My daddy had told me people were gonna give me shit and that it was gonna hurt.
My father was a liar.
Everything had been shit.
But I was still fucking standing.
I said, “Hey, Joe.”
And he looked up at me with fire-red eyes, skin along his face rippling with the shift.
He said, “Ox.”
My mother took me to church once. After my daddy had left.
She thought maybe we could both use some Jesus.
Joe said my name like the preacher spoke about God.
Reverent, filled with awe. Terror and adoration.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know that I deserved that.
I did the only thing I could think of.
I kissed Joe Bennett. There. In the old house.
And for that moment, everything was all right.
IT WAS like before.
Only not.
We lay side by side in my old bed, facing each other.
We didn’t fit in it like we used to.
I hadn’t changed much. Maybe gotten a little wider, but not much else.
Joe, though.
Joe had changed.
He took up more room than he ever had before.
It was a tight fit. But we made it work.
One of his legs was pressed between mine. I held it in place.
We shared the same pillow. I told myself it was just because we couldn’t have him falling off the bed. But really, I just wanted him as close as I could get him.
He didn’t mind. I thought maybe he wanted to be close too.
We didn’t speak much, at least for a little while. I felt like all I’d been doing is talking lately and it was nice to have a break. To not need words. It wasn’t going to last, but that was okay. It was enough for now.
He’d walked into the room, and it was much like the first time he’d ever done so, eyes darting everywhere, taking everything in. I didn’t know what he saw, what differences were here. What differences there were in me. But I saw the exact moment he found the little stone wolf, still sitting atop my old desk. He froze, and the whine that came out was more wolf than human, a low, wounded noise that hurt my heart. He hadn’t made a move for it, hadn’t even reached an arm out to touch it, but he knew it was there all the same. What it meant for me. And for him.