I look in the box, now devoid of paper, and there’s a smaller box in it. I take a deep breath and I pull it out, marveling at its utter perfection. Then I rip that one open to find…another box, this one about the size of my two hands. After an appropriate amount of delaying in awe, I open that box to find a cellphone. And not the keyboard crap of my previous one, but an honest full-touchscreen modern smartphone. I distinctly remember not getting something like this for a few years in my last incarnations; I guess things are dramatically different all over, this time. I stare in actual wonder at it, jaw dropped. “Y’all. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Do you like it?” Dad asks.

“Heck yeah, I do! This is amazing! Thanks, Mom, Dad. This is just…wow.”

I hug them both and place the phone aside so that we can get it set up later.

We go through the stocking stuffers and get craploads of chocolate. I pull out a stick of deodorant. I look at Dad and ask, “…What are you tryin’ to say?”

Mom actually answers instead, “My dearest boy, you’ve gone from ‘stinking cute’ to ‘stinking and cute.’ Welcome to puberty; now put on some deodorant.” We all laugh about it and I lift my shirt to put some on. Dad notices the skill at which I do so, nodding in approval. I’ve basically given up on trying to act like I don’t know how to do things; I’m pretty sure they’re gonna aim to put me in GT next year. We’ll see where Matty ends up, because I know he’s been doing very well in the remedials. Pretty sure after this year he’ll be at least in normal, if not GT as well.

We go visit the grandparents and family as well, forcing me to endure the standard variety of older relative conversations (“Oh my lord, Phillip, you’re like twice as tall as you were!” and “Last time I saw you, you only came up to my knee,” etc.). Afterward, Dad helps me set the new phone up; as soon as service is established, I send Matty, “Merry Christmas!!!” with a few Christmas tree emojis. My previous phone didn’t even have emojis; that’s how crappy it was. We talk about what we both got for Christmas; he got a new sustain and soft pedal for his keyboard, as well as a new game and some neat science gadgets–no surprises there. All in all, a nice Christmas.

The next few days suck, though, because I know that we’re coming up on a useless birthday. We do go out fireworks shopping, which is pretty cool–Mom lets me get a couple of the Chrysanthemum spinners and some sparklers, and a few ‘bang snaps,’ those little poppers that you throw at the ground (preferably at your sisters’ feet) and make loud popping sounds. Other than that, we tend to go clothes shopping in the new year to get the good after-Christmas sales before heading back to school, so the days are otherwise pretty chill leading up to my birthday.

And then, the day arrives. The parents wake me up with a just-slightly-off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday,” and Matty texts me birthday wishes with cake and fireworks emojis. The sisters actually help Mom make breakfast, and it’s banana pancakes. Amen, hallelujah. There’s also bacon, which is awesome, and some scrambled eggs, too. Mom likes to remind me at this point every year that the doctor cut the cord at 11:59 p.m. just so I could be born in that year instead of the next. I could’ve been the first newborn of the year, but I was the last of the previous, which I feel fits me pretty well. I typically act like I’ve never heard the story before, even as my sisters are rolling their eyes hard enough to give me vertigo.

Later on that day, Mom knocks on my door (like I wish my sisters would) and asks, “Hey Phillip, how about we go clothes shopping today? That way we have more options next week for party times and such, and there might even be some New Year’s Eve sales going on.”

I put my phone down for a moment, pausing one of my new games that actually runs on the damn thing. “Uh, sure. That sounds good.” At least it’ll be something to do today.

We head out to a couple of different stores; as we’re trying on pants, it’s clear that the growth spurt has hit me hard; my previous pants size almost looks like capris on me now. We get a couple of pairs of jeans for casual wear and some new khakis for the uniform requirements at school, some more shirts, plenty of socks and underwear, all that. Afterward, Mom looks at her watch and says, “Well, we have some time for a movie or maybe going to Big Top.”

Big Top is pretty fun, I’ll admit–it’s an entertainment multiplex with laser tag, arcades, mini golf, and all that. But I reply, “Eh, maybe just a movie. I’d rather save Big Top for my party, maybe.”

We end up going to see The Improbables, this ridiculous comedy about a bunch of “superheroes” with horrible powers–like being able to smell terrible and the power to know what song is currently stuck in someone’s head. They somehow manage to save the day, and the media covers the whole thing up because they don’t want to have to interview ‘Mr. Stanks.’ The movie was pretty great, though.

Anyway, by the time we get out of there, it’s approaching sunset thanks to the short winter days. We head home and park the car. Interestingly, Dad’s car is in the driveway instead of the garage, as well; that’s unusual. I wait for mom to open the front door, and as soon as she does, I walk inside to hear “SURPRIIIIIISE!” This time, though, it’s not my sisters being stupid; there’s a banner across the entryway that says “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILLIP” in shiny letters, a wide variety of balloons about the place, and a line of boys: Edgar, Beto, Matty, Sean, and the twins are all waiting with party whistles in hand. Dad pops out from the kitchen and takes a picture of my stunned expression.

I quickly recover and say, “Wait, this isn’t the bathroom,” and turn to leave the house. As soon as the boys start yelling at me, I turn around with a huge smile and run up to give each of them a hug. “Holy sh–crap, y’all! Why did I not see this coming?!”

Matty grins from ear to ear. “I can be sneaky too, when I wanna be.”

“You put all this together?!” I ask incredulously. When he nods, I run up and pick him up for a huge hug; my growth spurt shows itself again as his feet dangle an inch or two more than usual from the ground. He squeals and kicks futilely as I squeeze him, finally putting him back down to beam at all the other boys. “This is incredible.”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Dad says with a sly smile. “Come along.” I follow him over to the backyard, where there is a freaking gigantic inflatable jumpy castle thing ready to be assaulted by a slew of bouncy boys. There are a few floodlights pointed strategically so that people can still see even after sunset. “People will be shooting fireworks for hours after midnight, so it doesn’t matter if you kids are loud. Within reason.” Then he adopts the ‘infomercial salesman’ voice and announces, “But wait, there’s more!”

We head to the garage, where Dad has cleared out the area and placed a variety of pillows, blankets, and sleeping bags, some of them belonging to the other kids; on one side is the living room TV mounted on the wall with Matty’s XBox One hooked up to it and a couple of instrument controllers for Rock Band 4; near the garage door is Matty’s actual piano keyboard complete with his new pedals; and on the back side is a table set up with various snacks and drinks. “Now, don’t eat too much, or you won’t have room for cheeseburgers. I got out ‘The Griller’ specially for this.”

My heart is racing; sure, I’ve had some wild fucking parties in my time, but usually on my own dime and filled with people I was paying off for something or other. Rarely if ever was a party of this magnitude thrown for me just because people liked me. I can’t help but get a little emotional about the whole thing, but it’s only enough to mist over my eyes before I yell, “MOONWALK FIGHT!”

We head outside. I grab a couple of pool noodles from the shed out back and pass them out; it’s only three, but there’s not room for 6 fully-geared boys in the Moonwalk, anyway. I take a noodle and run barefoot into the castle, daring anyone to take it from me. Sean and Vik decide to sit this one out, but within no time, the rest of us end up as an utter mess of boys bouncing round, slapping each other with pool noodles, rolling around wrestling the noodles out of others’ hands, and generally having a squealing good time.

As with all poorly-planned ideas, though, there are a few injuries: I sustain an elbow to the ribs, and Kasha gets a heel in the nose, which stops the fun. He scrambles his way out of the Moonwalk and huddles over, pinching his nose. Vik puts the bowl of pretzels that he and Sean were snacking on into Sean’s lap and leaps off the deck bench to see if Kasha is okay, as the rest of us ineffectively ask questions and generally get in the way until Mom comes out with tissues.

Mom shoos us away and leads Kasha up onto the deck, sitting him down on a bench. “Let me see it, please.” He shows her, and after a short examination, she hands him the tissue. “Looks fine. You’ll probably have a bruise, but nothing’s broken.”

Kasha stuffs the tissue up his bleeding nostril and mumbles, “Thank you.” Edgar, whose heel was the culprit, gushes apologies as Vik takes another look at Kasha’s nose. Eventually Kasha snaps, “Stop–stop it! Go away! I’m fine, I’m fine. I will be okay, okay?! Bozhe moi, you are annoying.”

Vik backs off with a hurt expression on his face. “Sorry I care.” He mumbles, “Khristos,” under his breath as he scoots back. Then, suddenly, he springs up and heads inside, beelining for the garage.

“Hey,” I announce, “Y’all stay here and make sure his nose doesn’t, like, fall off, and I’ll be right back.” Kasha raises an eyebrow at me, which I smile mischievously at before finding my way to the garage. Vik is sitting up against the wall underneath the TV with his arms folded and his knees pulled up; his bottom lip juts out slightly in a full-blown pout, and a tear wends its way down his cheek.

As I sit down next to him, he spits, “Go away.”

“You were right again,” I point out.

He looks at me skeptically. “About what?”

“Sometimes friends fight. Nobody’s perfect.”

“But he is my brother. My younger brother.”

“He’s your friend too, right?” Vik doesn’t respond, instead wiping his cheek on his shoulder. “He’s gonna be okay. I can see that you care about him a lot.”

Vik hesitates another moment. “Is my…It is my job to take care of him.”

Hm. I didn’t expect that. Carefully, I ask, “Is that because you are the older twin?”

He nods. “Father believes that the oldest son must help take care of younger siblings. When we were born as twins, he still made sure this was true. I am older, so I take care of him.” He pauses, but I can tell he has more to say. After a moment, he mentions, “We were going to have younger sibling, but Mother…eh. Not important. Never mind.”

Well, that explains quite a bit. I wonder, though, if it was a miscarriage, or…actually, ‘never mind’ indeed–it’s not my business. “Well, you do a very good job keeping him in line, for what it’s worth. But remember, he’s almost as old as you, so–”

“Thirty-seven minutes,” he states matter-of-factly.

“–so he should be able to take care of himself as well as you can. At least some of the time, anyway. I admit that he’s not as mature as you, but still. He’s a big boy, eh?”

“Is not the same. You don’t get it. It is my…what is the word? Not ‘job,’ more important…obyazannosti. Whatever.”

“You mean like…your duty?”

“Duty, yes. You…do you speak Russian?”

I shrug. “I know a little bit, but that’s just the word in English for something like ‘a job, but more important.’ And believe me–I know how frustrating it is when you can’t think of a word.” I roll my eyes for emphasis, which elicits a small smile from Vik. “Look, he was just a bit…overwhelmed at everything, and his nose hurt, and then everyone was in his face. You’re doing your job just, just fine, but remember that he’s only…thirty-seven minutes younger than you. He’ll be okay.”

Vik glances at me a few times before summoning the courage to stand up. “Thank you for talking to me, Phillip.”

“My pleasure. Oh, and one more thing: try to enjoy being a kid. Nobody here expects you to be an adult yet, so…have a little fun, eh?”

“I am not…trying to be an adult.” His face is defensive, but his hesitance assures me that he sees it, too. “Whatever. It is almost burger time. Let’s go.”

“You speak the sacred words of my people. Let us depart.” Vik gives me a weird look and laughs as we rejoin the others, who have since worn themselves out in the Moonwalk for even longer. Kasha stands victorious in front of the Moonwalk with two pool noodles in his hands. I lean to Vik and mumble, “Told you so.”

