A/N: *emerges from bushes* Hey… sorry again for the absence. I miss being here.

TW: depictions of crime scenes, slight Holocaust imagery, family traumas.

My hand delights to trace unusual things,

And deviates from the known and common way,

Nor will in fading silks compose,

Faintly the inimitable rose.

Lady Winchilsea

DREAM #1

The power in South Park is not reliable. My childhood was wrought with outages and brownouts, rusty well-water and the occasional cold shower.

It is the coldest week of the year. Few birds have flown jagged by my bedroom window, cold burrowed into their small bones. Wind chill is -40, and the governor mandates we keep our thermostats at 60, so as not to use up all of our state's energy. But it is too late for me and my family. Our generator is broken and we are trapped in darkness and cold, and more scary, we are trapped with each other. We close all bedroom and bathroom doors, hoping to keep whatever warmth we have in the family room.

I'm sick with the flu and have to use the bathroom often. I can't tell if the chills ransacking my body are from the flu or the weather. More than likely, it's both. I'm greeted with my own silver plume of breath each time I step in. The toilet seat is unbearably frigid. Water has reached temperatures I didn't think existed, and I fear my fingers will crystalize and break off.

We gather in the living room with books and blankets and candles. Snow is piled halfway up windows, we can only see a strip of sky. My mother is clutching a blanket around her neck, holding a paperback open with the other. My father is cross-legged on the carpet, hat pulled down almost to his eyes, scarf around his nose. He's putting together a LEGO-house. Earlier, he was muttering about how he regrets never installing a fireplace in our home. We live in the mountains, this isn't rocket science. I should have…

I make a passing comment that he could install one in the LEGO house. Mother instantly looks up, terrified that I've really somehow, in the middle of all of us in danger of freezing to death, I've criticized the sole decision-maker of our household, the unchecked patriarch of the Broflovski's.

Father serves no response. He's too deep in concentration. He never seems to hear when I try to joke with him anyway. Clearly, I'm not very good at it. I shrug at my mother, who has now realized, in my fevered and terse mannerisms, that I'm just being an idiot. Her wide eyes go back to normal and she nestles back into her book.

Go drink some water, Kyle.

I just did.

Go drink more.

No one has noticed yet.

Where is Ike? He was here not too long ago.

This is the part where my parents turn into blurred background figures and my body is slow, floating through the house looking for him. I open all the bedroom doors. I check under all the beds, closets, the basement, and the pantry. With sickness pulling down my heart to my stomach, I look to the oven. I hesitate. There's no way Ike was stupid enough to climb into an oven. I imagine finding the worst as I slowly pry it open…

The oven is empty.

I open my mouth to call for our mother when a draft hits my arm. I look to my left and the kitchen seems to tilt downward to our back door cracked open. Snowflakes are fluttering inside and melting on the rug. I pull on my boots. Great, I think, he left to play outside.

I slide the door open more and step over the threshold. A few icicles drop in front of me. I see continuous tracks in the snow like infant-sized trenches, as if he were dragged. Outside is blinding white. Squinting, I see what looks like a small boulder dropped by the swingset.

It feels like hours before I reach him, and I fall several times. Every time I look up, it's like someone has placed him farther from me.

When I finally get to Ike, his eyelids are frosted shut and his lips are dark purple. I lift his body to mine, praying that my warmth will somehow bring him back to life. My screams for help are deafened by the glittering white mounds, the dead air that has blanketed the neighborhood.

But he remains frozen. I keep holding him close to me as I trek back to the house.

My mother is standing in the kitchen, holding up a camera.

Well, we'll just have to have one last photo of you two together before we bury him.

I felt responsible for my brother for years. I suppose all older siblings have this curse on them, especially when it comes to shielding them from our parents. My nightmares about being unable to protect Ike never stopped. I've talked to Kenny about this and he said he has similar ones about his little sister, Karen. But Kenny knows where his sister is. He knows where she is and he knows she's safe.

