Tias stayed the night. When I woke up, I decided not to tell him that I was headed back to the rez. The sun was rising and beating down through my blinds. I traced his body with my forefinger as he lay sleeping: from his chest that slowly rose and fell, to the bottom of his rib cage, to the round rise of his hips. I put my ear to his navel, half expecting to hear something, before slipping my tongue inside, wanting to taste Nanaboozho’s elixir. Tias woke up and looked down at me.
Without a word we took each other in our mouths, ending with a final plume of cum that slid between our pressed bodies. We didn’t bother wiping ourselves, just laid on our backs, his hand in mine, both of us staring at the ceiling and breathing in the hay-scented air.
“We’re going to keep it, Jon.”
I pressed my thumb into the ball of his hand. I wanted to feel the ridges on his palm, see if his lines were still broken like mine. Where mine were cracked and frayed, his made an “M” shape that took up his entire hand. I brought his hand to my face and I could still smell the beer and cigarettes.
“I’ve been working on finishing my grade twelve, you know, bettering myself and shit.”
I curled my body around his left side, and his arm pulled me in closer.
“And you haven’t been around all that much lately, you know?”
I could feel my phone vibrating beneath the pillow. I pulled it out and saw the yellow glow from a new client—Manito, I prayed, give me the strength not to check my Snapchat right now.
“Did you hear what I said? We’re going to keep the baby.”
I nodded into his armpit and pulled him in tighter. I inhaled his stink and then licked him—I wanted to taste him, consume him, remember him. We wrapped our arms and legs around each other, our heads burrowed into the other’s neck like an ouroboros, as tears started streaking down our faces. We used to love holding each other like this—we even made our own verb to describe it: burritoing. “Want to burrito?” he’d ask, and we’d link together and fall asleep that way.
“The world breaks everyone,” Tias whispered into my ear. “And after, well, heck, those that make it through are strong at the broken places.” He ran his fingers through my hair and lightly grazed my neck with his lips. “Hemingway,” he said with pride. “I have to read him for my GED. You should read him sometime.”
I nodded and pushed my head against the curve of his fingers.
“I’m gonna finish and get myself straight, Jon. You know, learn a trade or something, for the baby and Jordan and shit.”
He kissed my forehead and got out of the bed. The sun was rising higher in the sky, heading toward noon.
“I guess this is goodbye, eh?” he asked, putting on his shirt.
“You mean ekosi?”
“I mean, you don’t say!” he laughed.
I smiled and nodded. My pigeon friend was stirring outside my window, flapping its wings awake. Someone was pushing a shopping cart down the back alley, its rickety wheels scraping the pavement.
“Kihtwâm?” he asked.
“Ekosi,” I replied.
He unlatched the door and looked back at me. His eyes were full of regret—there, I thought, there’s the Tias I know. When I tried to kiss him one last time, he turned his head. My lips met the brisk hairs on his neck.
“The rain won’t make any difference,” I said.
“What?” he said, looking confused, but I closed the door without responding. When I heard his footsteps disappear down the hallway, I went back to bed and checked my phone. I ignored the client requests and saw that Peggy said yes, she’d be here at noon. It was ten o’clock now so I had two hours to pack. But all I wanted to do was stay between these sheets and forget.
I breathed in Tias’s scent that he had left on my pillowcases. I guess I was happy for him, Tias could make a home here in Winnipeg—him and his books. I still wasn’t sure that what I had was truly mine. All I had was this bed, this wad of bills—and these cum stains on my sheets, this pool of ectoplasm that proclaimed, “We were here.”