Matty sees us walking out and asks, “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I respond. “Everything’s good.” Taking a whiff of the air, I notice Dad out in the yard to the side of the Moonwalk, grilling up patties in the brisk evening air and dwindling twilight, illuminated by the floodlights on the front of the deck. “Speaking of everything good, I’m gettin’ hungry.”

We take a break from the festivities to put together some home-cooked goodness: cheeseburgers with fresh bacon and lettuce (the twins and Sean add tomato to theirs, the weirdos), toasted buns, and crispy waffle fries that Mom fried up in the bacon grease (be still, my clogging heart). After we all have our food, we sit around the dining room table (in itself an honor; we rarely use it) and dig in. Needless to say, it is freaking amazeballs delicious. Halfway through my second burger, though, I notice a particular void: “Mom, where are the girls?”

She looks up from her burger. “Oh, they both found friends’ houses to sleep at tonight. I told them they were welcome to stay and hang out with 6 boys, but they didn’t seem interested.” A couple of the boys laugh at the thought.

As dinner wraps up, Mom warns, “Make sure you save room for cake and ice cream.”

“But these burgers…” I lament. “They’re so gooooood.”

“Well, it’s a fresh-baked yellow cake with homemade buttercream frosting and a–”

“Yup, you win. I’ma put this down now.” I slowly lower the burger onto my plate. Mom makes ridiculously good buttercream icing; it’s good I only have one birthday a year, because I’d be so fat otherwise.

It actually turns out to be good that we have as many boys here as we do, because Mom always makes way too much cake for my birthday. Of course, normally it’s just us, and maybe some friend that I never end up keeping around, so this time is significantly different. She doesn’t have any extra cake pans, though, so they just picked up extra ice cream to sate the hunger of the crowd: vanilla, chocolate, and caramel swirl (Dear God, it’s good). We all gather round the cake that says “Happy 13!” with a crown of candles in the middle; Dad gets out the long-barreled fireplace lighter and ignites the show while Mom leads the boys in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Unsurprisingly, it sounds pretty damn good with multiple choir boys singing it. Rather surprising is the fact that Edgar has a damn boy-band voice, complete with smooth tenor and a trilling vibrato. “Daaaaamn!” I say after the song. “Where’d you learn to sing like that?!”

Edgar looks at me as if I couldn’t possibly be talking to or about him, and then blushes. “Oh, uh, I dunno. Everyone always just says I sing pretty.”

The twins are looking at him with star-struck eyes. “You do sing pretty!” Kasha says. Vik’s expression is one of total agreement.

“C’mon, y’all are embarrassing me.” He turns an even brighter shade of red than his fiery hair as he rubs the back of his neck nervously.

“There’s time to embarrass him more later. Cake time now. Cake cake cake.” I bang my plastic fork and knife on the kitchen table in feigned impatience.

The cake turns out to be exactly as stupidly delicious as I was hoping, and I eat at least four bites more than I should have, forgetting the ice cream entirely. Sean skips the ice cream as well, so Mom makes him eat a bigger slice of cake to compensate: “I’m not having leftovers sit on the counter and rot. You boys eat this cake.” Matty and the twins have a little of both, Edgar takes an extra scoop of ice cream, and Beto takes two extra scoops (“What? I like ice cream!”).

Meanwhile, Dad had left in the middle of cake time, but returns with an armful of presents. We head into the living room to open them; Mom insists that I open the big box first, though there are four smaller boxes and one thin box, all wrapped in silver, sparkly wrapping paper. “I just want you to know,” I warn, “that I’m not going to act surprised if this is a box-in-a-box-in-a-box.”

“Just open it,” Mom urges, cellphone in hand ready to record it. I rip into the paper and quickly reveal a Nintendo Wii U.“No. Freaking. Way.” Interesting; I owned one a few lifetimes ago, but it’s been a damn long time. I didn’t even ask for one this time around. Either way, badass! I love the system, and as soon as I can, I’m getting Smash Brothers for it. That shit is the best.

“Well? You have five more presents.” Dad shakes a box at me.

I tear the paper off to find one of the Pro controllers (the ones that are less like weird remotes and more like actual game controllers). I shred the paper off the others in a frenzy–four controllers?! This is literally the first time in 5 years there’s been more than one friend over, and I don’t even talk to the ones from back then!

Mom answers my unasked question, “We figured that, since they were on a good deal and Matty told us that you had met a few more friends, maybe it would be good to have a few more. Just in case.”

I give Matty the stink-eye, spoiled by a burgeoning smile. “I knew you were behind this.”

He just smirks and hands me the last gift. I open it to reveal–of course, why didn’t I see it coming?–Super Smash Brothers. Shit is about to get real. “Dude,” I say in awe. “This is freaking amazing.” I give both of the parents a bear hug, and then wrap Matty in my arms. “You sneaky guy, you.”

“Well, your mom asked if maybe you wanted an XBox or something, but I said I already had one, so…yeah.”

Dad shrugs. “So, you actually have another present, but it’s not wrapped, and you can’t have it just yet.” He reads the confusion on my face and continues, “You need something to be able to see your games, and I just happen to have given your mom and myself the Christmas gift of a new TV; it just hasn’t shipped yet. So when it arrives, we’re mounting the other one on the wall in your room, to the right of the computer.”

My jaw drops. “You’re serious.”

“Not always, but I am this time.” He gives a sly smile, which is replaced by puffed cheeks and a loud, “Oof!” as I practically tackle-hug him. This is a freakin’ internet-capable smart TV with YouTube, browser, Netflix, you name it. I will never beat this birthday, I swear it.

We head back out to the garage, kicking a few balloons with us on our way there. I just know those are all going to pop in the middle of the night and scare us shitless, but so shall it be. Matty suggests, “How about we jam out on Rock Band for a bit?”

“Um,” I begin, “We do have a Wii U that we can set up, too, but actually, I was wondering why you brought your keyboard over. I’m guessing that’s not part of Rock Band, right?”

“Oh, uh,” Matty stammers, “that’s um…it’s for…tell you what, how about we play a few rounds of this first, and then I’ll show you what it’s for.”

I shrug. “Deal.” Consider my interest piqued, but we still have hours yet. I can wait. We set up Rock Band; Matty takes vocals, Edgar claims bass, Beto grabs the guitar, and I sit in front of the drums. Before I get comfy, though, I ask Sean, “Did you wanna join in? I don’t wanna leave you out or anything.”

“Nah, I’m fine,” he says with his typical languid smile. “If it had a cello, I might, but I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” I’m about to go mad drum solo on this thing. And no, I don’t actually have any real practice on drums. I can keep a rhythm, but that’s where the similarities end.

The twins and Sean cheer us on as we tackle a few songs. By the third one, Matty decides we can do Expert difficulty. We’re failing left and right, cracking up laughing, until the whole thing comes crashing down in failure. Kasha quips, “Is almost as bad as our choir on Mondays!”

Vik cringes in sympathy; Matty gives Kasha this horrified expression and asks, “Really? We were that bad?!”

Kasha grins foolishly. “Almost. Not as bad.” I heard them during their Christmas concert, and they weren’t bad, really. For a middle school choir, anyway. The soprano boys really were the stars, but I might be biased.

“Okay,” Matty says definitively. “I think I’m ready. Um, Sean, can you go let Phillip’s parents know we’re about to do the thing? They wanted to be here.”

Okay, now I really want to know what’s up. Sean goes and fetches my mom and dad, but also comes back with a huge cello case, which I assume has a similarly sized cello in it. “What the heck…?” I mutter breathlessly. “What is going on, here?”

Matty goes and stands behind the keyboard. “Um, so, you know how I, how all of us were doing something in the choir room after school? I know that we kept leaving you out, but, um, that’s because it was a surprise for you. I, um, wrote a song for you, for your birthday–well, Sean helped with composing it, and the twins had some good ideas, too…and I got some help with the lyrics, too, but anyway. So, this is…um, I just realized I didn’t give it a title yet. Oops.” He grins sheepishly. “Anyway, here goes.”

Matty boots up his keyboard while Sean prepares his cello. They match their tuning to the keyboard, and then Matty begins playing a sweet little piece on the keyboard. Surprisingly, it’s decently complex, even from the beginning; I can see him moving his left hand over to hit the low notes and sustain them with the pedal as he makes a simple harmony with the right hand. The part that floors me is when he starts singing the lyrics.

Since the beginning of this year,
My life was dark and gray.
Cancer and chemo, bullies too
But you came and saved the day.
You came to me,
You opened my eyes.
You cared for me,
Which was a big surprise.
So I made this song

Cuz I thought it’d be nice to say:
I love you, for all that you do
I love you, for just being you
I love you, and I love that you love me, too.

So, since you came into my life–

Matty stops the performance to ask, “Phillip? What’s wrong?!”

I was already on the verge of tears the moment he started singing, but when he reached the first ‘I love you,’ I lost it. I’m sitting here sobbing like my dog died, snot running from my face like a damn fool. I sniffle and plead through the sobs, “No-nothing! It’s–it’s beautiful. I wanna h–hear the rest, please!”

“You…sure?” he asks carefully.

“Please,” I nod, sniffling. Mom shows up behind me with a box of tissues, which I eagerly take and start blotting my face. “Danks,” I say, blowing my nose to clear it out. Mom has a few tears in her eyes, too, but her loving smile says everything.

Matty looks to Sean and the twins, who all nod. He starts the second verse, which the twins join in occasional harmony with Sean providing ornamentation:

So, since you came into my life,
I see the bluest skies.
I wouldn’t spend a single day
With any other guy.
So here’s to you,
A wonderful boy
Who fills my life
With nothing but joy
My lover and

A trustworthy, loyal friend:
I love you, I hope we can be
Together, for eternity
I love you, and thank you for loving me.
I love you, for all that you do
I love you, for just being you
I love you, and I love that you love me, too.
I love that you love me, too.

As the last notes of the song die down, my renewed sobs drown out everything but my feverish applause. I wipe my face, and as Matty comes out from behind the keyboard, I make a mad rush over to him and wrap him in a passionate, more-than-slightly-bone-crunching hug. I realize that I’m crying on his shoulder as I do, and his feet are dangling in the air, and he might be crying a little bit on my shoulder too, and maybe I should let him breathe, but there is nothing more important right now than making sure this hug is felt and my feelings known.

I finally set him down, if only to let him catch his breath. He smiles bashfully and mutters, “I know that it’s not, like, the best music, and there’s still a few parts in the middle that I didn’t really like, but I couldn’t figure out how to fix them by the time that–”

“Matty…” I say, suppressing a sniffle, “…that was the best thing I’ve ev–ever gotten in my life. I mean it. I could live for a thousand years and I still don’t think an–anyone would ever give me something like, like that.” His eyebrows indicate that he catches the emphasis I place on those words. “That was incredible. Thank you. Thank you Sean, Vik, and–and Kasha, too; I couldn’t ever have asked for better friends. Y’all too, Beto, Edgar. I know you weren’t part of the song, but y’all are still awesome.” I look around at everyone and realize we’re at risk of flooding the garage: I’m still snot-faced, Mom had to borrow a few tissues, even Kasha is red-rimmed around the eyes. Edgar is sitting next to Beto, his head on Beto’s shoulder with his arms wrapped around Beto’s left arm, and I’m pretty sure I see a bit of mist in his eyes, too. Beto, Vik, Dad, and Sean seem to have kept their cool, so they can build the life raft if we need it. “Matty…I love you, and I love that you love me, too.”

