Sean wakes when the first hazy sunbeams creep through the thin canvas of the tent. His cell phone tells him that it's even earlier than he thinks.
And though it's early, it still sucks that Toby hasn't texted him back.
Before he went to sleep last night, Sean spent twenty minutes writing and rewriting a text message to his not-boyfriend. After all the revisions, he ended up sending a single phrase: Te amo.
And he has got nothing in return. Which, cool. It's cool. Toby is on the East Coast, so it was, like, 5:00 AM when he got the message. It doesn't mean anything that he hasn't replied. It's fine. It's totally cool.
Suddenly, Daniel lets out a snort. Sean rolls over in his sleeping bag, and a puddle of drool has formed below the corner of Daniel's mouth. It's pretty gross. But it reminds Sean of how seeing Daniel sleeping, safe and peaceful, always set a calm over him, no matter how rough the road currently was.
He saw this scene a lot, his brother slumbering in a sleeping bag beside him, when they were in California. With Jacob. And Hannah. And Cassidy and Finn.
Sean digs into his backpack, past his current sketchbook, underneath the few clothes he brought. He shoved the sketchbook, the one he kept in the other life, way down to the bottom. As if he could bury what was written on its pages even as he carried it with him.
He turns to the pages where they were in Beaver Creek. Where they met Chris—Chris, who is dead.
Near the Chris pages is one where he met Cassidy. Sean almost forgot that he met her in Beaver Creek. The pages where he lived in California with her and Finn sting him with bittersweet memories. Those days and nights amongst the redwood trees were hard, but for the first time on the road, he felt like he had friends, a crew who had his back. For the first time ever, he felt free. Like he was unshackled by rules and expectations and could finally become Sean Diaz.
His friends in California were awesome. Cassidy and Finn were awesome.
He has no way of knowing if they are alive, but the anchor that pulls his stomach into his bowels tells him that they are dead. And even if they aren't, they don't know him. He realized yesterday that he doesn't know Cassidy's real name. But if he met the girl he gave his virginity to, or the boy who was the first guy he had a crush on—Sean would be a literal stranger to them.
They never met him, but they may have died because of him.
"It's not my fault," he whispers to the sketchbook. "I didn't drive the truck that hit Chris. I didn't make Cassidy or Finn get back on a train."
The only response he gets, besides the croaking of a desert toad, is an image that pops in his head of the waitress's tattoo: This action will have consequences.
# # #
As Sean lets Daniel sleep, he opens his current sketchbook, one that he started only a month ago but has already filled with sketches working out ideas for Nickelodeon and school, sketches working out feelings about Sarah and Toby and Lyla.
He can't shake the feeling that he's only a few steps ahead of something really bad. And even though he has chosen to say fuck it, while on the run, he got used to calm moments being so rare that he learned to always savor them. So Sean draws this: his brother asleep in the dim sun, the morning after Daniel's first beer, the day after Daniel came out, and the first time Sean has felt close to him in a long time.
Sean is idly shading when Daniel yawns, stretches, and blinks his eyes open. He stares for a moment before he says, "Dude, are you drawing me? Don't be a creep."
"Sorry, bro," Sean says. "I got bored while you slept all morning."
"Dude, it's only 7:30," Daniel mutters, looking at his phone. "How long have you been up?" Suddenly, Daniel clutches his forehead. Without a word, he reaches into his backpack for his Tylenol. He downs a couple of pills with a bottle of water.
"You okay?" Sean asks tentatively.
"My headache is pretty bad this morning. It's probably just a hangover."
Sean laughs. "Bro, even though you are probably a total light-weight, you only had one beer. And I made you drink an entire bottle of water before I let you go to bed. There's no way you are hungover. Have you, uh, talked to Dad about these headaches?"
"It's not a big deal," Daniel says. "Don't worry about it."
"It might be a big deal," Sean says. But he isn't sure how hard he should push. If the headaches are a sign Daniel has an illness or something, Dad should take him to a doctor. Obviously.
However, what if they are related to Daniel's powers? One of Sean's fears was that someone would find out, like Lisbeth did. When that happened, she brainwashed Daniel, exploited him as a side-show attraction for her shitty church. Sean was able to rescue Daniel from a bunch of half-assed cultists in the desert. But how can he save Daniel from a medical research facility? Or, worse, some kind of Area 51 black-ops bunker?
