pt1: fifteen

Cw for a side character death and mentions of sh

Oliver had a boyfriend. Travis wasn't sure why he had a boyfriend. Oliver had always seemed like he liked girls, but it wasn't any of Travis's business. When he asked Oliver about it he only said, “I wanted to try it with a guy,” and he did. A part of Travis wondered, ’why not me?’ but he knew why it wasn't him. 

Oliver's boyfriend was named Matt. He was skinny, almost anorexic, with shaggy brown hair and glasses. He liked art and music and Oliver, as he should. In Travis's mind, Matt and Oliver were kind of the perfect couple, and he wasn't just saying that. 

Matt evened out Oliver's looming presence in a way. Over the last school year Oliver had become stronger, but he hadn't really grown much more. Travis suspected he'd been working out more after what happened in eighth grade. Travis always sighed upon seeing them together. 

One summer day Travis was sitting with Jacob, when Jacob went quiet. “How do you still like Olivia-” he caught himself, “Oliver?” He looked at Travis nervously. Travis's eyes flicked to Jacob's hands, the way Jacob twisted his fingers in his shirt. Travis's eyes went back to Jacob's face. 

“I dunno,” he shrugged. Travis adjusted himself on the park bench they sat on. 

“You love Mikaela right?” Travis asked, tapping his fingers on his backpack. 

Jacob looked down at Travis's rapidly moving fingers. “I guess,” he said, putting a hand over Travis's. Travis looked down at his fingers, and began bouncing his leg instead. Jacob sighed, and put a hand on Travis's knee. “Stop that,” Travis snapped, swatting Jacob's hand.

 “Sorry. What's your point?” 

Travis sighed. “If she transitioned into a guy you’d still love her, right?” 

Jacob squinted his eyes. “Maybe, I dunno. Dating a guy would be weird.” 

“OK, instead think of it like this. She's still the same person you fell in love with, she's just changed her name and pronouns and maybe the way she's dressed, right?” 

“Okay,” Jacob drawled. 

Travis sighed. “Dumb blond,” he muttered. 

“I heard that,” Jacob laughed. Jacob stopped laughing and shrugged again. “I think if Mikaela was trans I’d still love her, but not in the same way I did before.” Jacob glanced at Travis, and looked away before he thought Travis would notice. Travis noticed anyway. “I think I'd stay with her, and I might even love her more for it.” 

Travis nodded his head. “Exactly.” Jacob looked at Travis again, and Travis noticed he had that look in his eyes again. Travis hated that look. 

“OK so imagine this, instead of Mikaela, it's Oliver. I’ve been in love with him since I was thirteen, talked to him every night for almost a year, and still love him.” 

“Okay,” Jacob nodded. 

“You’ve dated Mikaela for just a couple months, been in love with her for even less, and you would still date with her if she came out as trans, right?” 

“I guess.” 

Travis fell silent, and Jacob looked down at his lap. “Oh,” he murmured. “Yeah.” Travis leaned back against the picnic table. 

“So are you like bi or somethin’?” Jacob asked, looking over his shoulder at Travis. Travis opened one eye, and squinted at the way the sunlight reflected off of Jacob's hair. 

“I dunno,” he drawled, closing his eye again. “I jus’ love Oliver no matter what, no matter who he is.” 

“Hmmm,” Jacob drawled. Travis could feel Jacob's gaze on him even after they fell silent. 

Jacob was quiet for a few more minutes, then inhaled slowly. “I think… if Mikaela did come out, I'd have to break up with her.” Travis sat up and looked at Jacob silently, Jacob ignoring his gaze. “I’d like to date her still, if she did,” Jacob continued, “but I can't,” he whispered, dropping his head. 

Travis didn’t know a lot about Jacob's home life, but he knew his dad was a b***h and absolutely terrified Jacob and his mom. He knew Jacob's brother was a conniving b*****d, and took after his father in many ways. He knew Jacob was an affectionate boy, and kept all his friends, Travis especially, close to him. 

He kept Travis closer to Jacob than he did his other friends, and as Travis watched his friend fighting his battles without a word, that revelation scared Travis more than the thought of losing Oliver ever had. 

Travis was sitting with Oliver in his room that night, after he’d sworn to himself to not let Jacob stay too close anymore. 

“How's Matt?” he asked. He saw Oliver tense at the mention of Matt, back going stiff as a board where he leaned against Travis's bed. Oliver refused to bring up Matt unless Travis did, and even if Travis did mention him, he was always touchy about it. 

“He's okay,” Oliver droned. Oliver climbed back onto the bed, then leaned down until his head was in Travis's lap.Travis began running his hands over Oliver's buzzed hair. Travis thought back to what Oliver's father had done when Oliver came home with his head shaved. This was before Oliver had come out, but only by a few weeks. Oliver's dad had beat on him for shaving his head until he came out. Travis wasn't sure what Oliver's dad was like now, but he knew he didn't hit Oliver anymore. 