That gets his eyes flowing. He immediately presses his face into my chest and wraps his arms around me. We stand there hugging it out for a good, long forever; I catch a glimpse of Dad using his cellphone to film the entire thing as he’s been doing since the start of the song, while Mom is working overtime to keep her face clean.

Eventually, as the tender moment grows awkward, Mom announces, “Matty, that was a wonderful song. I’m very impressed at the work you boys put into this. Congratulations.”

“Now,” Dad interjects. “You’ve got about an hour and a half to kill before it’ll be time to get the fireworks going. We’ll get things set up and let y’all know when we’re ready.”

Edgar’s eyes light up. “You got fireworks?! Mom never lets us do fireworks!”

“You bet we got fireworks,” I say, grinning. “But no Roman Candles; Stephanie burnt me with one once, so those are a no-no.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “You wouldn’t let her live that down for weeks.”

“Still won’t. It hurt!”

Mom and Dad chuckle and leave the garage through the laundry room. We play a bit more on Rock Band, swapping out players this time. Sean isn’t the best at plastic guitar, but Beto rips the drums a new one while Edgar shreds the bass again. In a not-at-all surprise twist, the twins both take vocals, singing together on each song. I find out afterward that they’re actually the ones who own the game, and use it to practice singing (which, by their scores, is very obvious). Afterward, we set up the Wii U, but it begs us for updates and all that, so I set it to do its thing.

Shortly, Dad knocks on the garage door (the one for the cars), calling out that he’s opening it. Shortly, the chilly December air invades the Boy Cave as we spill out into the driveway. The neighbors are all out doing their own little celebrations, so there’s general popping and cracking heard all around the neighborhood. Mom already has some lawn chairs set up outside and an ice chest full of sodas, our standard fare for fireworks fun.

We all light sparklers to inaugurate the celebrations; Edgar, Beto, and the twins decide to have team fencing battles with them until Mom has a fit about safety issues, at which point we content ourselves with signing our names in midair and such. I get to light a few of the little firecrackers, including a long string of them; when we move on to the louder fireworks, though, Dad won’t let any of the boys that he “didn’t assist in creating” light any fireworks–stupid responsible parenting–so he does the lighting while we choose the next lineup. Dad had specifically asked that we get a few of the “bigger guns,” as he calls them, like the off-brand M-80-type firecrackers that are still legal in Texas, so I vote we do those next.

Dad pops one of the bigger ones, and the bang makes most of us jump–those things are LOUD! This gives me a terrible idea. At this point, all the boys are sitting down on the driveway talking to each other, and Mom is lounging in a lawn chair. I rummage around in the fireworks supplies and find the box of bang snaps (those little packets that you throw at the ground to make them pop), and when Dad goes to light another one of the big ones, I wait until juuuust before he lights the fuse, and I throw a handful of them right behind all the boys on the driveway. Matty and Edgar both screech, Beto ducks for cover, the twins scatter like pigeons, and even Sean jumps a bit. The next minute is spent with me rolling back and forth in the fetal position, cracking up laughing as the other boys slap and yell at me. Vik takes the bang snaps and throws them at me, but they don’t exactly work against someone’s clothed shoulder or stomach; the intent was made clear, though.

Once everyone runs out of hatred, we calm back down and sit to watch the show. Dad lights the loud ones first, then the ground spinners, leading up to the ones that launch spinning into the air, and finally a grand finale box with all sorts of stars and designs in a standard show. After the applause, Matty asks, “So what now?”

Dad cheerfully answers, “Now we clean up! Can’t just leave all this trash in the street.”

We all make short work of the mess with a couple of push brooms and hands. Right before we put everything away, though, Mom calls out, “Wait! It’s time!”

Oh. Of course. I look at my phone: 11:58. I bring the boys over to the driveway so that Mom can have her fun. She begins, “Did you know that Phillip was born almost at the last possible second of the year?”

The boys gasp in collective astonishment, saying things like, “No way!” and “Really?!” and all that.

“Mm-hmm,” she confirms. “So as of…now, 11:59, Phillip is officially 13 years old. The doctor asked if I wanted to wait another minute so Phillip could be the first baby of the year. I had already been in labor for hours, so I very calmly said, “I WANT THIS BABY OUT, NOW!” (She screams the words for emphasis, staggering Beto and surprising Matty.) So Phillip was born on the last second of the last minute of the last hour of the last day of the year.” She smiles proudly at her amazing factoid. “Speaking of which, it’s almost time!”

Dad looks at his watch. “New Year commencing in 10…”

Everyone joins in the count. “5…”

“4…”

“3…”

“2…”

Mom: “Happy Birthday!”

Everyone else, one second later: “Happy New Year!”

Mom always makes sure to wish that on the correct second of the countdown. It gives her such joy; who am I to get in the way of fun?

Dad announces, “Aaaaaaaand I’m going to bed goodnight don’t stay up too late sleep well.” After his rapid-fire farewell, he packs up the lawn chairs, hauling them off through the backyard. “Phillip, you guys can finish the drinks in the ice chest if you want, but dump it out in the lawn when you’re finished, either today or tomorrow.”

“Will do!” I say with a salute. The twins pick up the chest from both sides and haul it back into the garage; I kiss the parents goodnight, thank them for a badass birthday (using the term directly), and head back into the now-cold garage. Matty is goosebumps from head to toe, and the skinny twins are both shivering a bit. We have a decently sized space heater that Dad keeps in one of his cabinets out here; I fish it out and set it up, and the skinnier boys all flock to it like moths to a flame. “That should warm the place up pretty good in a little bit,” I mention.

Kasha says with a quivering jaw, “My b-balls are hiding in my chest right now! Is like…summer back in Russia.” Vik snorts and nods while everyone else laughs.

I move the heater over near the pile of blankets so that I can feel it while wrapping myself up in a blanket in front of the TV. “There’s plenty of room under this blanket for anyone else,” I say invitingly.

Matty quickly takes me up on the offer, snuggling up his shivering little body next to mine. The other boys find similar accommodations–the twins in their unzipped sleeping bags layered to make a giant blanket, Edgar and Beto wrapped in my mom’s old comforter, and Sean with just a linen sheet over his shoulders (though still closer to the heater than the others). The Wii U is done with its updating, so I fire up Super Smash Brothers and hand out controllers; the base console itself comes with a remote, so there are 5 total players available. I take one, Matty joins in, and the twins quickly nab the other two Pro controllers.

“Count me in,” Sean says with a determined smile. He grabs the Wii Remote and situates himself to where he can see better.

If you’ve never played Smash Brothers, imagine a side-scrolling battle game where everything goes wrong and then blows up. Then add all your favorite characters from every game Nintendo ever made, throw in a ton of levels that are just as explosive, and you’ve got hours upon hours of hilarity just waiting to blast you off the screen. It’s really a phenomenally-made game, and within no time, we’re screeching and cracking up laughing at the stupidity we inflict upon each other.

Edgar and Beto are shouting encouragement from behind us; I can hear the munch of pretzels as they enjoy the battle royale. Sean ends up annihilating us over and over, but even when a player is dominating, it’s still fun to try to take them out.

“Sean! Catch!” I throw a bomb at his character.

“Nah,” he says lazily as he blocks the shot and reflects it back to my character, which gets blown straight off-screen. Matty is red-faced with laughter; he actually ends up dying a few times just because of putting the controller down to wipe his eyes and try to catch his breath.

We duke it out for an hour or so before everyone’s sides hurt too much from laughter. Matty leans over to me and mutters, “I, uh…I’ll be back. Need to, you know…change.”

Ah. I was wondering why the blanket wasn’t soaked after his laughing fit, or when I scared him earlier outside. I say in a louder voice, “Hey, Matty, can you go get my pillow and blanket from my room? We need more.”

Matty gets the hint and stands up; I can see the bulge in the crotch of his pants, but he turns and leaves fast enough that it’s not terribly noticeable. I do notice that his mom got him slightly baggier pants, which I assume he’ll grow into over the next year, but they work wonders for concealing his secret. Frankly, I’m just glad he finally seems comfortable with himself and his body. I’m also turned on, but no surprises there. He comes back shortly with the requested bedding materials, which I offer to Sean; he shrugs and wraps the linen sheet around himself a little tighter, saying, “This is fine for now.”

“You know,” I point out, “if we REALLY wanted to be warmer, we wouldn’t all be separate islands. I vote we combine the blankets and make a tent.”

Vik furrows his brow. “How will you make the tent stand up?”

“Follow me–I got this.” I head into the kitchen with the army of boys behind me. We commandeer all of the chairs in the kitchen and dining room, lining them up in two rows of five, facing away from the center; then, we drape two comforters over the tops of them, creating a canopy easily big enough for seven boys to fit under, even with a few of them lying down. (We’d have to get pretty cozy to sleep like this, but I’m good with it.) The rest of the blankets and sheets are kept inside as cushions and such–it actually ends up pretty cool. I know that it’ll get hot as hell in here with this many boys inside, but at that point, we won’t need the tent anymore.

Once we have everything set up, I adjust the top of the tent to allow for better viewing of the TV and ask, “Anyone wanna watch a movie or something?”

Sean finishes yawning and blinks his heavy-lidded eyes. “Actually, I hate to be the party pooper, but it’s way past my bedtime. Um, if y’all wanna watch a movie, that’s cool. I can just go sleep in the living room or something.”

“No no,” I counter, “you can use my bed. Just take whatever blankets you need and a pillow.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sleeping down here, so yeah, go ahead.” A pity he won’t be staying up with the rest of us, but I get it–it is getting a little late.

As he heads out, Kasha requests a sci-fi movie. I put on one of the newer Star Wars films (I admit that I was never a huge fan, but I figure I’ll give the newer ones a shot), but shortly into the film, I notice a few things. Number one, only Kasha is really into it. Matty is just leaning his head against my shoulder and casually watching, Vik is on his cellphone, and Edgar and Beto are just kinda staring at the screen. I say this because I can tell very well by the occasional movement under the blanket they decided to drape over themselves, and by how red-faced Edgar is, that their attention is definitely elsewhere. Edgar catches me looking his direction, and at my raised eyebrow, he looks around the tent mock-innocently as the blush in his cheeks travels up his ears.

“I have a better idea,” I announce, turning off the movie.

“Hey!” Kasha protests, but I continue minimizing Netflix and pull up a web browser.

“How about something a little more my style?” I ask as I pull up PornHub. This is the best thing about having a smart TV, and I already figured out a long while back how to selectively delete the history so the parents don’t have any ammunition against me. I am so ready to get this moved up into my room.

“Dude,” Kasha breathes. “We would get in SO much trouble if Father caught either of us looking at porn.” Vik’s face echoes the sentiment.

“Then don’t get caught,” I suggest with a smirk. “So, what’s first? Ooh, I know.” I search for ‘circle jerk’ and pick a nice one: lots of twinks, some flimsy story about studying for exams, a few pieces of pizza, and then hands on cocks. Perfect.

