Page 26 of How to Bare Your Neck and Save a Wreck
Shane
I want to be here for as long as I can, but after that I want to be the breath in someone’s lungs, and the crisp water they drinkon a hot afternoon, the iron that pumps through their veins. I hope the words I write will have a direct, positive impact while I’m here, but once I’m not, my very body will have that impact instead.
Unless someone sticks me in a coffin, in which case I’ll just be dead forever.
Did I scare you off?
(Sorry.)
Shane attempted to shift his position on the couch without disrupting his obtrusive cat and forced down the flutter of unease in his gut as Andres continued to leave him on read. They’d been open to all his wild thoughts so far, but he knew that most people didn’t take well to talk of death, much less having that tragedy presented as a thing of beauty. Even the ways he could already offer parts of himself for the fueling of someone else’s life while he still lived weren’t viewed in the most positive light. His blood could be let willingly in his vampire’s mouth every night, a treasure that would pound through his vampire’s heart, but most people saw that not as a gift, but a vulgarity.
Perhaps Andres was the same.
Shane tapped the side of his phone as their typing bubbles finally appeared, forcing himself not to cut in by dismissing his own thoughts. If this was enough to scare Andres off, then Shane told himself he didn’t need their friendship. Just the thought of losing their messages made him feel sick inside, though.
Andres
(Sorry, I’m back!)
No, that was wonderful. Thank you <3 I’ve never thought of death like that before, but it seems rather lovely the way you described it.
It was the little heart that Shane got caught on, those two unassuming characters that seemed to beat in his own chest.
Andres
I think it’s safe to say that your words are already having a positive impact on someone <3
And another one.
It didn’t hit Shane any less potently, a warm ache settling inside him.Your words are already having a positive impact on someone.He hadn’t known just how much he needed that. Leaning against his elbow onto his chair’s armrest, he pressed his palm to his cheek. His whole body felt light, and his heart large.
He’d had enough crushes to know what that meant.
The realization settled into his stomach like a cloud of butterflies. This wasn’t simply the little spark of chemistry he’d had with Andres when they’d met, or the platonic joy of having someone to talk to—it was bigger, a breath-catching thing that offered to eat Shane alive if he let it.
Which he absolutely couldn’t. Hehadsomeone, even if that someone was a vampire who’d claimed him only for his blood, who still refused to show Shane his face or tell him his name even as he appeared to torment Shane on a nightly basis.
But Andres was currently just a friend; Shane had been clear on that when they’d first started texting, and after Andres’s original rejection to meet up, Shane had felt too awkward to ask if they wanted to try getting together again. Andres had never broached the topic.
Whatever Shane was starting to feel, this wouldn’t go anywhere—not anywhere outside his chest, anyway.
So when Andres texted the next day,tell me something limitless or something liminal, Shane broke down and spoke ofghosts, of souls and memory and the worth of a thing regardless of whether or not it was forgotten. He did not say that every sweet and considerate message Andres sent back made him smile uncontrollably.
Through every new exchange of existential musings, Andres was so thoughtful and curious and caring. When they finally moved the conversation from whimsical discussions to something more personal, the question they sent left Shane with an ache in his chest. He paused from the ChatterDash meme spread he’d been working on, turning his full attention to Andres’s text.
Andres
Do you ever feel like you’ve lost track of who you are on the inside?
It seemed odd, coming from someone as warm and open as Andres.
But Shane could not respond that he felt like he knew the person inside Andres already; that they were kind enough to not simply put up with him, but to revel in his absurdities, with their little old-school heart emojis and their unending pensive questions and their gentle responses that proved they were genuinely dwelling on the often ridiculous and long-winded answers Shane gave. Despite all the words in him, he didn’t know how to say any of that without sounding like he was a little bit in love with Andres. So he answered the question instead, just as he’d done with all of Andres’s others.
Shane
I think I know who I am? (I say that with hesitation only because while I did have to do a lot of self-reflection in all areas to get to this point in my gender and neurodiversity journey, I also don’t believe we’re just stagnant beings). But sometimes I also think the person I am—not the journalist persona or the me thatrandom strangers get, but my full self—might be someone who not very many people actually like, so I kind of know what you mean. Like, who I’m putting out in casual settings isn’t the person underneath it all, and while that’s okay and normal, it’s left that unseen me within to languish. Is the person we are beneath the layers of formality real if no one gets to know them?
Andres
