Stitches

Right now I have what I didn’t know I needed. There are no limits right now. No one is careful or tentative, no one worries about stepping on anyone else’s toes. Seb holds her, I hold her, and Moira nuzzles her face against me like a contented kitten. Her beautiful face is so peaceful. I can’t quite contain all the affection I feel for her and I can’t keep from touching her. I don’t have to, because she’s mine.

She opens her eyes and looks up at me, looks through me, looks inside me. Her hand moves naturally to my face and she pulls me even closer, so my chest presses against her breasts. I can feel her needing me—and strangely I can feel just what she needs, so I dip my head and kiss her perfect lips. It’s a soft kiss, gentle and undemanding. We’re all satisfied, no one’s chasing anything, we just need to be close.

“Tell me something,” Moira says softly, still so close I can feel her breath on my face.

Anything.

I don’t know if she’s aware of how completely she owns me, so I don’t say that. “Like what?” I question.

“Something about your past. Something I don’t know. Tell me about how you guys met.”

“A cheerful story, then,” Seb remarks, lightly.

“You’ve each told me scraps, but I don’t have the full picture. I want to know everything. Did you get along right away?”

I scoff, recalling the day I walked into that house. Seb was already placed there and it was mayhem when I showed up. A four-year-old screamed at the top of her lungs; the dog had escaped out the front door. An overweight woman ran after the dog, calling out its name—Jasper, which I thought was an odd name for a dog—and glancing back at me. I stood slouched next to the worker with a trash bag full of my belongings slung over my shoulder. I decided in that moment to hate the placement. It was already a madhouse, but I felt annoyance more than disappointment. I’d given up hope for most of my placements a long time ago. No one wanted a 15-year-old boy who may or may not have mild to severe behavioral problems to complete their family. No one wanted them, but there were some houses that would tolerate us. I kept to myself so I was a little easier to place, but you could still feel the distrust upon meeting the new people whose house you had to live in.

I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t any more eager to stay there than they were to open the doors, but at least they got a pittance for it. I didn’t like anyone paying for anything for me so I tried to scrape up enough to take care of myself. Understandably, most of the families were fine with that.

Seb was the only calm one in the house that day. The mom was overwhelmed and embarrassed by the scene we walked into; an older teenage boy shot me an unfriendly look as he rummaged through the cupboards for a snack. Then there was this dark-haired guy around my age with intense blue eyes, sitting at the table, reading a well-worn paperback copy of Franny and Zooey. I knew that book wasn’t on the summer reading list, so I assumed he must have been reading for pleasure.

For all the chaos going on around him, Seb was unaffected. For all the intensity you could see brewing in his oceanic eyes, he was completely composed. I think I envied him that control right away—I ran a little hotter than that, myself.

“You must be our new brother,” he remarked, practiced disregard rolling off him in waves.

The feeling of being vaguely interested in him drained right out of me and I flicked him a mean look. Before I could respond, though, the house mom willfully misinterpreted his sarcasm and went on to tell me of course, they were all family there and they were so happy to meet me.

That damn sure hadn’t been true, but she always cranked up the niceness when social workers came around; I picked up on that over the course of my time there.

Since I’m lost in my thoughts, I guess, Seb answers for me. “No, we did not.”

I shake my head, floating between the past and presence. “No. It was hectic when I arrived. A big, green farm house. They had a kid of their own, but they took in teens. There were three of us—me, Seb, and this vicious asshole named Arnie.”

“Poor Arnie,” she remarks. “That’s not a great name.”

“It fit. He was a belligerent douche. Liked to scare people.”

“Strangely enough, had a hard time finding a house that wanted to keep him,” Seb remarks lightly.

“He pulled a knife on Seb, that’s how he got kicked out of ours.”

Even though we’re clearly here and fine, alarm fills Moira’s face and she turns back to look at Seb. “What?”

He runs a calming hand down the curve of her side. “I was fine. Barely a scratch.”

“Six stitches,” I state, lifting an eyebrow.

“Any less than ten is just a scratch,” he argues.

“Oh, my God,” she murmurs, grabbing Seb’s hand and holding it steady on her side. “I hate Arnie.”

“So did we,” I tell her. “He’s sort of what brought us together, though. He hated Seb. Hated how inscrutable he always was. He’s grown into himself, obviously, and now even though he keeps a firm hand on everything, he’s mostly healthy. Back then, though, he was still learning. He had all the emotional transparency of a brick wall. You couldn’t get anything out of him. Nothing could shake him. For a certain kind of bully, he seemed like a challenge.”

“Bully,” Seb says dismissively, the word clearly dis

tasteful on his tongue. “He was nothing. I had it under control. I was not bullied.”

“Well, not for his lack of trying. You two were dangerous together. He kept pushing you; you refused to give him a response, so he pushed harder. I swear to God, he would’ve killed you, and with your last breath you would’ve laughed at him.”