Harmonious Hearts 2018--Stories from the Young Author Challenge, page 22
“Oh.”
Dakota makes a face to mock me. “Yeah, ‘oh.’ I thought you would’ve figured it out. I remember you approaching me after everyone else and not saying much, but it was nice. I felt the support, even though I don’t think you knew anything about me. I guess that’s why I was pretty distraught to find out how disconnected you are from your brother.”
I rub my face and nod slowly. When I glance at Dakota, he looks conflicted.
“Fuck,” he says. “I don’t tend to tell many people that I’m a trans guy. Please don’t tell your mom, because then she might—”
“What?” I ask. “No, it’s fine. I mean, I won’t tell her, but that isn’t really new to me because I think I remember that kid you were friends with in my grade. He kinda yelled at Kev one day after Kev said some dumb shit, and I was around to hear it, so I realized I knew how he felt and apologized to him on Kev’s behalf later. I used to talk to him. I just didn’t make the connection who… you were.”
Dakota smiles. “That’s a relief.”
I shrug. “I mean, I’m just ashamed of myself for hanging around bad people and letting them influence me, even though I know better. Like, gay stuff or whatever isn’t weird to me. I mean, it’s still new, and I guess I know I don’t understand you even in that context right now. But I’m willing to, because you were right about me judging you and Matty for your autism, when seeing the way you connect with him was just making me jealous and stupid.”
“Damn,” he snickers, “I didn’t think I’d hear you admit you’re jealous of me.”
I sigh and sink myself farther into the couch. “I’m just… I’m sorry.”
“You should tell that to Matty.”
I swallow. “I think you deserve to hear it too.”
“Thanks.”
I glance over and meet Dakota’s dark gaze. He looks away and picks up his sketchbook from the sofa armrest to flip through it. I finally figure out how to speak again once I watch him pick up a pencil. “Can you help me communicate better with Matty?”
Dakota looks at me. “If you’re willing to be patient.”
“I am.”
He smiles. “Are you sure?”
“I really want to try.”
Dakota studies me for a moment, but he makes little actual eye contact with me. He gets up and shifts closer until he’s sitting with his leg two inches from mine. He hands his sketchbook to me, where it’s open to a page with a rough sketch. He flips several pages back.
“Holy shit,” I gasp. His drawings depict humanoid figures and faces, most distorted with smudges and outlined deformities. They’re expressive and dark, with bursts of color captivating and guiding my eye around the page. “These are amazing.”
“Thanks,” Dakota says. He’s wearing a sheepish smile. He flips the page for me, and I look through the rest of them. “Most of the finished ones are plans for a concentration I’m doing. On, uh, a lot of internalized issues I’ve personally had and which other people have as a result of prejudice.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Maybe something like, ‘What the fuck, Dakota, why can’t you make one thing in your life not revolve around social justice?’ I say that to myself sometimes.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that. I just didn’t know you had this much talent.”
“Sometimes,” Dakota says as he reaches to take his journal back from my reluctant hands, “when you make an effort to understand people, you find out new things about them.”
I scoff and look at him. “I don’t really think Matty is this kind of artist. He’s seven.”
He shrugs. “I guess you’ll find out once you connect with him.”
I rub my eyes, then contort my spine when I stretch my arms up and yawn. “I don’t remember the last time he really smiled before you came. I haven’t heard one of his meltdowns in longer than I can remember.”
“He’s had a few. It happens. I’ve had them too. I still do, but not often. He’s just a kid who needs people to know how to love him.”
“I know,” I say. “The only time he smiles around me is when I get him Chinese food.”
Dakota grins. “I guarantee you that you can change that.”
THE HOURS feel longer and fuller when I don’t lock myself up in my room every day. I spend enough time on assignments to not feel overwhelmed, but on Monday, I grab my laptop from my room and take it downstairs to where Dakota and Matty are drawing on scattered papers again. When Dakota notices me walk into the living room and plug my computer in, he raises his eyebrows and greets me with a smile.
“Hey, guys,” I say. “Do you mind if I chill in here?”
Matty doesn’t acknowledge me immediately, but Dakota chuckles. “Sure, but don’t step on any of the papers.”
I sit down on the couch with my computer in my lap and glance at them playing quietly and giggling from time to time. Something about this seems freer, and it isn’t just the size of the room or the atmosphere.
Every day, I start to sit with them and attempt to engage when Dakota encourages me to participate.
When Matty runs up to me to show me the crayon chicken he colored over Dakota’s drawing, I beam. Dakota catches my eye and grins at me.
MATTY GOES to bed before Mom gets home on Thursday night again, and I sit on the living room couch while Dakota lies on his back in the mess of papers he and Matty made. He’s cleaning up the crayons and markers by balancing the pencil box on his chest and wiggling to try to reach all the drawing supplies with his hands.
“Why don’t you just get up and do it more easily?” I snicker.
“Well, if I’m entertaining you, then I must be doing something right.” Dakota smiles when I shake my head at his response. “Nah,” he says. “I told you I pressure stim sometimes. It just feels nice to have some kind of weight on me.”
I laugh. “I didn’t really think you were serious about that.”
