“Okay,” Aaron echoed, his voice no more than a soft smooth rasp. He lingered a second longer, eyes boring into Oscar’s, reading every single secret Oscar had ever whispered to the night.
And then his grip eased, and Oscar pulled a step back, fist closing around the paper towels.
His heart hadn’t stopped hammering by the time he sat back down to eat. And Aaron hadn’t stopped smiling.
6
BOXING
Lina drove a pickup truck, a fact their mother had bemoaned. Oscar hadn’t been around for the fallout; he’d left home long before his sister ever got her license. But Lina had texted him about it and then she’d come to pick him up in the vehicle their mother had called obscene and manly, as though the clutch would pump Oscar’s sister full of testosterone and turn her into the wayward child their mother never spoke of.
The blue-grey vehicle suited her. Lina was slight and pretty, blonde hair brushing her waist, pretty blue eyes on a doll-like face—the daughter their mother had always wanted. She wore skirts and pink cable-knit sweaters, flat running shoes that showed off her ankles, and that stupid promise ring Ryan had given her when they’d started dating at fifteen.
Oscar liked that she drove this beast of a car. Maybe it didn’t match her style, but it matched her personality. Because Lina was also loud, guffawing at every joke, cussing every other sentence, running like Wile E. Coyote was chasing her every time she stepped foot on a track. Barely visible behind the wheel, she made her presence known by honking her horn andflipping off every man who dared presume she wasn’t capable of driving the damn thing. It all made Oscar rather proud.
But maybe not as proud as sitting in the passenger’s seat, watching their town roll away and the trees come into view as they drove to the big city, the truck bed weighed down by the boxes Lina had packed over the previous two months.
It was a little early to move into the dorms, but she’d found a part-time job that would keep her going throughout the year, and they’d asked her to start in the summer. She’d emailed the university with a list of benefits and reasons, and they’d let her move in weeks ahead of first semester.
This was where Oscar came in.
Lina had texted him the moment the residential office said yes, asking whether he’d like to help her move in. Texting back and forth with Aaron hadn’t given Oscar the courage to ask him out again after their coffee-date-morning-after breakfast, and he’d snatched the opportunity for a distraction. It had been a little over two weeks since he’d last seen him—two painfully long weeks.
But at least it would just be the two of them. Ryan had scheduled a practice test for police academy that he couldn’t move.
Fuckyou, Ryan, Oscar thought now as he listened to his sister rambling about how she wished her boyfriend was here, too. Oscar had never liked that prick, not as a person and certainly not for his sister. He’d never actuallydoneanything wrong, especially not to Lina, but something about him rubbed Oscar the wrong way.
“So, you’re all good now? Recovered and everything?” Lina asked, chewing on her lower lip. Her smile was a small pretty thing, like her, but Oscar could read the guilt that crossed her eyes.
“It’s not your fault I didn’t tell you before, Leen,” he said,casting her a sidelong glance. “You know how I am with these things.”
“Yeah, but I could have cooked for you more after I found out.” Lina scratched her head. “I feel bad. I should have come over.”
“I wouldn’t have liked it. I wanted to be alone.” Oscar shrugged. “And it’s fine. I’m doing so well. I can even lift my arms and all sorts of crazy shit.”
Lina laughed. She looked so much like their mother, but when she smiled and her eyes crinkled, she turned into Papa for a second, reminding Oscar of before-death.
“Good. Lots of boxes to carry.”
Lina parked the truck just outside the front doors, another benefit to being the only student about to move in. She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, even though Oscar was certain she’d learned her personal pin code by heart. Lina had always been meticulous.
It explained the arguments after Papa had died, those last two years he’d lived at home. When he’d finally come out, the wordsboyandtransandOscarspilling from his mouth like foam after being trapped in his chest so long, his mother had slapped him.
She’d never touched him like that before.
“Have some respect,” she’d said, still in her dress from Papa’s funeral.
“I do,” Oscar had replied, adjusting his suit jacket. “Papa taught me to be honest.”
“He would be ashamed of you.”
“No. He would be ashamed ofyou,” Oscar had said.
That was when she’d hit him. Lina had sat there in the kitchen, eleven years old, face streaked with tears, quietly watching another one of their arguments. A plain old Wednesday.
“How dare y—” his mother had started tosay.
“He would be.” Lina’s small voice had cut into the tension and had them both whipping their heads to the side.