Oliver sighed. “You’ve grown a lot, y’know that?” 

“I know,” Travis laughed. “I thought it’d never happen.” 

“It's sad my growth spurt is slowing down. You’re gon’ be taller than me soon.” 

“I am.” 

“Goddammit,” Oliver muttered. 

“It's okay,” Travis laughed, moving his hand to squeeze Oliver's shoulder. “You’re more built than me anyway.”  

Oliver laughed. “We're the perfect duo.” 

“How's that?” Travis asked, returning his hand to Oliver's hair. 

“I’m the butch f*g and you’re the twink straight boy.” Those words sounded weird coming from Oliver, with the way his accent emphasized the words. Travis realized he never really asked Oliver where he was from. 

“Where’re you from?” Travis asked, fingers continuing to run his hands over Oliver’s spiky hair.  

“Ma’s from Ireland ‘n m’ dads from Tennessee.” 

“Ah.” 

“Makes sense doesn’t it?” 

Travis laughed. “It does. Were you raised here?” 

“Nah. Ma met dad in Ireland where they had me. We stayed there until I was ‘bout... five n’ then moved all over for dads job." Oliver looked up at him. “Where’re you from?” 

“Born n’ raised here.” 

“I thought as much,” Oliver laughed, sitting up.

“Gotta love them Minnesota queers,” Travis chucked. Oliver looked at him for a second, waiting for Travis to elaborate, but he didn't. 

 “I gotta go,” he finally said, moving to the window. “I told Matt I'd meet him at the kindergarten playground.” 

Travis forced his face to remain passive. “Mmkay. Have fun.” 

Travis pretended not to notice the doleful way Oliver looked at him before he climbed out the window. 

That night Travis lay in bed thinking over the way people looked at him. Neil and Chris looked at him like he was pathetic, in the way only popular kids look at the silent ones. His mom looked at him with a kind of sadness in her eyes, as if she regretted not giving him a better life. Oliver looked at him with a kind of pain, as if he too had regrets about Travis, just like his mom. Jacob however, looked at him in a more confusing way. 

Travis wondered if he looked at Oliver the same way Jacob looked at him. Travis wondered if Jacob even knew the way Jacob looked at him, if he even recognized the familiar emotion floating in Jacob's clear blue eyes. Travis didn't think he did. 

Travis then thought about the look he had in his eyes when he looked at people. Everyone said he looked at them like he was bored, with the exception being Oliver. Travis thought in a way that might be accurate. 

Travis fell asleep comparing the way he looked at Oliver to the way Jacob looked at him. Those thoughts only made Travis reinstate his vow to keep Jacob at arms length. 

A couple weeks later, Travis somehow got roped into hanging out with Jacob, Jacob's girlfriend Mikaela, and their friends. He'd never felt more miserable before. 

“I hate you,” he seethed, hiding behind Jacob. Neil laughed beside him. 

“I forgot how much I missed you kid,” Neil laughed, throwing an arm over Travis's shoulder. Travis shuddered, and threw Neil’s arm off him. “Oh my bad,” Neil said, lifting his hands up. “I forgot you’re not big on contact.”

“You got that right,” Travis leered, moving back to Jacob’s side. Travis grabbed the hem of Jacob's shirt, and looked down at the ground, brow furrowed. Travis ignored the way Jacob looked down at him, gaze soft and an equally soft smile on his lips. 

Travis shut out the way Mikaela’s friends laughed at his actions, calling him adorable. One of Mikaela’s friends, Zoe, shoved Neil away from him, and wrapped her arm around Travis.

That summer Travis grew to like Zoe a lot. 

She made him feel comfortable in a way normally only Oliver did, and every time Jacob dragged him out of the house to hang out with his friends, Travis could count on Zoe to be around, to wrap her arm around his waist and lean her head against his shoulder. She was an affectionate, outgoing girl, always finding ways to include Travis in their conversations and coaxing him to their meetings. 

Travis really did like Zoe a lot. 

One day Zoe and Travis were hanging out alone. Zoe was driving him to a nearby town to go mall shopping. “I can't let you start another school year lookin’ like that,” she said, guiding him to her beat up 2010 Impala. Travis didn't see what was wrong with the way he dressed, but he supposed that was the problem. 

Travis was silent on the car ride there, and let Zoe do all the talking. Zoe was older than he, sixteen, and would be a junior next school year. She was pretty, with neat box-braids, and he suspected those long braids didn't have any weave in them. Her voice was soft, and when she talked she had the habit of letting a southern accent slip out. Travis knew she tried to hide her accent, and he liked her all the more for doing such a terrible job at it. 

In a way, Zoe was perfect. 

That day she dragged him around to a bunch of stores, and to Travis's chagrin, paid for everything. When he refused to let her pay for his clothes she laughed. “You didn't think I was gonna’ take you here just t’ look didya?” She’d said, shoving the bags into Travis's arms. “Next time we go out I'm gettin’ you a haircut,” she said on their way out.

