Chapter Ten He’s a Person, He’s a Man #2
“You have, yeah.” Jacob nods. “But if they’re what’s stopping you . . . Owen, you haven’t seen them in over a decade. Maybe
you should—”
“It’s not—” Owen stops him. “It’s not them. Not really.”
It’s what they said to him growing up, how they devalued the thing he felt the strongest connection to, the thing he always
felt drawn to. His art. When he was a kid, his parents had placated Owen any time he said he wanted to be an artist when he
grew up. However, the older Owen got, the clearer it became that he was expected to follow the path laid down by his parents
from birth. He’d test into the best high schools, have plenty of extracurriculars that’d beef up his college applications,
go to Berkeley to study law like both of his parents had done.
And then he’d finally make them proud.
None of that happened, though. Because of his diagnosis, Owen had been forced to repeat the ninth grade, and his steadily
decreasing GPA made sure that none of his father’s connections could get him into one of the better schools in the city. There
hadn’t been a single hope of getting into Berkeley.
The final straw came when Owen flunked out of UCSF.
They barely looked at him as they explained how exhausted they were by their child, how he was nothing more than a disappointment.
They never officially disowned Owen, never told him to stop coming home; they just stopped talking to him.
His mother stopped calling him, he stopped getting invitations to Thanksgiving or Christmas.
They stopped replying to his happy birthday text messages, stopped sending them when Owen’s came around.
Suddenly, Owen just didn’t exist to them.
Owen wishes he could say that it didn’t bother him, that he felt some sense of freedom from finally getting out from under
their thumb. But his parents had always been a safety net. No matter how hostile it might have been, he’d always had a house
to go back to, parents who wouldn’t let him go without a roof over his head or food in his stomach. And suddenly, that was
gone.
Alcohol quickly became the easiest method of keeping the darkest of his thoughts at bay, which only worsened his arthritis,
leaving him with some of the worst pain he’d experienced since his diagnosis, a period of his life that he’d only ever found
the courage to tell Kaitlyn and Jacob about.
“It is a scary thing. I get it.” Jacob’s voice pulls Owen from his spiral. “What’s that percentage where most businesses close
within the first year?”
Owen’s stomach sinks. “Thanks for the confidence.”
“Hey!” Jacob exclaims. “Let me finish my point.”
“Okay, okay.” Owen motions. “Go ahead.”
“I will, thank you!” Jacob postures haughtily before he remembers that this moment should probably be taken more seriously.
“It’s a scary thing that you want to do. But it’s also incredibly brave, Owen.”
Owen sucks his teeth.
“I’m serious. I couldn’t do it,” Jacob says.
“You’re not a tattoo artist.”
“It’s not just that,” Jacob tells him. “I’m not as brave as you.”
Owen stops once again, stuck watching as Jacob walks ahead of him.
“You think that I’m braver than you?” Owen sputters. “You’re joking, right?”
“No.” Jacob gives Owen a look. One that tells him he’s being completely honest. “I’m not. You had the courage to come out
to parents you knew would never understand you. You left school when you realized it wasn’t for you—”
“Flunking out is very different from dropping out,” Owen tells him. “I wasn’t given much of a choice.”
“Still, you managed to make a living for yourself. You found your passion again, forged your own path. And . . . you were
brave enough to let me go.”
Seconds stretch between them as he stares at Jacob, just a few feet away, and Owen can swear that his heart stops beating.
“That wasn’t brave,” Owen replies, voice barely a whisper in his own ears.
“Then what was it?” Jacob asks.
Stupid.
“You let me go, sacrificed our relationship to make both of us happy.”
“Happy?” Owen scoffs. “Really?”
“Well . . .” Jacob’s hand goes to the back of his neck. “Wrong choice of word, maybe, but my point stands. You’re a brave
man, Owen Henson. And I know that all of this feels like a lot, and that you’re afraid to fail, to disappoint yourself. But
you’re smarter than you believe, you’re a hard worker who fights for himself when it matters the most, and you go for the
things that you want.”
He steps closer, studying Owen with those soft brown eyes of his. Owen wants to melt underneath his gaze, hating himself for
how easily he folds, forcing himself to resist his most emotional urges.
“Come on, Kaitlyn’s going to yell at us if we miss the tour,” Owen says, stepping past Jacob, and moving ahead of him.
He doesn’t look back to make sure that Jacob is following him.
He can’t.
Their tour guide welcomes them onto the boat as the group is given their second “In the unlikely event that the boat sinks”
speech in the span of a week. Which does wonders for Owen’s anxiety. They’re handed branded ponchos by another guide, the
boat shifting underneath Owen’s feet as he tries to pull the plastic over his head.
