More Happy Than Not

“I miss when Kenneth would get rage-y whenever someone called him Kenny,” I say. As soon as the words come out, I wish I could take it back. It’s not like I was invited to share a story, but I can’t stop. All at once, I’m spilling out more and more things about Kenneth, like when he faked his eye exam in order to get glasses so people could tell him and Kyle apart. And when they dressed up as storm troopers for Halloween. And that time we were with Brendan in the band room while he rolled up a blunt, and Kenneth discovered he could play clarinet—which I hope to God still exists somewhere in this fake home and isn’t in the hands of some stranger. The Lakes are crying by the time I have to take a breath.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be . . . Aaron, thank you,” Mr. Lake says, staring into my glass of water he’s still holding. “We never get to talk about our son anymore. It’s . . . energizing to hear someone remember him so fondly. Makes me feel less crazy, like I didn’t just make up this second son.”

“How do you do it? How do you not find yourself banging down Leteo’s doors to give you the same procedure Kyle got?”

“We couldn’t dishonor his existence like that,” Mrs. Lake says. “Parents have done it and it breaks my heart tenfold. You move on, you have to—but you don’t write someone out.”

Mr. Lake looks at the timer on the microwave. “Kyle should be getting home soon, Clara. We should fill Aaron in on everything.”

They tell me the story of why Kyle thinks they moved. He had a history of fights with Me-Crazy—no love lost for that psycho when the Lakes moved away—starting from slaps to the back of the head on the school bus to being pushed into lockers and eventually straight-up fistfights. Whoever served as the architect for Kyle’s blueprint—not Evangeline, I learned—tapped into very real emotions to create a very believable narrative that would never send Kyle back to our block. He just accepts his new life as a barber’s apprentice, and boyfriend to some girl Mrs. Lake hopes is around forever.

The intercom buzzes.

“Always forgetting his keys,” Mrs. Lake says. “Why don’t you go wait in his room? We’ll send him in to you.”

I head to his room and Mr. Lake issues out one more obvious and painful reminder: “Aaron? No Kenneth . . .”

I nod, even though he can’t see me. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, it’s the smell of week-old socks and underwear. Kenneth wasn’t exactly a laundry fan either, the two of them putting it off until Mrs. Lake gave in and did it herself. But everything else is different, like the queen-sized bed Kyle now has—bunk beds gone—and the memorabilia from times I wasn’t around for.

The door opens. Kyle, an oblivious “only child,” walks into his room and laughs at me. “Your face is busted, Aaron.”

There’s no hug or fist-bump or how-have-you-been moment. We just are, like we were never separated at all.

“Me-Crazy got me, too,” I say, careful with my words. I’m crossing a field of mines. I want to tell Kyle that Me-Crazy is in jail, but maybe he’ll think the block is safe for visits. God knows what would happen if someone, just to be a dick, straight up told him he went through Leteo and unstitched his shielded memories. “I see why you bounced.”

Kyle leans against his wall, a map thumbtacked to the space above him. “I couldn’t keep risking it. Good thing our lease was up anyway so we could get a fresh start. Shittier neighborhood, but some good people here.”

“I hear you got a girlfriend,” I say, picking up a handball from his bedside drawer. I toss it to him. “Who locked you down?”

We play catch as he tells me all about Tina, a Chinese American girl he met when she brought her little brother into the barbershop. Kyle was giving a Caesar cut and almost messed up. His mentor thought he was distracted because of the work, but it was all because of Tina. I try to pretend

I’m interested, but find myself almost tuning out until he asks: “How’s Genevieve?”

“We broke up.” I remember what Thomas told me when he broke up with Sara. “We just weren’t really right for each other anymore.”

“Damn, man. Any new prospects yet?”

“Nope,” I lie.

I want to come out to Kyle, but he’ll have no idea what I’m talking about if I ask him to set the clock for a judgment-free Happy Hour. He’s changed—not matured, but he’s been changed, obviously. Maybe this new Kyle will be cool with Side A. Maybe it’ll make him uncomfortable. I used to know the person in front of me and I’m tempted to bring him back, to unwind him, since Kenneth’s death is his fault and he should have to live with that. He should know about how Kenneth could walk on his hands, how Kenneth always ate junk food and never had a single cavity, how Kenneth casually played ding-dong-ditch on his neighbors to get a rise out of us.

He should know Kenneth, his twin brother, existed. But it’s not my decision to make.

I hang around for a little while longer until it’s time for him to shower and meet up with Tina. He puts his girl first now, which I like. I promise to visit him again sometime soon, and he tells me to tell everyone on the block he says what’s up. I hug Mrs. and Mr. Lake again, whose faces silently plead: Don’t forget.

10

LETEO: TAKE TWO

It’s the day of my procedure and I’m standing on the corner, outside the Leteo Institute.

Memories: some can be sucker punching, others carry you forward; some stay with you forever, others you forget on your own. You can’t really know which ones you’ll survive if you don’t stay on the battlefield, bad times shooting at you like bullets. But if you’re lucky, you’ll have plenty of good times to shield you.

Being gay wasn’t, and isn’t, the problem. It only seemed that way because of everything that branched out from it—my father taking his life, Collin abandoning me, getting jumped on the train, and all the uncertainties ahead. The problem was that I didn’t know any better because I forgot my life. And now I know I can’t forget.

It won’t be an easy life, but I’ll soldier through. Thomas didn’t even know he was helping me with this—hell, I didn’t even know I would become myself again in need of this guidance. The boy with no direction taught me something unforgettable: happiness comes again if you let it.