We all watch silently for a bit as it gets into the action, though with a surreptitious glance around, there are a lot of interested hands moving under blankets and adjusting crotches. I shuck the blanket off my shoulders and claim, “It’s getting warm under all these. I’m going to get more comfy.” I take off my shirt and pants, leaving me sitting in my rapidly-tightening underwear.

Matty glances down at my tent pole and slowly snakes a hand over to touch it. It flexes of its own accord at his touch. I slide my hand over to his crotch and fondle the fabric; the jeans need to be out of the way, but I can feel him poking at it already.

Edgar laughs half-nervously and asks, “Are you like this with all your friends?”

I look back at him and smirk. “When I can be, yeah. Oh, screw it, I’m horny.” I stand up, disrupting the blanket roof, and drop my briefs to let my dick point outward invitingly. I move the blankets off the chairs, letting in some of the chill garage air; my balls are already tightly up against me, so it doesn’t change much. “I challenge you all to a duel!” I say, waggling my sword in the air.

Matty giggles and bats at it a few times. “You’re gonna poke someone’s eye out!”

In response, I straddle Matty and slowly push him backward, peeling the blankets away and unbuttoning his pants. Fishing his stiffy out, I grip it and say, “Says the boy with the concealed weapon over here.” I notice as I wrap my fingers around it that there’s the tiniest beginnings of pubic hairs at the base of his dick, a thin little dusty brown carpet to match the drapes, as it were. He actually looks a little bit bigger now, too; not but maybe a quarter inch, but I got pretty familiar with this little stretch of land some time ago. “I should confiscate it,” I announce, and shove the whole thing in my mouth. It does actually go a little further back on the soft palate now, so it’s definitely longer. I suck it like I’m trying to get to the center of a Dreamsicle, which I suppose in one sense I am. I watch his eyes roll in his head as I hit all the good spots, and it makes me drool with anticipation. From both heads.

By this point, the twins are torn between watching the live show and the porn. They’ve both removed their pants and matching boxers (ugh, so adorable) and are jacking off casually. Beto and Edgar are both more than a little surprised at how sudden things change to ‘orgy mode,’ but Edgar unwraps himself to reveal Beto jacking him off. Beto follows suit, and of course Edgar has his own hand wrapped around Beto’s cock.

Kasha glances around to see what everyone else is doing, and does a double-take on Edgar’s thick pole. “Holy cow! That is big!”

I nearly spit Matty’s dick out laughing as Edgar turns red all down his neck. “God, it’s not that big…” he says with almost no conviction. Given that the twins apparently haven’t seen much porn and they still haven’t hit puberty, he is most likely the thickest they’ve ever seen. Beto’s is already longer, though, and I have no doubts the twins themselves will both end up easily 7 or 8 inches easily, if not longer.

Matty rolls over to get a better view of what they’re talking about and mutters, “Dang.” Edgar gives me a look of desperate helplessness, to which I just shrug and laugh more. Since Matty is on his belly, though, I take the opportunity to grab handfuls of that beautiful little butt and start massaging. I help him strip off his pants, making sure the blanket is fully underneath him (the concrete garage floor would be hellishly cold on the tender bits). I work his calf muscles, then his hamstrings, moving up to his gorgeous rear. Matty just slowly deflates in a sensuous moan as I work out the tension in his lower half, moving up to his lower back. By the time I get to his middle back, though, my dick rests perfectly in between his cheeks; I press down a little with it and receive a horny grunt in reply.

“Damn,” Beto says with raised eyebrows. “Where do I sign up?”

“Sorry,” I reply with a wicked smile, “but this is my birthday present.”

Matty says a muffled, “Yaaaay! I’m a present!” into the blanket. He tries to say something else, but I make it to his shoulders in time; all he gets out is “I like bluhhh…” as my thumbs dig into his neck and shoulder muscles. ViKasha both crack up into giggle fits, much like they did when Sean made the same noises. What can I say? I have a talent.

I see Beto say something to Edgar, who then comes over and lies down next to Matty, with Beto’s position over Edgar matching mine over Matty. He watches my motions and starts trying to imitate my technique, but it’s pretty clear he isn’t the most intuitive when it comes to massage. Edgar grunts a few times and points out when Beto digs in the wrong way, but I show him how to use the thumbs for pressure and the other fingers just for steadiness, and immediately his technique improves. I show him the muscles he should be working, how hard he needs to press, and all that, and soon we are two skilled bakers rolling the lumps out of dough. Moaning, drooling dough. The twins are captivated (and giggly) watching the whole thing.

A few moments later, I hear Matty mumble, “Phillip?”

“Yeah?”

“I really want to do it this time.”

I know what ‘it’ is immediately. “You sure?” I ask, though I know he already has wanted to do this for months. I drag my dick down his crack slowly, and then grind it in for a little extra temptation.

He exhales forcefully in reply, but quickly says, “Wait, um…not, not with, y’know, everyone around.” He looks around at the boys, each pair already interested in each other or the porn (or both).

I lean in over him, my dick nestling itself in his cheeks. Whispering in his ear, “Follow me,” I get up, my dick straining enough to launch off like a rocket, and announce, “Gentlemen, Matty has a present to give me, but it’s a private one. We’ll be back…later.”

The twins get that look and both go, “OooooOOOOOoooooh,” as Edgar looks us both over; Beto digs his thumbs back into Edgar’s back muscles, though, and Edgar becomes putty once again. Matty giggles at the burbling moan of pleasure that Edgar makes as we both find our way into the house.

“Okay,” I half-whisper, “the first task is to find a good place to go.”

“We can’t just use your room?”

“Sean.”

Matty smacks his forehead. “Right.”

I think for a moment–of course! “We can use Stephanie’s room.”

“What?!” he hisses. “You can’t just use your sister’s bed!”

I stroke Matty’s hair. “You poor, misguided only child. Your siblings’ stuff is there to use, as long as they don’t find out.”

He stares at me for a long moment until I break into an evil grin. He shakes his head, sighing. “Come on, there’s gotta be somewhere better.”

I shrug, “I mean, there’s the couch. Someone could come downstairs, though.”

He looks in the living room, then to the garage, and then through the ceiling to the upstairs. He sighs, “Fine. I guess your sister’s room, but…”

“We’ll leave it like we were never there. I’ve done it before–c’mon!” I head upstairs, ignoring Matty’s sputtering attempt at a reply.

We run upstairs, my dick bouncing almost painfully with each two-stair leap, Matty scrambling behind me with the grace of one who hasn’t lived in a two-story house all their life. I try the door and find it unlocked; it’s only one of those non-key-type locks, though, so a thin screwdriver would’ve fixed that problem anyway. I take a peek inside, noting that it looks exactly as her room always does: posters of My Chemical Romance and The Birthday Massacre on the walls, collection of fantasy books on the shelf, shit like that. More importantly, her bed isn’t made, so I don’t have to feel even remotely bad about fucking around on it. Seeing as I fully expect bodily fluids here, though, I figure it’s not a terrible idea to put a towel down.

I tell Matty to wait there as I duck into the bathroom to grab a towel, along with a bottle of conditioner (it’s not as easy to secure official lube when you’re 12–or 13, now, I guess). I lay the towel out on the bed, hopping up on one side as I beckon Matty over. He hesitantly makes his way onto the bed and sits next to me; the tension is clear in his posture and expression. He looks at me and tries to smile, but it’s clear that he’s fighting some pretty deep fears. I ask carefully, “Are you sure you want to go through with–”

“Yes,” he interrupts firmly. “I really, really wanna do this.”

That’s not passion speaking. “…Why?” I prod.

“Wh–? What do you mean? I want you to, y’know…I want to…” he stops, unable to finish his sentence. Taking a deep breath, he centers himself and admits quietly, “I want to stop being scared.”

This kid just melts my heart. “Then let’s make you the one in control.” He furrows his brow in confusion (and maybe a little alarm), but I clarify, “First, I need you to lay down.” As he does so, I lift his legs and bury my face in his crack tongue-first. As I start lapping up against his hole, he arches his back in writhing, moaning pleasure. I take a break to point out, “This isn’t where you’re in control yet, by the way.”

He giggles breathlessly. “Apparently not,” he pants.

I go back to work for a little bit, working the area until he doesn’t realize that he’s not clenching his sphincter as tightly. Taking a few tentative probes inward with my tongue, it seems that I’ve made him forget about his fears, at least for a little bit. I’m actually able to get the thicker part of my tongue in before I run out of tongue muscle strength–such is life. “Okay, now,” I state, “I want you to take some of the conditioner and rub it on and in your hole.”

“Um, won’t it burn?”

“Nah, I get Mom to buy this one specifically ‘cuz it doesn’t. I mean, she doesn’t know that’s why, but yeah.”

He does so, taking a small glob of the thick, white conditioner–almost a lotion, really–and working it into and around the area. “It’s cold!” he remarks, but keeps going.

When the area is nice and coated, I grab the bottle and put a little bit of conditioner on my already-aching member; I have a feeling our first time isn’t going to last terribly long, but maybe that’s for the better, all things considered. “All right, now I’m going to lay down, and I want you to sit down on it. Not, like, just plop! or anything, but slowly.” He lets out a nervous laugh as he gets up and positions himself over my pole, slowly lowering himself down until the tip pokes him in the cheek. I help guide it to a better spot, letting him know to help me guide it to where it’ll work best. “Okay, now,” I say once I can feel my head at the point of penetration, “I want you to slowly move up and down just a tiny bit, so that you don’t lower yourself all the way, but just a little bit and then back up, a little bit and then back up. Just like that.”

“Okay,” he says, following my example. I feel just the quickest bit of warmth as his sphincter gives a little, and even just that bit is a rush of pleasure. He does it a few more times, and I resist every urge to just thrust and bury myself.

I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on the lesson, not the sensations. “Now, try going just a little bit farther. If you can feel the head pop in, then the rest shouldn’t be a problem.” He does a little bit more, going just to the fringe of my head, and hesitates. The next thing I know, he pushes himself on top of it forcefully, his butt bones hitting next to my hips. “Whoa!” I yelp, “I said not to just plop down! Are you okay?”

He cringes for a moment, but relaxes his face. “My legs were getting tired,” he admits sheepishly. Well, apparently I’m not so long that I hit his second sphincter, so that’s good, I guess. Makes this a little easier on him. For me, though, this moment is bliss: one of the most adorable boys I’ve ever met in my life, one whom I love more than I can remember loving someone, is sitting balls-deep on my cock and smiling back at me. Heaven take me now.

I laugh with him. “So, if you want to rest your legs a little bit, you can just rock back and forth slowly on me, so that it pushes me in and out a bit.”

“Like this?” he asks, leaning forward, making the top side of my dick rub against his insides and sending shudders through my body.

“Yeahhhhh,” I manage to moan.

He scoots back down the shaft, but a small thump of my dick hitting a bump in his inner walls makes his spine shoot straight up. “Oh God,” he whispers with a shudder. Oh, I think he just found out how to use me to hit his prostate. The sight of his dick quickly going from ‘timidly limp’ to ‘launch formation’ is evidence of that. He moves himself back and forth on me, grinding my dick into his prostate, causing a prolific dribble of precum to start steadily dripping from his dick.

