Chapter 8- Reed
IT’S BEEN SIX days since Skyler and I exchanged numbers.
Each day, I feel the magnetic pull of his contact on my phone to text him, but I have no idea how to be social with my crush.
I’m so damn awkward that it immobilizes me, so I bury my head in work.
Today, however, I’m going in late, so I can indulge in being a dad and taking Aisen to school.
Yeah, that’s totally why I’m not texting Skyler now.
After getting dressed, I notice that Aisen isn’t in the kitchen. He’s usually eating Blob Tarts and fiddling on his phone at this hour before I dash away and urge him to get moving to the bus stop. He’s not one to lie in bed and be late.
I knock on his bedroom door, knowing I could walk in. But teenagers want privacy, and this is a veneer of independence for him. “Aisen? You up, joka?”
After a beat, I hear his little voice. “Um, no?”
“You have to go to school.”
“I…don’t wanna.”
I know distress when I hear it. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m, uh, sick.”
“Okay, I’ll come in and see―”
“No!” he yelps.
I frown. “Aisen, you want to go on your Halloween field trip, right?”
After a pause, he says, “Yes.”
“Then you need to let me see you.”
“But I’m not…um…”
“If you’re sick, I can get you medicine.”
“There’s no medicine for…this.”
My eyebrows rise in concern. “Aisen, get decent, I’m coming in after three knocks to see how you’re doing. I have to.”
“Uhh,” he whines. As promised, I knock three times, pause, and then open the door.
What I see is nothing bad. My nephew’s hands are holding up the covers over him. When I get closer, I notice his hands are red-orange in color.
“You shifted in bed,” I say gently. That’s not illness, and I sense mild relief. “You can shift back.”
“That’s not…the problem.” He pokes his little head out of the comforter. His face is smooth and orange, similar to mine when I’m in my kraken form.
“I used to shift all the time in my sleep,” I say, gently. Sitting down at the edge of his bed, I notice his tentacles squirm under the sheets, but that’s normal in this house. “It’s a regular part of being a monster.”
“But that’s not…”
My gaze tracks the rest of the bed. “Did you ink the sheets? I’ve done that.”
“No, I didn’t do…that.”
I try to pull the comforter, but he holds it still. My eyebrows rise in shock when another thought rises. “Aisen, being a fourteen-year-old boy comes with…changes.” I bite back a grimace. “Some nights you might experience something called a nocturnal emiss―”
“No! Not that either! Ew.”
My relief is significant. I’m not exactly enjoying this conversation. “Aisen, then what is it? Because we have to get you to school.”
He whimpers. “I…shifted into another monster.”
My eyebrows rise, and I stand up. “Wait, what?”
Aisen takes off the covers and nods. He’s in his kraken form, a miniature, red-orange version of me. In the next moment, he morphs again, and I step back.
Woah. He’s a massive red octopus.
A giant cephalopod now occupies Aisen’s bed, and the tentacles, each several yards in length, occupy the room. He knocks over a chair, and I nearly leap to get out of his way.
It’s startling for sure, and I try to school my disturbed expression. After two more seconds, however, I recognize Aisen’s eyes in the giant octopus form. He’s still my boy. And he’s discovered another monster form. This must be a distressing time, so I need to be there for him.
“Look at me,” he whines, his voice deep in the bestial form.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”
“It is?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes roll. “You look so freaked out, Uncle Reed.”
After calming my expression, I sit on the only unoccupied corner of the mattress. “I was just surprised. I’m getting used to it. And now I am.” I give his massive tentacle a light punch. “You’re totally fly.”
He snickers. “That’s not a thing anyone says anymore.” With that, we both laugh. I consider it a win that my nephew seems more relaxed than moments ago.
“Look, Aisen, I accept any monster forms you have.”
“You always seem so, like, embarrassed by your kraken form.” He moves a tentacle to rub his octopus face. “I thought you’d think I was extra gross.”
My smile falls. As someone who got rejected by his parents for being gay and for being a cephalopod, you’d think I’d come off as more accepting.
“I will always look out for you. We’re family.
” He doesn’t reply for a beat, so I continue, “Hey, why don’t you take a sick day from school, and we take your new form to the beach? ”
“You wanna watch me swim?”
“I’ll even swim with you.”
Aisen shifts down to his tiny kraken form, with his six tentacles where his legs were. “Really?” he asks in his squeaky, prepubescent voice.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have work?”
With a shrug, I reply, “I’ll just work from home after lunch. What do you say, Eyes-and-ears?”
He smiles and nods. “Okay.”
“Perfect.” I stand up. “But don’t get in the habit of missing school. This is a one-time thing.”
“I got you,” he replies, and we share a smile.
Minutes later, I drive Aisen to the beach.
For the first time in years, we swim around each other in our tentacled forms, chasing after schools of fish, and generally having a good time, de facto father and son.
It’s one of the rare moments I truly feel like I’m doing this parenting thing right.
The next two weeks are a breeze. Aisen has finally made shifter friends, and they socialize both at the Institute and at school.
He’s accepted his giant octopus form, and everyone at the Institute is thrilled to be able to help him adjust to this new part of his life.
He has more pep in his step, and I’m comfortable waving him off to go on his Halloween overnight field trip to visit museums in Northern California.
Which leaves me with a particularly quiet house.
I have the whole weekend to myself, on Halloween, no less.
My brother and I used to have fun on the holiday, since we’re both sea-based monsters.
But life happens, and I haven’t partied on Halloween in ages.
But I have no work, no nephew, and plenty of time on my tentacles.
Sitting in my living room, I stare at my phone in silence for two whole minutes before gathering all my courage to push a button. To my surprise, the phone only rings twice.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Skyler,” I yelp. I clear my throat and lower my voice. “It’s me. Reed Sung.”
“I do, in fact, have you in my contact list.” He chuckles over the phone.
“Right.” I stare at my coffee table and nerves thrum through me. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all. Just leaving work. How’s Aisen? His trip thing is this weekend, yeah?”
“Yup. I just dropped him off. The kid couldn’t hop on the bus fast enough.” We both laugh.
“It’s going to be quiet without the teens at the Institute this weekend. But we have some stuff for younger kids during the day.”
“And the evening?” I ask.
“Nothing planned for work. Why, what’s up?”
My heart is pounding in my throat. Just get it over with, Reed. “Do you want to do something? Since we’re, you know, friends.”
“Don’t you have work?”
“Actually, no.”
“Wow. No nephew, no work. What do you do for fun?”
“Well, you.” I wince. “I mean, I was hoping you could, uh, tell me something fun to do.” I shake my head. “Sorry, I’m really shit at this whole, free-time-as-an-adult thing.”
Skyler gives a friendly laugh. “Ah, I see. Well, I myself am not an activity.” His grin is somehow audible over the phone. “However, Halloween night is actually Razorjaw’s birthday. We were going to go to Dagat, the waterfront bar. My friends and I were gonna party it up.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Come with!”
“I don’t wanna invite myself.”
“Nonsense. I’ll clear it with Karlo, but I don’t see why not. It’ll be a monsterrific time.”
“Alright. If you don’t think they’d mind,” I reply.
“Of course not. I promised you friendship, and I’m delivering.”
“I think I’d like that. Text me the details.”
“Certainly.”
“Goodnight, Skyler Dillinger.”
“And goodnight to you, too, sir.”
With that, I hang up and take a deep breath. In my reflection in the TV, I notice how hard I’m smiling. I’ve been having a lot of reasons to smile lately, and I can’t say I mind.