So he decides to drop it.
# # #
After they pack up the tent and sleeping bags, Sean drives the car to the parking lot at the entrance of the campsite. There are pavilions here with picnic tables and public restrooms with running water. That bottle of water Sean made his brother drink before bed has caught up with Daniel.
"You drank three beers. How do you not need to pee?" Daniel asks.
"Just a bladder made of steel," Sean says. In truth, he pissed outside the tent twice this morning. It didn't seem weird, even though he was in full view of an RV. Homeless kids on the run don't really get to be choosey about bathroom privacy.
There are maybe six vehicles in the parking lot, and a couple of kids play near their parents who are sitting at one of the picnic tables. Sean sits on the trunk of Dad's car, and Daniel heads towards the restrooms, walking past a silver pickup truck. Something about the truck feels familiar, but Sean isn't sure why. It's a truck. They've driven past a hundred just like it on this trip.
Sean opens up Google Maps on his phone. They are about seven hours from Away, Arizona. Seven hours from the mother they haven't seen in fifteen years. Seven hours from the mother that Sean saw just five months ago in another life. Again, he types Mom's number into his phone. Showing up on her doorstep unannounced will be a bombshell, one she might not handle nearly as well as Claire and Stephen. But what does Sean say?
Everything sounds like a threat or a joke, and he has no idea how to explain why he knows her number or where to find her. Something about actually being in front of Mom, in person, seems like it will be easier to talk all this away.
And things with Daniel have been going so well these past couple of days. What if they get to Away, and meeting Mom is a disaster? What if Claire is right about Mom wanting nothing to do with them? What if Daniel resents Sean for putting him in the most awkward, painful situation of his life?
Sean sighs and presses his phone against his forehead. There are a lot of ways everything can get fucked up. Like always.
Sean's phone vibrates against his head. It's a text from Toby. And it's so long that it's cut off on his phone's lock screen. It's always good news when someone's response to "I love you" is an essay. Sean has waited all night for this message, but now, the longer he doesn't read it, the longer he can pretend he and Toby are still together.
If he doesn't read it, Sean can pretend that Toby says "I love you back" at the end.
The sun beats down on the back of Sean's neck, and it reminds him of how the sun hit his skin the first time he jumped off a high dive. He takes a deep breath and opens the message:
okay you can't just hit me with the te amo when I'm in the middle of spring break dude. I was serious when I said I wanted us to talk AFTER spring break. I know I have kind of dodged the question about us being boyfriends and that is unfair to you. But I also have a lot of concerns. A LOT of concerns. Some of it is my own shit. Some of it is the way you treated sarah. I just really need a lot of reassurance from you that if we break up you don't do me like that. But all of that said I've partied with a few guys here and some of them have been really cute and really hot. But I was looking at this one dudes ripped chest and kept thinking about how I like the way your scrawny one has your ribs press against your skin when you take a deep breath. And I keep thinking about how these guys don't have your smile or they don't make me laugh like you do or how I'm happiest when I'm falling asleep with your hand on my stomach and our legs touching. So this is a really long way of saying that we need to talk when we see each other next week . . . but I think I have known for a while now that I te amo you too.
Sean rereads the last part, over and over, grinning like an idiot. Technically, it says "I I love you you too," but it still inflates his heart like a big, warm balloon. He types back: If I knew your Spanish was so bad I would have just said I love you haha.
Then he sends a heart emoji.
Toby sends one back.
Then Sean kind of hugs his phone to his chest. A cute, awesome guy just said he loves him. His brother is finally back on his side. His dad's alive, he's not in jail, and he has a job lined up with Nickelodeon. Why does he let all that bad stuff get up in his head? Why does he worry about shit? This has been a good morning, the best morning.
But then, across the parking lot, he sees two guys putting a cooler into the back of that silver pickup truck. One guy wearing a flannel shirt has a kind of messy, short beard you get from a few days without shaving. The other guy is kind of scrawny. Their skin is weathered from living in the Nevada desert. They look different in the daylight, so it takes Sean a minute to figure out how he knows them. And why they send a chill up his spine.
And the memory of bruised ribs.
"You're fucking kidding me," he mutters.
