Chapter 19: Roommate Shuffle

Well, I've gotten back into the habit of writing this, so this happened pretty quickly. Beware, though, if ever there was a "filler chapter" it is this one. So yeahhhh. By the way, relating to my previous post: if people don't comment on things I assume they hate them and then I feel bad. :/ As an attractive future husband of mine once said:


Anyway! Let's go on.

Chapter 19: Roommate Shuffle

When everyone returned to the dorms on January first, they were greeted by a pack of RAs, who informed them that there would be a few changes around the dorms, and they had until the new semester started to enact them. What this meant in plain words: some parents learned their children were rooming with people of the opposite sex and wanted that to change. For this reason, Blue spent the day packing her room up, because apparently their wing was going to become an all-male one. Alec hadn’t returned from England yet, so Shelly didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Scamps! Apparently he would be returning late the following day, but Blue wasn’t allowed to take that long to move. A mean RA (Blue didn’t like him and therefore didn’t remember his name) watched over her, and then led her to where her new room would be. As they walked he told her she would be getting a new roommate.
“Kendall Driessen,” he said, “I guess Kendall’s a girl then…who knew?”
“I knew,” Blue bragged, since she’d seen Kendall in a swimsuit at Kakahi’s New Year’s Party after all. The RA rolled his eyes and left her to transfer her things. Placing the first box inside, she jumped when she realized Kendall was sitting on the bare loft on one side of the room.
“Hello,” she greeted in a low voice.
“Hi!” Blue replied, trying not to sound too surprised. Already she could tell she was going to miss Alec.
“Is your boyfriend going to help you move?” Kendall asked in that same slightly creepy tone.
Blue scowled, “No…Well, right now he’s helping Teddy. I told him to, though. He said he wanted to help me more, but I don’t want him looking through all my things…There’s nothing inappropriate in here, but…Somebody could have snuck it in. I think. Then Malik would think bad things of me. It’s best I do it.”
“Why?” Kendall mumbled. When Blue looked confused in response, Kendall expanded on her thoughts, “Teddy’s a boy. Why’s he moving?”
“Ummmm,” Blue replied. “I think…I don’t know. I’ll go ask.” With her declaration, she ran out of the room, calling out, “Teddy! Teddy why are you moving? …You’re so much further away now!” It took an entire hallway and a turn to get to Teddy’s and Malik’s rooms now and Blue did not like it. Teddy peaked out of what was apparently his former room and grinned at Blue.
“That would be because we have a couple transfers to our dorm,” Teddy explained, and then motioned a now familiar pair of ginger twins ostensibly helping him collect his things.
“But why does that mean you have to move?” Blue questioned, and Teddy shrugged.
“I guess the people taking Rashida and Austin’s room are really interested in sticking together. So the powers that be told me I had to move,” Teddy stated, as the Twingers waved excitedly at Blue.
“Hey Blue! We’re going to be living close now,” Ewan said eagerly. Evan nodded to enforce his words.
“We can visit any time we want,” he added, and Blue smiled at them and clapped.
“Yay!” she said, before turning her attention back to Teddy. “Where are you moving to? Did you get to pick? Is it X’s room? I’d pick X’s room,” Blue babbled, causing Teddy to scowl deeply.
“I’m moving to your old room,” he mumbled as if ashamed.
Silence fell between Blue and Teddy, leaving them in a stare down until Pablo and Malik walked into the room. Blue immediately declared, “Teddy’s rooming with Alec!” the new additions gave her blank stares in response, giving her the impression they already knew this fact. Somehow they were not panicking, so she quickly added, “But he’s Teddy’s nemesis!”
“You have a nemesis?” Evan asked with interest, setting aside the notebook he and Ewan had started scribbling in while Blue and Teddy talked.
“That’s awesome,” Ewan added, as the pair stood from what used to be Teddy’s bed and approached the group of four across the room.
“Can we meet him?” Evan asked.
“Of course,” Teddy replied, “but he’s in Britain until tomorrow. So you’ll have to wait until then.”
“A British nemesis?” Ewan questioned, glancing back at his brother.
“Fantastic!” Evan declared, causing Teddy to roll his eyes and smile at both of them.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long for Teddy and Blue to move all of their things, and late afternoon found them admiring their handiwork. Once they agreed to start with Blue’s room, since her stuff was in Teddy’s way, and then move to Teddy’s, time started to go much more quickly. Ultimately Malik, Pablo, Kip, Hakan, the Twingers, Kakahi, and Estela helped each of them move. Blue’s room was more or less the same as it had been, just in a different location, and with Kendall instead of Alec.
As Blue, Malik, Teddy, Pablo, and Kip relaxed in Malik and Kip’s room, they heard a knock on the door, which Kip stood to answer. Unfortunately, the person knocking knocked three times, causing Kip to jump in fear and run back toward his closet. The door swung open despite this, which ended up being lucky for Kip since it swung right where he would have been standing.
“X needs Teddy to investigate what X discovered in Gerda’s half of the room!” Hakan shouted at the group. Teddy shrugged and nodded in affirmation to his request.
“I’d be happy to help, X,” he replied. Hakan grinned, and then threw something to the ground.
Teddy’s curious glance at the object caused him to shout, “When cleaning X found X’s old wheelie shoes!!” Jumping on the strange wheeled objects which couldn’t be made by a legitimate company, Hakan somehow managed not to fall over. Blue and Pablo trailed after Teddy and Hakan, claiming they could be very helpful with whatever was happening.
Hakan explained the situation on the way, “See, Gerda asked if X would help move her things, right? So X has been moving things, but Gerda’s things are weird! X doesn’t know what to do with them.”
Pablo and Blue were intrigued by this idea, and speculated about what kind of things Gerda had. When they arrived at the room, it seemed more like Hakan just wanted someone to help him clean. It was completely covered in things and almost impossible to tell what was Gerda’s and what was Hakan’s in the mess.
“Ha!” Hakan shouted. “X tricked you! Please clean our room? X hates cleaning. X has more important things to dooo!!!” The trio shrugged and agreed to help out, packing things up for Hakan as he instructed them on what belonged to him and what belonged to Gerda. After everything was packed up, they carried the boxes to Gerda’s new room, which she was apparently going to share with Jenny Caffrey, one of the new members of Miss Allberry’s class. When questioned as to who her previous roommate was, Jenny just shivered and wrinkled her nose. Before she got the chance to explain herself, an unfortunately familiar voice greeted them.
“What did I say about packing up my things, Porky?” Kendrick said, obviously directing the question at Jenny, who was slightly overweight.
“Whoa!” Pablo, Blue, and Teddy all managed to gasp at once.
“What?” Kendrick snapped at them.
“You are my least favorite person that I’ve ever met,” Teddy said bluntly. “And I’ve met that homeless guy who preaches the Old Testament of the Bible shirtless outside the comic store.”
“His chest is so hairy,” Pablo side-barred to Blue, who nodded at him.
“The really, really kind of gross hairy,” Blue agreed, “and his back is even worse!”
“And the pot-belly,” Pablo griped.
“Oh the pot-belly!” Blue agreed.
“Shut your mouths,” Kendrick snapped at the pair. “Did I give you permission to speak?” Blue and Pablo were flabbergasted, and glanced at Jenny.
“Yeah so his next roommate is sure to have fun with that,” she said, rolling her eyes and sighing as she sat on her bed. The look on her face seemed to say, “Only a few more hours and then I’m finally free. I just have to make it a few more hours.”
Pablo and Blue retreated to get some more of Gerda’s boxes from her former room, leaving Teddy staring down Kendrick. “Are you trading so you’re going to be in Hakan’s room?” he asked slowly.
“The savage’s room?” he asked for confirmation. Teddy’s eyes widened in anger.
“Hakan, he’s Native American,” he stated, folding his arms and shifting into a slightly more aggressive pose.
“Yes, I believe I am. Are you going to move my things?” Kendrick asked, and Teddy shook his head.
“No I’m not going to help with that,” he replied, “I will never help you with anything ever. I..I can’t even…I have to go. Pack up your things you—!”
Pablo and Blue walked back into the room before Teddy got out whatever offensive insult he was about to shout, and Mean RA came with them. “Kendrick!” the RA scolded. “I told you, you have to move out. NOW!” Kendrick rolled his eyes at the RA, but began packing up his things. Though Gerda’s room didn’t take very long to pack up and move and had more things, Kendrick moved painstakingly slowly to pack his things. The trio abandoned the room and invited Jenny to go watch a movie with them in the meantime. By the time the movie ended, Kendrick was just finishing moving his final box. It was bed time by then, and everyone settled into their new rooms to sleep, waiting for the return of their European companions the next day.
Blue woke with a start in the morning to Kendall staring at her. “You sleep a long time.”
Blue glanced at the clock to her side and mumbled, “Kendall…It’s too early. I need sleep. Sleep!” Rolling over to face the wall, Blue snuggled toward it.
“My brother told me you have to wake up by five or your muscles will decay by the time you turn fifty,” Kendall insisted. Blue ignored her, but Kendall wasn’t having it, “Do you want your muscles to decay?”
“Yeah it’s cool,” Blue dismissed. Kendall kept staring at Blue, but retired to her bed to do so. Blue fell back asleep and woke up at the humane hour of nine instead. Once she was all ready for the day, she headed back to her old room to see if maybe Alec had arrived back early, but she found Teddy and Pablo inside instead.
“Hi Teddy!” she greeted as he opened the door for her.
“Blue,” Teddy replied. She tilted her head at his lackluster greeting, and glanced to Pablo for an explanation. The Asian sighed and patted the bed next to him.
“Come sit Blueberry,” he said, and Blue caught Teddy’s eye roll at the nickname but ignored it. “Teddy’s upset,” he whispered dramatically. Teddy shot him a completely hostile look and sat far away from them at his desk.
“Why?” Blue asked. “Because he has to room with Alec?”
“No,” Pablo replied. “Well, yes. Mostly he’s mad at me right now. So…Maybe you’d like to go hang out with Malik while we sort it out?”
“Malik is bad at waking up in the morning,” Blue replied and Pablo shot her a pointed “this is serious” look. Sighing, the teen girl stood and headed toward the room’s exit. As she walked out she glanced at Teddy, who rolled his eyes and smiled a comforting smile that she didn’t need to worry about him. After a trek she’d probably grow to miss from her former room to Malik’s room, Blue knocked on the door. Because of Kip’s problem with the number three, she was careful to knock four times. The strange young man answered the door with a smile.
“Hey Blue,” he said, and then motioned behind him, “Malik’s still sleeping. I could wake him up if you want.”
Blue stopped in contemplation, finally mumbling, “Nah. I’ll let him sleep.”
Kip nodded at her, “Yeah. After the whole thing with Austin’s brothers and then all that moving around yesterday the poor little guy’s beat. Where are you going to go then?”
“Ummmm,” Blue trailed off. “I might just go play with Shelly for a little bit.”
“What’s Teddy doing?” Kip asked, showing more interest than Blue was used to.
“Having an argument I think,” Blue replied.
“Don’t miss those,” Kip muttered under his breath. When Blue questioned what he’d said he smiled brightly and changed the subject, “Well, have fun with your turtle I guess…Or you could do something way cooler…I mean I don’t know, but I hear something way cooler is going on…”
“What’s going on, Space Invader?” she asked. Kip grinned and waved Blue inside his room. Malik was a fairly deep sleeper generally speaking, so they didn’t worry about keeping their voices down too low.
“What would you say if I told you I just finally got my copy of Stratego! I ordered it a long time ago and no one will play it with me,” Kip said, producing a box with the label “Stratego” on it. “Please play?”
Blue shrugged and nodded, settling in for the rules of the game. A long explanation later the pair began the game. Not surprisingly, Blue lost fairly quickly, but demanded a rematch in no time. The second game ended up waking Malik up.
“HA THAT’S MY BOMB! TAKE THAT SPACE INVADER!”
“…Blue? You’re in my room? …Playing boring games with my roommate? …While I sleep?”
“I got Kip’s guy with my bomb, Malik! His number three guy!” Blue shouted at her tired boyfriend.
“…Good job,” Malik mumbled, rubbing his eyes and sitting up in his bed. A moment later he flopped his head back onto the pillow. A second interruption guaranteed he wouldn’t be able to keep sleeping. Three very loud knocks sounded against the door, and Kip jumped and messed up the game he and Blue were playing.
The knocker didn’t wait for the door to be opened and barged in instead. As they had surmised, Hakan was the culprit, “I hate him! Uh! OH GOD! I HATE HIM SO MUCH I USED FIRST PERSON!” After his outburst, Hakan ran his hands down his face, snorted, punched the air, and ended up on the floor in what looked sort of like a very angry seizure. Kip, Malik, and Blue simply stared at him. After a couple minutes, Teddy stepped quietly into the room.
“Hey X,” he said slowly, carefully, “don’t you want to get ready for Gerda’s arrival? She’s going to get back soon, remember?” Hakan stopped flailing on the ground and slowly but surely pulled himself back to his feet before shuffling out of the room.
“Is your argument done?” Blue asked, and Teddy nodded.
“Close enough. No worries, my dear,” he replied, just as Pablo appeared behind him.
“You didn’t,” Blue stopped to whisper to Teddy quietly, “break up?”
“No. Like I said, no worries. We were just discussing Alec and Kendrick. Mostly Kendrick; we disagree on what should be done about him,” Teddy explained, and Blue looked to Pablo for confirmation.
“So don’t worry,” Pablo said to Blue, “I still love Teddy a lot lot, even if he doesn’t want to report Kendrick to the school authorities.”
Only Kip caught the discomfort that passed Teddy’s features as Pablo spoke, before Teddy explained, “I’m making it my new mission to see if I can teach him how to not be a douche. As an experiment.”
Before they got the chance to continue the conversation, Malik politely asked them all to vacate the room so he could get dressed and ready for the day. While they were waiting in the lounge for Malik to join them, Hakan loudly announced Gerda’s return.
“The moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! X’s beautiful girlfriend has finally arrived back from the nether regions of the world!” Hakan declared when he spotted the group. Gerda smiled and waved at her friends.
“I am pleased to return,” she stated.
The four in the lounge smiled and happily greeted her, but she soon wandered off to unpack her things, Hakan going with her. As they walked Hakan started telling Gerda about Kendrick, and the Swede comforted him with an arm pat before they disappeared from sight. Malik joined the group shortly, and they sat around doing not much for the rest of the day, until Alec arrived from the airport. The Brit rolled his eyes and glared at Teddy when he held his hand out and offered a temporary roommate truce.
“Don’t even try it Albrecht,” Alec growled as he stomped past his new roommate to make sure his things were OK. Teddy and Blue both followed after him, Blue offering him a sad face and Teddy glaring.
“Welcome back Alec!” Blue cheered. “Did you bring Scamps back? Shelly needs to say goodbye.”
“Don’t worry, Blue,” Alec said, his demeanor immediately changing from the harsh way he reacted to Teddy, “Scamps and Shelly won’t have to be separated. Here he is if you want to take him to visit your still definitely male turtle.” Alec opened an animal carrying case as he spoke, and Scamps crawled out quickly.
“Transgendered!” Blue insisted, as Scamps walked over to her.
“Go with Blue,” Alec instructed, so Scamps climbed onto Blue’s leg. She tried not to be too freaked out as she walked back to her new room with the rat, leaving Teddy and Alec alone.
“Potts,” Teddy began, “I know neither of us is overly excited—.”
Alec cut Teddy off, “I am far more than not overly excited. I plan on filing a formal complaint to the residence board.”
“I’ve tired. Trust me, I’ve tried, Potts, but we’re just going to have to live with it,” Teddy replied. “We can fill out a very specific roommate agreement, but we don’t get a choice. We have to have a semester of this. It sucks, but let’s get through it with respect, OK?” Alec glared at his new roommate, but finally held his hand out reluctantly.
“Fine, Albrecht. Welcome to my room. Don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you.”

