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The sound of the bees was louder, and Auggie thought of Vergil, of the Georgics, ofHenry V. You taught me that, he wanted to say. You taught me how to love someone. You taught me how to share my body with someone. You taught me iambic pentameter, and you taught me how to hold a rifle, and you taught me how to dress for a real winter, and you taught me about myself. I was a kid, and I was spoiled and self-centered and immature, and I’d cocooned myself in a world that told me it was ok to be all those things. I would have kept being those things. I might have kept being those things forever. But like the best teachers, Auggie wanted to say, you showed me the path and let me find the end of it on my own. There was this part of myself that I never would have seen, never would have touched if I hadn’t met you. The dark side of the moon. But you saw it. And because you showed it to me, I could see it too. You might have to go halfsies on it with Fer, but you taught me how to be a man. Fucked my life up? You gave me a life, Theo. You gave me myself.
He was still trying to put it into words, the enormity of it, when Theo said, “I know that maybe—maybe the last year and change has made you rethink wanting kids, Auggie. With me, I mean. I understand that I’m not a partner you can rely on—”
“Theo.”
“—and I understand that you might not want me to be around your child, not if I’m so unstable—”
“Hey,” Auggie said sharply. “Knock it off, or I’m going to climb inside your head and beat both of you up.”
That, at least, made Theo drop his hands. He’d been crying again, and his eyes were red, but he gave Auggie a bent smile that looked a thousand times more like the real Theo than anything Auggie had seen in a long time. “Do you? Want kids, I mean?”
Auggie considered turning the question aside. They were both exhausted. They were both hurt and trying to make things better, and this might only make things worse. But for the first time in a long while, Auggie felt like he was talking to the man he had fallen in love with, and he wanted to keep that door open for as long as he could.
“I do have a kid, Theo. I have Lana.”
“I know. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“But it kind of is. A little.” Auggie had rehearsed what he’d wanted to say, his reasoning, his carefully articulated list. Gone over it again and again. Delivered some of it when they’d been fighting, just bits and pieces. And now, when he needed it, it was gone. He heard himself stumbling through his best attempt to put it all into words again. “You know about my mom. And, fuck, about my dad. And about Fer and Chuy. And I know you know. And there’s this part of me that thinks about that, about all the ways my parents let me down, and I want to do better. And there’s this part of me that thinks about Fer. And he is such a jackass, such a total, unbearable tool sometimes. But he’s also the one who made a blanket fort for me when we were in this shitty little apartment, a one-bedroom where Fer and Chuy and I had to sleep in the living room. And every time Mom had a guy over, it freaked me the hell out. So, Fer built me this blanket fort, and sometimes he’d sleep in there with me, but most of the time, he slept right outside it because I moved around too much. On the fucking floor, Theo.” Auggie’s throat closed, and he had to wipe his eyes. “And I was this stupid little kid, so I complained that it was too dark, and he went out and bought me a dinosaur nightlight. With his own money, of course.”
“Auggie.” Theo reached for him, and Auggie surprised himself by letting Theo pull him into a hug. He dried his face on Theo’s chest, and the rush of familiar smells—the laundry detergent, and Theo’s sweat, and the green summer of their yard—made him snuffle a few more times.
But he pushed himself back—not enough to break free from Theo, but to give him space to talk again—and said, “I think about that, and I want to do that for a kid. And I love the idea that there’s something I helped bring into the world, something that’s going to live beyond me, something that’s going to be different from me, separate, and still this piece of me living into the future. That’s a miracle. And maybe it’s selfish; I’m ok with that. I don’t have to have a biological child, Theo. I love Lana. I can’t imagine loving anyone more than I love her. That’s enough for me. That’s more than enough; it’s everything.”
Theo gave him a moment and said, “But?”
“There’s no but.” Then Auggie smiled. “But.”
Theo groaned softly.
“But,” Auggie said again, “I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you something I’ve been struggling with. I didn’t want to say anything because I know it’s silly and dumb and all in my head. I want to preface that I know this is an Auggie issue, not an us issue. And I’m working on it, I promise. I probably wouldn’t even say anything right now except I haven’t been able to talk to you in so long, and then you went and showed me up by dramatically handing over those pills.”
Theo froze.
“Such a production,” Auggie murmured.
“You.”
“You almost did a flourish with the baggie. Did you want to do a flourish?”
“I was—that was—Auggie, I’d been lying to you. About something that’s been a big deal in our relationship in the past. I was making a statement.”
“It would have been even better if you’d put them on the railing and slid them toward me, you know, keeping them covered with your hand—”
“You are such a brat,” Theo said with a laugh, squeezing Auggie. He loosened his hold again immediately, rearing back to check Auggie, worry written around his eyes. Auggie grinned up at him. “I swear to God,” Theo muttered. “Fer is right. You need to be spanked, like, regularly.” Then he touched Auggie’s cheek, drew his hand back, checked Auggie’s face again. When Auggie leaned into his touch, he said, “What’s this Auggie thing that I’m pretty sure is neither silly nor dumb?”
Auggie wanted to let it end there. To press against the warm, solid strength of Theo’s hand, to feel Theo’s arm around him, the sun hot on his neck like a brand. But he made himself speak. “The Auggie thing is, sometimes I—I feel like I’m just, you know, an add-on. I mean, you and Lana, you’re a unit. I guess I want something like that.”
He couldn’t bring himself to put it all into words: that he knew Ian would never be exorcised completely—that he didn’t even want him to be, but at the same time, he had the sense that he was always half a step behind a ghost. That when Auggie brought up marriage, Theo talked his way around it until he was practically a pretzel. That even though Auggie knew Theo considered him Lana’s dad—or stepdad, or adopted dad, or whatever—there was nothing on paper about it. That his own family, growing up, had always been fractured, and some part of him, some remnant of that child, wanted his own family, a family that was whole and his and his own.
Theo’s breathing had changed again, pitchy and uneven.
“That’s not a comment about you,” Auggie said. “This is an Auggie thing, remember?”
“God, Auggie, of course it’s a comment about me. Oh my God.”
“Theo.”
“Oh my God.”
