Story: This You

[frogs_of_war]

Sometimes the way sentences are worded pull me out of a story. I don't really like the "she saw him open the gate and come up the walk" or "he heard the door open." I prefer the closer "he opened the gate" or "the door creaked open". I know she saw or he heard it otherwise the,y as POV, wouldn't have noticed it and it would be written down. But although this bugs me, if the story is good enough I can ignore it. (Not to judge anyone who does this, it's probably like the fearful lack of commas that's normal in other places. They aren't really going to eat grandpa.)

But the other day I heard "Algy told Brad that his divorce was finalized in front of [POV]." Even "[POV] overheard Algy telling Brad his divorce was finalized" would have been better. But if she's putting on her shoes at the gym after class and so are the people she's overhearing, is it necessary to mention it was said in front of her, even if that was last week and not right now. How about "After last Thursday's class Algy mentioned that his divorce was finalized." or "Algy's divorce was finalized. He'd told Brad after class last week." This wasn't even an important part of the story. Algy never showed up again and neither did his ex, and the overhearing only really matters because she'd slept with Algy two or three books back when he was only separated and they split up. If he'd said it to her, it might look like he wanted to get back with her, but since he only mentioned it in passing to a fellow class member, he isn't asking her to break up with her now boyfriend or anything. But I think it could have been better worded.



Title: That You (or This You, I can't decide which I like best)
Length: 3.3k
Summary: Owen's memory of the last five years is gone forever, but he only wishes he remembered that last night.



Owen got out of bed and padded over to the window. His mom wanted him to rest up from the operation, but the doctor said he should walk enough to get tired at least once a day. Maybe he could walk by Jam's granna's and see why Jam hadn't come to see him.

He padded into the kitchen. "Are you sure you asked Mrs. Deschner to send Jam by?"

His mother smiled as she sighed. "I asked Mrs. Deschner to have Jam bring us the pie yesterday, but Dan and Dave came over instead."

Owen had pretended to be asleep. Those two wore him out even when he was feeling his best.

"You know you can just send them away." Mom put her hand on Owen's arm. "You used to yell at them to get out of the house at least one a week."

Owen used to do a lot of things before the car accident. Or so everyone said. He remembered none of the last five years and only hazy bits before that. The "you used to" and "why don't you whatever anymore" were about a different person. A jerk by the sound of it.

This latest operation to fix a bone pressing again his brain hadn't miraculously changed his personality back to the boy who yelled at his best friends or shouted insults at strangers or talked adults into buying them alcohol and the cops into not arresting them when they were caught trying to drive home drunk after curfew.

Unless all Dave and Dan's stories were lies and exaggerations. He didn't know them well enough to even guess. His last memory of them before the accident was them at his twelfth birthday party with their tag-along cousin who was small even for a nine year old. Owen had wanted to watch Jam, who was different than any boy Owen had ever met, but Jam avoided Owen's two constant companions. They had been loud and obnoxious and once Jam's granna had come for him everyone talked about how Jam would be gay when he grew up. Not quite like it was wrong, but the same way they talked about Owen's scars: Such a shame.

"I'll go by today. After school." Jam rode the bus home, but Dan and Dave stayed for practice so they wouldn't be around to spoil things. Owen hadn't been to school since the accident. As soon as he felt up to it, he'd take some online classes and go back to finish his Junior year this winter. He'd rather be a junior twice than a super senior. "Would you like me to take anything to Mrs. Deschner?"

Mom grinned. She'd think of something.

—

Owen took a deep breath. Four steps and he'd be on Jam's front porch. He hadn't seen Jam come home, but sometimes he came down the alley behind his granna's house. Owen's family lived across the street and down a house, across from Dave and Dan. Mrs. Deschner was also their grandma, but on their dad's side.

Two more steps. One. He looked back at his house. His mother was sweeping the porch, the better to keep an eye on him. But he'd made it and he could make all the way back without needed to lie down for a while.

Mrs. Deschner's door wasn't closed. Mom must have called her. "Hello."

Mrs. Deschner smiled and invited him in. "Jam isn't home yet."

She gave him a cookie and a glass of milk and shuffled him off to the back porch to wait for his kind-of friend. Maybe more-than friend? That was still to be determined.