Hooray!

This is my fourth-ish of these perhaps? I don't know why I write them, but I hope you enjoy this. This story inspired by my love for dumb jokes, terrible names to have in America, people being the opposite of stereotypes, and fascination with multiracial twins. Don't make fun of my awesome song writing skills either. The song is totally brilliant. And meant to be written by a character so if it sucks that reflects on him not meeee. OK, done with that. Ready go!

The “Odd Couple” was our nickname starting with high school. I mean, naturally, right? Cause if you spend that much time with someone you're obviously dating. Duh! Isn't that how it works with female friends too? I guess what I'm getting at here is that we were not, in fact, dating. My name is Dong Ki. I'm not joking and it's not funny so don't you dare laugh. Dong Ki Smith. My mom is Korean and my dad is white of some kind (I'm thinking Scottish, but it could be anything). My best friend and the other member of our “Odd Couple” is Mamello Lambert, whose mom is some kind of black (perhaps who the hell knows? I've never asked!) and dad is some kind of white (see parentheses after “black”). Clearly we're a strange combination of races, then there's also that fact that I'm 6'4” and incredibly let's say skinny, and he's about 5'4” and something like…let's call it rotund. He's pretty much effeminate and totally straight, I'm more or less masculine and totally gay. You know, the kind of people you'd expect to be best friends, right?

