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[SOMETHING STRONG]

Leo: You got something like that first one, but stronger?

He grins.

Chase: I think I know what you need.

The drink he pours is thick, almost syrupy. It's a rich dark chocolate color.

It smells somewhere between beer and coffee and just a hint of rust.

Chase: This one's potent, but I bet you can handle it.

It tastes like brown sugar and pennies. It's sticky, and I have to swallow hard to get it down.

And in the mirror, I see train tracks.

Leo: Just sayin, Chula, you don't have to go to college, yeah? You don't need it.

Wow, my accent used to be a lot thicker. I can feel it in how my tongue doesn't quite move the way I expect it to as I talk.

We're up on one of the old boxcars. The ones that got left on a siding when the railroad was shut down. And now it's never going to move again. We're sitting far enough back that we're both in the shade. His back is against my chest. His fingers are running through the fur on my arms. My fingers are running through the fur on his chest. The sun is setting on the other side of the car, the light is golden, the sky is the color of the inside of his ears when he blushes.

Chase: I actually do if I ever want to get a job, Leo.

There's a dull click when the anchor on his bracelet touches the anchor on mine. I feel it more than hear it.

Leo: That's what I'm saying, Otter

I lean forward. I nuzzle the back of his ear. He sighs and presses back into my chest like I knew he was gonna, I take the opportunity to hold him just a little tighter.

Leo: You don't need a job. Mama and Pops've been talking, they're gonna move to Payton to be closer to the shop. That'll leave the house all to me. And, you know, anybody who might move in with me.

Leo: And I make good money, especially if I'm not paying rent. You'd never have to worry about, you know... anything. I'd keep you safe. Provide for you.

I feel his shoulders go tense for just a second, like he's bracing himself to argue. I push on before it can happen.

Leo: We can have a home together. Right now. Well, next year. You know what I mean, no question marks, no having to work for it, no waiting four years. We can be together, every day, for the rest of our lives.

Leo: All you have to do is choose it.

I don't have to look to know he's about to object. This isn't the first time I've brought something like this up. But he stops. I feel him take a deep breath.

Chase: Suppose I did.

Leo: Ok, I'm supposing.

Chase: Yeah, you do that a lot.

For the part of me that knows this is the remembered past, that knows how this is going to end, that hurts. But the part of me that's living this now just smiles, and it's hard for the one part to blame the other. I don't know how to have him in my arms and not smile.

Chase: But. Suppose I did. I live with you, it's our house, it's our bed, our life. I wake up in your arms every morning. You drive over to Payton, every day. You have your job at the shop. What am I doing?

Leo: Whatever you want, Chula.

The one part of me wants to slap the other part for being so flippant about it. Would it have been so hard to take that question seriously?

Or do I only know that now because I found out what happens when I don't?

Chase: Leo.

His voice gets low and serious.

Chase: I don't know if I can choose.

Leo: Then don't, just say yes-

Chase: No, Leo, listen. That'd be choosing. And that's what I'm saying.

Chase: It's like... I know I love you. I know I'd be happy waking up in your arms every day. It wouldn't be hard living the life you're talking about.

Chase: And I also know I'm desperate to get out of Echo and stop feeling like I've been trapped here for a hundred years. Have a life. Make a name for myself out there, some place awesome enough that you don't mind leaving this behind to be with me... wherever it is.

Chase: But I just... I know that those are what the choices are, and I don't know why but I can't pick one. I feel like I'm paralyzed. I feel like I'm waiting for someone to push me into one of them.

He's pulling my arms tight under his chin like I'm a blanket and it's a cold night. The sun's just sunk behind the mountains. The ground's gone blue with shadows but the sky's still bright.

Leo: Chase, if you're asking me to push you to make a choice? You know what I'm gonna choose for you.

Chase: Yeah, I think I can guess what you'd choose.

Chase: ...and I'm not saying don't.

My heart races when he says that. I know now it shouldn't, because I know there's so much going on that neither of us knew about, and so much more we should've know but don't know how to say, and so much that I'll never know what it was but I know it was there.

But fuck it. I'm just here to drink in the good memories, aren't I? I can just enjoy this, can't I?

Leo: Then... you're gonna come home with me, Chula. You'll be mine and I'll be yours. That's my choice.

He pulls out of my arms and for a second I'm worried, but he turns around and he's grinning and then he's kissing me.

By the time we're done with the kiss the sky's starting to get dark.

Chase: Aren't you supposed to go down on one knee and pull out a ring when you do that?

Leo: I don't think that's legal in this state, yeah?

Chase: So we take a road trip up to Seattle. Give Jenna and Carl and TJ a reason to take a break from school.

Leo: See Chula? You can make choices after all!

He laughs. The gravel crunches under our feet, the grasshoppers in the sagebrush start calling.

And I'm back in the bar. Older, and sadder, with an older sadder Chase, who isn't mine at all, looking across the bar at me.

Leo: You know the worst part? I did end up making the choice for you, but it was the other one. The wrong one. I pushed you away, you left, we spent three years drifting so far away from eachother that I don't know if...

Leo: If I hadn't blown up and lost my temper over a stupid prank, you wouldn't have left.

Chase: I mean, if you say so.

Chase: I dunno.

Chase: I feel like the choices don't matter if all the roads lead to the same place in the end.

Chase: But as nice as talking to you is, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be serving you drinks while I do it.

[SOMETHING HOT]

[SOMETHING BITTER]

[I NEED A BREATH]