“This is amazing,” he whispers as he starts up a slow, steady rhythm.

I attempt a response, but a perfectly-aimed grind sends my eyes rolling into the back of my head at the stimulation. I grab his dick and start smearing all his precum over the head, which sends shivers up his spine as I work it around. Then I hold my fingers steady while he fucks himself on my dick, using my fingers to jack himself off.

As expected, it doesn’t last very long, but not for the reason I expect: Matty speeds up just a little bit, getting a decent, slow rhythm going, but he can only keep it up for a few thrusts before he exhales heavily and shoots a glob of cum straight onto my lip, followed by another two on my chest and navel, respectively. The tightening of his sphincter and inner walls coupled with holding his spurting dick is far too much stimulation for me to take; I quickly grab him by the hips and bury myself deep, locking in place as I shoot pulse after pulse of sheer orgasmic bliss into him. He hunches over, spent, and I follow suit a moment later, my dick still spasming occasionally; I think I might still be draining cum into him, too. Jeez.

“That feels weird,” he says out of nowhere.

“What does?”

“You’re, like…I can feel you twitching.”

“Oh,” I say, suddenly blushing profusely. “That’s me cumming.”

“Oh!” he says with a look of surprise followed by a ‘well, duh’ face. “Still…like, I can still feel you twitch.”

I blush harder. “I think maybe I’m still cumming a little, but mostly that’s just the ‘aftershocks,’ like I like to call them.”

“Dang,” he says. “You always cum a lot.”

“I know.”

He just looks at me with a half-loving, half-amused, and half-content expression on his face (yes, it’s three halves, so sue me). Smiling a little mischievously, he whispers, “Happy Birthday.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Best. Present. EVER.” I flex my dick a few times for emphasis, which makes him giggle. “So,” I ask carefully, “was it okay? I mean, like, did you like it?”

He shrugs a little. “Yeah, I did. It actually feels really good when you, um…”

“When you’re the one in control?”

He thinks about it a sec. “Yeah.”

“Well, it’s all you, now. You’re the one in control of your own body, so you let me know what you want to do with it.”

He looks down at my chest, where his couple of drops of cum are still glistening. “Well, I’m fine, but um, we should do something about your body. Like, clean it up.”

“Did you just make a joke about cum?”

Matty blinks at me. “Yeah, why?”

“Oh, no reason.” Inside, I’m torn between squealing in delight and crying a little–my baby is growing up so fast! “Anyway, um…you should probably be careful when getting off of me, since, well, you know how I always cum a lot? Yeah.”

Matty looks between his legs. “Oh. Uh…” He hesitates, unsure of how to handle this.

We end up rolling to the side, me still rock-fucking-hard and buried to the hilt, so that he can un-impale himself and close his sphincter before he tries to go anywhere. We head to the bathroom where I turn on the shower while Matty, um, y’know. So anyway, I clean my front off and wash the lube off my dick (which FINALLY has started to go down), and we both head back downstairs to rejoin the boys.

Matty stops me at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, um…”

“Yeah?”

Matty hesitates, his face contorting into the standard ‘I’m trying to get the words in the right order’ face. “I’m…I’m really glad that…” he begins, but goes back to his mental drawing board. A few seconds pass, and he eventually just shakes his head. “Never mind.”

I take one of his hands and smile at him. “C’mere,” I say, leading him over to the love seat. The microfiber upholstery feels nice and tickly on my sack, which brings little stirrings into my dick (not enough to get hard, thankfully). I prompt him, “You’re really glad that what?”

His eyes don’t meet mine, but instead search the area for something to stare at as he talks. “I’m really glad that, I mean, you keep helping me, and showing me all these cool things, and take me places, and–and protect me from bullies, and still like me even though I pee my pants sometimes or wear diapers, and now it’s like, you saved me from my dad, and this was like, the last thing that he ‘had,’ you know? I kinda was afraid that I would never be able to, you know, do…what we just did, but we did, and…and I really liked it. Like, a lot.”

“I could tell–you shot me in the face.”

He rolls his eyes and meets mine for the first time. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“Oh, no no, it was my pleasure entirely.” I grin stupidly and receive a well-deserved smack in the arm for a reply.

“Ugh, stop! You’re making me laugh, and I’m trying to be serious.” He puts on a fake pout for a second, which melts into an actual serious face. “But anyway, so now we’re going out, and we just had, like, ‘real’ sex–well, the other way around this time, ‘cuz I already–whatever, anyway. So I finally feel like I have everything, y’know? But…”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“But I still don’t know what I’ve done to deserve all this,” he admits. “Like, I mean, I know we’ve talked about this kind of thing before, but I still can’t figure out why you keep…why you keep me.”

I take his other hand on mine and stare him down. “Is being Matty not enough?”

“No!” he says emphatically. “It’s not! I’m just some kid who had cancer and a dad who raped him and is in all remedial classes and pees himself like a–”

“Stop,” I say firmly. “Stop, stop, stop. You’re sabotaging yourself, and there’s no reason to do that.”

“But why do you stay with me?” He asks the question as if it were the most perplexing, frustrating problem that mankind has ever pondered. “What did I do, what made, what–?”

“You wrote me a freaking song,” I point out, holding him by the shoulders. “A song. For me. With 7 billion people out there, I’m pretty sure there’s at least a one-in-multiple-millions chance of that happening to anyone in particular, and nobody has ever done that for, for me. Ever. In a literal thousand years, living my life in every way that I did, nobody wrote me a song.” I pause to wipe a tear out of my eye. “That alone is amazing, but you tackled cancer, you–you survived a new school full of bullies, you know more science than I ever would have dreamed of when I was that age the first time–wow, that sounded weird–you have a beautiful voice, you’re cute as hell, I really, really like sucking on your dick (he rolls his eyes and giggles at this), and your personality draws me like, like a magnet: you are everything I wish I was, like, centuries ago.”

He pulls his head back and squints at me. “Wh–how?”

I shrug. “Just by being you, I guess. You always want the best for people, even if they don’t deserve it. You don’t want anyone to get hurt; even after your dad did horrible things, you still just wanted him to be better. Most people would want their father dead for doing things like that, but not you. You stopped me from hurting Rod, even though he was basically, y’know, a piece of shit to everyone and everything.”

Matty looks aside sheepishly and mutters, “Well…I mean, I guess, but then there’s Chris. I wasn’t really nice to him.”

“Yeah, and I’m still kinda trying to figure that one out. He brings out the tiger in you, and I’m not talking Frosted Flakes.”

Another eye roll (I’m keeping score) and a shrug. “I dunno. He just…he just rubs me the wrong way. And don’t you dare make a bad pun about ‘rubbing,’ I’m warning you.”

I open my mouth, but close it as he gives me the stink eye. “Fine. Anyway, as I was saying, not only are you such a good person, but no matter what happens, no matter if you are forced to wear diapers (or like to), no matter if you’re, if you’re in a group of friends or alone, at school or in your house, you’re always Matty. You don’t try to be anyone else, and after living in a world full of actors for so many years–after being an actor for most of my life–it’s just so refreshing to know that some people are just who they are, and…and I love you for that.”

“Yeah, but is that worth always protecting me, and having to cover for me, and–?”

I interrupt, “You defended me, too, you know.”

Matty frowns. “I did?”

“At the lunch table, when Kasha was going all crazy with the questions, you stood up for me and let me catch a breath. You even explained what happened so I didn’t have to do it. The one time I was seriously at a low point, you were there for me. Don’t think I didn’t, that I didn’t notice.” I had to pick my jaw up from the floor when he did, but I don’t think mentioning that is necessary.

Matty takes a moment internalizing the idea. “Yeah, I guess, but I mean, that was just that once.”

“And that was enough,” I retort. “The one chance you had, you took immediately. If that isn’t reason enough to stick with you, then I must just be insane.”

“Well…” Matty says, half-smiling.”

“I said, ‘just insane.’ I’m insane AND you’re still awesome, so that’s different.” We both laugh a little at the absurdity of the moment, but after it dies down, I say softly, “Matty. I hope you see one day how amazing you are. I’m proud of you for staying strong, I’m absolutely in love with you for all the things you are and have done, and I’m humbled by your honest, authentic kindness. I couldn’t possibly ask for more.” I stare into his eyes, though he diverts them after a few seconds as his cheeks slowly flush. “And then you wrote me a frickin’ SONG.”

“UGH,” he groans with an eye roll big enough to knock a grown man over, “stop it with the song already! You’re embarrassing me!”

“Well, can I just say one last thing about it?”

He sighs heavily through his nose. “Fine. What?”

I stand up, bringing him up with me. “I love you, and I love that you love me, too.” I hold my hands wide and he accepts the hug; my contentment at the moment is actually strong enough to overpower the fact that there is hot boy pressed up against me, and that’s saying something. We kiss lovingly: nothing crazy with tongue-fights or anything, just a nice, long kiss, and a fatherly, friendly, loving hug.

We’re both caught a bit by surprise at the sudden sound of the door to the garage opening, and a mostly-hard ‘Canelito’ walking in. “Oh,” he says, stopping halfway into the kitchen. “Sorry if I’m interrupting; just needed to go to the restroom.”

I look down at his semi and remark, “No, we’re good. I see y’all are still at it, though.”

He looks down and back at me; putting the spotlight on him seems to always put a bit of rose in his cheeks and neck. “Oh, yeah, so uh…we were watching more porn, and there was this really awesome gangbang scene, and uh…we were wondering if you wanted to…try it out. You know, get a ‘birthday present’ from all of us.”

My erection practically lifts Matty off the ground on its way up.

Best. Birthday. EVER.

You know, at this rate, I could die happy. Maybe in a year or two I’ll have my powers back, maybe not, but I think I’m ready for this to be my final play-through. I’ve already had the First Ending, the one where you miss half the good things on your first run; I’ve had every one of the Bad Endings; and I’ve had my fair share of restarts and reloads from premature endings. With a millennium’s breadth of experience and a strong group of friends around me, though, maybe I can finally see the Good Ending, the one you can only get if you don’t cheat or make the really stupid choices.

Sure, I’ll make plenty of stupid choices along the way, and you know what? I’m looking forward to it. I don’t need to hide them, I don’t need to be perfect, and I don’t need to impress anyone. I just need to learn from those mistakes and move on. I don’t need time travel to become a better person. If I’ve learned anything from Matty, it’s that you don’t have to be the strongest, smartest, hottest, or any other ‘-est’ to be a worthy human being. You can be flawed, insecure, vulnerable, fallible, clumsy, foolish, and still completely amazing. To err is human, and I could do with a little more humanity.

The name’s Phillip Herbert Bontemps. I’ve been around the block a few times, but I think I’m ready to go home.

Epilogue: (Note: If you want a happy ending, stop here. If you’re okay without a “happily ever after,” the canon ending is below; the ending is worth it, though, in my opinion. I may be biased. 🙂 )

I wish I was able to say, “And we lived happily ever after,” but that never happens to me, does it? No matter how many times I live my life. Not to me, not to the people I love. I outlive every last one of them for whatever reason, even in my first run through life. I die at over a century old, and not a person I loved is there for me, and if I try to die any sooner…well, anyway. At least normally I get to be with them a long, long while before something happens. “Normally,” for whatever that means.