Jam danced down the alley and up the back drive, singing a popular song. His eyes widen when he looked up and he raced up the stairs then stopped dead. He looked at his feet, up at Owen, and down again. "How you been?"

"The headaches are gone."

"Good." Jam bit his lip.

"I wanted to see you."

"I'm here." He dropped his backpack to the porch.

"Do you want to see me?" Yes. Please say yes. Please. Please.

Jam looked him over slowly. "Which are you?"

"Jam. Please." Owen took a step forward.

"The guy I know?" Jam moved down a step. "Or the other one?"

"Stay!" Owen grabbed at Jam's arm.

Jam yanked his hand away and tumbled down the steps. He didn't look hurt, but his eyes were wide open and his body facing the drive.

Jam was scared. Was scared of him!

"I'm… I'm me."

Jam looked toward the alley. "But which one?" He stared at Owen like he was some sort of alien. "The one who encouraged me to sing or the one who wouldn't let me up even when I begged?"

He took one step back and then turned and ran away.

He ran from Owen. What had Owen ever done?

Before the accident, maybe.

He'd held Jam down while Jam begged to be freed? Owen fell onto the bench. He'd been a monster. He was a monster.

He called out to Mrs. Deschner and asked her to have him mom bring the car around. He didn't have the strength to walk home.

—

"I need to see Jam."

Mom contemplated her coffee. "I thought you were avoiding him. Did you two fight?"

"I may have…" Owen couldn't say it even to himself. "Before the accident."

"That took a while to come up. Do you remember any of it?"

"No. But I asked the doctor."

Mom looked up.

"While you were filling out paperwork. She says the amnesia was probably caused by the brain being deprived of blood." Owen had been thrown from the back of Dave and Dan's little pickup into a tree. The paramedics had needed a cherry-picker and chainsaw to get him down and he'd arrived at the hospital still impaled on the branch. He almost died on the operating table three times. "I told her I didn't want surgery if it would bring back the old me."

"Owen." Mom grabbed his wrist and her eye filled with tears.

Owen looked away. "Do you miss the old me that much?"

"No." She kissed his head. "I've gotten used the the new you. Always knowing were you are. Your little notes even when just going down the block. No backtalk. You being in bed whenever I check. No more late night calls telling me to pick you up. No. I loved him, but I don't really miss him."

Owen squeezed her hand. He'd start crying to if he stayed. He'd pretended to be too sick to go to the amusement park with Dan and Dave, so he could talk to Jam alone, unhurried. But time was wasting. He patted Mom's shoulder one last time and headed out.

Owen walked around the block and came up the alley from the side of Mrs. Deschner's garage that didn't have a window. The sky was threatening rain which didn't really help his mood. Jam had to be there. He had to.

Jam's voice rang out from the open garage. He was singing a love song older than he was. Maybe he was thinking about Owen. Probably not. Owen was a monster.

Jam's legs stopped swaying over the edge of the loft and his music died out. "Hello."
"Can I come up?"

Jam shrugged. Owen climbed the ladder. Jam could practically fly down, much faster and more graceful that Owen at his best. He could get away easily if he felt threatened.

Owen sat with his legs dangling on either side of a banister two down from Jam. If they sat around neighboring ones, their thighs touched, which felt nice. But not today. "Do you remember what happened the day we met?"

"You've remembered?"

"No."

"Then Granna sent me by with a pie. Dan and Dave complained you slept all the time, so I was surprised you were awake. And your mom asked me to stay with you when she ran a box to the post office and I didn't leave even after she came back."

That had been nice. But, "No. Not then. Before the accident."

"The first time I met you? Your birthday party. Dan and Dave mostly ignored me, which was nice for a change."

Owen's last really clear memory. "After that."

"There was nothing between."

"There was. Dan and Dave say there was."

Jam leaned against the banister. "What do they think you did?"

"I, uh, chase you… into a garage. Their garage I think." This garage's window looked out on the other side. "I didn't tell them what happened, so it had to be bad. I was so happy and boastful and strong. I'm the one who told them to drive faster and faster as I stood in the back of their pickup. I must have…"

He couldn't say it.

Jam kicked his feet into the empty air. "I'm glad you lived."

"Uh, thanks?"

"I wanted him dead so badly, but you lived. Only he died that day."

Owen was a monster. "What did I do?"

Jam moved down the balcony until their thighs touched. He put his hand on Owen's fist. "You did nothing."