Is it selfish to wonder if Ike misses me? Does he wonder what my life is like, just as much as I wonder about his?

I had to accept that I'd never see him again. Halfway through this summer, at the age of 26, I was now realizing that I'd need to face this second wave of grief.

I would be writing notes in the lab, or cleaning something, and in the back of my mind would be the Knowing. Knowing I never fully let myself mourn Clyde, and I pushed away any attempts of understanding our relationship. I think I loved him in the way he couldn't love me back. Not only did I lose Clyde forever, I never saw Token again, or anyone else I went to school with. Any teachers I had probably shake their heads when they think of me, if they do.

And then my family. I lost them. I would have given anything to have my mother tell me that everything will be okay. Even my father's presence would have helped.

My throat aches when I think of all of Ike's milestones that I haven't been around for.

I push these thoughts away before they bubble to the surface of my brain because knowing something and facing that Knowing are two terribly different things.

I look out my window to see Kenny pulling weeds. I've been too tired to do it myself.

White camellia have begun to bloom, their sloping petals like little ghosts.

I don't deserve my friends.

DREAM #2

Police show up to my house and put me in handcuffs. They will not tell me why. Instead of taking me to the station, they bring me directly to the scene of the crime. It is completely dark outside but the massive tree they take me to is illuminated by flood lights. Yellow tape makes a neat square around the trunk. The officers, who have had their hands on my arms, beckon me to look up into the branches. I see a small, translucent hand hanging. The blood has drained to the lowest point, turning her fingers purple. Passerbys thought she was taking a nap in the tree - how whimsical. I turn away. One of the officers grips my shoulder and tells me to get Bebe down. But I can't even look at her.

He spits on the ground, calls me pathetic.

Kyle's To-Do:

-order textbooks

-figure out a wedding gift (text Bebe)

-groceries

-book hotel for tattoo convention

-clean bathroom

-check on Tweek

I used to be a pretty organized kid. I guess you could have classified me as a 10-year old adult. People like to call these kinds of children "old souls" when really they are dead inside, forced to grow up sooner than they were supposed to.

I'd come home from school, play a video game, have dinner with my family. If I had homework, I'd sit at my desk with the bedroom window cracked open. Whenever I was frustrated I could look out at the glowing mountain tops and remember that the world is much bigger than anything I was dealing with in English class. To tell you the truth, I didn't vibe with English until my junior year of high school. I liked reading and still do, but I hated writing book reports. Word count makes no sense. Why painfully stretch out to 1,000 words what I can easily explain in 600? It wasn't until my early 20s that I learned how books can only tell you about life. They can't fix your problems.

Now here I am, writing away my accounts, filling up a random notebook I've had for years and never used. Yesterday I had to buy a new one with cartoon bugs all over the cover so I don't take myself too seriously.

I think, as a child, I had a better understanding of how to take care of myself, though there wasn't much to take care of. I knew when to work and when to play. At least, until those nights I'd open my window all the way and drop down into the snow, where Clyde would be waiting, half-finished book reports falling off my desk.

Now I make lists. When my brain isn't a bucket of dead moths, it is a cacophony of screaming cicadas. If I don't write down every damn thing, I will miss something.

I looked over my tasks, wondering what to prioritize. Usually, I start with the hardest things to get them out of the way. I could see immediately that the hardest thing would be messaging Bebe, so I cleaned the bathroom instead.

For groceries, it's easy. Obviously, I can't drive, so I order delivery. While waiting for that, Isat at the kitchen table, opened my laptop, and began looking for hotels.

Stan and Cartman had a convention coming up in October in Scranton. It would be their first time in Pennsylvania.

As I started browsing, the devil himself (Cartman) came up the stairs. A vape cloud masked my screen and his nose dipped in front of a Holiday Inn.

"Do you mind?" I pushed his head back up.

"Yeah, I do mind actually. Why are you doing this? This is Kenny's job."

