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And for the first time in years, when I say those words, I actually believe them.
III
New Year’s: Winter, 2018
50
Group Text
GROUP TEXT: The Muskrats
Kenzi: Okay, boys. Family friendly activities to do in a Hannsett winter?
Donovan: The aquarium
Jason: Aquarium.
Kenzi: Okay. So not the aquarium?
Jason: We’ll take you! Field trip!
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Donovan
Hannsett Aquarium isn’t incredibly popular in the winter, but it’s still one of our few local diamonds.
The aquarium doubles as a learning center for budding marine biologists, so it has a lot of interesting, hands-on displays about the local flora and fauna. As soon as we get our tickets and head in, Otto makes a beeline to the touch tank.
I follow him. “Pretty cool, huh?” I ask.
“They’re like aliens,” Otto says, his voice reverent. He shoves his whole arm in the tank, not seeming to notice when the water climbs his sleeve.
“Yeah, I guess they are pretty strange.”
“Touch the stingray!” he says. “It’s so weird!”
I snap off my cuff so I can reach into the pool. The water is lukewarm, and I graze my fingertips over the stingray’s back. Its skin is smooth but rough to the touch, like leather.
“Hey!” Otto says excitedly. “We match!”
“What do you mean?”
Then he sticks his arm at me, his small hand in a fist, forearm upward. He points to his wrist. The skin there is covered in small, angry pricks—scars from where doctors and nurses have broken into his veins again and again and again to get to the bottom of his ailments.
The scars on my wrist? They’re a little different. I like to think of it as an I Survived Adolescence and All I Got Was This Fucking Baggage souvenir.
Instead, I smile at him and say, “You’re right. We do match.”
Then I snap the leather cuff back over my wrist. Out of sight, out of mind.
“I want to swim with the sharks,” Jason announces suddenly as he and Kenzi finally catch up to us.
“Me too!” Otto says.
“Yeah? Come here, I’ll toss you in the tank.”
Otto laughs at that and darts away as Jason comes after him.
