Chapter Two
~ Levi ~
When I was little, my favorite thing was to sit cross-legged on the back porch of whatever apartment or trailer we happened to be squatting in, and strum a pretend guitar until the sun went down.
That feeling of vibrating right at the edge of something, every chord a tightrope strung between what was and what might be—if I closed my eyes, I could almost believe my hands were strong enough to keep the world from falling apart.
I hadn’t felt that for a long time.
Now, the guitar was real—a beat-up Martin with a sticker-covered case I’d found at a thrift shop in Eugene—and the back porch was a sloped section of floor in my McKenzie River bedroom, under a window that caught the sunset just right if you left the curtains half-open.
I sat there every evening, picking through songs I barely remembered, letting the notes braid with the sounds of horses and tractors and Harlow’s laugh bellowing from the kitchen.
Today, though, every note sounded warped.
Like I’d been tuned wrong on purpose. Maybe I had.
I kept tripping over the same bar in "Blackbird," my fingers slippery and stupid, my brain short-circuiting every time I tried to focus. The reason was obvious, even to me: my left hand wouldn’t stop going to the new weight on my right wrist.
The bracelet was thicker than I’d expected, the leather tight and unyielding, almost warm against my skin. I turned it over and over, the edges already softening from my constant fussing.
On the inside, burned into the band with a steady hand and way too much precision, was his name: "Quiad.
" The letters were deep enough to catch on the tips of my fingers, like tiny road bumps.
On the outside, there was nothing. It looked almost like one of those medical alert bands, only for emergencies of the heart.
I must’ve stared at it for a solid hour after we got back from the creek. Quiad had peeled off to his apartment above the shop, probably to reattach whatever part of himself I’d managed to blow off with my pathetic attempt at making out.
I came straight here, flopped onto my bed, and watched the light shift across the ceiling until it caught the bracelet in a sliver of gold. Each time the sun hit just right, the letters flickered up at me like a secret code.
His code.
I pressed my thumb into the grain, pushing hard enough to leave a little red crescent on my palm. The memory of his voice—low and steady, like river rocks underfoot—played on a loop in my head: You’re mine now.
He’d said it so matter-of-fact, like it was already true and I was the last person to get the memo.
I tried to play another chord, but my hand slipped, the note coming out all wrong. I laughed, which only made it worse, and collapsed backwards until my head thumped the wall. My breath came fast, and my face felt like I’d been sunburned.
I bit my lip and replayed the creek again—how he’d pressed his thumb to my jaw, how he didn’t even flinch when I nearly missed his mouth and kissed his cheek instead, how he’d waited for me to find my rhythm before taking over.
I’d been kissed before. Sloppy, desperate, forgettable.
This was different. I felt it everywhere, like the first shot of whiskey after a year of bad hangovers.
It buzzed in my bones, setting everything in me to a kind of fever pitch.
My body didn’t know whether to run or to curl up around the feeling and keep it safe forever.
You’re mine now.
I probably should’ve been freaked out by how much I liked it. But all I wanted was to hear it again, see if the words would melt me the same way twice.
I ran my finger along the edge of the band, feeling where his calloused hands had stitched it together. I wondered if he’d worn gloves when he made it, or if the smell of wood glue and tobacco clung to the leather the same way it clung to his shirts.
I brought my wrist close to my nose and breathed in—yeah, there it was, subtle but there, like the way the air in the shop stayed a little smoky even after he’d aired it out.
I went back to my guitar, but now I was too distracted to even pretend.
I set it down and rolled onto my stomach, the bracelet pressed to my lips.
I’d heard about imprinting, the duckling kind, where you glom onto the first thing that shows you even a shred of warmth.
I used to think that was for idiots. But maybe there was something to it, because every cell in my body was suddenly sure that if I let this feeling go, I’d never find another.
I closed my eyes and let the late-afternoon sun warm my face. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the echo of his heartbeat from earlier, the way it thudded through his chest when I leaned in. He’d tried to hide it, but I’d felt the twitch of his arm around my back, pulling me closer.
I could’ve stayed there forever, the two of us tangled on the blanket, the smell of river water and damp grass clinging to our clothes.