"The kid is already doing too much. I can do this one thing. Besides, he always picks the cheapest motel and you guys always hate it."

"He grew up impoverished, it's in his nature to do that."

"Cartman…"

"What? That's literally what he told us."

"Whatever, you guys should really consider hiring a receptionist - wait, what the hell is in your vape? It smells fruity as fuck."

"Captain Crunch. Try it."

I inhaled a little. "Also, I have to say, it's kind of sketch that this convention invited you guys but didn't hook you up with a hotel." I handed Cartman's vape back to him, it smelled better than it tasted.

Cartman shrugged. "I just assumed that they assumed we'd pick the hotel closest to the convention center."

"I suppose. But still."

"Yeah, I'm picking up what you're throwing down. We won't get scammed."

"Aight."

He sat next to me, hands in his hoodie pockets.

"So, what's poppin', brisket?"

"What?"

"Or do you prefer your rap name, Lil' Latke?"

"I don't understand…"

"Why isn't Craig here? He always comes here after work with you."

I pulled up a Marriott close to the center. Right on top of the building, actually. Who knew?

"What, you want him to start paying rent?" I asked.

"Oh, shut up. I just got used to him being here."

I couldn't not smile. "You like him."

"The fuck? No. He's an asshole."

"So are you. That's why you guys get along."

"And so are you, Kyle. You're both stubborn assholes, I think that's what makes it work for you two."

Cartman calling me and Craig "stubborn" made me think of Bebe.

You're such a typical Taurus, Kyle.

I filled in "two adults" for the hotel room.

"Make it three," said Cartman. "Kenny's coming."

"Who's going to watch the shop?"

"We're just going to close for the weekend."

"So I'm going to be alone?"

"Yeah. You okay with that?"

"I don't think I have a choice."

"You'll be fine."

"You can just have Craig come over for the weekend."

"True. Okay then, I'll make it so. Three adults."

Cartman threw his credit card up on the table and started texting someone.

"Craig said he wanted to be alone today," I said suddenly.

"Uh-oh."

"I'm not sure if it's uh-oh. I kind of wanted some time to myself too."

"Oh, rest in peace you guys."

"Stop it, you're making me nervous."

"I'm fucking with you. You guys are clearly in love or something gross like that. Some separation isn't going to change anything."

"Part of me knows that. I am concerned for him, though. He's been acting so odd these past couple of weeks. More reserved than usual. Tired, always - out of reality, even. Frazzled easily. He straight-up panicked today because he couldn't find the bottle of leftover Purple even though it was practically right in front of him."

"What the hell is Purple?"

"It's a chemical solution I made to clean off oil. There's no name for it. The color is just purple. Something is-"

"-could it get the oil stains out of the driveway?"

"Yes…"

"Can you bring some home?"

"Yeah. I can."

"Sweet. Okay, sorry, you can continue with your issues."

"Nevermind."

"No, really. Go on. You were saying 'something is'."

I wrapped up the confirmation details with the hotel room. "Something is distracting him."

"Any idea what it could be?"

"No idea. I thought it was stress from work, since that's what was bugging him before the holiday break. But it just seems to be getting worse. Deeper than anything I could think of. And I'm kind of freaking because I don't know what I can do to help. Or if he would even want my help. Or if it's something I did? I don't know."

"I doubt it was something you did. He'll tell you what's up when he's ready."

"I hope so. I'm worried."

"Maybe it's something with his family. They're kind of nuts, right?"

"Just the stuff with his dad."

"Welp, there you go. He probably thinks you don't have the mental space to hear it because you have issues with your dad."

"I had issues with my dad."

I finished up, then forwarded the confirmation email to Stan, Cartman, and Kenny. I thought that would be the end of it, that Cartman would drop it. My parents are no longer in my life. I shouldn't have issues.

"Okay, if Gerald Broflovski suddenly appeared in front of you, in this very kitchen, right in this moment, what would you do, Kyle?"