# # #
Daniel steps out of the bathroom and almost gets hit by a little boy chasing a soccer ball. "Whoa easy, little dude!" Daniel says.
"Sorry!" the kid says, kicking his ball back towards his brother near the picnic tables.
Daniel laughs. He had his first beer. He came out. His headache is dying down. And . . . he is maybe, actually bonding with his brother.
Sure, he knows that as they get closer to his mother Karen, the questions and the doubts will creep back in. But right now, everything seems pretty good. As he walks back towards the car, just before he gets to the asphalt of the parking lot, he notices something brown, yellow, and plastic in the sand. "No way!" he says, bending down to pick up a Power Bear action figure.
It's one of the new ones from the reboot that started airing two years ago. Daniel loved Power Bear when he was a kid, and even though he was way too old for it, he tried watching the new show but couldn't get past how they changed the main villain. But still, he made his brother play Power Bear with him as a kid and still has a few drawings Sean did of the hero in his room. Daniel has to show this to his hermano.
But as he walks past a silver pickup truck, he almost bumps into a man with a bad beard in a flannel shirt. "Oh, sorry, dude," Daniel says.
"What do you think you're doing?" the man says. "Did you just take that from that kid?"
"This?" Daniel holds up the action figure. "No, I found it on the ground. I guess it could belong to that kid. I'm just going to show my brother, then I'll ask about it."
"Jesus, Chad," a second guy, skinnier, says from the other side of the truck. "He's just a kid himself. It is too early in the morning for your shit."
"No, this is just like his kind, Mike," Chad says. "Coming up here. Taking things that don't belong to him. I know you aren't from here, boy."
"Uh, yeah, I'm not." Daniel blinks. "I'm from Washington. We're close to a major tourist attraction, so I'm pretty sure none of us are from around here."
"You got a real smart mouth on you, Pedro," Chad says.
"Oh, I see what this is," Daniel says. "You're trying to be a racist asshole. Can you just, I dunno, call me a beaner or a wetback or whatever so I can get on my day?"
Chad's eyes narrow like a bull's. "I don't like your tone, Pedro."
"I don't like your face, Brad." Daniel knows he shouldn't smart off, but what is this guy going to do? It's broad daylight. There's a family nearby. And Daniel can see his older brother watching from across the parking lot.
That's when Chad shoves him. Rough enough to make him step back but not hard enough to knock him down. The other guy, Mike, shouts at Chad to stop. It catches Daniel off guard; this guy is probably a bit unstable. Daniel could keep mouthing off. Or run. But before he can decide what to do, he sees Sean reach inside their car, pull out one of the empty beer bottles from last night, and walk towards them.
# # #
Sean isn't thinking conscious thoughts as he marches across the parking lot, grip tight on the neck of the glass bottle. This motherfucker in flannel who just shoved his brother is the same asshole who degraded him, tried to make him say horrible things in Spanish. Ordered him to sing, and when Sean refused, this man broke Sean's ribs. Sean had just lost his eye, was scared that he had lost Daniel forever. He was at his most vulnerable, was in the most need of kindness . . . and this asshole treated him like prey.
Sean swings the beer bottle into the bumper of the truck; the glass shatters, so Sean is holding an ugly dagger that can cut through skin like butter.
The man turns, and Sean points the broken bottle at his throat. "Get your hands off my brother," Sean says shakily.
"Holy shit," the smaller guy exclaims. "There's no need to do something stupid. Let's all calm down."
"What do we have here?" Flannel Asshole smirks. "You standing up for this dirty little thief?"
"He's not dirty," Sean squeezes the bottle tighter. His heart flutters. Looking into the man's eyes, Sean is once-again a scared, broken teenager standing outside a stolen car in the middle of the desert. He wills his voice to sound strong. "He's not a thief either."
"Shit, I was just joking around," Flannel Asshole says, holding up his hands. "You people get triggered so easily. But you're all just a bunch of savages who can only work things out through violence. And you wonder why all of us honest Americans say you make our country worse."
"You weren't fucking joking!" Sean's voice cracks. His eyes feel hot. "You aren't honest! You're the type of asshole coward who would hurt a sixteen-year-old kid, but only if he was vulnerable and if you thought you could get away with it! You wouldn't give a shit that he never hurt anybody and was just trying to get to his family! It's people like you that make this country worse!"
