for what awaits (an evening with them)

I was going to see my brothers for the first time in a year.

My leg was bouncing up and down. My hands couldn’t sit still. I rubbed my fingertips along my pants as a way of distracting myself. The restaurant wasn’t noisy. But it still felt too loud, the glass clinking together, the low rumbling laughs. It wasn’t helping the feeling of anxiousness. I already downed half a cocktail. I think I’ll order another one if it means it’ll calm my nerves.

My eyes trailed along the room, then they fell back on the two empty chairs sitting in front of me, and the table top with candles and untouched silverware. This place is fancy. I think that’s what’s driving me up the wall in the first place.

I look back down at my lap and press my hands between my thighs.

“Taylor,”

I turn my head as I hear my name and I get to my feet, staring back at Pearson, who wore a luminous smile.

I met Pearson first. 

He was running. From someone. He hid behind some dumpster in the back of the restaurant I worked at. I was out on break, standing against the bricks. He pulled chips and candy out of his bag, glancing at me, and then looking away out of embarrassment. I figured he had stolen them. There were a few convenience stores on the block that got robbed often. A few missing snacks were the least of their problems. 

His voice was high. His hair was long, and tied back in a hairband. A dark-skinned Black boy with feminine features. I actually thought he was a girl. He was. But he told me wasn’t anymore. And he told me he goes by Pearson now. I didn’t ask what it was before.

When he told me he had no place to go, I told him I had no place to live, but that I stay over at a nearby shelter most nights and asked if he wanted to join. He agreed, and from there, we stayed side by side.

He was new at this, being homeless. I could tell it had just happened. I told him to keep his things to himself, to not talk to anybody. And as much as it sucks to not have anything to eat, don’t steal. 

We made a routine out of waking together, using the stall together, going to work together; he waited for me in the park while I did my shift at the restaurant. We spent our nights together just walking, talking, and we went back to the shelter and slept together.

We became closer than we envisaged. 

I learned that Pearson had run away from his home. He told me he was questioning himself a lot. His gender. And during that time, he heard some things from his parents that made him think that he couldn’t talk to them. So instead of coming out as a trans man, he ran away instead, his way of avoiding any rejection if it so came.

Being alone in the world was hard; Pearson had felt that even before he ran away, even with loved ones. He didn’t say it, but it’s easy to tell he’d been alone most of his teenage life much like myself. He didn’t need to put his guard up with me. I just hope he knew that.

“It’s so good to see you.” Pearson tells me. His voice is noticeably lower, deeper, a tint of raspiness. I could practically hear his kind smile if I wasn’t looking at it. 

He steps closer without hesitation, and wraps himself around me, resting his chin on my shoulder.

His scent is familiar, his touch familiar. It’s strange to smell him again, to touch him again after so long, but that only lasted a second before I felt longing I didn’t know I had.

I hug back; my body was relaxing a bit, the anxiety floating out the window. 

Pearson then pulls away, his hand lingering on my upper back, before sitting to my right in the empty chair. I mirrored him and sat back down.

“How are you?” He asks. His chin bore stubble, his cheeks were fuller. I looked down at his chest, which was flat under a tight linen shirt, though his stomach was pudgier, hanging out of the tucked shirt just above his snug slacks. I didn’t stare for too long. I didn’t want to look like a creep of all things. 

“Good—” my voice came out strangled, I clear my throat and tried again, “I’m good. And you?”

“Oh, I’m great.” He exclaims, then he raises his eyebrows. “Where’s Boun?”

“He’s coming.”

I’d been apart from them for only a year, but a year can be a long time. I think maybe that’s what was bothering me before. This dinner reservation. Knowing that I was going to see them after a whole year, counting the days of us meeting again after a long time, somewhere in there, knowing that things might have changed about us. I am certainly different now than I was when we were together. I was afraid they would be different as well. And I’m afraid they would see that I’m different and not like that about me.

“Excuse me, is this other seat taken?”

I turn to my left, a hand extended on top of the other empty chair. The owner of the hand was Boun. He wore a gleaming smile, his eyes crinkled in their corners.

I met Bounthavy almost a year and a half after Pearson had joined me.

He sat under the bridge. He held onto his backpack straps with both hands, and perched quietly, as if waiting. He didn’t move much.

I passed under the bridge often to get to the other side of the neighborhood and go to work. After nights of watching him in the same place, sitting, sometimes sleeping, I approached him and asked him if he wanted to come to the shelter with me. He didn’t oblige at first. It took him a second meeting to agree to come with me.