I said the first thing that came to mind: "I'd punch him in the fucking throat."

Cartman sucked in his breath with a low whistle. "And that's why I'm glad my dad is dead."

I rolled my eyes.

Cartman plucked my sticky note to-do list off my keyboard. "I like how you have 'text Bebe' on here as if that doesn't take two seconds to do."

"I have to work up to it. I haven't spoken to her in like, a month."

"Yoikes."

"She'll never admit it, but I'm 89.9% sure that Bebe hates me right now."

"If she hated you, she wouldn't be forcing you to go to Florida with her."

"She's not forcing me."

"But you don't want to go."

"I feel obligated. She really guilt-tripped me, dude."

"Ah, we love a manipulative bitch." Cartman rose. I closed the laptop and rubbed my eyes, wondering if I could simply push my eyeballs into my skull.

Unwarranted, Cartman continued to speak: "Man, I remember when you first started dating her. You were so excited. You had all those nightmares about her dying, too. You still get those?" He opened the fridge.

"No."

"Wow, you must not love her anymore."

"Don't say that. Don't you ever say that. I'll always love her. It's just different now."

He leaned slightly on the open door, little bits of light escaping between the fridge and his shirt. "Relax. I know."

I leaned back and looked out the window. A bird gripped a singular, thin branch, bobbing up and down. We stared at each other for a minute, it's head twitching to different angles. I thought of the other inmates, the ones more unhinged than I who spoke of animals whispering things to them. Like the kid who stabbed his parents because his dog wanted him to.

We heard a lot of stories like that. The ones that bothered me the most were the verbal essays of guys who couldn't control themselves around girls. One of those guys was Chuck Walker, who legitimately could not shut the fuck up about pussy. He had a mammoth fixation (a lot of us did, to be fair) but even the perviest kid announced one day that he'd like to "cinch a soundproof muzzle on that asshole."

Every lunch break was when he chose to relay his elaborate fantasies to us. God forbid anyone stirred their macaroni and cheese too loud or forcefully - he'd lose his mind.

As months turned over, the fantasies got violent. Too realistic in their graphic detail. He was taken to a different facility after nine months with us.

The nightmares…

Soon after Bebe and I became a couple, we took a trip to Denver. We wanted more snacks for our hotel room so we went shopping at a Korean grocery store. She was looking at a bag of rice balls when I saw Chuck Walker walking toward us, a shopping basket in his elbow, ripped jeans caked with mud. His hairline was already pushing back.

Broflovski! I'd recognize that ugly mug anywhere. How the fuck have you been?

He shook my hand. I wanted him to go away.

I'm fine, thanks. I tried to subtly move in front of Bebe, but they both noticed.

Who's the blondie here?

My girlfriend. We're shopping.

Oh, wow. You've got yourself a looker here. How much did you pay for her? Because I doubt you drew her in from just your personality.

I could feel Bebe's hand pulling on the back of my shirt.

Oh chill out, Kyle. I'm joking. I guess I forgot you don't have a sense of humor. He leaned over to the side to address Bebe. What's your name, sweetie.

Bebe answered with no hesitation or thought: Miranda, and I realized with a sinking heart that she's had to do this before. I went along with it.

Well, it's nice to meet you, Miranda. He patted me on the arm and walked past us to the checkout counter. Good seeing you, Kyle. I said nothing.

He turned to look at us again. Oh, Miranda, if it doesn't work out with Broflovski here, I'm next, okay?

The bird flew off.

Cartman was gazing into the fridge. "There's nothing in here."

"There are carrots in the crisper drawer," I said.

"I'm not a goddamn horse."

I picked up my phone. I was going to call Bebe right then, but a notification for the upcoming grocery delivery popped up.

"Don't you have something else you need to be doing right now?" I asked. "No clients?"

"I had a no call, no show."

"Great. I'm going to South Perk. You can wait for the groceries."