Yeah, we think so too. Mam(ory) and Dong is what they used to call us when we met in third grade, so “The Odd Couple” isn't the worst thing we've ever heard. Except when we met these two amazing people, and, well...Let me just tell this little story. First of all, may I say it was always our combined dream to meet and wed a pair of fraternal twins, so we’d stay in one family unit. While we weren't a couple, we've always been a unit, and when we went out we usually went out together. When we went to class, we had exactly the same schedules. We went to the same community college with all our classmates who were poor like us, and that is where we met the Caldwell twins, Calvin and Cecelia. Trust me when I say, never was there a pair of fraternal twins as fine as these two. They were one of those weird sets of twins with different races, so Calvin looked, and was, half Indian while Cecelia looked, and was, entirely white. They had the reputation for being the “weird twins” of their old school (their nickname was “Twin Cs” due to their names though). Ello (I gave Mamello the nickname of “Ello” naturally pronounced like a cockney person would pronounce “hello” in eight grade and called him that thereafter) and I decided they were perfect for the pair of us to date. We were more or less twins ourselves, other than the being completely opposite thing, so it was perfect!

Except the day they came up and talked to us hindered our plans. We were in Anthropology, together of course, as were the C twins. As class ended, we noticed the pair of them approaching us and were ecstatic. We'd been planning for how to approach them for nearly a month, and now it seemed we wouldn't have to. Unfortunately the exchange went like this:

“Hey,” Celia said, giving us a warm, suggestive smile that I first took as a good sign, “so we heard about you two and we just wanted to say...” I squeezed Ello's hand and we gave each other excited glances, but our faces fell when Calvin spoke to finish the sentence for her.

“We love that you two are in a relationship! I mean such obviously different people,” he said, and Ello smacked his forehead in that dramatic way he liked to behave as I denied their words.

“We're not in a relationship!” I protested. The twins looked confused as all four of our pairs of eyes were drawn to the fact that Ello and my hands were linked together. “Damn,” I cursed, pulling my hand away and sighing.

“Oh sorry, we thought you guys were out and we wanted to go to lunch, but, uh...Sorry if you're not,” Cecelia said, nervously stepping away from us. Calvin followed her example, and Ello and I had a quick conversation with our eyes.

“We lied, we're totally dating,” Ello declared.

“Yeah let's go to lunch!” I declared. We grinned at each other, fancying ourselves geniuses, and they smiled at us. Soon found us eating lunch together at a local deli, getting to know each other. Cecelia explained that she went by “Celia” and Calvin went by “Cal” and for that reason I will now refer to them as such. Then Celia asked that question every friend we ever tried to make always got around to…

“So what are your actual names? I mean, you go by DK and Ello. Those aren’t your legitimate names, are they?” she inquired, and Ello and I glanced at each other and he wrinkled his nose.

“My name is Mamello,” Ello said with his characteristic nose wrinkle. There was silence then as Celia and Cal glanced at me. Between “Mamello” and “Dong Ki” I would absolutely say that the latter is much more embarrassing.

“Your name is cool cause it’s like Donkey Kong,” Cal interjected, in a gesture I think he meant to ease the tension.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “DK stands for Dong Ki,” I stated, and Cal laughed as Celia gave me a quizzical look. Cal obviously thought I was joking, but Celia wasn’t quite sure. Upon my uncomfortable laugh and downcast glance, Celia elbowed Cal, who gasped.

“You’re not joking?” he asked. “I’m so sorry for laughing!”

“It’s OK,” I permitted gently, “I’m used to it. So where are the two of you from?”

“We’re from, uh, Oregon. Portland,” Celia replied, as Cal stared at his hands in shame as he moved his coffee cup back and forth on the table.

“Wow! That’s far away!” Ello gasped. “That’s crazy! Why did you move out here?”

“Um, our—er,” she stopped and glanced at her brother before scowling and starting over, “sorry, um…Yeah, our grandparents live out here sorta, and…we like the city and everything, you know?”

“Of course, of course,” Ello stated, as I was distracted by Cal’s dejected looks as he fidgeted with whatever he could get his hands on from the table. “So I have to ask…,” he began, but he was met with a sharp elbow to his side. Ello and I are best friends, you see, so I knew exactly what he was going to ask so I did my best to curb his efforts to ruin our new almost friendship. It was much too soon to inquire about their racial differences. Luckily, Cal spoke abruptly as Ello looked at me and gave me a “what?” expression.

“Why are you named Donkey?” he asked. “Do your parents really like them or something? Like…I mean, donkeys are kind of fun animals I guess, but they’re mostly dirty…” Ello and I glanced at each other and broke out into laughter.

“My name,” I said with a laugh. When I was overwhelmed by my fit of laughter and couldn’t continue on, Ello took over.

“It’s Korean. Dong as in D-O-N-G space Ki as in K-I,” he explained as I continued cracking up about Cal’s statement. It didn’t take long for me to become enamored with Cal, and this moment was but one example as to why.

“God, I…I’m so dumb,” Cal sighed, resting his head against the table we were eating at.

“No,” I laughed, “no, it’s a problem at all. It’s endearing.” I patted his arm softly and he looked up at me and smiled this pretty little smile that stayed cemented in my memory as the moment I realized how beautiful he was. We talked a while longer and agreed to weekly lunch dates on Wednesdays, and I narrowly resisted hugging Cal goodbye when he apologized again for “offending” me.

Once Ello and I got back to our shared apartment, we gushed over how awesome the twins were. We agreed that we should definitely tell them the truth about us not actually dating as soon as possible, and speculated as to why they’d only wanted to hang out with the two of us if we were dating. To our horror, we figured it was because they were actually a married couple, not siblings as we’d been led to believe. You see, at this point we didn’t know their backstory at all; we just knew they talked only to one another and had the same last name.

Though we were basically completely positive this was the case, we decided to give them a chance. Maybe they would get a divorce. They got married pretty young after all. By the time Anthropology rolled around again on Friday, we devised a plan to very carefully observe whether the two of them wore rings. They did not. We figured we could be wrong and maybe they just didn’t wear rings but were still married. They were young after all, they might not be able to afford them, since Cal worked part time at the ranch back home and their young child, Caroline, was born back when Celia was only fifteen…We had a lot of time to theorize about it. We knew we were wrong, but we loved making up backstories for people. The twins’ actual backstory, which we learned much later, was nothing we would have predicted. That story is for later on, however. After class we walked them back to the bus and chattered aimlessly, getting more used to each other. By our next Wednesday lunch date they were comfortable enough with us to for Celia to offer Ello her clever new nickname for him.

“I mean, I’m just saying…What I think of is Caramello. Like the candy, you know, Caramellos?” Celia suggested. Ello and I glanced at one another, then looked back at her and grinned.

“You’re a genius, Celia. A genius,” I applauded with a laugh. “I’ll keep calling him Ello, since that’s his name, but I think it’s perfect. Since he’s kind of caramel colored anyway.” I winked at her, saying what she probably wasn’t quite comfortable saying but was probably thinking.

Soon we became facebook friends and exchanged numbers, Ello and I first dropping subtle hints that we thought the twins were a married then facebook stalking them to confirm that they were in fact…siblings! We were delighted, to say the least. We then proceeded to check what their sexual orientation and relationship statuses were, but neither had anything listed in those fields. It frustrated us. Therefore we theorized that they were in a weird incestuous polyamorous relationship. For the next two months of getting to know them, we looked for signs that this was the case. While we never found any evidence supporting it, we also never found any debunking it, so the theory remained in our minds for quite a while. Along the way we, of course, explained to them that we weren’t in a relationship, so as to avoid any weird hijinks that belong only in romantic comedies. As it turns out, saying “Only one of us is gay,” and not specifying which one can cause some hijinks that belong in romantic comedies. Unfortunately, Ello and I aren’t great at big speeches to get people to like us again so the results are not quite like rom coms, but I digress.

By the middle of November the two of them were spending a lot of time at our apartment, and we knew them incredibly well. Our conclusion, after getting to know them so well, was that they were perfect for each of us, respectively. Celia was smart, too smart, just like Ello was. The two of them would prattle on about politics or global warming or something for hours, which usually resulted in Cal and me sneaking off to play video games or watch dumb TV. Cal was perfect. Actually, he was beyond perfect. Everything he did was amazing, but the thing I enjoyed most was his sense of humor. He had a gift for saying things that were completely terrible and making them sound funny. Alternatively, he would tell jokes a five-year-old would think were brilliant, then laugh about them for a good twenty minutes. Often a couple hours later I would catch him giggling and inquire as to why and he would say, “Nothing, nothing…just remembering that thing from before…hahaha!”

I was hopelessly and desperately in love. From the way he behaved I could tell Ello was too, so we made a pact; on the first day of December we’d each tell our respective potential suitors about our feelings, so we set up for each of us to spend that Saturday with each of them. Cal and I stayed in at Ello and my apartment, while he and Celia went to the mall for a day of shopping followed by dinner and a movie. Even Cal, dense as he is, must have been able to tell how nervous I was. In any case, he was polite through it as he recited his latest joke to me. He’d noticed I appreciated them almost as much as he did, what he didn’t realize was I only appreciated them because they were coming from him. Either way, it became how he greeted me for a time.

