Sobbing.
“Whoa, hey. Christian. Come on, now. What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong? I’m lonely and grieving, and I can’t make ends meet.
“Somebody normal. Dominic, how can I bring some stranger into my house? Around my kids? What was I thinking? What kind of a sicko plan is that? I should just sell the house and move us into an apartment. That’s got to be better than…”
Dominic frowns.
“Better than staying in the house they grew up in? The house you grew up in? How many apartments are there with enough space for all of you? That’s ridiculous.”
I sit on the picnic table, numb and embarrassed, and finally look up into his eyes.
“It is. I’m ridiculous. I’m out of options. I don’t know what to do. I hate for you to see this. I hate to put this on you, or make you think about my life. After I…”
And that’s when he reaches out. Puts one big hand over my shaking ones and looks me right in the eye.
“I’m moving in,” he says. Firmly, just like that, with the alpha heat behind it like a wave. A wall of pure manhood, washing over me, saying I don’t have to stand up on my own.
I can’t say yes. But I can’t say no, either.
And this stranger I’ve loved for my entire life takes me into his arms, against his chest, and with a hand to the back of my head pulls me tight against his shoulder.
“I’m moving in,” Dominic repeats.
What I hear is, “It’s going to be okay.”