My balcony plants were thriving. A handful of people sat outside, watching bumble bees hover the magnolia. A man who comes nearly everyday on his motorcycle, drinks a black coffee and reads the Bible for an hour, raised his cup to me as I walked by.

"Thought you quit, son."

"I'm on hiatus. I'll be back in the fall."

He nodded and went back to scripture.

It looked like they finished a rush when I walked in. The last group walked out with a drink in each hand. Bubbles of dried syrup were all over the counter, espresso beans on the floor, cream cheese knife gunked with cream cheese and poppy seeds.

Abbie, one of the youngest baristas, came running up and grabbed onto my arms, making my laptop bag slide off.

"Kyle, Kyle, look at me. Look at my eyes. Tears. Do you see my eyes? Literal tears."

Her boyfriend, Tyler, who I may or may not have constantly scheduled with Abbie last year because I shipped them, appeared behind her, hands on his hips, eyes wide under his baseball cap.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"Tears," repeated Abbie.

"Yes, I understand that, but what the hell just happened?"

Tyler piped up, "Tweek left for TWENTY MINUTES and everyone decided to pull up at the same time, which is FINE, I guess, except for this one bitch-"

"-Tyler made her a drink and he asked her if she wanted it hot, iced, or frozen and this lady deadass said 'hot,' WE BOTH HEARD IT. And when he gave her the drink she was like, 'I wanted this iced'."

"And I said," Tyler had his hat turned backward now. It was getting serious. "I was like, 'ayo, you said hot'. And she said 'iced'. We just went back and forth, iced, hot, iced, hot."

Abbie finally released my arms, "And I just wanted her out so I remade the drink while they were bickering. I couldn't take it anymore."

"When was this?"

"JUST NOW," they chorused.

The back door opened and Tweek appeared, a jug of milk in each hand. "What the hell happened?"

"Oh my god," said Abbie. "Tears."

I took an iced coffee and sat down with my laptop. It wasn't long until Tweek was sitting across from me.

"I like the stickers on your computer."

"Oh, thank you." My busted-ass laptop was covered in Portal stickers.

"Are you doing homework?"

"I wish. I'm buying my books for this semester. I wanted to do it in a place where I make money so that it doesn't hurt as much."

"Smart."

"I try to be sometimes. Did you get your books yet?"

"Unfortunately."

We watched the patrons outside all get up, one after another, and waddle to their cars.

"When are you coming back?" he asked.

"The end of August."

"Ugh, that's so far away."

Tyler's head popped up from behind the massive espresso machine, "Uh ayo, dawgs, we've got an issue with the… what's it called, the coffee brewer? The coffee is cold."

"Is the black switch off in the back? The boiler may have been turned off by accident."

He disappeared, then reappeared two seconds later with a thumbs up.

"Just give her a few minutes to warm up," I said.

"Her?" I could hear Abbie laughing. "We're giving pronouns to the brewers now."

"They're crazy…" Tweek mumbled.

"They're happy, Tweek. You're doing a good job. Honestly, you'd be okay if I never came back at all."

"Don't say stuff like that. I'll go into actual fucking cardiac arrest."

A customer walked in, a new regular I guessed, since Abbie began steaming milk right away.

"Everything seems fine here. You've got a handle on it."

"I'm pretending to know what I'm doing."

"That's what everyone does," I said. "But truly, I trust you. You've been here two years, if anyone is going to run this place, there's no one better than you."

Tweek smiled, then rose. "I'm still questioning your judgement, but thank you. I guess I'll let you get back to it."

He left me, floating off behind the counter, and I turned my attention to my new school schedule:

BROFLOVSKI, KYLE

FALL 2019

MAJOR: Environmental Science

MINOR: Chemistry

MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY

8 AM - 10 AM:

Modern Inorganic Chemistry

12 PM - 2 PM:

Advanced Writing in Environmental Studies

4 PM - 6 PM:

Energy Policy and Society

TUESDAY

6 PM - 8:55 PM

Intro to Photography

I was able to find a few things on ThriftBooks, but the chemistry book had to be the latest edition, and the cheapest it went was around 300 dollars. Then the photography supplies weren't cheap either.