On the car ride home she was silent. Eventually, she finally broke the silence. “If you weren’t in love I'd date you.” 

Travis's head whipped towards her at that. “What?”

 Zoe laughed. “I’ve seen the way you look at Jacob.” 

It was Travis's turn to laugh at that. Travis looked at the exasperation on Zoe's face, and laughed again. “What’re you laughin’ for?” she asked, confusion in her voice, accent becoming stronger. 

“I'm not in love with Jacob,” he laughed, wiping his eyes. 

“Who’re you in love with then?” She asked, looking at him then looking back at the road. 

“Oliver. You don’t know him.” 

Zoe told him to tell her all about Oliver. He did. He told her about how Oliver would fall asleep on his bedroom floor sometimes, and steal clothes out of Travis’s closet, and braid Travis’s long hair when he got bored, and wouldn’t even talk unless Travis did. 

“He sounds great,” she said, voice soft. 

“He is,” Travis whispered. 

Zoe sat back in her seat, and relaxed her arms. “If you weren’t in love I’d still date you,” she said, glancing at him. 

“If I wasn’t in love I'd date you too.” 

Zoe died on the drive back to her house in a car crash. “Drunk driver,” the news had said. “A semi-truck swerved into her on the highway. She died on impact.” Travis didn’t make another friend after that. Zoe had never taken him to get a haircut. 

After Zoe, Travis was a mess. Oliver came to visit him all day and every night, even sleeping over sometimes, against Matt’s protests. Jacob would come visit, and leave when he saw Oliver was there. Jacob leaving him like that almost hurt as much as Zoe's death, but the sting would fade when Travis would remind himself of his vow. 

Travis's mother didn't know how to comfort him. She still hadn't quite gotten over Travis's father leaving them, so all she could do was watch as Oliver held her son, and go to work like nothing happened. Something had happened though, and none of them could pretend it hadn't. Travis didn't hold it against her, how could he?

The town never really got over Zoe's death. Travis never did either. 

One night, while Oliver was holding Travis while they sat on the couch, he asked Travis a question. 

“How’d you still love me even after I left and never wrote?”

“Long answer, or short?” Travis sighed, wiping his nose with the cuff of his hoodie. 

“If I said short, what'd you say?”

“I would say because.”

“And if I said long?”

“I would say I love you like one loves a dead person. They’re not there physically, yet you still love them so so much even though they're gone.”

“Will you ever move on?”

“Not me,” Travis whispered. “Not when the person’s you. Not when the person’s her.” 

“It's sad.”

“What is?”

“Everything.”

Travis only sighed again.

“Zoe didn't deserve to die,” Oliver whispered. 

Travis was still silent. 

“I really wish I could love you like that,” Oliver finally whispered, as if confessing it quietly could make it come true. 

“You don’t have to.” Travis sounded ready to sob. 

“Yeah but-“

“If you don’t love me you don’t have to pretend you do. If you were to say you hate me and tell me to f**k off, I would, even though I’d be leaving my heart with you.” 

Oliver was crying now. “Why do you say stuff like this knowin’ I can’t love you like you do me?”

“Because, you’re the only person left worth sharing my love with, so I'll only tell you these things.” 

“God, I hate poets.”

“Me too, yet here we are.”

“I hate you.”

“That's OK,” Travis started crying too. 

“I really do, I swear,” Oliver said, clutching Travis to his chest. 

“That's ok.” 

They didn't stop crying until they fell asleep hours later. 

Matt was unhappy with Travis. He felt like Travis had stolen his boyfriend, and Travis didn't really understand that. Oliver disappeared with Matt the day he came knocking on Travis's door, standing in the doorway sullenly and looking over Travis’s shoulder at where Oliver sat on the couch. Travis had never felt more alone. He wound up calling Jacob, begging him to come over. 

Jacob pulled up in a car, Mikaela in the front seat. Travis and Mikaela sat on the couch crying together for what felt like hours. They never talked again after that. 

When school started again, Travis was shut off. He had barely talked before, but in the wake of Zoe's death, he was more quiet than ever. It hurt Jacob to see him like this. Jacob wasn't quite sure why it hurt him so. 

Oliver didn't come to visit Travis for a week. In replacement of him, Travis stayed at Jacob's house instead, sleeping on the floor of Jacob’s room and ignoring the looks Jacob cast at him. 

Travis barely got through the school year that year. 

It’d taken his mom taking him to therapy to help him make it through it, not that it really did anything. 

His therapist was nice enough. She constantly reassured Travis that he didn't have to forget about Zoe. Travis never saw her again after she deemed him stable in mid autumn. 

He was not. 

That winter Travis was more depressed than ever. He'd never had someone so close to him die, and no one around him knew what to do. He refused to go back to the therapist. 

That winter was the first one Travis took a knife to his outer thigh, after chopping his shoulder length hair off. He never told anyone about it until he was an adult.