“What do you do when you see a spaceman?” he asked, laughing as he said it.

I pretended to mull it over for a second before replying, “I don’t know, what?”

“Park your car, man!” he declared, laughing hysterically as he pulled his shoes off and walked into our apartment. Standing, dumbfounded for a moment, I tried to figure the joke out. Usually they were simple and stupid, but this joke in particular just appeared to be weird and stupid. “Don’t get it?” he asked genially.

“No, no, of course I get it,” I denied as I trailed along behind him. He headed immediately to our couch and flopped down; we planned on spending the afternoon watching our favorite cheesy movies without the sound and speaking for the people. Clearly our friendship was highly intellectual.

“OK, what does it mean then?” he asked, and I scowled at him and sat down next to him. I made a couple of noises to signify my thought process, before I finally shrugged. “If there’s an open parking space you should park in it!” he explained delightedly. We started the movie pretty quickly after that, and once it was done I cooked us a pizza and sat down across from Cal at our kitchen table, preparing for what I was about to tell him. I didn’t get very far into the confession before unfortunate results.

“So, Cal, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about…,” I mumbled, then glanced down at my fidgeting hands for encouragement. They did not help, but I persevered anyway, “So, I mean, you know I’m gay…” This is where the conversation took a turn for the terrible.

“Oh shit! No no no!” he yelled, bolting from the apartment immediately, leaving so fast he forgot his shoes.

“Um…,” I mumbled to the empty space he used to occupy, feeling something terrible slowly setting in. As tears filled my eyes and this horrible sinking “what have I done?” feeling settled in, I walked over to the apartment door and stared at it, willing Cal to come back and tell me I hadn’t just somehow ruined everything. To my immense surprise, Cal’s worried—not offended or upset, but worried—face reentered the room within moments.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked, in a moment of strange determination, and I gaped at him. He snapped his fingers and stared at me expectantly.

“We thought we did! I’m sorry, I…We—I forget that Ello’s the more effeminate one and the one you’d assume was the gay one,” I mumbled, and Cal frowned at me and gave me a slightly tender glance before turning around and pulling his shoes on.

He headed for the door, and upon realizing I was frozen in place trying to figure out what to say to fix this, he called, “Well come on. Celia didn’t answer her phone, you have to help me find them.” Nodding along, I was secretly incredibly relieved he wanted anything to do with me at all after his outburst. The car ride to the mall started out in silence, until one small sentence burst out of my mouth.

“Are you mad?” I asked softly, and Cal gave me a shocked look in response. Of course he was mad, I thought to myself. I was wrong.

“No, no!” he denied. “Celia, she’s just, she’s really flirty with guys who are gay, you know? Because she already has a boyfriend and the only way for her to get her male flirting out, according to her, is to flirt with gay guys. And since she thinks Caramello is gay she’s been shamelessly flirting with him and leading him on! He likes her, doesn’t he?” Cal asked, and I nodded without glancing away from the road. “Shit. And today was your little confession day, huh?” At first when he asked that, I thought he had the two of us completely figured out and I had severely underestimated his observance skills. Thankfully he proved me wrong, “You kept me apart from her so he could ask her out, right?”

I hesitated, feeling bad for lying, but now completely afraid of revealing the truth to Cal, “Yeah…It was going to be perfect for them, you know?” Cal kept trying to reach Celia’s phone, explaining that she was horrible at handling rejecting people and the relationship dynamic between the four of us would get completely messed up if Ello went through with his plans. Eventually he tried Ello’s as well.

My best friend picked up on the second attempt, and Cal’s tan skin paled at the greeting. He hung up quickly, after telling Ello I was on the way, and then declared, “We’re too late. Drop me off with my sister. I’m going to call her…You go talk to Caramello…God, you guys were such good friends too…”

“We don’t have to stop being friends,” I insisted, apparently so scared of losing my relationship with Cal that I forgot to think about my poor best friend and how terrible he was probably feeling.

I parked the car at that moment, and looked over to Cal, who had a surprisingly warm expression on his face as he stared at me. “You’re right,” he mumbled. “I forget Celia and I don’t have to share everything sometimes.” After that he called his sister and she finally picked up this time, as I called Ello. We figured out where the two were, in opposite ends of the mall, and walked to the entrance side by side. Either end of the mall meant we had to part ways, and Cal gave me a grimace as he turned to go the other direction.

“I’ll see you soon,” he mumbled, and I reached out to pat his shoulder lightly, which had become the standard in our parting of ways.

“Yeah,” I mumbled bitterly, annoyed we hadn’t had the foresight to stop what had just occurred. Suddenly, and with no real warning, Cal reached forward and hugged me. It was a quick hug, but it was warm and full of feeling. If I wasn’t so worried about Ello, I would have been delighted, but as it were I just gave Cal a sad smile as we pulled apart, both of us aware everything had probably changed with our relationships, waved and went to search for Ello.

After driving Ello back to our apartment, he and I sat down and talked about what happened, and I ended up admitting that I hadn’t told Cal how I felt for him yet. Once he told me his side of the story, which involved misread cues, unwanted kisses, and shoves followed by shouting; he asked me how it went with Cal, and I just stared at my hands until I was finally able to mutter that I’d started telling him and he’d freaked out about Ello and Celia. He managed to applaud our efforts to save the day, before saying he needed to be alone for a while, so I let him be.

Anthropology on Monday was tense and uncomfortable, but Cal and I managed to speak alone quickly as we were leaving to confirm that we both still planned to attend lunch on Wednesday. Ello refused to come, scared Celia might be there, and Celia refused on the same idea in reverse. This left Cal and I alone to eat lunch, but I didn’t mind. Initially I’d been nervous just the two of us together for lunch would be strange or uncomfortable, but it was a moot worry.

He greeted me with a joke, as per our norm, “Why was the sand wet?”

“I don’t know, why?” I asked with a smile as I handed him a hot chocolate cup, which he’d taken to since admitting his wasn’t fond of coffee. Since I’d arrived before him I ordered for both of us, hoping he liked my choices.

“You never even try to guess!” he protested as he looked at the food I’d chosen for him. I rolled my eyes affectionately as we grabbed the food trays and headed to our little table, in the corner of the little café we ate at every week.

“Uhh,” I mumbled, “the sand was wet because…of the…water.”

“The water?” Cal laughed, rolling his eyes. “Psha, you dumb. The answer, of course, is because the sea weed! Duh!”

I laughed, because I couldn’t resist laughing at his inner dork, even when he insulted me. The lunch was pleasant, even better, as it turned out, than eating with Celia and Ello there, because I could focus completely on Cal. Our weekly lunch dates wouldn’t last much longer anyway, since the semester ended soon, but we made the most out of this one in particular. Friday, Cal asked me if I wanted to go to an arcade together, and I was met with the next great obstacle in our budding relationship: I didn’t know if Cal was gay or not. Though he still wanted to spend time with me after being informed that I was gay, that fact alone didn’t confirm or deny his sexual orientation. Though I conducted research on it, it was much more challenging when Ello wasn’t there to back me up and conspire with.

By the time he and Celia were going to leave to head home for the holidays I still hadn’t figured it out. In any case, Cal spent his last evening at school at Ello and I’s apartment. I was sharply aware this would be a perfect opportunity to tell him how I felt about him. After watching a terrible horror movie together, I turned to him with my business face.

“So, Cal, as you know, I am a not-so-flaming homo,” I began, and he nodded, “and I have a question I need to—.” At this moment, his phone went off. Of course it did.

“Sorry, uh sorry!” he said, pulling his phone from his jeans’ pocket and glancing at it. “Sorry, it’s Celia, I should get this, sorry,” he apologized as he stood from the couch and answered the phone. As I listened to one end of a conversation and got utterly confused, I wondered if Cal was doing this on purpose and I just wasn’t meant to tell him; if we just weren’t meant to be together. While I pouted that the person I liked—maybe even loved—was very resistant to my attempts at informing him of this fact even though I almost died of a panic attack every time I tried, said person invited his sister to join us at my apartment.

“She wanted to give you and Caramello your Christmas gifts and apologize for stuff, you know? I can’t say no to this! This could be our chance to fix everything. Reunite the four amigos, you know?” he suggested, and I nodded, but something about the way he said it made we wonder if I’d completely imagined the near romantic tone underlying our relationship. Before I worked up the strength to speak Cal had run off to talk to Ello about Celia coming to bring gifts. The night went far too quickly and ended in Celia and Ello promising to put their past drama in the past and me not getting out what I wanted to say to Cal. As he and Celia were leaving our apartment it dawned on me this was the very last time I would see either of them for a few weeks. Hugging Celia, she laughed and smiled at me and expressed her relief that things could hopefully go back to how they’d been before the “incident.” After Celia and I said our goodbyes and she turned her attentions to Ello, I turned mine to Cal, who gave me the most sheepish look he’d ever given to me.