After paying for everything, I seriously considered how much time I could invest in selling feet pics.

I closed the laptop.

One thing left to do.

Bebe.

I took out my phone and started a new message (I deleted the old conversation, I couldn't bear to look at it anymore), and started typing.

"Hey, how are you? I just wanted to ask - is there anything you had in mind to get for Scott's wedding? And can we talk soon about this trip? I don't want to sound like a dick, but I would really like to set some boundaries before we go."

She messaged back immediately, which shocked me. She was usually streaming around this time. Maybe she changed her schedule.

"I already checked the registry. We're getting them an air fryer."

"We're taking an air fryer on the plane?"

"No lol… we're picking it up at the Home Depot by our hotel."

I wanted to ask if she planned on us having separate rooms, but my gut told me the answer.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes way more sense haha."

"I'll call you sometime soon. But I have to go now, ttyl."

Ttyl? I haven't seen that on my screen since 2008.

And that was that. The whole exchange took about five minutes. Cartman's remark about it being on my to-do list came back full throttle and I felt like an inefficient adult. It was the hardest thing I had to do all day.

God, I suck.

DREAM #3

I am on campus at night. I've fallen behind on my studying and I know if I don't push through and catch up tonight, the semester will only get worse for me. I stay in the library until three am. That's what the grandfather clock on the second floor tells me.

I finish the last assignment and pack up, head down the rubber stairs, pass the dozing front desk staff and then I'm outside in the fog. Two deer on the lawn stop mid-graze to look up, their eyes glow yellow-green, a reflection of the lamp posts. Usually I'd stop to watch them, but I'm on a mission tonight. There is nothing I want more than to shower and get into bed, fall asleep forever if I can.

Past the main parking lot, in the far corner are silent red and blue flashing lights. I think nothing of it until I follow the curve that leads to my street. It brings me closer to the two police cars, and the group of men all looking down at something.

I don't want to think the worst.

I don't want to think the worst, but there is a dark mass at their feet. There is a body.

There is a body and I know who it belongs to.

I come toward them.

One man grabs my shoulders and tries to shove me away, but I push forward, stumbling to my knees, coming face-to-face with Craig's body, twisted on the ground. Still warm.

...

"I can take care of myself," Craig said when I told him this nightmare. This was the first time. The second time, the nightmare had me finding Craig slain in my own bed. He joked, "I guess the foreplay went too far." The third time, he was nailed to the wall with the rest of the animals. No jokes from him for this one.

"That will never happen, Kyle. I'm safe. You're safe. Everybody is safe, okay? There are three of you in that house. Sorry, but Nightstalker 2.0 wouldn't stand a chance against Kenny with a keyblade and Cartman trying to jam a tattoo gun into their eyeballs."

"Some people do get their eyeballs tattooed," I said.

"And here I thought I knew everything, damn."

He was reading the same page over and over again.

To be frank, I don't think he was reading at all. Did my notes make sense? Susan approved, saying they could be publishable.

After a half hour of watching him struggle (and abandoning my own work), I gingerly took the papers from him. He didn't fight me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I am just so damn tired. I can't concentrate for shit."

"I know, it's okay… um, to summarize, basically: I think we're almost there. I wanted to suggest going an eighth of a degree cooler. That might be the sweet spot to draw out the salt."

He slouched forward onto the counter and covered his face. "I don't know if I can calibrate the machine to do that."

"I think it's worth a try. And if we can't do it, we can find someone to help us."

"Worth a try…" he whispered, his echo sounding more like it was for something else.

During lunch, Craig asked me to come with him to this office.

I thought, "Oh shit, it's happening. I've done something wrong and now he's dumping my ass."

