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There’s a knock on Sean’s door while he’s lying in bed. “Sean?”
“Dad?”
The door creaks open. “Are you asleep?”
“I already said your name,” Sean points out.
“Of course,” Esteban says, gravely, coming into the room. “My name. ‘Dad’.”
“You know what I mean,” Sean says. He sets his phone down on his bedside table. “What’s up?”
“I’m just here to tuck in my eldest son.”
Sean snorts. “You don’t tuck me in. I’m not a kid.”
“I was reading Daniel his bedtime story,” Esteban says, “and it reminded me that I missed doing the same for you. Would you deny your poor, suffering papito this one thing?”
“You’re going to read me a bedtime story?”
Esteban makes a face. “I’m a little tired from reading to Daniel.”
“Hey,” Sean says. “You don’t say you want to tuck me in and then half-ass it.”
Esteban smiles. “Good night, hijo.”
He stoops and presses a kiss to Sean’s forehead. Sean laughs and bats him away.
-
He and Lyla kissed, once. Sitting on Lyla’s porch. Sean can’t even remember who initiated it; it’s all a strange, dreamlike blur. Smoking and talking, bitching about how hard it is to find love. I mean, you have to actually, like, get to know new people. Shoulders pressed against each other, kicking their heels against the wooden slats. Who the fuck has time for that? Fingers brushing as they passed the cigarette back and forth. It’d be a lot more convenient if we were into each other.
Kissing.
Lyla’d been the one to break away; he remembers that. Fuck, you taste like an ashtray.
Like you taste any better! When did you make out with an ashtray?
They’d both cracked up laughing.
He hurls his cellphone into the weeds, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. That moment won’t stop playing in his head, over and over.
He’ll probably never see her again.
-
“I see people, not gender,” Finn says. “It’s all good, long as I get some.”
Cassidy smirks. “Looks like Sean is a little curious. So, what about you?”
He’s straight, right? Or straight enough for it not to matter. Everyone has... anyone would have these feelings, Finn constantly complimenting them on their looks, all these casual touches. It’d make anyone’s stomach go nuts. It doesn’t mean anything. The way Cassidy makes him feel, that’s what’s real, right?
He stares at the fire.
“I don’t... really know,” he says. “Living with you guys... it’s kind of opened my eyes to a lot of things.”
Cassidy claps her hands together in delight. “We’re giving this boy a sexual awakening!”
“Uh, pretty sure I’m giving this boy a sexual awakening,” Finn says. “Odds are he walked in here thinking he’s straight. You’re not the one who got him wondering.”
“What makes you so sure it’s you, hotshot?” Hannah asks. “Hate to break it to you, but Penny’s the hottest guy here.”
Finn claps a hand to his heart, mock-wounded. “Okay, maybe. But he’s gonna have to fight Sean for the title.”
More flirting. He’s never expecting it; it’s like claws raking his insides, every time. What does it mean? Finn’s into guys; does that mean there’s something real happening here?
“You want us to help you figure things out?” Cassidy says, catching Sean’s eye.
Sean has to look away from her. But then he’s looking at Finn, and that might be worse; Finn’s always so casual, but the look he’s giving Sean now has a sharp focus behind it. He looks at Hannah instead. Still too much. He looks up at the trees.
Hannah mostly just looks amused. But Finn and Cassidy, they’re watching him like a pair of starving dogs, and it freaks Sean out that that doesn’t freak him out more.
It feels good. Scary, but good.
“You two are going to scare him away,” Hannah says. “Give him a break.”
“Oh, we’re going to scare him?” Cassidy asks. “You’ve given him your I-hate-posers speech, right?”
Hannah shrugs. “In my defence, I really hate posers.”
“So,” Finn says. His hand is on Sean’s leg. Sean tries to concentrate very hard on breathing steadily. “Here’s my proposition, Sean. You kiss me, you kiss our two lovely ladies here, you realise obviously you’re more into me than into both of them combined, and that’s all your questions about your preferences answered.”
Cassidy laughs. “Keep dreaming, Finn.”
“No expectations, no strings attached,” Finn says. “Nothing has to go beyond this night.”
“Not sure Sean’s that into me,” Hannah says. “That might be my cue to go to bed.”
“You don’t have to,” Sean says, maybe too quickly. Fuck. “I mean – I mean, I’m not saying you have to stay, if you don’t want to. I mean...”
Hannah raises her eyebrows, beginning to smirk. “Oh, really?”
He hadn’t really thought about Hannah that way, before Finn mentioned it. Honestly, he kind of figured she didn’t like him. But – well, she’s a really interesting person.
They’re all really interesting people, everyone here. He just... he wants to know more about them, he wants to get closer to them. In whatever way he can.
“Guess I could stay up a little longer,” Hannah says.
Finn rests a hand on the side of Sean’s neck. Sean’s been trying not to drink too much in front of Daniel, but it feels like Finn’s warmth is seeping straight into Sean’s brain, getting him shitfaced.
“You sure about this?” Finn asks.
How does this situation feel so surreal? He has a telekinetic brother.
