Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Bram ran a finger over Zachary’s eyebrow and nose and lips.
“I would love to live in a house that you designed for us, on some land, near Garnet Run. Or anywhere. It would make me so happy to build a life with you.”
Bram was looking at him intently and Zachary’s heart was hammering in his chest.
“For—for a long time?” Zachary choked out, squeezing his eyes shut at the word that had almost escaped.
The blankets shifted and Zachary smelled Bram close, so close. Bram kissed one eyelid and then the other, and Zachary opened his eyes. Bram’s were burning with love. His own, he realized with shock, were burning with tears.
“Forever, Zachary Glass. I want to build a forever life with you.”
The word didn’t stick in Bram’s throat, but floated out, as weightless as blown dandelion puff; as certain as its seeding.
“Forever.” He tried the word out, its angles unfamiliar on his tongue. He had never thought about forever. Nothing had ever been forever before.
The word erased every bit of his exhaustion and replaced it with a giddy, electric sense of possibility.
“What else would you want in the house?” Zachary asked, practically bouncing on the bed.
Bram’s smile was so big and so sunny it took Zachary’s breath away. Bram brushed the forgotten tears from Zachary’s eyes and Zachary kissed him and squeezed him so tight he lost his breath for a moment.
“I would love a porch. Like a big, wraparound porch where we could sit and have coffee in the morning or tea at night.”
Zachary nodded. He would use a wood that would blend in with the surrounding land so it would look almost like nothing was there at all.
“What else?”
“A fireplace in the living room. A big one, so we could curl up in front of it and watch it all winter long.”
Zachary could see the natural stone hearth that would be made of rock native to Wyoming. Bram would like that. Then he remembered it was supposed to be their house, and added a hand-milled mantel with midcentury lines. Maybe he could hire Charlie to build it for them.
“I need to write all this down,” Zachary said.
Bram rolled off the bed and rummaged through the drawers of the oversized desk shoved under the window. He pulled out balls of string and piles of photographs, and odds and ends that Zachary had no hope of naming. Finally, he came up with a black-and-white composition notebook and a gnawed-on pencil.
“Okay,” Zachary said, and flipped open the book to start sketching.
But the notebook wasn’t empty. The first few pages were in a large, scrawling hand that Zachary recognized as a less refined version of Bram’s penmanship.
“Oh my god, this is from high school,” Bram said. He tapped the page. “Marcus Ling, he was in my sophomore history class and I had such a crush on him.”
Bram slung an arm over Zachary’s shoulder to better read his old journal.
Pumpkins are coming up finally. I hope the casperitas don’t rot this time. I mulched them so that should help. Marcus is my partner for the history project. I hope we can work on it alone. But we should go to his house because Birch and Moon are so embarrassing lately. Winnie let me pet her this morning on the way to school.
“Who’s Winnie?”
“Winnie was this horse that our neighbor used to have. The fence ends at the road and she would stand there and look over it as we walked to school. Usually if we got too close she’d shy and run away. But if we were really quiet, or I was by myself—because we were never quiet—then sometimes she’d let me creep up to the fence and pet her nose.”
Zachary pictured Bram, tall for his age, running late for school where he’d get to see his crush, checking on pumpkins and petting horses’ noses, and it filled him with such tenderness he felt the pricking of something that might just be a cousin to happy tears.
Somehow, knowing that Bram was still Bram when he a teenager made him feel safe.
The rest of the page outlined some inter-sibling feud that even Bram couldn’t parse, then before the rest of the notebook’s blank pages, there was a sketch of a bear cub.
“Did you do that?”
Bram squinted at it. “I think so, but I don’t remember. I did have this thing as a teenager where I really thought if I could just hug a bear it would be my friend and, like, walk to school with me and stuff.”
Zachary laughed. “That is not an accurate impression of bears,” he said, but he said it gently.
“Yeah. Well. I’m a romantic.” Bram winked at Zachary and then turned to a fresh page of the journal.
Zachary had never kept a journal. He’d never had any interest in recording the happenings of his life. After all, who would want to go back and read a tale of bullying, teasing, tormenting, disappearance, death, and loneliness?