The door opens. Kyle, an oblivious “only child,” walks into his room and laughs at me. “Your face is busted, Aaron.”

There’s no hug or fist-bump or how-have-you-been moment. We just are, like we were never separated at all.

“Me-Crazy got me, too,” I say, careful with my words. I’m crossing a field of mines. I want to tell Kyle that Me-Crazy is in jail, but maybe he’ll think the block is safe for visits. God knows what would happen if someone, just to be a dick, straight up told him he went through Leteo and unstitched his shielded memories. “I see why you bounced.”

Kyle leans against his wall, a map thumbtacked to the space above him. “I couldn’t keep risking it. Good thing our lease was up anyway so we could get a fresh start. Shittier neighborhood, but some good people here.”

“I hear you got a girlfriend,” I say, picking up a handball from his bedside drawer. I toss it to him. “Who locked you down?”

We play catch as he tells me all about Tina, a Chinese American girl he met when she brought her little brother into the barbershop. Kyle was giving a Caesar cut and almost messed up. His mentor thought he was distracted because of the work, but it was all because of Tina. I try to pretend I’m interested, but find myself almost tuning out until he asks: “How’s Genevieve?”

“We broke up.” I remember what Thomas told me when he broke up with Sara. “We just weren’t really right for each other anymore.”

“Damn, man. Any new prospects yet?”

“Nope,” I lie.

I want to come out to Kyle, but he’ll have no idea what I’m talking about if I ask him to set the clock for a judgment-free Happy Hour. He’s changed—not matured, but he’s been changed, obviously. Maybe this new Kyle will be cool with Side A. Maybe it’ll make him uncomfortable. I used to know the person in front of me and I’m tempted to bring him back, to unwind him, since Kenneth’s death is his fault and he should have to live with that. He should know about how Kenneth could walk on his hands, how Kenneth always ate junk food and never had a single cavity, how Kenneth casually played ding-dong-ditch on his neighbors to get a rise out of us.

He should know Kenneth, his twin brother, existed. But it’s not my decision to make.

I hang around for a little while longer until it’s time for him to shower and meet up with Tina. He puts his girl first now, which I like. I promise to visit him again sometime soon, and he tells me to tell everyone on the block he says what’s up. I hug Mrs. and Mr. Lake again, whose faces silently plead: Don’t forget.

10

LETEO: TAKE TWO

   It’s the day of my procedure and I’m standing on the corner, outside the Leteo Institute.

Memories: some can be sucker punching, others carry you forward; some stay with you forever, others you forget on your own. You can’t really know which ones you’ll survive if you don’t stay on the battlefield, bad times shooting at you like bullets. But if you’re lucky, you’ll have plenty of good times to shield you.

Being gay wasn’t, and isn’t, the problem. It only seemed that way because of everything that branched out from it—my father taking his life, Collin abandoning me, getting jumped on the train, and all the uncertainties ahead. The problem was that I didn’t know any better because I forgot my life. And now I know I can’t forget.

It won’t be an easy life, but I’ll soldier through. Thomas didn’t even know he was helping me with this—hell, I didn’t even know I would become myself again in need of this guidance. The boy with no direction taught me something unforgettable: happiness comes again if you let it.

I close my eyes and count to sixty, zoning everything out like Thomas taught me to do. I reopen my eyes, turn my back on Leteo, and walk home. I owe my mom and brother an apology.

11

MY UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY

   Ever since my first birthday, my mom has written me a letter recording my greatest hits of each year. She leaves the letters in my baby album. She even attaches newspaper clippings so I know what was current.

I caught up on all of them on my twelfth birthday. I wasn’t surprised that the first letter was pretty uneventful, aside from me spitting up on my mother’s graduation gown as she accepted her diploma. Before my second birthday, I walked for the first time when my father came home after being gone for a week—which I learned later was because he got kicked out after assaulting my mom in the street. In the fifth letter, I learned I was once obsessed with collecting key chains. A drawing paper clipped to the eighth letter showed me holding my mom’s hand.

These letters are a map of my life. They bring into focus years that are hazy to me. It hurts to admit it, but there were things in those letters that feel like Mom was taking a shot at me. Why did she write down that I was obsessed with singing songs from girl pop stars? Or how when she took Eric and me shopping for toys at CVS, I didn’t let him bully me into buying a blue Power Ranger because I wanted to play with a Jean Grey action figure? I feel like it was her coded way of saying, “This is when I knew about you.”

I think liking Brendan was the first time I knew. Sure, singing girl songs was a tip-off too, I guess, but that’s when it all clicked that maybe I wasn’t who everyone would like me to be. It’s funny the way that ran full circle. A couple years ago, I threw away old magazines my mother left sitting in the bathroom, but not before I ripped out pages of hot cologne models and stashed all of them inside an old binder for whenever I had urges. But I got rid of all that before the procedure.

I haven’t gotten around to apologizing to Eric or my mom yet, but I will. They were relieved enough the other night when I said I didn’t want the procedure anymore. A cloud over our tiny home had lifted. I went straight to bed.

So now I’m acting like this Leteo episode never happened. Eric has agreed to play Avengers vs. Street Fighters with me. When Mom gave me the game this morning, I didn’t comment on the scratches on the disc. I don’t deserve a mom who works too many hours a week so she can afford our outrageous rent, keep food on the table, and even make sure she has something to give her boys on their birthdays. I lose to Eric because I chose Captain America instead of Black Widow, not trying to draw attention to my growing desire to tell him Side A and be done with it.

Before I leave, I go into Mom’s room to thank her again. There are some bills fanned out next to her and on her lap is my baby album. We have a birthday ritual where we look through it together, but maybe she realized the last thing I want to do is reflect on the old days. I see a photo of myself as a five-year-old holding a figurine of Belle from Beauty and the Beast.

“First love, right?”

Mom strokes the picture as if she can twirl my old curls. “You carried her everywhere.”