I sat down and stared at the bookshelf on my right: the German literature, the mailman doll, the various knick-knacks and family photos. He closed the door behind us and sat next to me. From my peripheral I could see he was holding onto his knees like a child.

"I have to tell you something," he said.

"You're pregnant."

He smiled, albeit a bit painfully.

"I'm sorry I've been so… out of whack. Distant," he continued, "I promise that it's nothing to do with you or our relationship. You don't have to be nervous."

I tried not to sound relieved. "What's going on with you, then?"

For a long moment he said nothing. He was always one to choose delicately what to say next, instead of blurting out whatever thought. It didn't matter how long it took him to decide, either. He'd rather say nothing than not be able to perfectly curate his words. It seemed that on this late July afternoon, he didn't know where to start.

Finally, he said:

"I'm jealous of you, Kyle."

"Excuse me?" How could this man with all this education, and a loving family be jealous of me?

"Let me explain, please. It's horrible, what happened to you. I'm not debating that."

"You have a perfect life, Craig."

"It's not perfect. Not at all. I have a good life. But it'll never be perfect. But I…"

"What?"

"Sorry. I'm sorry. Give me a second, I feel like I'm short-circuiting right now."

"It's okay, just… take your time." I tried not to stare at him, I didn't want to make him more uncomfortable than he already was.

"Look, I've been wondering for weeks if I should tell you what I'm about to tell you, but you're the only one I want to tell. I feel like you're the only person who could understand how I feel right now."

"Tell me when you're ready. I will literally sit here forever."

He sniffled and swallowed, not looking at me. I couldn't tell if he was about to cry or vomit.

"You've always known where you come from. Maybe you don't know who you are yet because you're still in your 20's. Fuck, I don't know who I am either, and I always felt that it's because I don't know where I come from. That's why I'm jealous of you. You know your family's history, right down to the bone. Your bloodline could have ended in World War Ⅱ. It's an actual miracle that you're alive, sitting here right now."

When he said "bone," I couldn't help but think of the bones of the piles of bodies of my people.

"Do you remember a month or so ago when we were talking about our backgrounds, and I said I didn't know, didn't want to know?" he asked.

"Yeah, I thought it was odd."

"I've never wanted to hurt my parents' feelings. They raised me as if I was their own, they never made me feel like an outsider. Yet, I've always been curious about my biological family. I've wondered how different my life could have been."

I knew what was coming. "When your parents adopted you, they had to have understood that this would happen sooner or later."

"Yeah, yeah, of course. Every adoptive parent takes that risk. And my parents have done so much for me. I owe them everything. But they've been keeping things from me for years. They don't don't know what I know now. They don't know that I know. Everything."

Something shifted between us. I could taste it. Anger. Dry, besotted anger.

"When I was growing up, the computer room had a filing cabinet with a locked drawer. I never thought anything of it. I'd go in there and play Tomb Raider or do homework, whatever. Never thought a damn thing about it. 28 years, Kyle, and I never cared about what was in that locked bottom drawer.

And then a few weeks ago, I was over at my mom's helping her with yard work. She left to pick up mulch at Home Depot, and I went inside to use the bathroom. I passed by the computer room. Well, I mean, it's not the 1990s anymore so I guess you could call it a home office. Anyway, the door was open and I noticed that the drawer was just. Slightly. Open. And like I said, I've never had a desire to get into this drawer, but I swear to God, in that very moment, something was pulling me, like a cord in my stomach, and I had to know. I figured, I'm an adult, I'm sure nothing in there would surprise me, but then a part of me knew that what I'd find could change my life forever. I could have ignored it. I could have gone back outside.

I opened it.

I found my adoption papers.

My mother's name is Fiorella Hernandez. My father is Jeremy Anderson.

I took all those files, any paper I saw with my name on it and I got the fuck out of that house. I went to the library, got a study room, and read everything. You know for six hours, my name was Julian?

