“Don’t touch this,” Otter snarls at him
.
“Who is it?” Jonah demands. “Why did you act so guilty when I walked in?”
“It’s none of your business who this is!” Otter shoots back. “And I wasn’t acting guilty!”
Jonah crosses his arms and stands defiantly in front of Otter. “You acted like I was your mom who’d just caught you jerking off!” he says angrily. “I come in and find my boyfriend staring at a picture of another guy and then trying to hide it!”
Otter is seething. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything!”
Jonah shakes his head. “Ever since you came back from Oregon, you’ve been acting like someone died. What the hell happened to you up there? Does it have to do with him?” he asks, grabbing the picture from Otter’s hands.
Jonah never knows how close he comes to being laid out. Otter’s first instinct is to punch Jonah in the face, and he raises his arm up halfway and is about to cock it back when he stops. I can’t do this he thinks, horrified at his upraised arm. I’m not that kind of person. What the fuck am I doing? He drops his arm back down to his side. He’s still angry, but the fight is falling out of him. He feels a familiar wave of despair start to wash over him, and he wants Jonah to leave so he can go to sleep. He’s tired and hurting and not in the mood to deal with anyone.
But Jonah’s not done. “Is this that kid?” he asks, and Otter winces. “It is, isn’t it? It’s that kid from your hometown!”
“So what if it is?” Otter says warily.
“Did you sleep with him when you went back?” Jonah asks, his voice hard.
“No,” Otter says, wishing Jonah would leave. “I told you, he’s straight.”
Jonah drops the picture on the bed and starts pacing in front of it. “I’ve heard that before,” Jonah says bitterly. “Fucking straight guys who want nothing to do with you after you suck them off. Is that what this asshole did to you?”
Otter’s moving before he realizes it. He’s standing in front of Jonah. His teeth are grit together, and it’s all he can do to keep from ripping his fucking head off. “He’s not like that,” Otter hisses. “Don’t you ever speak badly about him again.”
“Or what?” Jonah shouts at him. “Are you going to kick my ass? What the hell did you do?”
“Nothing! We never did anything!” Otter bellows, his voice breaking. “We never did anything.”
Jonah’s face softens considerably. “And that was the problem, wasn’t it?” he says slowly.
The dam breaks then, and Otter spills forth. He tells Jonah about the first time he knew he had felt something toward me and how wrong it had made him feel. I was sixteen, and he was twenty-four, and I had stayed over with Creed one night when their parents were out of town. Creed got stupid drunk and passed out early on the couch in the living room. Otter and I stayed up the entire night, talking about anything and everything. He says there was a moment when I was trying to think of an answer to a question he no longer remembers. I had leaned forward and put my face on my hands and scrunched up my eyebrows in concentration. Otter says it wasn’t until he was in bed later replaying the conversation in his head that it had hit him. No longer was I like a little brother in his eyes.
He tells Jonah of this and more. But he does not tell Jonah about the kiss, for it is still his and mine and no one else’s. He thinks it will stay that way for as long as he lives. He knows that I will never be his, and he knows he may never even see me again, but at least he has this memory.
Jonah is silent for a long time after he finishes speaking. His face is a mask. Finally he asks if they should break up. Otter knows they should, because he can’t promise anything to Jonah. But he allows himself to be selfish. He hugs Jonah violently and begs him not to leave. Jonah shudders against him and says he will stay, even though he knows it’s against his better judgment. Otter does not release him for a long time.
The next week, he puts the picture in a storage unit he had rented out when he first arrived. He kisses it once before he leaves.
Six months later, he moves in with Jonah.
He’s happy. Work is good. Jonah is great. Life is good. He has a great tan. He has good friends. He has great sex. He makes good money. He has a great boyfriend. His life is very full. He could not ask for anything more. He talks to Anna and Creed every now and then, and he doesn’t ask about me and no one says anything to him. But that’s okay. He is not thinking about me that much anymore. I’m still in his thoughts, but it’s white noise in the back of his head. He’s okay with this. The equilibrium works. He tells himself he’s making it work. He tells himself it has to work.
Everything is good and great for a while. And then it stops.
He finds himself dissatisfied with work. He’s always considered himself an artist. He knows he does great work, as he’s been told this by many people. He’s very humble with his talent, but he knows he has the potential to become even better. He also knows that sometimes artists don’t achieve the end goal that they set for themselves. Sometimes it’s too high, sometimes it’s just not possible. He begins to see this as he looks over projects he has going on in various stages of development. They’re all shit. They’ll all have to be scrapped. He has to start everything all over again. When he tries this, he finds he doesn’t have any ideas. He has no inspiration. Everything he touches is insipid, it’s mundane, it’s boring.
Jonah begins talking of rings and commitments and forevers. There are whispers that California will soon legalize gay marriage. Jonah never fully proposes, but the intent is there, and Otter finds himself crazily hoping that gay marriage will be banned. He wants to find whatever ballot it’s on and vote against it. He wants to find whatever judge is considering it and protest outside their office. He wants to rally all the conservatives to make sure that gays will never be able to get married. He considers joining the Tea Party. He concocts evil plots in his head. He begins to lose his interest in sex, but that’s okay because Jonah is working a lot lately, and he doesn’t seem to be that interested anyway.
This goes on for months. Otter thinks he’s going insane.
That’s when the real crazy stuff starts to happen
He’s at work, poring over prints for a promotion he’s helping to run through Jonah’s firm. Nothing turned out like he wanted it to. He curses softly and rubs his eyes. He can feel a headache coming on. He’s about to pick up the phone and call Jonah when someone walks by the studio storefront. People travel on this sidewalk all day, so he’s unsure why this person catches his eye. Unsure, that is, until he sees him full-on. One minute he’s dialing the phone and the next he’s dropped it onto the floor, where it breaks. He bolts for the front door, his heart pounding, his mind racing. He’s just seen me, you see, just seen me walk pass the door. It’s not a coincidence, and he knows it. If I’m there, in San Diego, walking past this particular place, then I’m there for him. He shoves open the door and looks wildly around. He sees me further down the road walking away. He shouts, “Bear! Bear!” as he runs. People stare at him as he shoves past. He doesn’t care. I’m here, and everything is going to be okay.
This all ends when he catches up with the person. It’s not me. It doesn’t even look like me.