“What was it you were going to say when Celia called?” he asked, and I considered telling him the truth of the matter. I opened my mouth to tell him, but no sound came out, so I shut it and shook my head instead.

“Forget about it,” I dismissed, and he came very close to frowning at this response. “Just…have a merry Christmas.” Something sad and painful flashed across his eyes at the statement, but it vanished as soon as it appeared. Celia and Ello finished speaking, so Cal mumbled that he had to leave, almost as if he didn’t want to. For some reason I got the distinct feeling that he was waiting for me to say something. When no sound managed to escape my lips, he just smiled sadly and reached up to me to give me a hug. I happily returned the hug and held him a little longer than I should have, before the twins left. Once they were gone I felt a sinking unpleasantness at the knowledge that the next time I’d see Cal’s smile wouldn’t be until the New Year. That night was spent thinking about how much of an idiot I was. The subsequent three evenings were spent pining for Cal, who I texted almost non-stop during the time frame. I never went so far as to say “I miss you” but it was heavily implied in texts such as “I heard a joke today that reminded me of you” and “School is so boring without you around.” At this point it was December 22nd, and I had yet to return to my home (a half-hour from campus), but planned to do so that very day until I received a call from my parents to tell me they wouldn’t be home until the 23rd. This change of schedule caused me to change my plans, and I went to our favorite little café (which I avoided since Cal left because of The Pining) to mope that my family didn’t want to leave vacation to spend a little extra time with me. Ello had already returned to his home, or I probably would have whined to him about it.

As it turns out, going to the café on this day was a brilliant idea. Imagine my shock when I see one Calvin Caldwell sitting at a table alone, looking like he was going to cry. “Cal?” I asked, walking over to him with a scowl on my face. “What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Portland!”

“Shhh shhh,” Cal scolded, “don’t cause a scene.” Though regularly he would have a valid point, the café’s usual customers—college students—were on break so the place was almost completely empty. I sat down next to him and tried to look in his eyes, but he just turned them away from me in shame. “I thought you’d be home by now,” he mumbled finally.

“My parents’ flight got delayed until tomorrow,” I stated, then scowled deeply. “You left four days ago.”

“Not exactly,” he mumbled, before falling silent again.

After a tense pause I spoke again, “Are you going to tell me what happened? I mean, did something go wrong? Is Celia OK? Did you guys get in a crash or something?” He shook his head at me and stared at his hands nervously, reminding me of our very first lunch date with Ello and Celia. This time it was just the two of us, still on campus for the holidays together.

“Can we not talk about this here?” he requested gently, and I nodded. Instead of walking in step with me, as I hoped he would, Cal trailed behind me the entire way to my car, and didn’t respond to my queries until we were inside my apartment. As soon as we both stepped foot inside the main room of our apartment, Cal turned around to face me and started crying.

“Cal!” I gasped, shutting the door and quickly reaching my arms out to pull him close to myself. For a time I didn’t keep track of that felt much too long and unbearably painful, Cal sobbed into my shoulder and I rubbed his back gently. Once he calmed down I walked him to the couch, sat him down and made him some more hot chocolate.

“Thank you,” he mumbled somberly as I handed it over. I sat down next to him and he scooted closer to me, sighing and sipping his cup.

“Do you want to…I don’t know…Tell me what happened?” I asked, not always comfortable with speaking so frankly about emotions. Life was always about the surface and fun for me, but for someone as important as Cal, a little discomfort would be worth it. Besides that, seeing Cal unhappy was physically hurting me and I wanted to make him feel better as soon as possible.

“Um, I, um…,” he trailed off. “You sure you want to know?” I nodded and he recommended, “Settle in. It’s going to be so…dumb...” I nodded and waited as he sipped his hot chocolate before beginning his tale, and thus I learned the truth of Cal’s family. “So you have no doubt noticed Celia and I aren’t exactly the same race. Unfortunately, this isn’t because our parents are an interracial couple…They’re both white. We’re biologically related, you know? Neither of us is adopted…” He gave me a minute to process this, seeming like he hoped I would fill in the blanks and not have to have him explain it to me. As he had a decent number of times in the past, he overestimated my intelligence. “So my biological dad and her biological dad aren’t the same person.”

“But you’re twins!” I gasped, and he nodded, sipping his hot chocolate again.

“The doctor said it was one in a million,” he stated, sighing. Silence fell over us as I put on my thinking cap and thought over what this particular fact might mean, and Cal gave me the time I needed.

“Your mom cheated on your dad?” I suggested, and he sadly shook his head.

“What happened to my mom was…,” he mumbled, and I blinked as I finally understood what that meant.

“Rape?” I suggested softly, causing Cal to nod slowly.

“She didn’t tell anyone until after I was born…It was a really terrible time for her. She wanted to give me up for adoption, but my dad convinced her not to…,” he trailed off, and I rested my hand on his shoulder, causing him to rest his head on it for a moment. After fighting down an unfortunate surge of emotion, he went on, “So, umm…I grew up with my parents, you know? They tried their best, but I could always sort of see it in the way they looked at me that they wished they didn’t have me around. I only know all this because Celia figured it out for me, and I’ve never actually told anyone else, so…You won’t tell anyone, right?” I nodded, and waited for him to go on to explain the current relevance.

“So, um?” I asked, as he finished with his hot chocolate and stared down at his fidgeting hands. As his hands starting shaking, I decided to grab them and gently took his hands in mine. He sniffled and looked up at me with an appreciative glance before he went on.

“So I was talking to them about this Christmas and my Dad, he just…he says, ‘Your mom and I were talking, and we think it would be better if you didn’t come home for Christmas this year. You’re 18 now, so we feel our…Our debt to you has been fulfilled.’” After he said those words, tears came pouring out of his eyes again, and he leaned forward into an awkward couch hug with me.

“And Celia’s OK with this?” I asked. Before the “incident” I’d gotten to know Celia as an intelligent and passionate girl who cared deeply for her friends and family. Not caring that Cal had been banned from home at Christmas didn’t line up with her character at all.

“I didn’t tell her about it before she left. I lied about it a little bit. She called me after she figured it out and yelled at me and then I felt so bad and stupid and I haven’t taken any of her calls or read any texts,” he sniffled as he explained, and I nodded to agree with the actions Celia took and how well they lined up with my image of her. Cal rubbed his eyes, pulled away from me, and mumbled, “Sorry about this, I…”

“No, it’s fine,” I denied quickly, “I just want you to smile. Would anything make you feel better?”

“I don’t know,” he hiccupped, scooting closer to me again. “Can I nap in your bed?” at the moment it seemed like a strange request, but I allowed him to as I tried my hardest to figure out what I should do to cheer him up. By the time he woke up I’d called Ello for an emergency conference and he recommended exactly my plan, so I knew it was good.

As he stumbled out of my room back into our small living space, looking like he was still half-asleep, I grinned at him. “What’s brown and sticky?” I asked.

“A stick?” he said, offering the slightest of chuckles. “I’m the master of dumb jokes. I know them all, don’t try me,” he guaranteed. This became a challenge as I attempted to recall every stupid joke I’d ever heard or looked up, “Where do kings keep their armies?”

“In their sleevies,” Cal countered quickly, and I frowned at him.

“What do you call a sleepwalking nun?”

“A roamin’ Catholic.”

“What did the pony say when it had a sore throat?”

“Sorry, I’m a little horse.”

“Why doesn’t a seagull fly over the bay?”

“Because then it would be a bagel.”

“Why…uh….why doesn’t the Calvin…have a Hobbes?” I asked at last, a show of brilliance that I managed to say anything at all when I ran out of jokes.

“Hm,” Cal replied, smiling at me legitimately at last, “I think you’ll find he does have a Hobbes.”“You have a Hobbes? Like a toy tiger?” I asked, and he nodded. “That’s awesome!” Cal nodded at me again as he approached me, and I smiled at him, motioning the TV. “Would you like to play stupid video games for a while?” Glancing at the game system then back at me, Cal eventually confirmed my idea and the two of us spent the evening playing video games and forgetting the crap in our (mostly his) lives. It was at bedtime that I was met with a sharp obstruction to my functioning regularly.

My bed was the natural best place for Cal to sleep, so I offered to stay in Ello’s vacated room, but Cal quickly protested and asked me to stay in a desperate voice I couldn’t resist. When I attempted to sleep on the floor in a terribly made makeshift bed, Cal asked me if I wanted to just share the bed. I had never both wanted something and not wanted it so badly in my life. To be perfectly honest, scenarios where Cal invited me to share my bed with him had crossed my mind before, but they were nothing like this one. It took me longer than it should have to quell these thoughts, but I collected myself and climbed into my double bed with him, the two of us in rather close quarters.

