T.J. Klune - Bear, Otter, and the Kid 1 - Bear, Otter, and the Kid (29 page)
and I started talking again, maybe three weeks after the Kid came home. It came out of nowhere as we both still carried an unintentional intention to steer clear of one another. Every week Id go to work and hold my breath as I pulled up the schedule for the following week, praying that we were on different shifts. For the most part, it worked out that way. If she worked days, I worked nights, and vice versa. Oh sure, our paths crossed every now and then, but only for a few moments, and nothing was ever exchanged between the two of us. I knew that she had been the one to do this, to go to the scheduling manager and request that wed work opposite of each other. I was relieved and sad all at the same time. Those brief moments that I did see her, we were both so busy ignoring each other that we never took the time to test the waters, to see if either one of us would be receptive to any kind of contact. To be honest, however unfair it sounds, I had begun to let her slip quietly away from me. There were still times when I would pore over the schedule and there were still times when I would breathe those sighs of relief, but that was all it was. I never really believed in out of sight, out of mind, as the two people in the world thatd ever been in that position (Otter and my mom) had always been there, picking and prying at my thoughts. One of them had come home to me, the other was never coming back.
So imagine my surprise when I showed up for work one night to work the last half of a closing shift as a favor to a friend and found Anna working the late shift as well. Not only would she be working the late shift, but she would be the last one there from nine until eleven, on a Tuesday night, when wed be the slowest. I cursed silently when I saw her as I arrived and swore loudly when Mary, the other cashier (she of Juicy-Fruit fame), poked her head into the office and said she was going home.
“To go and talk to Anna, Bear,” she told me. “You guys havent really talked since….” She stopped.
Thats when I did look up, suspiciously. “Since when?”
She had the common decency to blush. “You know,” she said, fidgeting.
“Since you guys broke up and all.”
“I didnt know that was anyones business but ours,” I said coldly. Mary shrugged. “She didnt give me any specifics, Bear, if thats what
“Like what?” I ask, doing nothing to keep the anger from my voice. “She broke up with me!”
Mary looks me squarely in the eye. “What did you do to give her reason to?”
I looked back down at the paperwork in front of me and began writing again. “Nothing,” I grumbled.
She sighed. “Bear, just—just dont be all machismo on this. Sometimes the best thing a guy can do is admit hes wrong and try to make amends. Do you know how many times Frank and I have broken up?” Frank was her biker boyfriend, the only biker in all of Seafare. He was big and burly (a bear of a man, if you will) and had steel-toed boots and chaps and a leather coat with fringes all over it. But saying youre the only biker in Seafare is like saying youre the smartest kid in remedial English. Big whoop.
“Its not the same,” I told Mary, wishing she would drop it. “Its done this time.”
“Do you want it to be done?” she asked me curiously.
I hesitated, only for a moment, but I instantly felt guilty. I
did
want it to be done, and I knew we would never go back to where we were, but that it was more me than her. Even if she would take me back, and even if I wanted to go there again, I knew that for the rest of my life, I would know that something was missing, that I was missing a crucial piece of me that completed the puzzle.
Awww, that’s so sweet, Bear!
it chuckled.
This is going so much easier now! Good job. You’re welcome.
“I do,” I said to Mary quietly, and she didnt say any more, and when I looked up again, she was gone. I heard her voice as she called good night to Anna, and then the doors
whoosh
opened and closed, and Anna and I were the only ones left, for another two hours. I started staring at the clock, counting down the seconds.
At nine thirty, the phone rang. “Thanks for calling The Food Warehouse. This is Bear. How can I help you?” I said glumly, staring at the clock as a few more seconds clicked by.
“It sounds so hot when you say that,” a voice said huskily in my ear.
I grinned and rolled my eyes and for a moment, everything was fine. “You think thats hot? Maybe I should read off the produce order, and we can see where this goes.”
Otter chuckled. “Bring it home with you, and well talk. Hows work going?”
I glanced up at the clock again. It was still nine thirty. “Meh,” I told him. “Its better now. What are you doing? Hows the Kid?”
I heard Otter switch the phone from one ear to the other. “Well,” he said, “he was going to wait up until you got here, but I got him drunk and then gave him Nyquil and then chained him to his bed. We may just have to get naked when you get done.”
“You drugged my little brother so you could sleep with me?” I asked, amused.
He snorted. “Its easier to do that than drug
my
little brother so I can sleep with you. Creed wouldnt fall for that in a million years.”
“Thanks for watching him tonight.”
“Oh, please. You think you had to twist my arm to get me to come over here? Im getting ready to knock Creed into next week, so it was good for me to get away for a while.”
This was news to me. “Huh?” I asked. “Why, whats he doing?”