You’re mine now.
God. I was so far gone.
I stretched my arm out, twisting the bracelet so the inside faced up. I mouthed his name, once, then again, feeling the syllables catch in my throat. I wondered if it’d always be like this, if just the idea of belonging to someone would scramble my entire nervous system.
The door creaked open behind me, and I jolted upright, nearly choking myself with my own wrist. Bodean stuck his head in, hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted.
“Dude. You coming to dinner or what?” He grinned, eyes immediately going to the bracelet. “Nice bling.”
I tucked my hand under the pillow, like maybe I could hide the evidence. “Shut up,” I mumbled, but I could tell by the look on his face that the whole house already knew.
Bodean wiggled his eyebrows. “You finally let him reel you in, huh?”
I flushed so hard I thought my ears might catch fire. “Can you, like, not?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t mean. “Welcome to the family,” he said, then ducked out, leaving the door half open.
I stared at the ceiling, bracelet pinned against my heart, and let myself laugh, too. Not the bitter kind I used to do when things got too weird, but something lighter, easier. It was like all the jagged edges inside me had sanded down, just a little.
I’d spent seventeen years trying to figure out who I was supposed to be. Then two years unlearning everything my DNA and stepmom had tried to hammer into me. Now, it turned out, I was just a guy who liked having a name on his wrist and a pair of arms to fall asleep in.
You’re mine now.
I almost melted into the goddamn blanket all over again.
I set the guitar aside, knowing I wouldn’t be able to play a note until I got this out of my system. I pressed my palm to the band, letting the name heat up under my skin.
It felt like belonging, and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel wrong at all.
It was weird, how a piece of leather could hold more heat than some whole rooms I’d lived in. I wondered if that was why it wouldn’t stop reminding me of the night I first came to the McKenzie place.
The brain was an asshole that way—putting two totally unrelated things next to each other and then refusing to let go until you figured out what they had in common.
I still had the sketchbook I carried that night.
I’d brought it with me from the last place Vivian and I had lived—somebody had left it behind, and I liked how it felt in my hands, solid and a little battered, the edges soft from years of flipping pages.
The first dozen sheets were already filled with pencil ghosts: apartment kitchens, borrowed beds, shoes I’d never own.
It was my insurance policy against waking up and not knowing where I was. The weight of it in my backpack was the only thing that kept my heart from bailing out of my chest when I stepped onto the McKenzie porch.
I remembered that first night like it was burned onto the inside of my eyelids.
The moon was a half-smile, the porch bulb flickering overhead, and the sound of frogs echoing from the field.
Harlow opened the door, his whole body blocking out the world behind him, and he stared at me so long I almost dropped my bag.
He said nothing, just looked me up and down with this stubborn, unblinking curiosity.
“He’s not gonna bite,” the social worker whispered, nudging me toward the threshold. “Just go in.”
I went. I’d learned pretty quickly that resistance only made things harder.
The front hall smelled like yeast and lemon soap.
I tried not to gawk, but the ceiling was so high and the floorboards so wide that it felt like walking into a cathedral where you were the only non-believer.
Every shadow hid something big enough to swallow me whole.
Quiad was there, but I didn’t know his name yet. He stood just inside the door, silent, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. Besides the man that had answered the door, he was the tallest person I’d ever seen outside of a basketball game.
At first, I thought he was one of those weird uncle types they warned you about in foster orientation. But he kept his eyes on the floor, like he didn’t want to scare me.
I tried to hide behind the social worker, but she was already halfway into the kitchen, calling for "Mrs. McKenzie.
" So I did the only thing I could: I clung to my sketchbook, pressing it to my chest like it might deflect bullets.
The rest of the family crowded around me, voices coming in waves—too many names, too much heat, too many expectations.
Harlow, Bodean, even Grandma Minnie, all tried to make small talk. I answered in monosyllables, hoping I’d get a chance to disappear before they noticed how badly my hands shook.
It was a while before I realized that the tall guy—Quiad—had followed us into the living room. He didn’t say a word, just hovered near the edge of the lamp’s glow, half-in and half-out of the room. When people talked at him, he nodded, but I never saw him actually speak.