Isaiah flashes another smile at me before folding his arms across his chest. I try not to notice how the muscles in his arms bunch against his shirtsleeves. I almost win that one. “So, Bear and Transformers. Long stories. Pick one and go.”
“My little brother,” I explain. And then stop.
He cocks his head at me. “Your little brother….”
“He did both. The Kid is like that.” Oh, please for once, let me not speak!
“I see,” Isaiah says, so clearly obviously not seeing.
But I don’t want to explain further. It feels wrong. Suddenly, I want nothing more than to see Otter, to hear his voice. Even though it’s only been a couple of hours, it feels like days and weeks since I’ve seen him last.
Years. We’d made a cocoon this past summer, wrapping ourselves up while we clashed and fought and loved and lost. But we couldn’t stay away from the real world forever, from the future becoming the present. I don’t think I care, though. All I want right now is to have his arms around me, my forehead against his chest, his chin on the top of my head, those big hands of his rubbing my back slowly, telling me that it’s going to be okay, that everything is going to be just fine.
“What’s that fear that people have of going outside?” I ask Isaiah, because I can’t remember what it is. If the Kid was here, I’d ask him, but he’s not with me, either. This starts to bum me out even more, and I think it’s possible I’ve gone way past codependency to a place far scarier. I suck like that.
“Agoraphobia?” Isaiah says.
“That’s right,” I say excitedly. “I can never remember that!”
“You’re a sort of… strange, aren’t you?” he asks me, taking a step closer. I smell the spicy apples again, and it reminds me of Halloween. I don’t know why my mind makes that connection.
“Sometimes,” I tell him, trying to take a step back. “I try not to make it a habit, or anything.” My back hits a wall. People are walking by, not even caring what’s happening to me. I want to call out for help, to make them stop my own stupidity, but I can’t. It doesn’t come out.
“I like strange,” he assures me as his knees bump into mine. I can’t help but think that since we’re roughly the same height, our groins aligned with each other’s. Otter’s so much bigger than me. That doesn’t happen with him.
“And I like the way you were looking at me in there.”
“How was I looking at you?” I ask, honestly curious.
“Like you saw something you liked,” he says confidently, “but were too shy to ask for it.”
“So you think I’m shy and strange?” I ask, wondering if I should run or stay right where I am. “And that’s why you’re talking to me? I don’t think that’s flattering. For either of us.”
Us. We. You and I.
He laughs, and it’s deep and masculine, a low rumble that crawls out from his chest. “I like you, Bear,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine. He moves forward just another inch, but it’s enough that the front of his shorts brush against the button fly on my jeans. “What’s your next class?”
“Writing 101,” I think I say. “Core classes, you know. Just going back to school.”
“And how old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” I say, even though I want to tell him it’s none of his business and won’t he please, oh please just step back?
“I’m twenty-two,” he says, dropping his voice even lower. He brushes against my front again. “You’re kind of pretty, you know that?” I think of things like dead kittens and maggots because I can feel my blood rushing south, and I’m horrified, almost awestruck, that someone aside from Otter can get this reaction from me, that someone besides him can break me open.
David Trent started it. Isaiah Whoever is continuing it. Pandora’s Box is open, and I don’t know how to close it again.
“That’s… neat,” I tell him, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
Then I’m saved (caught?) when I hear a voice call out, “Bear? What are you doing?”
Anna. Oh, thank Jesus for my ex-girlfriend.
Isaiah takes a step back, a look of annoyance crossing his face before it disappears. I don’t feel annoyed. I feel relieved. My heart is beating in my chest, and I’m sick to my stomach. I take in a gasping breath, and it smells like the ocean again, not like apples and cider and fall and pumpkins and whatever else I’m frantically thinking about. It helps to clear the fog from my head, even though I feel the ground trembling beneath me, like an aftershock to an earthquake I don’t remember. I slump against the wall as Anna walks over to me, glaring at Isaiah.
“What’s up, Bear?” she asks. “You okay?”
I nod.