It was a week ago, right at the start of summer vacation. Matty went in for his third 3-month check-up, and they found something. Something they missed the last time, since it had different markers than the cancer they were looking for. Something that, of course, is way the fuck more malignant than what he had before. This poor boy hit the negative lottery when it comes to kidneys, and it fucking sucks.

The conversation was tense and emotional, with him trying to break the news softly to me, and me not taking it well. At all. Mom was pissed both that I had a full set of bruised, bleeding knuckles, and that there was a hole in my bedroom wall. Matty stayed strong, though, assuring me that they caught it early enough and that everything was going to be fine.

So here I sit, watching a mostly-unconscious Matty, with the steady whirring of the IV pump as the primary noise in the hospital room. Whirr, pff. Drip. Whirr, pff. Drip. At least he gets to sleep through most of this hell; the few times he’s had a chance to stay awake and eat something, it hasn’t been pretty. Still, this is the first chemo regimen, and it’s brutal on purpose–hopefully, the cancer can’t withstand the assault on his poor little body and will shrink away. They have elected to not do surgery for multiple reasons: one, he’s already had a pretty invasive surgery with undesirable side effects; two, the best they could do is take his other kidney out, and even being a young kid, the donor list is long (sure, he could live on dialysis, but that’s not very effective when you’re supposed to be full of lethal chemicals half the time); and three, it’s already metastasized to a few other places in the body, so the surgery wouldn’t really cure anything at this rate. And that brings us here, in the interminable passing of slow minute after slow minute measured in two-and-a-half second drips.

Matty stirs a bit, but we’re already more than a few hours into treatment on the third day of this round, so he didn’t start with much energy and was essentially depleted already even when we started. His mom runs her fingers across his hair, not yet falling out from the toxins. I assume that if his follicles are maintaining strength, then so is the cancer; it’s going to be a long battle. She looks over at me and smiles, trying to stay strong for me as I do the same for her.

“You don’t have to stay here,” she suggests. “He’s just going to be sleeping for most of the time.”

“I don’t have to,” I admit, “but I don’t have any reason not to.”

“But it’s summer; you need to go out and have fun. It’s not healthy to just sit here and stress out.”

I shrug lightly, still staring at Matty. “But then I’d just be out there stressing out. I know there’s a lot to be said for living your own life, but mine doesn’t mean a whole lot without Matty, honestly.”

She sighs, pursing her lips slightly. She watches me watching Matty for a moment longer and says, “Look, I get it. I’ve been in love before. But you two have hardly been together for what? Eight, nine months? And you’re so young–you’re missing out on one of the best parts of your life. When you’re older, you’ll wish you were younger again; trust me.”

“I know,” I say with complete certainty. “Being an adult sucks.”

She pauses a moment. “Yeah, pretty much. Not that you’d know yet, but I guess it can be pretty easy to see that much.”

“I do know,” I admit. At this point, I give so little of a shit of who knows about me; I’m done with everything, anyway. I’m tired of this endless game. “I live to be over a century old. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. It was interesting at first, but I’ve seen so many possibilities, experienced them, and frankly, most of them sucked. I’ve seen what it would be like if I were a billionaire, if I were famous, if I were a murderer, if I were any of a number of things. The future isn’t great, honestly, and…” I stop to squint a tear from my eye. “I don’t want to live it without Matty.”

Ms. Petersen watches me with an inscrutable face for a long while. “You make me reconsider a lot of the things I’ve ever believed,” she says slowly.

“Not that it helps,” I reply. “Knowing something is possible only helps if it might happen again. As far as I know, I’m a once-in-forever anomaly. After my time is up, will people even know about me? If so, I’m sure I’ll just be another tabloid story: a Rasputin, a Nostradamus, someone who future generations couldn’t possibly believe was real. I’ve researched all the information on psychics, time travelers, all that nonsense, and that’s all they have out there–nonsense. All they have on me right now is that I have a fucking seizure if I ‘think a certain way,’ which is basically what causes my…abilities. Just…eh. Never mind.” She tries to interrupt me with a warning against using that kind of language, but it seems more automatic than sincere.

I can see that she is brimming with other questions, but she keeps them all to herself, instead focusing her attention on Matty whilst working on some sort of fiber art–I think it’s crochet, but I never cared to learn enough of the difference between them. I sit there and watch him sleep fitfully as I fail to keep myself occupied on the various games and social media on my phone.

A month later, he’s already looking thinner than he was, and he didn’t have much to lose in the first place. We sit around and play the games he got for Christmas; at least he’s still got the reflexes and coordination to whip me solidly on shooting games. Since this whole ordeal began, he has switched over to diapers full-time, both as a source of comfort to himself, and as a practical concern to help manage some of the…less savory side effects of chemotherapy.

After the 10th losing game or so, I claim, “A new record! Most deaths in a single game.”

“You…wait, what?” Matty stops and looks at me. “The rules are first to 25 points. You can only die 25 times.”

“Then nobody can beat my score! I have died the maximum number of times!”

My utter conviction to the stupid joke breaks through Matty’s incredulous stare, making him snort and giggle at my absurdity. “Yes, Phillip, you’re right. Nobody can beat how bad you are. Congratulations.”

I puff out my chest and proudly beam at my negative accomplishment. “If you ever need someone to get shot dozens of times, I’m your man.” That…that rings a bell for some reason. Hm. Anyway, I sit up on his bed and motion him to come over. “C’mere. I got you something.” He sits on the bed next to me and waits with a quizzical expression as I pull something out of my baggy cargo shorts pocket: a beanie colored in the style of a Minecraft “creeper,” that weird sort of blocky green camouflage-style coloration. “For you. It’ll go well with your creeper shirt you have.”

Matty beams at the gift. “Cool!” He turns it left and right, admiring it for a moment. He then looks up at me with a complicated smile, an upturned corner of genuine delight with the rosy cheeks of love mixed with a certain thin-lipped understanding and sadness, perhaps even a touch of resignation, though maybe I’m projecting a bit too much. I run my fingers across his thin-haired scalp; the remaining hair has been buzz-cut short enough that it doesn’t look so sparse, but each day it thins out just a little bit more. I trail my fingers gently across the back of his head, around his ear, and rest his cheek and jawline in my palm. Suddenly, his smile broadens as he puts the beanie on snug over his ears and hisses at me, the trademark sound of a creeper in Minecraft. (Creepers, by the way, are a strange, slightly phallic-shaped creature in Minecraft that walks up silently to you, hisses for a second, and then explodes violently. They are the bane of builders everywhere.)

“Nope!” I yelp, rolling backward off the bed semi-gracefully and crawling quickly underneath the bed. “No explodey! You can’t see me!”

“What–?!” Matty sputters as I fling myself off the bed, causing him to crack up laughing. “You are crazy, Phillip!”

From under the bed, I proclaim, “I may be crazy, but I am definitely not exploded.” This just sends Matty into a full-out laughing fit; I crawl out from under the bed to admire his red-cheeked, teary-eyed smiling face.

We sit and laugh about our stupidity for a bit. As the hilarity dies down and a pregnant pause takes the airspace, Matty breaks the silence with, “So…Daddy called again.”

“Yeah?” I search his face for clues about how to feel about this information; he seems not upset by the revelation, so I ask, “How did it go?”

“Pretty good, I guess,” he shrugs. “We talked a little bit about my…about the chemo and all that, and he told me to stay strong. He apologized a whole lot over and over for what he did, just like he did in the last phone call. I know he really means it. Um…he, y’know, he sounds good again–he hasn’t had a drink since that night, so he’s pretty proud of himself for that, so far.”

“Sounds like he’s definitely doing a lot better,” I agree. “I’m glad to hear it; I know you still love him dearly.”

Matty takes a deep breath and starts, “He…,” but the sentence leaves him in the next exhalation. Trying again, he says, “He said he wishes we could go back to the time when…when we used to play board games together. He–” Matty’s voice catches in his throat as his bottom lip quivers for a moment, but he closes his eyes and takes a deep, centering breath. “He said he really misses me, and misses spending time together.”

“Aw, Matty…” I slip my hand under his arm and scoot us closer so I can give him a good cross-legged hug. “You can always play games with him once he gets out of rehab.”

Matty stays silent for a moment, and I feel a slight shudder ripple through his thin frame. “I might not be able to,” he says quietly. Even more quietly, he mumbles, “I might not be around long enough.”

“Yeah, nope,” I say suddenly in a firm voice, making him jump slightly. “We’re not boarding that train, no sir, because you’re not headed that way. You’re going straight toward Betterville, and there’s only parks and shops there, no churches or cemeteries. Those are strictly forbidden.” I wave my hand across the room in front of us both, imitating the Buzz Lightyear/Woody scene so often used in memes. “Nothing but awesome.”

“Yeah, but I’m–”

“NOPE. That’s the wrong train. Get off it. Off, off, off. We’re heading to Betterville, one-way trip.”

He giggles slightly. After a pause, he asks, “Are there cheeseburgers in Betterville?”

“Bigger than your head, and the bacon is long enough to use as suspenders.”

“What about…what about video games?”

“They’re the only sports that people watch. Billionaires only get that way by winning Call of Duty and Smash Brothers tournaments.”

“And school?”

I look at him flatly. “Uh. No. No school. Wait–there’s school, but it’s all electives. Electives and lunch, all day.”

“Dang,” Matty says reverently. “Now I wanna live there.”

“Ugh, me too. So. Get better, and we’ll make it happen.” I hold my hand out.

He takes my hand with a smile and shakes it firmly. “Deal.”

Whirr, pff. Drip. Whirr, pff. Drip. I sit next to Matty’s “Chemo Throne,” as I call it, and gently rub his arm through the microfiber blanket he wears over his clothes. I’d hold his hand, but chemo-induced neuropathy makes it feel “like little knives” in the skin of his fingers and palms. The initial treatment didn’t work; the cancer responded only slightly to the chemicals, less so than the rest of Matty’s battered body. They’re trying another regimen, but nobody’s hopes are high. I don’t let Matty see this from me, of course–I’m all smiles and jokes, caresses and encouragement. It takes more out of me than I’d like to admit, but nobody in this room is allowed to know that. Matty watches cartoons on a wall-mounted TV, but he doesn’t giggle at the funny parts or even show any reaction to the show itself. I’m fairly certain he just needs visual distraction from the treatment itself.

After a week of the second treatment, Mom sees me walk in the door after Ms. Petersen drops me off, and as I hit the couch and practically fall asleep on the spot, she quietly says, “Phillip. You can’t keep going on like this.”

“I have to, Mom.”

“No, you don’t,” she insists. “You’re hurting yourself: you barely eat, you aren’t sleeping, you look sickly…you can’t keep this up.”

I take a deep breath and exhale pure determination. “Mom. If I don’t, then neither of them will make it, either.”

“Phillip Herbert Bontemps,” she threatens, though softly. “You know that’s not even remotely grounded in reality, and it makes no sense.”

“It does,” I reply. “Matty is stronger when I’m there. I’ve helped keep his mom from breaking down multiple times. They need me.”

“You need you,” she scolds. “I need you. You can’t just sacrifice yourself like this. Do you think Matty would want you to kill yourself over him?”

