Yeah, but we know something is coming, we just don’t know what.
That’s even worse!
You know, we’re really going to have to work on our pessimism.
What, the glass is half-full instead of half-empty? Bullshit. What they don’t tell you is that regardless of how full the glass is, it’s filled with acid, and you’ll burn your face off.
Charming.
I put on the tux. It still fits as well as it did months ago, when I told Otter I loved him for the first time. This shouldn’t surprise me, because I haven’t changed much physically. Any alterations done to myself have all been mental. I take the rose from the bed and glance in the mirror. I look okay, I guess. My skin is a little pale, and my hands are shaking a bit. I’m nervous and I don’t know why.
I’m in the car before I can stop myself, before I can allow myself to think. I look at the clock: it’s five fifteen. Fifteen more minutes. Why do I feel this is a big thing? Why does this feel like it’s a huge deal? I wrack my brain again, trying to remember something I could have forgotten, whether Otter and I had made plans for today, or if he’d hinted at something in a conversation I’d had with him. I wonder briefly if this is meant to be for his birthday and curse myself for not grabbing his present. As I think, I get closer to our beach and a memory pulls up from the depths, a brief statement he’d made at the gay bar a few months back, about wanting to ask me something. We’d been talking about… what? The future? Kids might have been a part of that conversation, but I think that was more of a freakout on my part. I’d told him I didn’t want to be his fucking wife, that’s for damn sure.
Ugh. What the hell is it?
My nerves don’t calm the closer I get to him. If anything, they intensify.
The butterflies in my stomach are apparently carnivorous, and they are eating through my stomach wall and fluttering around my heart. I chide myself for briefly entertaining the idea that it’s something bad, that Otter’s breaking up with me, that he’s not even going to be there when I get to the beach. I’ll arrive and the beach will be empty, and I’ll wait there for a while before finally heading home and finding the house is empty, that he’s used my absence to finish moving and I’ll be alone forever.
It would be so awesome if you could throw me a life preserver, it tells me.
For what?
So I can be saved from drowning in your angst. Ha!
So not funny.
My palms start to sweat, and my mind starts to wander, even though I’m only a few minutes away, and I remember there once was a time—
THERE was a moment when I was sixteen, and I’d gotten a rare night off from the Kid. Mom had decided to stay home that night, saying she wanted to spend time with her son. I’d almost asked why it sounded like she was going somewhere, but I’d forgotten it the moment Creed had called and said his parents were out of town, and he and Otter were hanging out and getting drunk.
I kissed Ty—
back soon ty don’t yell at me it’s just one night
—on the forehead and promised him that I’d be back the next morning, trying hard to ignore the way he scowled at me, the way he asked—
why can’t I go too
—questions I didn’t want to answer, the guilt ripping through me, watching as he sulked on the couch in the way only a five-year-old can. I told Mom I was leaving, and she’d been remarkably sober, her eyes clear, and she smiled at me and told me to have fun, not to worry about the two of them because they were going to watch TV and eat pizza, and for once, I thought she was serious. I thought she was being kind. I couldn’t know then that she was probably already planning her escape. She’d already mentioned some guy named Frank. I didn’t know then just how far it would go. So I smiled back, the expression foreign on my face as it was directed toward Mom. Maybe things will be different, I thought. Maybe things will finally be okay. Just another couple of years, and I’ll be out of here. I tried not to think about what that would mean for the Kid. It was just easier that way.
Creed opened his door when I arrived, his eyes already slightly glazed, a beer bottle in his hands, and h
e shouted happily at me as I walked through the door. I grinned at him as he grabbed me and wrapped me in a drunken man-hug, the three slaps on the back harder than they normally would be, and I had to concentrate to keep from wincing. He pulled away but hooked his arm around my neck and chattered away about something in my ear, and I listened, but I was also listening for Otter, wondering where he was at, sure that he’d have better things to do than to hang out with a couple of teenagers. He’d been home from school for a while now, working at some studio that he said held his interest, that he said was fine for now. It was that last that scared me the most, the for now. What happened when for now was no longer good enough? What—
about me you can’t leave me i couldn’t take it
—would happen then? I tried not to think about the future, to make myself only focus on the for now, because life was too short to worry, even though I would do it anyways.
It didn’t take long. I laughed at something Creed had said, and Otter yelled my name from the top of the stairs, like he hadn’t seen me in years, even though it’d only been days. I looked up and saw him standing near the railing looking down at me, and something happened, something fluttered—
he’s so big so so big
—something that’d been happening every time I saw Otter lately. It happened when he grinned at me, when he said my name. It happened when he stood next to me, when he laughed that belly laugh of his, the one that’s deep and strong and infectious. I realized I was staring, and I grinned up at him as he padded down the stairs. Creed let me go, and then Otter was wrapped around me, and I closed my eyes—
oh oh oh this is warm and nice and why do i care
—and finally Creed chided us to let go, and Otter dropped his arms and winked at me.