There was a pause, and then Otter sighed into the phone. “Hes being… Creed.” He laughed, but it sounded forced. “He keeps asking me whats going on between me and Jonah.”
“Jonah?” I said, flabbergasted. “Why would he ask about
him
?”
“I dont know. He brings him up every now and then, asking me if I talked to him lately. He thinks that my so-called „return to normalcy has to do with the fact that Jonah and I are talking again. Which were not,” he added quickly.
I felt a small twinge of jealousy, but I pushed it away. “Well, whatever,” I said, trying to keep any bitterness from my voice. “Let Creed think what he wants. You can come over to my house anytime.” I heard his grin through the phone, and I closed my eyes, picturing his face, crooked smile and all. Heat brushed slowly through my body, and I marveled again how quickly he could make me feel that way.
“Everything else good?” he asked happily.
“Well….”
“What?”
I got up as quiet as I could and peered out the door to the registers. Anna stood with her back to me about twenty feet away, flipping through a magazine. I went back to the chair and lowered my voice as best I could. “Annas working tonight.”
“She is? Has she tried to talk to you at all?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Have you been in the office all night?”
“No!” I said. Then, “Yes.”
“Maybe you should go talk to her,” he said thoughtfully. “She did say she still wanted to be a part of your life, and I know the Kid misses her sometimes.”
“He does?” I asked bewildered. That was the first Id heard of it.
“Yeah, he brings it up every now and then. He asks how shes doing and if Ive talked to her.”
“Have you?”
He snorted again. “What do you think, Bear?”
“I dont know, Otter. What would I say to her? Sorry we broke up, and I havent spoken to you in a month, but dont worry about me, Ive had a dick up my ass?”
He laughed loudly. “Dont be so crass,” he playfully admonished me. “If you cant think of anything to say, then maybe you shouldnt. But I think you guys are going to hate yourselves down the road if you dont try to work something out.” He paused. “But dont go working
too
much out. I think I would have a problem with that.”
“Right,” I scoffed. “
That’s
going to happen.”
“Good. So, what have you got to lose?”
“I hate it when youre right.”
“You must hate it a lot, then. Im always right.”
I groaned. “Youre such a fucking dork.”
“Yeah, but Im
your
fucking dork, and dont you forget that. And tell Anna to keep her grubby hands off of you. Ive never hit a girl, and I dont want to start now.”
I laughed. “Okay,” I said. “Ill go talk to her.”
“Alright. You can tell me what happens when you get home.” I couldnt help but feel a little giddy when he said that:
home
. Not
when you get here
or
your house
but
home.
Like it was his home too.
Down, boy
, I told myself.
You’re not setting up house just yet.
“Bye, Otter,” I said, blushing furiously.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself,” I said back.
“I love you.”
Home
, I thought again. “I love you too,” I said quietly, and he hummed contentedly and disconnected.
I hung up the phone and looked down at the paperwork before me. I knew that if I started working on it again that I would not move from that spot until she was gone. What Otter had said, that me and Anna would regret it down the road, bounced around in my head. Would we? Would one of us look back one day and feel a pang of guilt at not at least attempting to build back the bridge that we had once had between us? Granted, anything we put up now would never be as grand as it was, but didnt she deserve to at least have something? I remembered what shed said to me that last night we had fought:
You’ve broken my heart, but it was mine to give.
If she could give that to me, then I could do my best to give her something in return, no matter how small.
Sighing, I pushed my way up from the chair again and walked out to the floor. I glanced down the aisles as I approached her and saw that the store was empty. She heard the sounds of my footfalls and looked up, surprised. I smiled weakly. She looked startled for a moment then smiled back, just as small. I felt a pinprick of relief and closed the distance between us until I stood only a few feet away.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself,” I said back, remembering how Otter had just followed that exchange with
I love you.
I laughed silently to myself, wondering what Anna would think if she could hear my thoughts.
“Whats up?” she asked me.
“Nothing. Whats up with you?”
Anna cocked her head to the side, as if trying to gauge my sincerity. “Same old, same old,” she said slowly. She glanced back down at her magazine and then back at me, trying to decide which she should focus on.
“Thats good, right?” I said, obviously sounding extremely intelligent.
“I guess.”
An awkward silence dumped itself between us. I wrung my hands harshly, and she sat with her head still tilted to the side. I tried to think of something to say and was dumbfounded when I couldnt think of a single word. Here was a girl that I had known since I was eight, a girl who Id grown up with, slept with, conversed with, did
everything
with. And here I was, a month later, not able to say a goddamn thing. I groaned inwardly as I began to realize that this was a very bad idea. I thought of eight or nine ways to retreat, but she spoke again.
“Hows the Kid?” she asked.
“Oh, good!” I said relieved. “Hes all finished with school now so hes… good.”