“I’m not–” I begin, but she’s right. I’m treating myself like shit. “I’ve seen a lot of futures, and I don’t want the ones without Matty to come true. I really don’t.”

Mom’s eyes narrow. “Have you been taking your medication?”

Though it’s true I’ve forgotten for the last couple of days, I say, “Yeah, yeah. This is just from stuff I’ve already seen.”

“Then you need to find happiness where you can,” she implores. “You’re way too young to have to deal with this kind of thing, but you have to realize that there’s a very real possibility that Matty won’t make it, and if he doesn’t, you’re going to have to find a way to keep going. It’s foolish and stupid to ruin your own life like this. I don’t want to say that you can’t go see him anymore, but you have to take care of yourself more. If not for anyone else, do it for him; you can’t go in there looking like crap and expect that he can get any strength from you like that.”

God dammit. Why is she always right? “I’ll…I’ll let Ms. Petersen know that I can only go up there a few times a week.”

Mom smiles dolefully. “I know it hurts, Phillip. I do. But you’re making the right choice. Now, have you eaten dinner?”

“No, but I’m not–”

“Good, because I’m making banana pancakes right now, and you’re eating at least three of them.” She gets up and heads to the kitchen. I have no response to this except for a half-frustrated, half-amused smile; if I can’t have infinite strength, at least I get pancakes out of it.

Whirr, pff. Drip. Matty’s once-round cheeks are slightly sunken and his face looks a little bit green, but he concentrates as well as he can on the game of Candy Land in front of him. At this point in our lives, it’s an overly simple game, but it doesn’t matter to Matty as he draws a card with a double red and gleefully moves two red spaces forward.

“Ugh, why do you always have the best luck at this game?” his dad asks with a smile. He draws a card and lands directly on a licorice space. “And then I get licorice. I hate licorice.”

“Me too,” Matty says, “except when it’s not me who lands on it.” He smiles a tiny, smug smile.

I draw a card from one of the stacks (we decided it makes it a little more fun if we get to choose a stack to draw from instead of having only one) and move past Matty’s dad into a purple square. “He really does get all the luck,” I point out, noting that he’s over 10 squares ahead of both of us. “I’m still rooting for second place, though.”

The game continues for a little while longer, though every player in it knows the winner by that point already. Still, we all have a good laugh at how horribly his dad does in the game; if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he rigged the decks to ensure he got the worst draws. As we congratulate Matty on his victory and pack the game up, we have small talk about how summer is going and how the previous school year was, how Mr. Petersen’s recovery is going, that kind of thing. Mr. Petersen finally asks, “So you two are friends? How do y’all know each other?”

Matty and I look at each other with the same “Oh shit” expression; apparently, his dad doesn’t know. We both look at Ms. Petersen, who has been studiously avoiding any interactions, most likely for the sake of civility. She glances back with a reassuring, encouraging expression, so Matty takes a deep breath and says, “We know each other from school, and we’re going out.”

His dad takes a moment to process the information and looks at us both, one and then the other. “You mean, like…” he says quizzically, pointing at us and then pointing together in a gesture that I assume means ‘couple.’ When Matty doesn’t deny it, Mr. Petersen’s eyebrows raise dramatically. “Oh! I didn’t realize…I mean, uh, congratulations.” The look on his face is priceless, his desire to support his son trying desperately to overcome his utter bewilderment. “I…wow. Well, I just want you to know that I support you, no matter what, like if you, yeah.” He awkwardly alternates between trying to figure out something to say and just smiling supportively at Matty. I find it exceptionally difficult to maintain composure, but I don’t want to ruin this moment, both for the sentiment and for the fact that it’s fun watching Matty’s dad suffer socially. What? I’m allowed a tiny bit of vindication here.

Matty just smiles in amusement and offers his arms out, which his dad accepts readily, lifting Matty halfway out of the Chemo Throne. “Thanks, Daddy.” I still find it adorable that he calls him that.

“Of course, Champ.” Jesus, these two are sickeningly cute. “So how long have you two been going out?”

“Since…” Matty begins, but he stops, realizing at the same time I do that the answer to that is extremely awkward.

I interrupt, “Shortly after the start of the school year. We met in gym class, and kinda became good friends pretty quick after that. And then, well, y’know. I thought he was really cute, and nice, and smart, and…”

“Phillip, ugh, stop,” Matty says, a faint blush to his cheeks temporarily hiding the paleness of his face. He can’t help but smile, though, even as he rolls his eyes at me.

“And apparently I like being told to shut up, so that really helps our relationship.” And in preparation for the inevitable, I add, “And getting hit.” Just as I finish saying that, I feel him smack my shoulder.

Ms. Petersen tries her best to suppress a laugh, but ends up snorting it out instead. “Well, I’m glad you two found each other. Matty has been a lot happier ever since, and when my child is happy, I’m happy.”

“I have to agree,” Mr. Petersen says, earning him a sidelong glance from Matty’s mom. “But if you’ll excuse me, I have to go use the restroom. Which way is…?”

Ms. Petersen points toward the wall on the right. “Down the hall, take a right, first hall on the left. There are signs.” He thanks her politely and heads to the restroom; after the door closes, she looks at Matty and me both. “I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised at his reaction to you coming out like that.”

Matty furrows his brow in time with mine. “Why so?” I inquire.

She raises a disapproving eyebrow toward the door. “I love him dearly, but he has his flaws; he comes from a very conservative family with deep homophobia, so to hear him say that–even if he doesn’t mean it 100%, just saying it is a big step for him. I mean, he used to say some pretty shitty things about LGBT people, especially back when you were very young, but I made sure he didn’t ever talk about that kind of thing around you. I was adamant that you were to have the most accepting upbringing possible, and that he needed to get over it.”

“But…” Matty begins, and stops to form his sentence. “Did you, like, know or something?”

She shrugs. “I don’t have some magic way of knowing those kinds of things, no, but I thought of it like this: if you were straight, I’d want you to respect everyone, period, regardless of gender or sexuality. If you weren’t straight, though, I’d strangle him before he had a chance to make his own son feel inadequate in any way.”

Geez. It sounds like there were some issues underneath the surface in their marriage for quite some time, even before the drinking. I think I’ll keep my mouth shut on that one, though. Not a can of worms I want to open.

Matty’s dad stays for a little while longer, but he has a strict curfew at the rehab clinic and leaves shortly before dinner starts. Mom shows up to pick me up as well, but I give Matty a huge hug and kiss on the cheek (rules are rules), saying, “Make sure you keep eating. You need all your strength to get through this.”

He just smiles at me, but I see the sheen of tears form in his eyes as his lips quiver slightly. “I’ll try.”

Mom called me out for not taking my medication; she was apparently keeping track of the pills just to make sure. I’d feel violated if not for the fact that she has every reason to, seeing as I wasn’t taking them. So I start taking a pill each day and putting it in another container that I’ve hidden between my mattress and box-spring; it’s near my legs so that I don’t feel the lump in my back or anything, but it’s pretty much impossible to tell it’s there. I realize it’d be less hassle to just take the pills (and swallow them), but…I have my reasons. Cognition, for example, just seems to be easier when I’m not taking the stupid pills. I think they interfere with some of my higher order thinking or something, but I always feel fuzzy-headed when I’m on them.

The other boys are doing better than me, for the most part. Beto and ‘Canelito’ are adorable, though they act like they’re just friends in front of other people for the most part. The twins, though, are clearly bummed out by the whole thing, and ask me by text message every day how Matty is doing. I try my best to bring good news each time, but there’s only so much lying one can do before the truth finds its way out. They had me deliver a card with get-well wishes to him, and other friends have given me cards as well; it brings me joy to watch his face light up with each bit of recognition he receives from his friends and peers.

At the end of the second round of chemo, Matty needs all the friendly and family support he can get; underneath his Minecraft creeper beanie, he’s completely bald and rail-thin, despite trying to fatten him up for extra energy. They check his vitals and such, but the cancer has barely responded, only slowing down its growth. In short, Matty tells me the doctors say that at the current rate, he has maybe a month to live. They could extend it with more chemotherapy, but he would likely not make it much past the beginning of school even at that. It rips me apart inside to hear it said, though I’ve known that it wasn’t going to be cured for some time now; stage IV metastatic cancers, especially the more rapidly-growing kind, are almost guaranteed to be lethal, but just hearing those words makes it sink in like a knife to the heart.

Mom lets me go over to his place to have a quiet dinner, which Matty has asked that his dad be able to attend as well, despite the whole ‘separation’ thing. His mom agrees, for Matty’s sake, and we gather around the table to have dinner: good old-fashioned hamburgers, home-cooked happiness between two buns.

Once everything is set up, Matty takes a few bites of his hamburger and manages to keep them down; of all the random things to not be affected, red meat seems to taste just fine to him (though the nerve sensitivity in his hands is still annoying him).

We eat in relative silence, though both the parents interject halfway through with encouragements for his strength and bravery, and you-can-do-its and such. Though they are trying their best, the encouragements ring hollowly across the linoleum of the kitchen.

Near the end of the meal, Matty slowly puts the last bit of his hamburger down and stares at it for a half a minute, tears forming slowly in his eyes.

“Honey?” his mom asks. “What is it?”

He picks his head up and looks at all of us with quivering tears but he firmly, unwaveringly says, “Mom, Daddy, Phillip…I want to stop treatment.”

Silence. Nearly ten full seconds of silence settle thickly on the table like the ashes of Pompeii, freezing us in the same position for a seeming eternity. His dad is the first to break the moment: “Matty. Champ. You can’t. You have to keep going.”

“Daddy.” He stares his dad down. “No, I don’t. I’m dying.”

“Yes, but honey…” Ms. Petersen takes a moment to collect her thoughts. “Even though you’re dying, you can’t just give up! You need to keep fighting, right? Give it the old Petersen fighting spirit!”

“But why?” Matty seems completely confident in his question. “I have felt horrible for over a month now, and all I’m going to do is feel more horrible for the rest–” He chokes up on the last bit of the sentence: “–the rest of my life.”

His dad snaps, “But you can’t just–just give up! That’s not fair!”

Not fair? Really? What is he, 12? Matty catches it as well and replies, “What do you mean, ‘not fair’?”

“I–” his dad starts, but stutters a few times trying to defend his outburst. “You’re not being fair to yourself!” he says in a flimsy attempt to recover. “You could live for a lot longer!”

“And feel like shit the entire time, yeah.”

“Matty!” Ms. Petersen scolds. “Watch your mouth!”

“Or what?!” he snaps back with sudden vigor. “Or you’ll ground me? For the rest of my life?! I can’t go anywhere or see anyone anyway, so go ahead!” He takes a deep breath and continues his tirade, “Besides, I’m literally dying in a month, and you won’t let me make a single decision about my own life. I can’t even curse? I can say whatever the hell I want, and you can’t stop me. Go ahead. Do something about it. What are you going to do, kill me?”

Everyone else at the table is completely stunned at the assault, myself included. His mom gently implores, “Matty, please. Calm down. I didn’t mean–”

He interrupts with renewed ferocity, “It’s my life! I get to make the choice, not you!” He breathes through his nose, seething for a moment longer, when tears start to boil over from his eyes. “I’m tired, Mom. I’m done. I spent a…a year fighting it once, and then the rest of the time getting better from it while peeing my pants like a damn baby, and being bullied and made fun of at school, and now it’s back and it’s winning and I’m…” He takes one last shuddering breath to complete his monologue. “I just want to feel okay for a little while before I go. I want to stop getting chemo. Please.”