"I have to know." Please let it not be as bad as he'd imagined. How could Jam even stand to look at him? "Please."

"I…" Jam swallowed hard. "You looked at me like I was naked. All evening."

So the accident hadn't turn him gay. Just removed his caring to hide it.

"I felt noticed. Not like normal, for how I moved or talked, but for my body. In a good way. Positive anyway. You weren't upset by what you saw. You weren't judging me. And you were handsome. Why would a guy like that notice me?"

"You're handsome. In a pretty way."

Jam gave him the side eye then looked down. "You leaned down as you walked past and told me to meet you out back in five. I didn't know what to think. Why would you want me? I had to find out."

"And I hurt you."

Jam leaned back with a sigh and stared at the ceiling. His shirt rode up and he put his hand on that skin. "I've been thinking about it a lot."

"I'm sorry."

"And I think that if my cousins hadn't followed you around the corner… If I hadn't heard them laughing outside…"

"I should have…"

"I didn't say no. I didn't start crying until after you left."

"You didn't have to say no. If you didn't say yes."

Jam smiled and brushed his fingers along Owen's cheek. "You are the one I love."

Jam loved Owen? After all he'd done?

"Jam." Owen turned his head and kissed Jam's fingers. He wanted to hold Jam until dinner and all night through. But…

"What did I do that night? How horrible was I? I have to know."

"It wasn't as bad as you think."

"You stayed in your room for weeks."

"Ten days. I'd prayed for you to die. I felt responsible for the accident."

Prayed? Jam wasn't even religious. "I can never apologize enough."

Jam pushed against Owen's cheek until their eyes met. "You don't have to. That guy's gone."

"That's no excuse."

"Owen. It happened. A deeply closeted boy had the chance to touch a cock, so he did, hiding it behind jokes and callousness because he couldn't say that he wanted it."

"You cried."

"Only after you left."

This was so difficult. Owen had no memory of that night. "I'm sorry I gave you bad memories."

"Make my memories better." Jam pressed Owen's hand against Jam's fly.

"May I kiss you?" They had only kissed once, up here in the loft after Jam explained that if the operation turned Owen back into the guy he had been, the thing between them was over. That Owen wouldn't even want to be around Jam afterward. The kiss had been a kind of goodbye.

Jam scooted toward the back of the loft and tugged on Owen's shirt. "Kiss me wherever you want."

Everywhere.

Owen started with Jam's lips and his neck and his delicious collarbone. He pressed their bodies together. Jam held him close. The was good. Wonderful. But he brought him no closer to finding out what he'd done.

He sat up. "You said begged. Last time I saw you, you said you begged me to let you go."

Jam ran his fingers through his hair. "I may have exaggerated."

"But did you? Exaggerate." Owen hugged his legs. "Did I force myself on you while you begged and screamed for me to let you go?"

"No!" Jam sat up. He took a deep breath. "Dave and Dan would have heard that. I asked you to wait until they weren't outside, but you claimed you couldn't. You…"

Warms arms wrapped around Owen, but he couldn't make himself look up. "I… hurt you."

He still couldn't say it. He tried again.

"Hush." Jam held him close. "I promise I'll tell you everything. You just have to promise not to hate yourself about it."

"I can't promise that." He looked up.

Jam kissed his cheek then his lips. "It's so hard to tell it. That you isn't this you. You steered me into the garage and bolted the door behind us. Dave and Dan made rude comments, but you said to ignore them. You were the only one that mattered. You and me. I went up the ladder and you followed. You made a joke. I think it was supposed to help me relax, but it frightened me."

"I'm sorry."

Jam rubbed his lips against Owen's cheek. The one with the scar. "I know. The sleeping bags were unrolled, which made me think you'd planned this, that maybe I wasn't the first boy you'd tempted out here, but then why would I be? You were almost grown and so handsome. You sat beside me and leaned so close I had to lay back. You sniffed at my neck and told me I smelled wonderful. It sounded like something you might have read in a book. Me smell good enough to make you as hard as your jeans showed you were?"

"Then?"

"Then you slid your hand into my pants. I didn't have time to say anything. It felt good, but it shouldn't have. Dan and Dave were making noise outside. I hate them. I can't help it. I remember every horrible thing they've done to me, names they've called me. But here you were, their friend, ignoring them in favor of me."