“Oh yeah, I am. And I’m also lazy and tired. Your brother really knows how to drain the energy out of a guy.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Dakota looks at me. “What for?”
“For helping me communicate with Matty, and for helping me be less of a dickhead.”
Dakota hums in a way that sounds like exaggerated arrogance. “Glad to be of service.”
We remain quiet for several moments, until he starts wiggling like a worm and I laugh. A thought that’s been manifesting in my head for the past few weeks pokes at me, and I decide to take a chance at voicing it.
“Would it be weird for me to say I kinda like you?” I ask. My gut clenches with regret as soon as the question leaves my lips, and Dakota doesn’t move.
“If I’m being honest, yes. Very,” he says. “That’s something to explore another time.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Explore? So I have a chance?”
He chuckles. “Maybe you do.”
“This is new to you? I mean, I know I’ve been subtle, I guess, but I really do admire you.”
“Social cues and I aren’t great friends, Justin,” Dakota says. He turns on his side to see me better, promptly spilling all the drawing supplies off his stomach. He looks down. “Fuck. Oh well.” He sits up and begins gathering all of them back into the box. “I guess I’ve been a little confused, but yeah. You can’t be subtle with me. It flies over my head most of the time.”
“But you’re not surprised?”
“I am, kinda. I mean….” He pauses to think. “It’s complicated, and we have a lot to sort out. Understand my hesitation.”
“Okay,” I say. “That’s fine.”
Dakota shoots me a bright smile. “Wanna see some of the sketches I drew earlier?”
“Yeah.”
He jumps up and grabs his journal off the sofa armrest and sits down next to me. He flips through it and lands on a detailed page of a moody-looking guy whose face is partially obscured by colors. I stare at it.
“That’s me,” I say.
“Egotistical much?” Dakota laughs, and I give him a knowing glare. “Yeah, it might be you. Don’t be offended by the rainbow color palette. I’m just proud of you coming to terms with—”
I pinch his arm, and he yelps and swats at me.
“I’m kidding,” he says. “Kidding!”
“What do the words say?” I ask. There are small letters that I almost didn’t notice scattered across the page, and I squint at them.
Dakota clears his throat. “It says, ‘They say that hatred and intolerance come from fear. But I don’t believe that’s really the case. At least, I refuse to accept that it’s that simple. I don’t think you are ever scared of a person you love because they’re different. I think it’s more than being scared of a person who is tangible evidence that your worldview is skewed. I think it’s more than being scared of the unknown. People are afraid to realize that by accepting the humanity of those who are different, they must reconsider why they themselves are human as well.’ That’s what it says.”
“Makes sense,” I say. “But it’s also too deep, and a little tacky.”
Dakota scoffs. “Let me ponder philosophy without your judgment.”
“You can have all my judgment if you put your words all over my face.”
“It’s not really your face,” he assures. “You just inspired it.”
“That’s fair.”
We sit in silence while I flip through his other pages.
“Seriously,” I find myself saying after a minute. “Thank you.”
“What for? Capturing your beauty?”
I try to hide my smile but give up when he notices it. “No,” I say. “You make me consider things that I never could—no, that I actively avoided thinking about before.”
“Yeah,” says Dakota. “Being as oppressed as I am has that effect on people.” He laughs when I scoff. “Not really,” he clarifies. “I mean, millions of people like me exist in the world. It’s just hard juggling our identities when we’re so judged for the few we can openly display. But it’s not like I exist as an example of how to behave right. I’m just living my life.”
“Yeah, well. You kinda changed mine,” I say.
He chuckles. “That’s a little dramatic.”
The fear I used to have of speaking my mind feels nonexistent, replaced by an overwhelming sense of relief. I shrug and meet his eyes, no longer bothering to contain my euphoria. “You told me not to be subtle.”
DANIEL OKULOV is a part-time writer and full-time neurotic from the Washington metropolitan area. Despite considering himself a semireclusive goblin, he is active in online support groups for other LGBT and neurodivergent people, and he advocates for self-acceptance and recovery. He strives to challenge social issues and represent minorities in his writing without limiting himself by genre. He loves his pets more than socializing with new people, but that doesn’t stop him from being a hopeless romantic with a soft spot for heartwarming relationships and happy endings.
Someone Else’s Star
By Arbour Ames
When three bizarre newcomers arrive in Goulcrest, Kelly sees an opportunity to learn about his dead father and his heritage. But Fletcher, who has loved Kelly for as long as he can remember, worries that the mysterious visitors could mean the end of his dreams.
THERE WERE three of them.
Each looked about the same, except for the helmet. Each had those long, gangly limbs, the slim bodies, the slender necks decorated with thin black necklaces. Their skin was pale, but it had a strange tint to it, like they were sickly or perhaps put dye on their skin that never quite faded.
When they first arrived, people joked that they might be aliens. Their mannerisms were odd. Their style was a mixture of a biker gang and nineties space punk. Their helmets were slick and black, the darkness broken with smooth lines glowing with different colors. One glowed blue. One glowed pink. One glowed green. That was the only way to tell them apart.