His clingy snuggling did not help the unclean urges I unfortunately started feeling. When he started sniffling, a sure sign of a resurgence of tears, all unclean urges subsided and my need to care for him took over. Taking the initiative, he grabbed my arms and effectively pulled me forward so that the two of us were spooning. Holding him in my arms was beautiful, his crying was tragic, and I was narrowly resisting the desire to kiss him and let my hands wander. Instead I focused on sleep, which came more quickly that I was expecting.

Cal woke me in the morning with gentle nudges, and offered me breakfast in bed. His sweetness was not helping him be more resistible; in fact it did the opposite. By the end of breakfast, which he sat next to me on the bed to eat, I decided I could delay the truth no longer. For both our sakes Cal needed to know how I felt about him. As I could have predicted, he did not give me the chance and ran off into the kitchen to take care of the dishes instead.

After we both prepared for the day with a good brushing of our teeth and got dressed, I resolved that the time was about to happen. When I walked to my living space and saw Cal there offering to start a terrible movie for me, something different than I’d intended came out, “Would you just stop it?” I shouted, and the hurt that washed across Cal’s face pained me so much I realized what I just said. Even though I knew what I was saying was some sort of backed up repressed desire plus anger combo, it just kept flowing. “You’re too much! And every time I try to tell you how I feel about you, your god damn phone rings and ruins everything!” Cal blinked at me, set the TV remote down, and backed away toward the door.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered gently. “I’ll leave you alone, then…”

“I want the opposite of that!” I shouted forcefully, walking over to where he was approaching the door and blocking his access. “I want the opposite of that forever!” Comprehension as to what what I was shouting at him meant dawned on him, and he looked like he was about to scold me for something when a familiar tune played.

Cal and I just stared at each other for one extended moment before he fished into his pocket and looked at his cell phone. “It’s my mom,” he mumbled, and everything else faded back into concern for him as he asked, “should I answer it?” Time slowed as I tried to will myself to urge him to answer it. If his mom was calling, though, I could only assume she’d changed her mind and wanted Cal at home for Christmas. This should have made me happy for his sake, and it did, but it also made me sad that I wouldn’t get to spend the holidays with Cal as I’d been dreaming since I heard the situation.“Yeah,” I managed to mumble, after too many thoughts to keep track of crossed my mind. He nodded at me and answered, his tone showing how nervous he was. After hearing one strange side of a conversation and witnessing a change from melancholic to grinning, I knew Cal and I would not be spending the holidays together. Once he hung up the phone he ran over to me and gave me a giddy hug, before asking if I would drive him to his apartment and next the airport. I agreed, doing my best to hide my disappointment that once again Cal didn’t seem to know the entirety of my feelings, despite my best efforts.

Still, I decided to be supportive of him and helped him pack for a return trip home. An explanation for his invitation back home filtered through in what he told me, and it clearly had a great deal to do with Celia. I felt a conflicting amount of gratefulness and bitterness toward her as I listened. Finally and quite suddenly we were at the farthest point in the airport I was able to go, and Cal turned toward me with a grin.

“Thanks, Deek,” he said, using his own nickname for me as usual. “You’re the best. Lean down here for a moment, please?” he requested. It wasn’t uncommon for him to ask me that, considering I was freakishly tall and he was slightly under average height, and he did so often when he didn’t want others to hear what he wanted to tell me. This time was different.

At first when I felt something pressing against my lips, I thought I was imagining it. When it sunk in exactly what was happening—Cal was kissing me—I quickly responded to the kiss and wrapped my arms around his back, pulling him close. We separated from the kiss and I stared down into Cal’s eyes, searching for some explanation. Instead he just stated, “I’ll text you every day. I’m sure I’ll be back for New Year’s Eve. See you then?” So, not only was he not going to acknowledge kissing me in a very public people-just-saw-that sort of place, he was just going to make plans for the future without consulting me.

I meant to protest it, I really did, but what came out of my mouth was, “I’ll miss you."

“I’ll miss you too, Deek,” he said. Paying no mind to any onlookers, he leaned up and gave me another small kiss then wrapped his arms around me into a hug. I held him there for a while, though I found it slightly harder to ignore the annoyed whispers surrounding us than he seemed to, and pulled myself away reluctantly. Finally he sighed, “I have to go. You should get home to your family too…Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” I mumbled in response. I think. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but my eyes started tearing up as he left, waving at me all the way, from what I guess was an emotional overflow. I heeded his words well and drove straight home from the airport and was greeted by my parents and older sister with delight. Cal called me to tell me he arrived safely later in the evening, and I wished him well with his family as I tried not to let on how much I wished he was with me at that moment.

As I was falling asleep that night, a thought struck me and I typed out a text message to him that said, “So just to be clear, that wasn’t some sort of platonic goodbye kiss, right?” My thumb hovered over the send button for a good ten minutes before I decided to save it for later as a draft.

It was Christmas Eve when I accidentally sent the text, in response to Cal’s text saying, “Good morning. Still not a morning person?” I knew I shouldn’t have saved it in drafts; I always ended up accidentally sending my drafts no matter if I ever meant to or not.

The wait for the response felt like at least three hours, though my phone claimed it to be only three minutes. It read, “No. Not platonic. I’d call it a…declaration of romantic intents. Do people regularly kiss you platonically?” Our conversation thus follows: “Well, you know…Just most people. I find I’m pretty irresistible…But seriously! I didn’t even know you’re gay!” (Me)

“No way! I must have told you. How could I have not shared that with you at some point? I swear I must have…In other news, now I’m thinking I didn’t and that explains a lot of the way you’ve been acting the past few months.” (Cal)

“Yeah. Seriously, you should let people know that. So if they want to date you they know whether they have a chance or not…On second thought, tell no one. Keep them all guessing. No one else needs to know.” (Me)

“Did you just imply you wanted to date me, good sir?” (Cal)

“Possibly. What is your response to these possible allegations?” (Me)

“Let’s talk about it when I get back—you know, in person. ;) Texting is the opposite of romantic.” (Cal)I saved that text away and read it every day until we were reunited. Christmas was enjoyable but agonizing—all I really wanted was to see Cal. Thoughts of him kept invading my mind, a problem which was definitely not lessened by the fact that he was the champion of texting. Seriously, dude could output upwards of 200 texts per day. I did not respond to every one of his texts, because I did things like eating and sleeping, but I appreciated them. A particularly interesting one, which I promptly informed Ello of, read, “Celia broke up with her boyfriend! Caramello might have a chance if he’s still interested! I can coach him in the intricacies of Celia wooing when I return if he’d like.” Ello hesitantly agreed to participate in his “seminar on Celia” before school started up again, still apparently having strong feeling for Celia.

After a week that felt like a century, Cal finally came back to school. Ello and I drove to the airport to pick him and Celia up, and as soon as we made eye contact he grinned and handed his bags to Celia.

“I’ve always wanted to do this! Stay there, I’m going to run to you!” he shouted to me, and I nodded seriously as he started running toward me. Despite a sturdy stance and an intention to hold my ground, when he collided with me in a very forceful hug we both fell over and ended up laughing too hard to stand until Celia caught up. The drive home was filled with animated talking between the four of us, which started out awkward but eased into comfortable by the time we dropped Celia and Cal off at their apartment. We bid them farewell and gave them space to settle back in. Later in the evening we met up with the two of them to head to a party, where Cal and I both became slightly inebriated. Celia and Ello, in what I think was a show of their perfectness as a couple, both refused alcohol.

By midnight I was tipsy, but still sober enough to understand what was going on. Cal and I shared a sloppy we’re-both-tipsy midnight kiss, and I just barely caught a glimpse of Ello giving Celia a soft kiss on the cheek, causing her to grin at him with admiration. Shortly after midnight the four of us headed home to our apartment and Cal and I proceeded to drink more. This is where my memory gets a little fuzzy, but I’ve pieced together the next events with Ello and Celia’s help. All I knew when I woke up in the morning was that my head hurt and I’d all but lost my voice; this all made sense with a little explanation. After we stumbled into our apartment, Cal and I decided it was time for popcorn. When we couldn’t convince Celia or Ello to make it for us, I got out a bag of it with determination and set it in the microwave. As I began typing the numbers, which I apparently was not reading and was just stabbing at (I set the timer to 88:34, but that’s irrelevant), Cal shouted at me to come to the couch. Luckily, I didn’t hit the start button on the microwave as I ran off to investigate.

Cal was standing on our couch waving around a bottle of liquor shouting, “A couch is…A couch is just like a…Like a boat! I’m on a boattt!” I laughed hysterically at him, agreed emphatically, and climbed onto the couch next to him. “Happy New Year! For your New Year I got you a boat!” he yelled and I gasped.