Sean looks at Cassidy, at Hannah, back at Finn. His heart’s beating like he’s run all the way from Seattle. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
-
He dreams of his father that night.
So, Esteban says, how’s my son’s love life?
I think I might be in love with everyone, Sean says. Like, literally everyone. I don’t really know what to do.
Esteban laughs. It’s called being sixteen.
-
“Heard you kissed everyone last night,” Penny says, while they’re heading into the greenhouse.
Sean glances quickly around to make sure Daniel’s not in earshot. “I – I mean, not everyone.”
Penny snorts. Gives him a quick kiss on the side of the mouth, barely breaking his stride. “Not everyone. Halfway there now, though.”
Sean swallows, tries to make sure his voice stays steady. “Not sure Ingrid and Anders are into kissing anyone else. And... Jacob had that really religious upbringing, right?”
“Ingrid and Anders, you might be right,” Penny says. “Jacob, he might surprise you.”
Nothing has to go beyond this night, Finn said. What if Sean wants it to? A part of him just kind of wants to sleep in a big pile of everyone in the camp.
He thinks he might want Finn to get his dream, get that beach house. He doesn’t know if Cassidy would ever go for it, but if she does... well. Living with everyone, in a real house? It doesn’t sound so bad.
-
Out in the desert, the trimmigrant camp feels very far away. All those people who meant so much to Sean, all those people who helped him start to figure out who he is.
Who is he? He’s kind of a disaster, and he’s not sure he’s capable of feeling a normal level of emotion about people. It’s not necessarily a great answer, but he wouldn’t have found it without them.
And now they’re broken up, they’re scattered. No more fucked-up little family, no more dreaming of beach houses. Just another home that doesn’t exist for him any more.
He’s on his way to see Jacob, at least.
If he survives this. Fuck.
A boot slams into his ribs. He tries to draw breath through the pain, tries to stay conscious. If he passes out here, he’ll die.
When the racist asshole is done kicking Sean to shit, he laughs and blows Sean a kiss.
Sean curls further into himself on the ground.
-
It’s so strange, letting Karen clean his eye. Her fingers are so light against his cheek or his chin, barely there. There’s a cold prickling on the back of Sean’s neck. It’s like being touched by a ghost.
He’s still not sure she’s really here. All that time walking in the desert, he might be hallucinating, he might be delusional. He might be dying by the side of the road, only thinking he made it to Haven Point.
She leans in and presses her lips to his forehead. It’s too familiar. He pulls back sharply.
“Only Dad,” he says, and his throat is too tight to manage anything else.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Okay.”
-
Sean’s legs buckle in the parking lot, and he falls to his knees, Karen trying to hold him up as the church burns behind them. He probably looks like he’s praying, he thinks, and he manages a laugh that he quickly regrets. His ribs are a mass of bruises, and there’s so much smoke in his throat.
Daniel hurries to him. Sean wraps his arms around him, holds his little brother to him, as tightly as he can. Presses a kiss into Daniel’s terrible hair. Closes his eye.
He’s here. None of it seems real. But Daniel is safe, and he’s here, he’s here, he’s here.
-
Sean takes Jacob aside before they go their separate ways. Moves a little way down the road from Karen and Daniel and Sarah Lee, out of their eyeline. Looking out at the mountains as the sun begins to set.
“Look,” Sean says, “I’m sorry, it’s not my business, but... I don’t know, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened to you.”
Jacob tenses up slightly. But what he says is, “You can... you can talk about it. It’s fine.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Sean says. “You know that, right?”
Jacob pauses.
“Sometimes,” he says, quietly.
It hurts to see how closed off he is, how he won’t look at Sean.
“You think maybe you could ever be with someone?” Sean asks.
Jacob sighs. “I don’t know. It’s pretty hard to imagine.” He meets Sean’s eye at last. “My sister doesn’t know. And... I don’t know if any guy would want to put up with all the crap I’ve still got in my head. I’ve been trying to scratch it out. It’s just hard.”
“You’re a good guy, Jake,” Sean says. “There are going to be guys who think you’re worth trying. I can tell you that for a fact.”
They look at each other for a moment.
Maybe this is the wrong thing to say.
“I have to keep going,” Sean says. “You and me, we might not see each other again. We could just kiss. No expectations, no strings attached.” He’s thinking of Finn saying the same thing to him. “Just, you know. If you want proof that someone wants to be close to you. I do.”
Jacob pauses. He’s beginning to smile. “Are you just trying to kiss everyone from the camp?”
Sean gives an embarrassed laugh. “Shit, you heard about that?”
“Finn’s never been great at keeping secrets.”
“I’m not just running down a checklist,” Sean says. “I think I’m just kind of falling in love with everyone I meet. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“I guess maybe we both need to accept that there’s nothing wrong with us,” Jacob says.
The sky looks like it’s on fire. A part of Sean is half-convinced that he never escaped the church.
Jacob takes a step forward, touches his arm, kisses him. Close-mouthed and quick, but just a moment too long to be casual.
“I’ll find someone,” Jacob says, with an awkward half-smile. “And you’ll...”
Sean scratches the back of his neck, grinning. “I’ll find everyone, I guess.”