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Slight hesitation. “Oh? She left you alone again? Why don’t you just go over to my house? Mom won’t mind. Do you want me to call her for you?”
“She left Tyson too.”
Silence, and for a moment, I thought we’d been disconnected. But when Otter finally spoke again, his voice had lost the warmth and had become something else entirely. “Where’d she go?”
I didn’t know if he was mad at me too or not, and my own voice was small when I said I didn’t know.
“Did she say when she’s going to be back?”
“Two days.”
“I’m coming home.”
I was alarmed. “Wait, Otter, you don’t have to—”
&nbs
p; “Derrick,” he said in that warning voice of his, that voice that already drove me fucking crazy, “this isn’t up for debate. You have school tomorrow, and you need to go. I’ll watch Tyson while you’re in school.”
“What about your school?”
He laughed again, but it had an edge to it. “That’s the difference. You pay to go to my school, and they don’t care if you miss a day or two. You can’t do that. You need to go to school.”
“Okay,” I said meekly. Then, “Otter?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?”
No hesitation. “Never in your life,” he said. “You listen to me, Derrick McKenna, and you listen good. Are you listening?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong. As a matter of fact, you’ve done everything right. You are strong and brave and kind, and I am proud to call you my little brother. You did the right thing by calling me because it means you trust me to help you. It means you know I can be there for you. And that makes me happier than I could ever say.”
There was a lump in my throat, and I couldn’t make it go away.
“Otter—”
“Do you believe me?”
“I….”
“Do you believe me?”
“Yeah.” Because I did.
“Good. I’ll be there in a few hours. Hang tight, okay?”
I wanted to tell him I loved him, because right then I didn’t think it was possible to love another more. But that was stupid. That was gay. How faggy would that sound? He’d laugh at me and tell me that I shouldn’t say things like that, that guys didn’t speak that way. So instead of saying what was in my head and heart, I just said good-bye.
I DON’T know how much time has passed, and I think I’m dozing and dreaming (surreal and bright, everything gold and green and warm and right, and even though she’s trying to poke her way through, he keeps her at bay) because I hear a sigh come from the doorway and footsteps walking toward me. Someone steps over the ledge to the bathtub, and suddenly I’m being crowded against the side, a large mass at my back, a big arm sliding over my chest and pulling me back, another arm sliding under my head to act as a pillow that’s as hard as the tub floor. Lips press against the back of my neck and trail up to my hair, and a nose is pressed against the back of my head, and I’m inhaled, I’m breathed in, and there’s another sigh, and this one sounds more content, more like the feeling of coming home after a long day.
I don’t open my eyes because I think I’m still lost in memory, that the only way he could be at my back is because I wish it to be so.
“Earthquakes?” he whispers as he curls around me. He’s real. Oh God, he’s so real, and I can hear the memory in my head because he thinks I’m brave and strong, and I want to tell him I’m not, that he sees something in me that’s not there, that I’m weak and scared, and I don’t think I’m good enough for him, but I want to try. I want to try and be the person he thinks I am, because if he thinks I can do it, then maybe, just maybe it’s possible, just maybe it’s true, and I need him to help show me who I am. I need him to show me what I could be.
But I say none of that. I don’t know if I could get the words out. Instead, I nod.