The earnest, exhausted plea breaks everyone’s dams, tears flowing on all sides. Unexpectedly, though, his dad looks straight at me and accuses, “You put him up to this, didn’t you? You little shit.”

“What?!” I snap. “Why the–why would I want him to die?! I love him!”

“So you want him to continue chemo too, right?”

Oh, that sick, twisted shithead. “I want Matty to be happy. If that means he wants to feel better for the last days of his life, then so be it. If he would be miserable for the rest of his life while doing chemo, I don’t want him to do it.”

“So you want my son to die?!”

“I want him to not be tortured by his parents because of an inability to deal with grief!” That was pointed and probably inappropriate. Oh well. “What I want…is for him to be able to be his own person.”

“You worthless piece of shit,” Mr. Petersen hisses. “You put all these ideas in his head so that he would–”

“Kenneth!” Ms. Petersen shouts. “Are you drunk?! There is no way that Phillip could have said anything like that to him since we got the news. You’re not thinking straight. I want everyone to sit down and shut up for a moment! We’re all getting way out of hand; Phillip, now might be a good time to go home so we can have a proper discussion as a family.”

Matty stands up, in direct defiance to Ms. Petersen’s request. “No. He can stay here. He is my boyfriend, and I love him. Phillip made everything better this last year; really, he’s about the only reason it was worth it at all. He turned what could have been the most miserable year ever into the best one ever, and you can both stop treating him like he’s a piece of…whatever. He’s my boyfriend, and it’s not like I’m going to be around long enough to get married, so he’s family enough.”

Surprisingly, they both acquiesce. We clean up the kitchen table and leave the kitchen without actually having a “proper discussion” at all; Matty’s dad has to leave to go back to the clinic, his mom goes to her bedroom, and I head with Matty to his room. I text Mom that I’m going to spend the night, to which she just replies that she’ll pick me up in the morning.

In his room, he sits down on the floor and looks up at me. “Do you think I’m making the right choice?”

I sit down and look at him directly. “As much as it hurts to even think about you being gone, I want you to be happy for as long as you can be.” My voice quavers the entire time, and tears freely flow down my face, but somehow I’ve managed not to break into sobs.

“Thank you, Phillip,” he says softly, offering me his hands. I take them as he says, “You make me happy. I…I hope you live a happy final life.”

I bring him in and hug him like there’s no tomorrow, because I don’t actually know if there will be, and I don’t want to lie to him about what I have planned.

For the next few weeks, I spend most of my time over at Matty’s; I often bring a dinner so that I’m not a burden on the Petersens’ finances. He ends up having a lot of visits and sleepovers in the meanwhile: the twins, Zacky, Edgar and Beto, Sean, even Kyle once or twice, and a few other people that he knows from school who wanted to come say their goodbyes. No wild sex parties or anything, of course, though he and I do share a few intimate moments here and there. His condition worsens to the point that it begins to affect his ability to urinate at all, so his hospice team brings in a dialysis machine a few times a week. He quickly becomes bedridden and his responsiveness dwindles.

The day comes where he is no longer able to respond when I call his name or touch his hand, and it leaves me cold inside. Cold and empty. He’s not dead yet, but he’s gone. I call my mom to have her come pick me up, and I sit in my room for the next few hours, unmoving, uncaring. Mom comes up to wish me a good night and hugs me deeply, telling me that everything’s going to be okay. Soon, everyone else in the house is asleep.

I’m done. I wasn’t kidding when I said that Matty was the only thing I had left keeping me here. I’ve experienced dozens of lifetimes more than I should have, I’ve been the best and worst of men, I’ve seen all the things I care to see. Until recently, I thought there was no way to die, but tonight, I have a plan. Tonight, maybe finally I can die in peace.

I pull the pill container out from underneath my mattress; it has weeks of my anti-seizure medication in it. I take the bottle and head to the kitchen, where I take out the bottle of sleeping pills Mom sometimes uses for insomnia. With the flat side of the meat tenderizer, I crush the contents of both pill bottles together into a fine powder in a bowl, which I then mix into a glass of water. I down the whole thing as fast as I can, gagging a few times afterward from the extreme bitterness of the powder, even when dissolved. If I can’t wake up, and I can’t go back in time, I should hopefully, finally die.

I feel the drugs kick in within about 15 minutes, and the world begins to spin. I go out to the backyard and prevent myself from vomiting as long as I can, but eventually the symptoms of anticonvulsant overdose take over my body, tearing my brain and body apart even as the sleeping pills blur the lines between reality and oblivion. Eventually, I feel the familiar but dulled sensation of reaching the end of life, that stretching, stopping, squeezing feeling, but it’s almost as if I manage to slip through the holes of that net, and for one tiny fraction of a second, I feel free.

Then my life starts flashing before my eyes. I see Matty on his deathbed. Matty telling me the news that he has cancer. Faster. Christmas, then October. Being shot dozens of times by Michael. The time I met Matty. Faster. Failing the tests in 6th grade on purpose. Kissing a boy for the first time in 5th grade. Was that my first life? Saying goodbye to my husband. Dragging a wounded soldier to safety in the wars. Learning martial arts to find a peaceful way to disable people. Becoming CEO of the biggest megacorp in America. Watching the first person I ever killed slowly die in my grasp. The first time I had sex, with a 17-year-old boy while I was 13. The fifth time I passed my driver’s ed test. Memory after memory of every moment I can remember goes whipping by until I lose myself entirely in the sea of experiences. And then one thought echoes in my head over and over, like a hall of mirrors leading into infinity: Let Matty live; take me instead.

At the last moment, I realize with dawning horror that I’m being taken, but not where–or when–I expect.

Hi. My name is Phillip Bontemps. This is my second year at Akronis Middle School, meaning I’m in 7th grade. I’m a kinda awkward kid, I guess: I feel like maybe my nose is a little too long, I stumble like I’ve got three left feet on only two legs, and I always seem to say stupid things. To make things worse, I sometimes have pretty bad seizures. I have medication for it, but I think it gives me weird side-effects, like strange deja vu type things. Have you ever thought that something happened before? So that’s deja vu, right, but sometimes I think that something happened before, but it was different, like maybe someone said something but just in different words. I dunno, it’s weird. Like I said, I’m awkward. I kinda wish I could rewind all the stupid things I do sometimes like in the video games I play, but I’m sure everyone thinks that sometimes.

But it gets worse. Today is gym class, and I’m gay. I don’t think we need to shower yet, but we do have to change out, so I’m going to be surrounded by boys in their underwear and I’m supposed to somehow not pop a boner. I end up getting a stiffy in the middle of math class, so how am I gonna avoid it here? I wish that the GT kids didn’t have to go to gym; I mean, we’re supposed to be the super smart brainy ones, right? Why do we have to play ball and run a mile? Stupid.

So anyway, I go to the locker room, and everyone’s all trying to pretend that nobody else is there, except for the 8th graders who all know each other. I know a few of the 7th graders, but we’re a pretty big school, so I don’t know all of them, like, at all. That, and I kinda keep to myself, really–I don’t know how to talk to people at all, so I just look stupid when I do. I can’t help but scope out some of the people and stuff–I mean their junk is like right there at eye level when you’re sitting on the bench taking your pants off–and there are a lot of cute boys in this class, dammit. Think about…elephants. Or kittens. Or dachsunds. No, not weiner dogs, that’s too close. Running the mile! That always sucks.

While I’m trying my hardest not to get hard, in walks this super-cute little boy, short for his age, but like these piercing sky blue eyes and cute dusty-brown short hair, wearing a shirt with an atomic symbol and the letters ‘GG’ on the front. Maybe it’s a video game reference. But anyway, he sits right next to me and starts changing, and when he’s down to his underwear, he’s got a natural 6-pack, not from being super strong, but just because I guess he doesn’t have a lot of fat on him. I do notice a scar that runs up the middle of his abs, though, but he doesn’t seem to be concerned or ashamed about it. There’s something about him, though, that feels…I dunno. Interesting. Dammit, boner, stop it!

I stand up and try to quickly hoist up my gym shorts so nobody sees the tent in my briefs that’s trying to stand up. As I’m doing so, I feel a foot connect with the back of my knees, buckling my legs and sending me forward. Before I even have a chance to react, though, that short-haired kid is already in front of me, bracing both my shoulders. “You okay?” he asks in a cute, boyish soprano.

“Aw, the little 6th grader saved Phillip the Fuckup!” Ugh, great. I thought Rodrigo “Rod” Juarez would have grown out of this stupid shit, but he always finds some reason to mess with me. I’m so tired of it.

“Funny,” the shorter boy says as I straighten myself up and yank my shorts up, “because I’m in 7th grade and you look like you should be in 9th. How many times did you fuck up in school?”

“Oh-ho!” Rod says, looking at Diego, his right-hand thug of a friend. “The little guy has a big mouth! You wanna take this outside, little man?” Rod puffs up his chest and looks down at the kid, who is considerably shorter than the big-and-tall Rod.

The kid, though, points to the speaker in the ceiling, which immediately blares the sound for class beginning. “Sorry, no time right now. Maybe after class.” By this point, he’s already slipped his gym shorts on, and he wiggles his shirt over his head. “C’mon, Phillip, let’s go.”

What the hell just happened? Some kid just protected me from the biggest, meanest bully in school, and I’ve never even met the boy! I’m speechless as we walk out into the gym; Rod and Diego follow us out, but the coach is looking straight at us, so there aren’t any problems as we head to the bleachers.

We sit on the opposite end from the assholes. The boy looks at me with concern in his baby blues and asks, “So are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I respond, bewildered. “You really shouldn’t have helped me, though. Rod is a huge asshole, and now you’re gonna be his target.”

He looks at me with sly confidence on his features. “Let’s see him try. So, Phillip, right? I’m Matthew, but everyone calls me Matty.” He offers his hand, which I take tentatively. His hand is soft, but his grip is decently firm as he shakes my hand. The confidence level of this boy is through the roof, and it’s making me feel even more awkward, I swear. “I’m new to the school,” he mentions, “so is it cool if we hang together?”

“Uh…yeah. Yeah! That would be cool.” God, I sound like an idiot. “But…Matty, you said, right? Somehow that rings a bell…I feel like I knew a Matty before, but I can’t remember when.”

“Huh.” He thinks about it. “What was this other ‘Matty’ like?”

“Maybe like…shy? I dunno. My brain is really weird sometimes. Don’t…just never mind.”

“Interesting,” he says. “That’s not what you said last time.”

“Wait, what?”

“Kidding! I’m just kidding with you.” His disarming smile sends butterflies into my stomach and heat to my cheeks (and blood to my…). Just then, the coach starts talking in a loud voice that reverberates through the gym, so any hope for further conversation disappears. However, I catch ‘Matty’ looking over at me once or twice with a strange smile.

Some small part of me wonders if I’m just prey, and one predator just stole me from the jaws of another.

Not all stories have happy endings. Some endings are indeed, sad. Others are simply twisted.

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