A hard, course laugh erupts from Flannel Asshole's belly. "Jesus Christ, Juan, you are shaking. What are you going to do with that bottle, really? You gonna stick it in my belly? You gonna poke me in the eye? You don't have the guts."
The bottle feels like it a twenty-pound weight, like Sean can't hold it up. His stomach does flips, and that cold sweat is back over his body. Every part of him is screaming at him to run, like his muscles and bones remember what this man did to him in the desert.
"You're all the same," Flannel Asshole says. "You sneak up here. Get in people's business you have no place getting into. You're all dirty little thieves, taking things that don't belong to you."
The man turns towards Daniel.
The man reaches for Daniel.
In his mind, Sean sees his brother doubled-over in pain, broken and scared in the desert.
Sean throws his forearm into the Flannel Asshole's throat, presses it against his windpipe, forces the man against the side of the truck. Sean raises the jagged glass bottle to the man's eye, and this asshole is not smirking anymore. He's afraid. He's powerless.
This shit-stain's helplessness feels good. It feels vindicating.
"No soy un ladrón sucio con un ojo. Este es mi país, hijo de puta," Sean hisses. "And I will fuck you up for touching mi hermanito."
# # #
Holy shit Sean is going to stab this guy.
Daniel isn't very strong, but he dives between his brother and Chad, lifts Sean around the waist in something that's half-bearhug, half-football tackle, muscles straining as he caries his brother who is just-barely bigger than him.
At the same time, Mike leaps in to hold Chad back, and Daniel falls to the ground with his brother. The bottle shatters on the asphalt, and Sean immediately bounces back to his feet. Daniel barely gets up in time to catch him from diving back at the assholes by the truck.
"Dude, Sean, what the hell has gotten into you?" Daniel says, pushing his brother.
"I'm not going to let that guy shove you around," Sean says.
"So you're going to, what, stab him in the face? Get arrested? Go to jail?"
Sean's fist is tight, knuckles whitening. There's a sneer on his lips like he's an injured dog. But at the word jail, Sean's shoulders fall. His fist unclenches. Head down, he takes a step back without saying a word.
"Look, I think you kids should get out of here," Mike says, forcing Chad into the truck. Chad is shouting swear words, and Mike slamming the door on him barely muffles them. "Let's just go our separate ways. I don't see any reason for us to make a big deal out of this."
"I agree," Daniel says. The mom and dad by the picnic table are hugging their two boys, staring wide-eyed. Daniel turns to his brother. "Sean, let's get out of here before there's anymore trouble."
# # #
When Sean finally glances at the clock in the dashboard of his father's car, they have been driving two whole hours in silence. He doesn't remember driving this far. It's almost like he's blacked out. The only thing he's aware of is the spider-leg panic that tingles throughout his body.
He jerks the wheel, pulls into the first gas station, parking at the doors. "I need a minute," Sean says. "Don't worry—if that guy was going to call the cops or come after us, they would have caught up to us by now."
Daniel asks him to wait, but Sean just slams the car door and goes inside. He walks past the rows of snacks, straight to the restroom where he goes into a stall, bends down, and throws up into the toilet. He hasn't eaten this morning, so it's mostly acid that splashes into the water. Sean crouches on the blue tile, hand against the wall to steady himself, until he is sure his stomach is empty. A bitterness burns his throat.
When he rinses his mouth in the sink, he is surprised that he recognizes the person in the mirror. What the fuck happened? Was I really going to hurt that guy? He tells himself that he wasn't, that it was just a bluff; the guy was going to hurt Daniel, and Sean had to get him to back down.
But even though he doesn't think he could cut someone with a broken beer bottle, deep down, Sean really did want to hurt him. He wanted to hurt that guy so bad.
Part of it was the shoving Daniel. But a lot of it was from being hurt himself.
Sean is a good person. He makes good choices. At least, he does his best to make good choices.
But all of that darkness and pain and fear is still inside him. He never knows when it will bubble up to the surface. When he'll have nightmares. When he'll start crying in the middle of watching movies with his family. He sets his forehead on the sink.
He tries to be a good person. He tries to keep everything together. He tries so goddamn hard to not be bitter or cynical or angry.