I did something irrational. For the first time, I did something without agonizingly thinking it through first. I found Fiorella on Facebook and messaged her. She's been waiting for me to contact her for years."

I reached out with an open palm.

"My hands are sweaty," he said.

"I don't care. Hold my damn hand."

He took my hand with both of his and finally looked up at me. There was dullness in his eyes, like a dying firefly. I couldn't quite understand where the anger was coming from. I would have thought that people in Craig's situation would be excited about this. Maybe blissful.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"I think so. You know. Considering."

"What are you going to do?"

"I want to meet her. I need to. I need to know what she's like."

"I'm sure she's really wanting to meet you too… are she and your father together still?"

Craig chewed his tongue. Oh no. This was the anger.

"He's dead."

"Oh my God, Craig. I am so sorry." I got up and kneeled in front of him. "Are you okay?"

He let out a shallow sigh that sounded like a miserable, ghostly Oo. "I don't know if it's right for me to mourn the loss of a man I've never met."

"You have every right. Something was taken from you. You can grieve."

His hands grew clammy. Out came that Oo again. "Here's the thing that's bothering me the most. It's not like he died when I was a baby or something. He died in 2015."

"Holy fuck, are you serious?"

"I don't know all the details. My mother- Fiorella, said she'd explain everything to me in person."

"I am so, so sorry," I said once again. I wished I could reach inside his soul and take all the pain out. "You haven't confronted your parents about this yet?"

"God, no. I'm fucking furious with them right now. I can't look at Mom without wanting to cry like a baby. This sucks, Kyle. I love my parents. I love my sister. But now it feels like this whole other fiery, chaotic world has opened up, this other side of my life that's been following me. Like, there's two of me, separated by a wall our whole lives, walking alongside each other. But now there's a hole. Someone punched a hole in the wall and every part of my brain is screaming, begging me to look through and see the eyes of that other side of me.

I'm terrified of what I may find, you understand?"

"I do. I understand completely."

His trembling body slouched forward until his forehead grazed mine.

"I'm glad you're here. I don't think I could have done this alone."

"You'll never have to go through anything alone ever again."

I meant it.

I meant it then and still do.

Yes, I kind of hate him. But I love him.

I loved him as he slept on my bed that night, twitching and turning, then finally staying as sturdy as a rock. I sat at my desk next to him, planning out the 13-hour trip from Boulder to Tucson, Arizona. It struck me odd that Fiorella was so eager to meet her long-lost son, yet she wasn't going to travel halfway to meet him.

I didn't want to judge. I thought part of it was Craig's desire to drive off into the desert and pretend he'd never have to come back.

And what if we didn't come back? That's dangerous thinking. Someone always comes back.

I Googled "Jeremy Anderson." Many profiles and photos of generic, middle-aged white men checkered my screen. I couldn't imagine any of them being Craig's father. I even perused obituaries, but none of them could be it. Jeremy must have died suddenly, by accident or some other quick affliction of the body. A slowly dying man's quest would have to be finding and reconciling with his son.

The whole thing made me queasy. I wanted Craig to find himself, to have the freedom and support in accepting this new knowledge, the grief he had been given. Deep down, I knew one day those two sides of him would weave together and make him stronger.

But things still felt off. Call it inheriting my mother's Jewish intuition.

I silently swore that I'd be on my guard for both of us until this was all over. He was scarily emotionally vulnerable and I had to put my own vulnerability away.

Before I crawled into bed with him, I had the hideous thought to look up my own parents.

Into the Facebook search, I typed:

"S...h...e...i...l...a…

B ...r...o...f...l...o...v...s...k...i"

She was the first result.

I saw my mother.

Her gray hair.

I closed out the browser, slammed the laptop shut, wormed my way next to Craig, pulled a blanket up to our noses, and turned off the lamp.

I stared into darkness until my eyes could no longer stay open.

Nightmares again.