“For me? It mus’ have been s-so expensive! Is…a beau…Bee…ew…tiful boat! What shoul…shou we do with it first?” I asked, and Cal grinned.

“Sea shanties!” he declared. And so we sang sea shanties for what Celia and Ello claim was almost an hour. Once we finished with the sea shanties, we were determined to build sails so the boat could get out to sea. In the process of stacking a chair on the couch in an attempt to hang a blanket from the ceiling to act as sails, I slipped and fell and hit my head. Cal thought I was dead for almost a minute and cried while he rearranged the couch and pulled me onto it with him. I vaguely remember him placing my head in his lap and gently running his hands through my hair until I passed out.

In what I can only call a strange tangle of limbs with Cal is how I woke, with a bump on my head as well as a hangover. Suffice it to say, I spent the day mostly in bed, trying to get myself to feel better and shunning the rest of the world. For these reasons, Cal and I didn’t have a proper conversation until January 2nd. Once our plans to meet were finalized, I fretted needlessly over what shirt would set the mood the best, and made my hair particularly irresistible.

Cal walked into our apartment as Ello left to go “eat ice cream with Celia and hear about her ex” and I grinned as soon as he came in. Hugging on sight, we settled in at our small dining table to eat pizza and, well…We hadn’t gotten far enough into our plans to figure out what we wanted to do yet. So for a time we just sat and ate pizza and talked about how cheese was made. After a consensus was reached that neither of us had any actual idea about the cheese making process, we finished our meal and moved to the couch. We sat facing one another, and I decided to ask him what he’d received for Christmas.

One uncomfortable laugh and awkward silence later and I knew enough to know the answer wouldn’t be a good one, “A gift card for $25 to Wal-Mart.”

“Um…I don’t…,” I mumbled, feeling stupid for asking. Of course I reminded him of the tragedy of his family. That’s just who I am. Glancing away from him in shame, I tried to think of something to say to make him happy, but he saved me from having to be clever (since I really wasn’t). Some surprisingly soft hands guided my face to look back up. Cal’s brown eyes met mine with more warmth than sorrow, and I felt relief wash over me.

“Deek,” he said, “someday I hope to painstakingly explain why you shouldn’t have asked me that, but right now I’m not upset about it. We need to talk about our, uh…relationship.” His tan skin flushed, but he kept his eyes in contact with mine in determination. I forgot what he said and leaned in to enact my overwhelming urge to kiss him, but he pulled away and gave me a look. Thus began the sputtering mess of an attempt to explain my feelings that resulted in an unfortunate jumble of well-intentioned words.

“Well, I, I mean…Cal, you’re so a…amazing,” I couldn’t look him in the eyes as I spoke. My words just successively became more and more embarrassing as time went by. “I’m not sure what you…want me to say…,” I glanced up at him and he blinked at me and waited for me to go on. Later he explained that he was just being sadistic to see what I would do if I kept speaking. “You’re so awesome, so…And I would really like it, if you and me…y-you and I…If you and I could have—I mean! GO on a dar-DATE!” My nerves cause my words to come out in a pattern of speech I can only refer to as “stupid.” Cal still didn’t speak, so I stuttered onward, “I mean I’d love to make—GOD TAKE you out and ra…DATE you…I hate myself.” Cal laughed at me and leaned forward, pressing his lips against mine. When he pulled away from me he smiled and said, “You’re my favorite.”

“God, why?” I asked, covering my face in shame.

“Mental illness, I’d say,” Cal replied quite seriously. I rolled my eyes at him and laughed as I resituated myself closer to him. “Yeah, we should date. I mean, it’s kind of like we already…are.”

“I guess you’re right about that. Officially, though? I mean…How do you feel about facebook official?” I mumbled nervously, fidgeting and twiddling my thumbs. Cal grabbed my hands and gave me a look of regret that effectively previewed his rejection of my proposal.

“My family—I mean, my, like…My extended family, they don’t know I’m gay, and I just…I can’t. Not yet,” he mumbled, sadness enshrouding his features.

“Th—that…You kissed me at the airport,” I stuttered incredulously. Sometimes my filter didn’t work quite right. It didn’t sink in that what I said shouldn’t have been said until Cal’s face grew a degree in sadness.“Being open and honest with strangers is fine,” he stated softly, “but with a very homophobic family, it’s not. No matter how badly I wish I could let them into this part of my life, I…I want to still have a family. I just can’t tell them. They already…Think…badly...of me…” Silence fell over me as my mind sped along, searching for something to say to Cal to make him stop giving me his sad puppy eyes. I could sense this becoming a habit.

“I—I’m so stupid,” I stated. “I’m so sorry that I’m so stupid. I always do this, don’t I? Say the wrong thing…” Cal sighed, reached up and fluffed my hair out of place.

“You’ll get better at not doing that,” he insisted. The little voice in my head chimed in then, in the annoying tone it always used, and told me I should not just breeze past his trailed off “they already think badly of me” like it was nothing. When I felt like a piece of crap, talking to Ello and having someone listen and understand usually made it better. I sucked at reciprocating that with Ello, but I tried my damnedest because I loved him and wanted him to be happy. Since I loved Cal too, and I knew I did by this point, I should ask him about his problems and see if he wanted to talk to me.

Then this happened. “What did you just mumble?” Cal asked me.

My eyes widened. “What did I just mumble?” I repeated back at him, and he pursed his lips.

“Think about it for a minute,” he replied, with a slightly concerned slightly flattered look on his face.The words that came out of my mouth, upon reflection, consisted of, “I love Ello so I help him with things…I love Cal most so I should ask him about stuff…” Once I figured this out, I just stared straight at Cal, totally petrified and unsure of what I should say. My knowledge of the rules and faux pas of relationships was fairly limited, but I figured saying “I love [you]” before you’re officially dating is probably not usually looked at kindly despite what TV shows and romantic comedies tried to tell me. Cal blinked, breaking the staring contest we were virtually having.

“I…,” Cal trailed off. My heart leapt in my chest as sporadically as is possible for a heart to jump as I waited for what he would say. “Deek…,” he trailed off. If I was interpreting his actions correctly, he didn’t quite reciprocate or know what to say. My heart hurt as I wondered if I’d ruined everything just as it was starting. Shutting my eyes, I covered my face with my hands and wished to be struck by a sudden illness with all my might. Instead of falling suddenly, deathly ill, I just stayed there, frozen in place, waiting. It felt like hours. When I heard Cal shifting next to me, I assumed he was leaving. What I didn’t expect him to do was completely invade my space and crawl on top of me, push my hands aside and furiously kiss me.

This kissed devolved into something of a passionate, well, make-out session. It seemed like our relationship would be taking a couple of distinctive steps in one day, but Cal slowed down and stopped after a time that left me feeling slightly...Unsatisfied. Doing my best to ignore it, I focused my attention on Cal. He rested his head on my shoulder, kissed it, and then leaned up and looked into my eyes. “Did you mean it?” he asked, at least partially afraid of the answer.

I paused, stared into his eyes, and finally nodded, “I love you.”

He grinned, “I love you, too.” The four little words he said to me, announcing his feelings, returning mine; they kept me going for months after that. The rest of the day we lay together on the couch and watched a movie, until the prospect of Cal going home spawned another make-out session. By the middle of this one, Ello returned to the apartment, and Celia picked Cal up; the two took a bus back to their apartment.

Our honeymoon stage was the most beautiful time in my life to that point. Ello and Celia each expressed concern over our inability to keep our hands off one another, but we didn’t care that we were offending them. They owed us for our planning and plotting to get them together. It took us only two months to achieve success in our efforts, which we were quite proud of. The day Cal and I decided to date, Ello and Celia decided to start fresh in their relationship, and Cal and I decided to do everything in our power to convince them to get together.

A week later we realized we would be successful, we just didn’t know how long it would take. Since Ello told me everything and Celia told Cal everything, our manipulation skills (in a good way) were virtually flawless. Ello and Celia started hanging out by themselves at least partially because Cal and I became attached at the hip. In the beginning they bonded over their feelings of abandonment related to Cal and me. After that, once they informed Cal and me of these things and we made an effort to mend them, they continued hanging out just the two of them because they were able to be themselves and express different parts of themselves than they would when they were with us. Cal and I spent most of the time joking around, whereas Celia and Ello could only take so much joking before they wanted to discuss something serious.

Their joining of a political group on campus brought them closer together, and by five weeks into Cal and my relationship, Celia admitted she was starting to have feelings for Ello. It took us three weeks to convince our respective twins (Ello and I were brain twins) that they still had a good chance together. They officially started dating two months and three days after Cal and I started dating. Ello and Celia were much more private about their relationship, but they seemed very happy to Cal and I.