He sighed and sat back. "I came. Right into your hand. I didn't want to have done it. Hated myself that I could even have come under the circumstances, let alone so quickly. Hated you for making it happen. You licked you fingers and told me how good I tasted. Then you made a joke. I think you were trying to nice—"

"I was trying to be a dick."

"You didn't have to try at that. Maybe if we were just two guys, jerking each other off, that joke would have been reassuring. Maybe I would have been happy to hear it, but my heart broke into a million pieces. Then…"

"What?" Owen had to know.

"Then you said we do this again sometime and left. I couldn't. I could never do this again. You so handsome, me so weak. It took nothing for you to seduce me. Nothing. I'd give in. I knew I would, just for the change to have you hands on me again. I hated myself. I hated you. I sobbed for hours. You'd ruin me in a way Dan and Dave never could. You'd break me from the inside out. I was powerless to stop it. If only you weren't here. If you disappeared off the face of the earth. If no one was around who could break my heart with a simple joke, someday I'd recover. I could at least pretend I was still whole. I was so stupid."

"You weren't." Owen pulled Jam against his chest. "I was a jerk. A dumb-ass. And you weren't prepared for my cruelty."

Jam sat up. "I'm pretty sure you didn't mean to be cruel. You looked at my lips like it took all your effort not to kiss me, but that kissing me would cross some barrier I didn't understand or know existed."

"I'm so sorry." Owen bumped Jam's chin and got him to look up. Then Owen crossed whatever barrier might have existed with a kiss. "Let me give you good memories."

He lay back, pulling Jam down over him. He brushed his face against Jam's hair. "You do smell beautiful."

"You better believe it." He rolled to the side and undid his jeans button. "These jeans are too tight for your hand otherwise."

He slowly undid his zipper. Yum. Owen undid his own jeans in case Jam wanted to join in the fun. He did. Owen came very quickly. He groaned. "I wanted it to last longer than that."

Jam licked his fingers. "We can practice on each other."

They did all afternoon. By the time the sky darkened they were starving. Owen's mom sat at Jam's granna's table.

"Mrs. Deschner invited us both to dinner."

Over roast chicken and potatoes, Mom broached the subject of visiting Dad. Living together while Mom devoted herself to Owen's recovery had made their lives miserable, so Dad had taken a job three thousand miles away. Their marriage was on hold, not over. Owen wanted them to be happy together, even if that meant not with him.

He'd move out soon anyway.

"So Mrs. Deschner has offered for you to stay with her for the month I'm gone."

"Thank you, Mrs. Deschner." Owen didn't look up from his plate.

"Call me Granna."

Jam squeezed Owen's hand under the table.

"And since it looks like you two are together again?"

Jam blushed a bright pink.

How had Mom known? Hopefully not because the garage door was open all day. The back of the loft was impossible to see from there, but they might have been heard over the rain.

"At least that's what we're guessing from the fact you spent all day together."

"And you were holding hands when you came in." Mrs. Deschner gently poked Jam's red cheek.

"We thought it best to talk about protection."

No.

The next hour was one of the most embarrassing of Owen's life. Mom made him watch a how to put a condom on video and prove it using a cucumber. Twice, because he did it the first time when she wasn't watching. Plus other videos on how to stay safe when you didn't know the status of your partner. Owen hadn't been tested since at least the accident. And he had no idea the kind of life he'd lived before that. Still.

At least they didn't insist on watching the intro to gay sex videos with them. Keeping Jam safe, comfortable, and pleased was Owen's top priority, but he wasn't sure he was ready for anything beyond the baby vanilla stuff yet. But Jam took told Mom his email address so Mom could send him the links and promised they would watch them together. "Owen forgot five years worth of false information. We can start him off with the true stuff."

Mom beamed at him.

The videos weren't as bad as Owen feared. He'd even seen a few of them while trying to figure out how his body might work with Jam's. And one of the guys said to do what feels comfortable until they were ready to move on. But if they never moved on, that was okay too.

Owen leaned back in the bed. "I want to do all the other stuff. Someday. But for now just you and me and hands and mouths. Okay."

Jam shucked his jeans. "That's okay."

"Even if it takes years?"

Jam climbed on the bed and straddled Owen. "You and me, years. That sounds good together."

It did to Owen too.