“What’s the significance to the colors?” asked Kelly Banks one day, curiosity finally overcoming his apprehensiveness. He leaned across the counter as he served the pie—apple, which was Goulcrest’s famous flavor.
“They’re the colors of our souls,” said Blue very seriously.
Kelly tried to laugh, but he didn’t know if Blue was joking or not.
There were three of them, and they arrived on the bus. Each had a duffel bag. They didn’t offer names, and they didn’t offer explanations. Green bought a single hotel room at the Parallel Inn with one queen-sized bed. They spent four hours in that room. Then they came out, and they went into the Hive, which is where Kelly Banks worked, which is where Goulcrest’s famous apple pie was made. Blue ordered a slice of this pie. Green ordered a milkshake. Pink ordered a glass of water with three slices of lemon. They settled at the counter in front of their orders, but not a single one of them took off their helmet to eat.
“Anything wrong?” asked Kelly Banks.
“No,” said Green. The helmet synthesized their voice and made the words come out strange and robotic. “Nothing is wrong. Thank you for the sustenance.”
Kelly Banks tried to laugh. He told them to call him over if they needed anything else.
They didn’t need anything else. After an hour of sitting still at the counter, not one of them saying a word unless spoken to, they all got up, paid the bill with a generous tip (each on separate tabs), and left. Fletcher Simon left the Hive too and went after them, carefully ensuring he stayed out of their sight. He was a quiet boy—definitely on the small side—and was rather invisible, so townsfolk liked to send him after the newcomers. Little towns like Goulcrest ran off big gossip, and Fletcher Simon was usually the provider of that gossip.
He crept after them for hours. They walked around town, stopping to look at shops through the decorated glass windows, and then they went back to the hotel. That was all they did. Fletcher returned to the Hive.
“Well?” Kelly was finishing his cleanup of the diner, and as Fletcher walked in he threw his towel over his shoulder. “Anything?”
“Nothing exciting.” Fletcher took a seat at the counter and arched his back, trying to ease the pain that always crept up about this time of the day. “They walked around some, but that was it.”
Kelly put a piece of pie in front of Fletcher and dropped a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream on top of it. “You hear names?”
“No. They didn’t talk. Far as I know, the only times they’ve talked was when they were here and when they got their room at Parallel. Can I have a fork?”
Kelly handed him a fork.
“They don’t have any mode of transportation either,” said Fletcher as he dug into the pie. “I guess they travel by bus everywhere. They look like bikers, don’t they?”
“Sure do,” said Kelly. He rubbed at his chin. “I can’t imagine anyone will be very happy with this news.”
“Well, nothing I can do about it.”
Kelly grabbed a napkin and reached over the counter to dab lightly at Fletcher’s cheek. “You’re making a mess.”
Fletcher grinned at him. “It’s part of my charm.”
“Your charm is making a mess of the diner I just cleaned up?”
Fletcher shrugged. He scraped his fork against his plate. “Who do you think they are?”
“The newcomers? I don’t know. Aliens?”
Fletcher laughed. “Yeah? What planet are they from?”
“Mars. For sure.”
“Everyone’s from Mars. Make up something better.”
Kelly’s smile was quick—just a flash, like all his smiles were. They were the kind of smiles you could miss if you liked blinking too much, but they were also the kind of smiles worth keeping your eyes open for. “I can’t help it,” he said, “If they’re from Mars. Already decided.”
“Fine,” said Fletcher. “Then what do they look like under those helmets?”
“Big, big teeth. Their whole head is just one big mouth.” Kelly put his fingers up against Fletcher’s face, his thumb touching the corner of Fletcher’s mouth, his middle finger on Fletcher’s forehead. “They can open up their mouths this big. All teeth—rows and rows of them, like a shark.”
“Yeah?” Fletcher felt the warmth of Kelly’s fingers and wanted to bring his hand up too to touch Kelly’s, but he was shy. “And where are their eyes?”
“They communicate by sounds and smells and tastes.” Kelly took his hand back and grabbed the towel from his shoulder. “That’s all they need. Who needs eyes?”
“What are their names?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Kelly grabbed Fletcher’s fork, put it into his mouth, and licked away the last of the pie. “Green, Blue, and Pink, of course.”
“Yeah,” said Fletcher, who felt quite breathless. He slid off the stool, and his legs wobbled, weak, beneath him. “Yeah, of course.”
FLETCHER FOLLOWED the newcomers again. He woke early, got ready in a few minutes, and kissed Mrs. Banks on the cheek as he slipped out the door.
“Not gonna wait for Kelly?” she called after him.
“Let him sleep!” Fletcher called back.
The newcomers left their room at 7:00 a.m. sharp. They stood in front of the Parallel for twenty minutes after that, none of them speaking to one another. They just stood and looked around at their environment and sometimes at each other. And then they went their separate ways.
Fletcher panicked for a moment. Blue was headed toward the city limits. Pink sauntered toward city center. Green seemed to be headed downtown. Who was he supposed to follow?
He followed Blue. Other people could observe Pink and Green, he reasoned. They were walking through the town, and everyone in Goulcrest was just about as nosy as Fletcher was. News would spread without Fletcher’s help.
He zipped up his hoodie, and he went after Blue.