We were happy, too; more happy than I can describe. The best way to sum up our happiness comes in the song Cal wrote for me. He wasn’t a fantastic singer, but he was adorable for trying. After Cal and I had just made it through a rather rough patch known as our first fight, Cal wrote me a song. We admitted to both writing songs when we were younger, and while mine were just dreadful emo sort of songs with stolen melodies, his were sweet and cute with original albeit basic melodies. Neither of us was great at it, but they say it’s the thought that counts. The sincerity in his voice when he sang it was more than enough to make up for his lack in skill.

“The first day I met you I knew,
My life was made for only you.
Everything you say, everything you do,
You’re the one I turn to.”

I was grinning while he sang, and he was playing the guitar and focusing on it. Once he finished his first verse, he looked up and smiled at me with love in his eyes, then moved onto the chorus. It was through this verse that I realized Cal liked me initially from the day we met, which I’d never gotten him to admit.

“You’re my favorite.
You’re my heart, my soul, my everything.
You’re my favorite.
My favorite heart, my favorite soul, my favorite everything.”

Thoughts of our relationship flashed through my mind, and I felt myself grinning despite myself as he sang on.

“I love to tell you the dumbest of jokes,
I know your laughter is a hoax,
I love you for humoring me,
I love you for allowing me to be.
You’re not the most clever or smart,
You’re lucky you’re full of heart,
You make me laugh and hold me while I cry,
You encourage me to reach for the sky.”

After these verses I should have felt offended, I know, but I only loved him more. He repeated his chorus and then moved on to the next verse.

“We’re meant to be, there’s no alternative,
We now know we must forgive,
We’re together for better or for worse,
We love that we’re so diverse.
You and I, we’ll be forever.
You and I, wherever, whenever.
You and I, more than love.
You and I, a match made above.”

Cue the chorus again, and tears filling my eyes. To ever be apart from Cal seemed like the worst fate imaginable to me at that moment. After he finished the chorus this time, he laughed and smiled at my tears before finishing off the song.

“I wrote this song to declare how I feel,
You’re hopefully listening in total zeal.
We’re not quite as cheesy together as this song,
You and I, we’ll never be wrong.”

The chorus again, then the last line, “You and I, we’ll never be wrong,” finished the song. Cal set aside his guitar and walked over to me. I can trace back to the look we shared that day to say that was when I knew everything he said was true and we were going to last. The fight wasn’t over yet, not really, by that point. Eight months into our relationship Cal still hadn’t told even his parents about his relationship with me and it hurt. His refusal to tell them made me feel he was ashamed to be with me, unlike how proud I was to be with him. My parents knew Cal well enough by that point to ask him out to dinner while I had classes, but his parents didn’t even know I existed. He spoke gently as he sat next to me on my bed, “I can’t lose you over something so stupid…I’ll tell them. I want them to know. You’re amazing, and I do really want them to know that. So I’ll tell them. Tonight.”

“Thank you,” I replied, reaching out and hugging him. Later that night, Cal Skyped his parents from my room and I saw the two of them for the first time. They looked like an average middle-aged couple, and I could see a vague sense of Cal in his mother and virtually nothing of him in his father, as made sense. It was jolting how white they both were, and reminded me of the fact that it had probably always been obvious that Cal didn’t belong. He’d explained to me that his parents sometimes didn’t even disclose his existence to people when they didn’t have to, so as to avoid having to explain how he was spawned. This had hurt Cal, and sadly reminded him of what he was doing to me by not telling his parents about me. Ultimately, his decision to tell them had a great deal to do with this as well.

They seemed confused when they saw me and my room, and Cal grabbed my hand off camera before speaking slowly. “Mom, Dad…,” he mumbled, “there’s something I have to tell you. Someone I want you to meet…This is Dong Ki Smith. I call him Deek, he’s my…He’s my boyfriend. I’m in love with him. We’ve been dating for the past eight months.” Both of their faces fell. Cal had previously explained to me that he came from a fairly traditional family; even though his parents knew he was gay, they always seemed to be holding out hope that he might tell them it was just a phase or a joke. It was clear they didn’t know what to say, and his mom shook her head and left the screen.

“You have to warn us before you do something like this,” his father scolded, before disconnecting the call. Cal looked at me and smiled sadly, as if to say “that’s what I expected to happen.” Without saying anything I pulled him into my arms and held him there, rubbing his back as he tried and failed not to cry. Celia spoke with them about it, but I almost think her abrasive personality made them take longer to accept my relationship with their son. Cal slept over that night, which he’d started doing fairly often, but unlike most nights he just lay next to me, tracing circles on my chest and sighing. Eventually he apologized for his parents, and I quickly dismissed it, telling him it wasn’t his fault.

For weeks afterward, his parents refused to talk to him. We were coming back on the Holiday season when they told him they’d been correct the previous year and asked him not to return for Christmas once again. Celia calmly, since she was working on her anger issues with Ello’s help, told them she wouldn’t be coming home either. Naturally, I invited Cal to spend Christmas with my family, while Celia spent Christmas with Ello’s. It was a tradition for our two families to share Christmas dinner, and afterward our parents decided to leave Cal, Celia, Ello and I to ourselves for the evening. Once they cleared out, Cal’s smiles faded and his face betrayed how unhappy he was, but as soon as it occurred to them what Celia had given up for him, he smiled through it.

We sat together in my old room, Celia and Ello on the floor and Cal and I on the bed, wishing one another a merry Christmas gently. We watched “Elf” together, then Ello and Celia left, each hugging Cal and I goodbye. Finally we were alone, and Cal slunk his arms around my body and rested his head on my shoulder.

“You all right?” I asked, and he shook his head into my shoulder before stepping back from me and looking at me sadly.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, and then continued to back away as he ran his hand down my arm and tugged me back toward my room. “I’m so happy to be with you,” he said as we trekked the stairs, “this has been one of the best Christmases I’ve ever experienced.” He went on as we made it into the hallway, walking through it on the way to my room, past my sister’s and parents’ rooms. “You, your family…You’ve all been so great to me. I love you, I love spending time with you…But I still wish…I…It still hurts.” By this point we were both in my room, and Cal shut my door and hugged me again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I love you, I…Wish you didn’t have to go through this. I, I don’t really know your parents, but I’m sure…Someday they’ll realize everything they’ve lost.” Cal nodded into my shoulder, and I went on in a sputtering sense characteristic of the first time I’d told Cal how I felt about him. “I—I mean Cal, now more than ever I know…I know that you’re so…Amazing, funny clever, witty…You—you, they’re missing so much awesomeness when they tell you…When you don’t…When, when f—for Christmas they don’t…” Cal’s face steadily grew into a smile, and finally he decided to spare me and pressed his lips against mine to shut me up. “Let’s go to bed,” he suggested. It was past midnight, so I agreed to go to bed, and the two of us prepared for bed quickly and ended up lying together in my bed in the darkness of my room, too tired to do anything other than kiss before snuggling up together. Cal spoke as I faded to sleep, “It’s almost our one year anniversary. You know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve been looking forward to it,” I mumbled into the back of his neck, letting my eyes flutter shut.“We should make it great,” he suggested, tiredness showing up in his words. “New year, too…I’m so glad we’ll get to see another year together…,” it became clear to me shortly that he was just trailing off and talking the way he often did when he was tired. Giggling to himself, he asked, “Did I tell you I thought up a genius new joke?” “Huh-uh,” I responded, and he grinned. Though I couldn’t see him, as well as I knew him it was clear to me when he smiled. Every motion he made, everything about him, I knew so much, and happily learned more every day. His favorite dorky jokes were something I was well aware of, but he’d never told me of one he’d made up himself, so I eagerly awaited it.

“Knock knock,” he said, with another flashy grin. “Who’s there?” I asked.

“Ila,” he replied quickly.

“Ila who?” I mumbled, not understanding who or what “Ila” was.

“Ila-ov you,” he whispered gently, “and I want to spend every Christmas with you. And every New Year’s…And every day…” “I love you too,” I replied gently. “That’s what I want, too. To be with you forever…So let’s plan on it, OK? Now go to sleep, Cal.”

“OK,” he murmured, grabbing my hands so I was as close to him as possible, kissing one of them and relaxing his body to prepare to fall asleep. “Good night, my beautiful Dong Ki. Sweet dreams of carrots and other things donkeys dream off.” I snorted as I laughed into his neck, reminded as I often was how close to perfect Cal was for me. “Good night. Have sweet dreams of your donkey.”

We fell silent then, and I was nearly asleep before he spoke again.

“Bestiality is gross,” he stated.

I kissed the back of his head and murmured a quiet response, “You love it.”

“I know I do. And I will…Forever…And ever and ever and everrrr…”

“I need to sleep now.”

“Good night. I love you.”

“Love you too.”


“…And ever.”