But you didn’t buy the dolphin-safe tuna!
Ty asked me if I got the hidden message in his poem. I told him it was loud and clear.
So I panicked and planned the most elaborate and wonderfully terrifying night of my life. I thought I would have enough time to do everything that needed to get done. But then it was Wednesday, and I dropped Ty off at school for his last day. Then it was Wednesday afternoon, and I picked Ty up from school and took him to the Herrera household and dropped him off there. All the time between when I sent him to school and when I picked him up is a haze. Before he got out, he made me go through the checklist, and once he was satisfied that I had remembered everything (and after telling him no three times that I was certainly not going to use his poem) he gave me a hug and whispered that he loved me in my ear and told me he would see me on Sunday when they got back. To give you an idea of how much of a wreck I was, I only twice made him promise to call me so I knew he was okay. Okay, twice on the car ride there. Actually, I told him four times, and it was while we were parked in front of his friend’s house, but come on, I can be a mess and still be a good big brother.
I went back to the house and paced for another couple of hours, then, with no choice left, I packed up everything in the car and drove down to the beach. I grabbed Ty’s poem off the counter, just in case. The drive there was only ten minutes, but it was the longest ten minutes of my life. It only took me fifteen minutes to unpack the car, but it was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. It took me twenty minutes to set everything up, and it was the shortest twenty minutes of my life. To my horror. And then it was seven forty-five, and I changed quickly at the car and sprayed myself with a cologne that Ty had picked out. I started with one squirt but didn’t think that was enough, so I ended up accidentally spraying on six more.
I went back to the beach to wait, smelling like a department-store tragedy. As I crested the rise that looked down to where I had set up the table, the last rays of the sun shot out over the ocean, and I looked down and saw the white tablecloth flapping gently in the breeze, the candlelight flickering and the music drifting softly up toward me, and suddenly understood why Ty is a genius. It was perfect. Everything about it was just perfect. In a reality-dating-show kind of way.
I waited down at the beach, and right at eight I heard a car drive up. I picked up a flower and went and stood in front of the table, and I looked up at the hill and saw Otter reach the top, where I had just been moments ago. He was also in a tux, and I grinned with amusement as he wore no tie or cummerbund or shoes, as per instructions. He looked down at me, and his smile was so big it almost split the world in half. He walked slowly down the hill and stood in front of me, and I bowed slightly (per Ty) and presented the rose to him. He laughed quietly and accepted it and kissed me deeply on the lips, and it felt good, and I realized how much I had missed him over these past few days and how ready I was to do anything for him. If Creed had shown up right then, I would have told him everything. If Anna had shown up right then, I would have said everything anyway. Right as he pulled away, the crooked grin on his face, the gold-green shining, holding me in such a regard that I almost blurted it right then, I realized that I love him pure and simple. It’s not a matter of logic or function. It’s a matter of my heart.
So, it’s all perfect, right? Down to the last detail? Everything was going so well. And then everything happened at once.
“Uh, Bear?” Otter said to me.
“Yes?” I replied, falling into his eyes.
“There’s a seagull eating our food,” he told me, and it was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.
“I know, Otter. And that’s why I did all this. I promised Ty I wasn’t going to say this now, but I have to. Otter, I lo—wait, a what?”
He pointed over my shoulder. I turned and saw that a seagull had landed on the table and was picking through the food that I had so elegantly and delicately placed out. My eyes opened wide, and I squawked in anger and ran toward the stupid bird that was ruining everything. Otter was laughing behind me, and I planned to kill the bird and then kill him. I reached the table and clapped my hands together loudly, trying to frighten the seagull away. It hopped up and then landed back on the table. I waved my hands at it, puffing out my chest to make myself look bigger. It startled backward and knocked over glasses and two of the candles. The candles fell over onto the table and immediately lit the tablecloth on fire. The seagull flapped its wings and started to lift from the table and proceeded to knock over the other two candles the other way and they ignited the other side of the table. I froze, staring at the table, listening to the bird fly away and listening to Otter still bellowing with laughter behind me. The CD player switched to a new song, and it was an easy-listening elevator rendition of Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy, Breaky Heart,” and I didn’t know how the night could get any worse. I grabbed one of the glasses and ran to the ocean, determined to get seawater to put out the fire so we could sit down and eat the food the seagull had not eaten. Or stepped on. Or defecated on. I filled the glass to the brim and was running back to pour the water out on the table when the sky above us opened up. The clouds that had seemed so far in the distance when I had first arrived here had snuck up on us, and now they broke wide open, and rain like I’d never seen it fell from the sky. I stood a couple of feet from the table, glass in hand, watching the small fires get doused by the rain. “Achy, Breaky Heart” died as the CD player shorted with a crackle, and all I could hear was the rain and Otter trying to catch his breath as the laughter died.
And that’s where we are now. Brilliant idea, lousy execution.
Otter walks over to me, still chuckling softly to himself, his hair plastered against his forehead, his tux coat drenched through to the skin. He stands in front of me and takes the glass out of my hand and sets it back on the table. He cups my face in his hand and leans forward and kisses me gently on the lips. He pulls away and grins his grin and raises my hand, and I see he is still clasping the rose and is now pressing it into my hand. I look back into his eyes.
“Otter. Otter. Otter,” I mutter.
“Yes, Bear?” he says beautifully.
“Don’t lead cows to slaughter,” I say.
He arches an eyebrow. “Come again?”
I take a deep breath. “I… love you and I know I should’ve told ya soon-a.”
His eyes widen slightly. “Wait, what? You… me?”
I shake my head. “But you didn’t buy the dolphin-safe tuna.”
“Bear, what the hell? Did you just… rhyme?”
I nod. “I wrote it. Ty helped. He learned poetry in school.”
He leans in and kisses me again, his mouth tasting like rain. He pulls back again, but only far enough so he can speak. I open my eyes, and his are open, and my God, they’re everything. “Was all this for me?” he whispers above the rain.
“Yeah.”
“And did you mean what… you just said?”
I don’t hesitate. “I did. I do. I love you, Otter.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “I love you too, Bear,” he says, and then his lips are on mine, and we are on fire, and we burn the world.
10.
Where Bear Sees