But life won't let him.
# # #
Daniel sits with the passenger's seat pushed back, his feet on the dash. He moves the arms of the Power Bear action figure back and forth. He didn't expect that picking up this hunk of plastic would lead to Sean almost stabbing someone. But Daniel always fucks things up. It figures he would do something that would land his brother in jail.
Finally, Sean comes out of the gas station and sits down in the car. "Hey, is that Power Bear?"
"I found it back at the campsite. That guy started being shitty to me because he thought I stole it from a kid," Daniel says. "Seriously, Sean, what the fuck? Are you just going to pretend everything is fine?"
"Everything is fine." Daniel's brother has the nerve to smile.
"Oh yeah, it's super cool that you almost cut a guy's eye out like you were in a prison-yard fight."
"They don't let you have glass bottles in prison, actually," Sean says.
Daniel sets his feet on the floorboard. "Dude, can you cut the bullshit? Please?"
Sean rubs the tattoo on his arm of the single boy walking alone. "I got scared, okay? I thought that guy was going to hurt you. Like, really hurt you. I couldn't fight him, so I tried to scare him. That's all it was—to scare him, so he wouldn't hurt us."
"Sean, that guy was all talk."
"You don't know that." Sean shakes his head. "He was going to hurt you, Daniel. He was going to hurt you so bad."
"Bro, how can you know that?" Daniel squeezes the bridge of his nose. "You know what? Nevermind. The way you acted . . . the way you've been acting. The stealing. The offering to break into Karen's room. These are the actions of a criminal."
Suddenly, Sean looks at him, wounded. Sean's voice cracks. "Don't call me that. I'm not a criminal."
"Then do you want to tell me why you have nightmares where you plead with someone to let you go? Where you keep repeating that you didn't do anything wrong? Look, I know something bad happened. I know you don't want to tell Dad about it. But, Sean, if you did something illegal or you are in trouble, you can tell me. Maybe I can help you figure it out."
"There's nothing to figure out," Sean says. "It's all in the past. Everything is . . . it's okay now."
"Is it?"
Sean bites his lip. And forces the fakest smile. "Yeah, it is."
"Goddammit, bro, don't fucking lie to me!" Daniel raises his voice. "I've spent sixteen years learning to see through your bullshit. Everything is not okay. You almost did a felony today, man."
"I only did that because he shoved you." Sean sighs. "All those things you mentioned, the breaking into Mom's room, the stealing at the hotel—all of that was for you, enano."
"Dude, don't call me 'enano,' and do not drag me into this," Daniel sighs. "Don't do illegal shit and then try to blame me for you being a criminal."
"Well, I'm not a criminal."
"Really? You're stealing. And threatening people. And breaking into places you have no business breaking into. Bro, it sure sounds like you're a criminal."
"I. Am. Not. A. Criminal," Sean says with a cold, gravelly calm that feels like he's pointing at jagged bottle right at Daniel's throat.
It shuts Daniel's mouth like a punch.
It's probably only a few seconds, but it feels like Sean glowers at him in silence for a full hour. Finally, Sean starts the car and mutters, "I'm not a fucking criminal."
They get back on the road, and the only sound is the car's engine. Daniel stares at the stupid Power Bear figure that started this. Back when they were little and Sean would play Power Bear with him, Daniel thought his brother would always be there for him. But then they grew apart. And then he didn't know his brother anymore.
And these past couple of days have been . . . they've been awesome. It's not just that Daniel is friendless and desperate to connect with someone, but Sean has actually been an incredible person to talk to. Spending time with his big brother has made Daniel feel better. Like everything might be okay.
But can you trust someone who will stay in his grandparents' home but offer to break into a room they asked him to stay out of?
What about someone who steals from another person in a casino?
Or threatens to stab someone? And then says he's doing it for you?
How can Daniel trust Sean when Sean doesn't trust him? Daniel has listened to Sean cry in his sleep every night, but his brother still insists everything is fine.
Does he really know his brother? Did he ever?
# # #
A few miles down the road, Sean feels like garbage for yelling at his hermanito. "Hey, Daniel," he says but gets no answer. "Daniel?"
When he glances at the passenger's seat, Daniel's head is turned away from him.
Daniel stares out the window. His earbuds are back in.
