Love Is What You Make It

10. Unexpected Transitions

         They move into an apartment a little farther from the school, closer to Harvard, and spend a lot of time living in the present.  Thomas gets a job at a CD store down the street ("Perfect," he says when he gets the news, "I won't have to talk to any people.") and Jack picks up odd jobs for local businesses looking to film commercials.

          Thomas attends his first semester in the spring and gets out the same day Lacey graduates—which is three days before they have to be back at Drixel for their own delayed ceremony.

          Their friends all cry, as do Damara and Bradford, and Lacey embarrasses them with shrer shouting and hooting (which they had politely refrained from doing at shrer ceremony), but it's a good time, and the boys don't mind half as much as they pretend to.

          They go out drinking afterward with all their friends, promise to stay in touch as everyone talks about their plans to scatter themselves across the country—and realize only when he approaches, still wearing his gown but not his cap, that Alby's there too.

          "Hey," he says, voice crunching a little, and Thomas and Jack share a glance, cautious and uncertain. Thomas looks disgusted, and Lacey sneers when Jack sets a hand on shrer shoulder, turning from a pleasant conversation with shrer (now openly) agender brother (a term, like his pronouns, which he prefers to keep).

          "So he's back," shre says drily, leaning heavily on Jack to reach Thomas as shre goes for their hands.  "What does he want?"

          Jack can't manage the kind of open disgust his partners are capable of.  He only looks at Alby with something between hurt and accusation, willing him to say his piece and leave already.  It's a good night, he thinks, sending a silent prayer up to the heavens.  Please let it stay a good night.

          In the wake of their silence, the clatter of glasses and excited chatter acting as a backdrop, Alby squirms.  "Spit it out," Thomas orders, face a blank canvas.

          "I'm sorry," Alby finally says, and seems to force himself to meet their eyes.  "I acted really horrible towards you guys the last time we talked, and it was really, really, stupid."

          "Yeah," Thomas drawls, "it was." Alby flinches.  "Glad to see you've finally figured it out."

          "So I just wanted to apologize," Alby goes on, his whole body a series of twitching muscles.   "I've been going through a lot of stuff, and I know that you can't help what's on your wrist any more than I can—"

          "So you're sorry that we've been happily matched to several humans who love and cherish us," Lacey hisses, and Jack knows why shre's angry, but a part of him doesn't think shre really has the right to be that upset—shre never knew Alby, it didn't hurt shrer when he called them names and walked out of their lives, not the way it did himself and Thomas.  Shre didn't crash in his apartment or let him into shrers when he needed a place to stay, shre didn't stay up late to help him study for tests they didn't have to take, shre wasn't the one who he punched in the goddamn face at a party thrown in shrer own goddamn dorm room!

          Jack looks down at the floor.  He hadn't realized until just this moment how much it had hurt him to have Alby react the way he did.  Until now he'd just thought, to hell with it, who needs friends like that anyway?  He doesn't need friends like that, but he could do without the burning sensation in his gut, the searing heat in his mind where all the happy memories of his and Thomas's time spent with Alby have been retroactively tainted.

          "No, that's not what I meant," Alby insists, quick but not really defensive.  He's standing on top of his own feet, rubbing his ankles together like a cricket.  "I just meant—it was dumb of me, to see you so happy and get so mad.  There's just a lot of stuff I've internalized since I was little, and the fact that I'm never going to have even half of what you guys had was really hard for me to take, and for you to have three partners, it was just—"  He takes a deep breath and pinches at the sides of his robes.  "I don't know what I can do to make it up to you, but I want to be happy for you, and honestly I really miss you guys.  Sorry."