She nods her head agreeably. “Thats good.”
“Yeah, its good.”
Stop saying good!
“He wanted me to say hi,” I lied, as he never said anything of the sort to me.
“Well, tell him hi back for me.”
“Will do,” I said, sweating. It seemed like a good time to run away. I waved jerkily and had turned to flee back into my cave, when she said my name. I froze, wanting to keep moving forward and slam the door behind me and hide until she left. But I turned.
Her face had softened, and her eyes were kind. “Howre you?” she asked.
“Im fine,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Well, Im happy for that, then,” she says quietly. “Ive worried about you, Bear.”
“Why?”
“Because youre the type to never worry about yourself. Someones got to do it for you,” she said sadly.
“You dont need to do that,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
She shook her head. “Thats not what I meant. I know youre perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. And of Ty. I mean, youve done it for years, right?”
“Right,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
She sighed. “So I ask myself why I worry about you when you obviously dont need me to. Youve never needed me to, but here I am, doing it anyways.”
I winced. “Oh, come on, Anna. You know thats not true.”
She looked away. “But you know it is. Its not that you didnt
want
me to. Its just that you didnt need it. I think that was part of our problem.”
“I guess,” I said, not really sure what she was talking about.
“Hows Otter?” she asked, quickly changing tact. It made me wonder if she was trying to catch me off guard, trying to make me say something. To trick me.
“Uh, fine, I guess,” I said, acting like I hadnt just spoken to him a few minutes before, hadnt just heard him say how hot I sound, hadnt just said I loved him.
“Do you get to see him a lot?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Im over at Creeds a lot. Hes always there.” I stopped, letting her fill in the blanks to whatever mad-lib is going through her head.
Anna nodded. “Thats good.”
“What is?”
“That youre hanging out with Creed. You know, before he leaves,” she told me, averting her eyes slightly. She only does that when shes not being completely honest, and for the billionth time, I wondered what she knew, or what she thought she knew. It would be so easy, I told myself then, to just open my mouth and tell her everything and end the goddamn speculating that was apparently running rampant through her head. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did, my lips stayed glued shut, and I said nothing.
Then the doors
whooshed
open again and a couple of teenagers walked in and nodded a greeting toward us, and Anna smiled at them, and I took that moment to look at her without her knowing. She was beautiful still. I smiled painfully as I suddenly remembered everything about her. It was like that part of me had gone into storage, and I was looking through the boxes for old times sake. She caught me looking and stared at me questioningly, but I shook my head and muttered something about how I had to go. She shrugged, but I caught something in her eyes, something just underneath the indifference. I dont know what it was, but it was there. I turned my head and walked away. I could feel her eyes on my back. I got into the office and closed the door and sank down against it to the floor, my heart beating rapidly. I tried to conjure up that look in her eye again so I could rack my brain for what it was, but all I saw was that gold-green, and I wanted to go home.
Home.
When it was closing time, I waited for Anna to walk out the door, and I locked it behind her. When I turned, she was still standing behind me, watching me with those big eyes of hers. I looked down at my feet, unsure of what to say. I felt like I should say
something
because it wasnt just me I was watching out for, but the Kid as well. He needed as much of us around him as we could possibly get, and I knew that Anna was an integral part of his life. I tried to think of what I could say, what I could do, that would make her understand that he (I? we?) needed her to be there. Nothing came to mind, and I started to drown under a great wave of sadness. I heard her chuckle softly, and I looked back up.
She smiled at me. “Always thinking of things,” she said softly. “Youve always done that. Its one of the things that made me fall….” She paused, almost as if she was thinking shed be better off not finishing. But then she did: “Its a thing that made me love you.”
“I still love you, Anna,” I whispered. “Just… just not in the way I feel like I should.”
“Why, Bear? What is it about you that makes you not able to love me?”
There she was, giving me another opening, another chance to level the playing field, to be completely 100 percent truthful with her. And thats when I knew for sure that she understood what Otter meant to me and what I meant to him. It was a realization that I couldve come to a long time before, if I hadnt been so damned scared about what it could mean. Id had my inklings, my suspicions that she knew about me and Otter, but that was the moment when I could no longer doubt what it was she saw in me, in us. I opened my mouth to finally be honest with her because, I told myself, didnt she deserve it? Out of everyone in the world (aside from Otter, of course), hadnt she earned the right to know? Id lead her down a path in which there was no alternative, no other way around. Because, you see, as soon as that epiphany struck me about her, another one hit just as fast: I knew that regardless of how it would have happened, regardless of how long it would have taken, Otter would have found me again, or I would have found him. Id always thought the idea of fate was for fools and Celine Dion. It would seem, though, that it was only a matter of time.