His hair was pure black, messy. His skin dark, but lighter than Pearson’s, and much warmer. His face was kind, and very handsome. His accent made his friendly appearance all the more charming.

He didn’t seem to be a stranger to homelessness. He kept his backpack on at all times, he was quiet, a bit of a loner in some sense. I knew that he had been in this situation before. He was smart with the very little he had. And he didn’t complain. He did what he had to do.

The city was new to him, though. His surroundings were unfamiliar. We were able to show him around, though we didn’t venture out much apart from the part of town we spent our nights at. It warmed him up to us almost immediately. He was grateful for having us to show him the ropes, he told us many times.

I learned that Boun was a refugee from Laos. He told us he’d escaped a few years ago and been sent to Thailand by his parents. He lived there for a year before coming here, having lost contact with them. I didn’t ask what had happened to make him leave his home, I really had no place.

After having lost family, something that was completely out of his hands, he was able to find another one to hold onto, Pearson and I. It wasn’t that apparent to me until he began referring to us as his brothers when he talked to others. 

It just stuck after that. 

I watch Pearson and Boun collide in a welcoming hug, Boun kissing the side of Pearson’s temple. I stood as he did the same to me, the back of his hand holding me by my neck. I can feel a ring on his hand. He pulled back and looks me over. 

“It’s so good to see you.” He tells me. And a wave of comfort washes over me. He lets go and we sit back down in our chairs. 

The waitress comes with menus and we take a look at what’s to offer at the expensive restaurant.

Boun mentions Pearson’s stubble followed by a joke about not shaving for the occasion, and a laugh comes from Pearson.

I just watch them talk for a moment. Their voices, something I haven’t heard in a long time, their laughs. Their expressions, that was new to see again too. I miss the way Pearson’s left eyebrow furrowed, and the way Boun’s nostrils flared. 

We ordered our meals, and with a couple bites here and there came talk about what we’ve been up to since we’d last seen each other. 

Pearson is doing an art residency. He paints well just from what I hear about all this commission talk. And he started testosterone. He grinned as he talked about it. He deserves to smile. He worked so hard to feel good in his body, he looks absolutely fantastic. 

And Boun is married now, met a nice girl he says. And he’s working at some restaurant that pays him well to be the head chef. He beamed with glee as he talked about it. Hell, he’s a charmer. I knew he’d be hitched before thirty.

I was happy for them. I really was. I’m glad that they found exactly what they wanted after all these years. When we became adults, our money was saved enough for us to get a one bedroom. We found a place on the third floor of an apartment building. We lived there for quite some time, becoming acquainted with each other’s living habits, happy that we just had a roof over our heads.

We helped one another back on our feet, learning the ins and outs of adulthood that was strangely not much different than our childhoods. But it was manageable; having Pearson and Boun with me was a hundred times easier than if I was still doing it all by myself.

“What about you, Taylor?”

I look up from my food as I hear my name. They are both staring at me, waiting patiently for me to answer. I swallow the food in my mouth.

“What about me?”

“Like, what’ve you been up to?” Pearson clarified, “Last we heard, you had found a nice place near work.”

Again, they left the floor to me, eager for me to tell them what I’ve been up to this year. I was reminded of the things I had done, hadn’t done, and everything in between.

Well, I am working a job I don’t care for much, one that shows no signs of moving me up in the company despite me being the most loyal employee. I am in between complicated romantic relationships with people that don’t know if they want any more than we already have. Then there were the little things, like the other day, I found a silver hair on my head. I’m only twenty eight. That’s enough to put on more stress. Bottom line is, I could be better.

I’ve been apart from my brothers for a long time and I finally get one night to be together with them. I don’t want to be a drag. I don’t want them to spoil their appetites. I don’t want to seem like I’m having just the worst time and that everything in my life sucks. But, the least I could do is not lie to them.

“Nothing.” I say. And it’s honest. 

I wait for some sort of reaction out of them. I’m afraid I sounded too serious when I answered. My leg starts shaking again and I think that maybe I should reach for that cocktail I almost completely forgot about.

But then slowly, they smiled, then came laughs. They weren’t laughing at me. I think they wanted me to laugh with them. My own smile starts to make its way up my face and I exhale, then I open my mouth to laugh with them, dropping my fork, and letting out everything I have.