“Hey, can you, uh . . .” Jacob stumbles next to Owen, his poncho only half pulled over his head, as it seems to have snagged
somewhere on his life jacket. “Help?”
Owen untangles the poncho where it’s stuck around Jacob’s big head, and pulls at the hem, the thin plastic crinkling.
“Thanks,” he says, cheeks flushed as he readjusts and acts like everything is normal, like they didn’t just have a really weird conversation.
He thinks I’m brave? Owen wonders. Where would Jacob get an idea like that?
The boat takes them a few miles out, back toward the direction they’d approached Sitka from as their guide explains the habitat
and migration pattern of the humpback whales that are native to the area. Jacob listens intently, focused on every word the
guide has to say, even raising his hand to ask questions.
“Planning on switching your area of study to whales?” Kaitlyn pokes at her brother.
“They’re interesting!” Jacob argues.
“Jesus, you’re such a dork.”
Kaitlyn breaks out her phone, snapping photos of everyone as the boat makes it further out into the water, everyone striking
various poses together.
“Owen! Get closer to Jacob!” she urges, stretching her arm out to get all of them into frame. “Closer!” Kaitlyn urges when
Owen barely moves at all. “Come on, some of us have short arms!”
Owen sighs, scooting closer to Jacob, and even leaning in so that he can see himself on Kaitlyn’s screen. He looks so uncomfortable,
standing there, close enough that he can see the mark on Jacob’s ear where piercings he got as a teenager have been closed
up for over a decade.
“Want me to get one of all of you?” the tour guide asks.
“Yes! Please!” Kaitlyn tells her, eagerly handing over her phone before she directs everyone to stand in front of the railing.
Kevin inches closer, forcing Owen to nearly press his chest against Jacob’s shoulder. Then, he feels a hand on his waist,
Jacob’s, gripping him securely, pulling Owen in close.
Oh God, Owen thinks, noticing the hitch in his breath.
When Kaitlyn flips through the dozen or so photos she managed to get, Owen can see the discomfort on his face, the spike of
adrenaline and anxiety in his eyes. If anyone else does, they don’t mention it, maybe because they don’t have the chance to.
As they’re standing there, Owen wondering if he could swim the miles back to shore just to get away from Jacob, the entire
group is sprayed with a heavy jet of water. There’s an assortment of surprised yelps as everyone on deck is drenched.
“Looks like our friends are finally here!” the tour guide shouts out. “These guys are gray whales. They’re pretty curious when it comes to boats, so they might get a little close, but don’t worry, they’re friendly!”
Hands braced against the railing of the boat, Owen watches as the whale that just sprayed them starts to sink below the surface
of the brackish water, the waves rocking their vessel back and forth. Further out, another whale emerges. It’s amazing just
how stunning the creatures still are even when only a fraction of their bodies is visible.
“Whoa . . .” Owen whispers, mouth agape as he watches them.
“They’re stunning, aren’t they?” Jacob asks, his hand just an inch or two from Owen’s. “You know they have one of the longest
migration paths of any mammal? They’ll swim like ten thousand miles, sometimes more. A lot of the time they’re hunted while
they’re traveling.”
“I thought Kaitlyn was joking when she said you’d switched to mammals,” Owen replies, hoping that they can just breeze past
their last conversation.
“You know my doctorate is in biology, right? Not just cephalopods.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Owen smirks. “What’s it like? When you’re out on the boat? Out in the field?”
Jacob snorts, shaking his head. “‘Out in the field’?”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“It’s cold, I’m always wet no matter what I do. So . . . you know, lots of fun,” Jacob replies, his words slow.
“Doesn’t sound like it,” he says. “But I know you wouldn’t want to do anything else.”
“Yeah . . .” Jacob’s expression shifts to something a little more thoughtful. “Well, I guess—” Another spurt of water shoots through the air, spraying the boat way more directly, almost like the whales did it on purpose.
“Ah! They’re feeling playful today!” their guide says, everyone laughing and clapping.
“What were you—” Owen starts to ask Jacob, but he’s so focused on the water, his smile bright, the corners disappearing into
his dimples. Owen stops himself, realizing that this moment is too special to interrupt.
“All right, everyone, we’re going to back up a bit, give our friends some space to swim,” their tour guide explains. “Get
your pictures in while you can.”
The boat hitches, and most of the group takes the opportunity to snap photos as more of the pod begins to surface, spraying
water into the air. This time, the boat is far enough away that the spray is just a dense mist by the time it reaches them.