Page 35 of Fixer
“For you?Sure thing.”Past some muffling, perhaps his hand on the receiver, I heard him call, “Shawn!Phone.It’s your brother.”
It’s your brother.Words that I’d once thought I would never hear again hit me in the chest, and I blinked back tears.A moment later, Shawn was saying hi, and I cleared my throat.“Hey there.”
“Is everything okay at home?You two took off so fast, we barely had time to talk.”
“Yeah, fine.Well, not perfect.There’s a developer who might want to tear down my apartment building.Dustin and I are figuring out how to make him change his mind.”
“A pity you can’t just rip his throat out, eh?”
“Sadly, not an option.And what’s with theeh?You turning Canadian?”
“By my ID, IamCanadian.Like maple syrup.Which, by the way, we’re working with for a maple-infused cider.I like the idea of having a flavor that’s our own invention.”
“Apple and maple could go together,” I said cautiously.
“I hope so.We don’t have it right yet.”
In the background, I heard Zay call, “Youthink it’s not right.I think that last batch was righteous.”
“Ignore my boyfriend,” Shawn said.“He just likes to give me a hard time.”
“Very hard,” Zay retorted, softly enough he maybe thought I wouldn’t hear him.“Amazingly hard.”
I snorted.Shawn hurriedly said, “Extra sharp hearing, hon,” no doubt avoiding the word werewolf where an operator might come on the line and hear us, and to me, “Sorry.I can’t take him anywhere.”
“We’re in our own kitchen,” Zay retorted, adding more loudly, “Sorry, Wade.Didn’t mean to offend your ears.Shawn, I’m going to fix the sprayer, but you take time with your brother.”
Before I could say anything, the operator cut in, “Deposit two dollars for another minute.”
I dug in my pocket, dropped in the coins, and waited till the line clicked back to Shawn.
“Thanks for not letting it bother you,” Shawn said.
“What?”
“That I’m gay.”
“Oh.”I realized we’d never had any coming-out discussion.Shawn must’ve thought he was alone, growing up.What if I’d told him sooner?Would he have been more careful if he’d known he could talk to me about being a gay wolf?Could I have helped him figure out how to explore safely?
I forced myself to let those regrets go.Shawn was alive, and happy, and despite the pain of his last hours with the pack, the end result was him and Zay together.Maybe I’d have made things worse.Still, I’d fix my cowardice now.“There’s nothing to bother me.I’m, um…” I fumbled for the right term, and finally said, “bisexual.”
“You?”Silence fell at the other end of the line.I strained to hear Shawn’s breathing.After almost a minute, he asked, “How long?”
“Well, all my life, I guess.Except I tried to fight it.I like girls, women, you know.”
“Oh.”
“Made hiding easier.”I decided to share another truth.“Except from Dustin.He said, those two women who took you in?He’d searched them out first because he thought he might need a place to stash me.”
“Wow.”Shawn blew out a long breath.“Rearranging a few thoughts here.So, are you and Dustin, like, together?Because Zay thought you were, and I said that was ridiculous.Dustin told me he was gay back after he almost killed me, when I was feeling like shit.But I thought you…”
I realized part of why I’d called was to talk to someone who had his gay relationship together, beyond anything I’d ever managed.Asking Shawn for advice felt alien.I’d always been the big brother, the expert, the explainer.This seemed to be my week for learning new things.I started a bit obliquely.“How did you decide Zay was the one?Someone you’d trust with, well, everything?”
“Right from the first, we clicked.We liked a lot of the same things, laughed at the same jokes.He must’ve been desperately curious but he never asked me to explain why I’d been naked in the middle of a snowstorm.He waited patiently till I was ready to talk.”Shawn hesitated.“And, I don’t know.He made me want to be better.Like, he had to have surgery after the storm.They amputated two toes.Even then, he was sad, and angry at his parents, but he wasn’t bitter.He didn’t let their rejection poison his joy in life.I’d spent three years stewing in bitterness and fury at the, uh, cult and cult laws and hating everyone who didn’t stand up for me.For Zay, I was able to let my hatred go.He made me a bigger person.”
I remembered thinking how Dustin had cracked my world open.Is that how it feels?Something else caught my attention.“Hating everyone.Even me?”
Shawn said slowly, “Sometimes, even you.I used to imagine an alternate reality where you saved me and came with me.Not stood back and let them almost kill me.”
