Ethan and Jacob: Wish You Were Here
by SalientLane
Chapter 5
My best friend could do anything, even a last-minute fill-in for the Easter Bunny.
Hopping through the bustling crowd, Jacob was a sight—fluffy tail bobbing, ears flopping with each exaggerated leap. The kids squealed in delight, parents chuckling behind their cameras as this five-foot-one Easter Bunny made his rounds in front of Les Galeries de la Capitale's Toys "R" Us. I couldn't help but grin at the irony: My Jewish best friend Jacob, doing his best bunny impression for Easter underneath that ridiculous awkward headpiece. Only he could pull off such an odd mix of commitment and humor.
"Careful there, Thumper," I called out as he narrowly missed a stroller. His muffled laugh came from within the suit, the sound distorted but unmistakable to me.
"Can you grab me another lemonade, Ethan? It's like a sauna in here," Jacob said, his voice sounding far away inside the suit's head. He was sweating buckets, no doubt.
"Sure thing," I replied, already on my way to the food court. Cherry-lemonades had become our unofficial fuel for the day. And chocolate eggs—Jacob's favorite. I returned with the goods just in time to see him almost trip over his own oversized feet.
"Whoa, careful, Jake!" I steadied him with a laugh as he righted himself, the kids oblivious to the near-disaster.
"Thanks. It's these eye-holes—I can't see a thing," he confessed, wiping moisture from his brow after lifting the head off for a moment.
"Looks like you're killing it, though," I reassured him, handing over the frosty drink.
"Thanks to my trusty sidekick," he replied with a wink. The break was brief; soon he was back in character, the kids' hero once more.
"Hey, Ethan," Colette approached, her voice pulling me away from the spectacle. She was nice, always sporting bright hair accessories and a ready smile. "You're like, really good at taking care of Jacob."
"Uh, thanks?" I managed, not sure where she was going with this.
"Maybe you could teach me how to be so attentive," she hinted, flipping a strand of her hair.
"Uhm," I stalled, fumbling for words. "I guess you just... do it." Shrug.
"Right," she sighed, looking a bit disappointed. My gaze wandered back to Jacob, who seemed to be doing a sort of bunny dance now. The kids were clapping along, and I chuckled. Colette followed my eyes.
"You two are really close, huh?" she noted, almost thoughtfully.
"Yep. Always have been," I said simply, watching as Jacob managed a particularly tricky hop without toppling over.
"Must be nice," she murmured before excusing herself, leaving me with a strange feeling I couldn't quite place.
I knew why girls like Colette didn't hold my interest, though admitting it—even to myself—felt like stepping into unknown territory. But watching Jacob make a fool of himself for the sheer joy of little kids, I understood. He was it for me. My heart raced for one person, and he was currently wearing a bunny suit.
"Jeez, it's like an oven in there," Jacob gasped, ripping off the oversized rabbit head and ruffling his damp hair. The way he looked right then, flushed cheeks and a tuft of hair sticking out at an odd angle, I had to swallow hard. He was totally unaware of the picture he made, halfway between a child's stuffed toy and the boy who'd been my compass point since forever.
"Here, let me," I said, reaching out to fix his hair, trying to ignore how close my fingers were to his skin. It felt like the most natural thing to do, but my pulse raced all the same. Jacob chuckled, that easy sound that always made my stomach flip.
"Thanks, dude. You're a lifesaver." His blue eyes met mine, a spark of something more than gratitude there. Or maybe I imagined it?
"Anytime, Bunny Boy," I shot back, aiming for playful but probably landing on awkward. We both laughed anyway.
"Man, this is... weird, huh?" Jacob mused, still half-dressed in the costume, gesturing vaguely between us.
"Being teenagers?" I guessed, because what else could it be? Everything felt weird lately, especially the way my heart seemed too big for my chest whenever I was around him.
"Exactly." He nodded, serious for once. "It's like everything's changing."
"Except us," I added quickly. "We don't change."
"Never," he agreed, and we bumped fists, sealing the promise.
"Hey, you've got another hour as Easter's favorite mammal," I reminded him, half-dreading the moment we'd return to normality, where I didn't have excuses to touch his hair or look into his eyes.
"Ugh, don't remind me." Jacob groaned but started putting the bunny head back on.
I took the opportunity to escape to Les Disquaires Sunrise, where the musty smell of old cardboard and vinyl immediately surrounded me. Rifling through the used LPs, I stumbled upon one with a cover that knocked me for a loop—a psychedelic fantasy about a fox-headed woman and the sea. "Foxtrot" by Genesis. Weird and captivating.
"Jacob's going to love this," I murmured to myself, clutching the album like a talisman against the rush of feelings threatening to overflow. I didn't get the symbolism, but something about it felt right—like a piece of a puzzle we were still putting together.
I paid for the record and shoved it into my bag. Soon, Jacob would finish playing bunny, and we'd dive into our mutual music obsession and forget about the world. That's how it always went—two boys against the universe, nothing able to come between us. Not even the confusing, thrilling possibility of being more. Not yet, anyway.
"Hey, Easter Bunny," I called out as he finished up with the last kid. "Ready to bounce?"
"Only if you're hopping by my side," Jacob shot back, grinning.
"Where else would I be?" I replied, and together, we left the mall behind us, side by side, just as always.
The needle dropped with a soft thud, and the room filled with the warm crackle of vinyl, and a gentle guitar prelude, reminiscent of Bach. Jacob's bedroom, usually so familiar to me, felt charged tonight, every shadow and silhouette etched with a new intensity. We lay shoulder-to-shoulder on his bed, the glow from his lava lamp painting the walls in slow-moving waves of blue and turquoise.
"Let me see that cover again," Jacob whispered, propping himself on an elbow as he reached for the album jacket. His fingers traced the strange image, the fox-headed woman, as if trying to decode a secret message meant just for us.
"Crazy," I said, but my voice was barely there, lost beneath Peter Gabriel's impassioned vocals spinning from the speakers. The song wrapped around us, a cocoon of impossible chords and melodies, carrying us far from this moment yet somehow more present in it than ever before.
Jacob lay back down, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest pressing against my arm. "I've been so far from here," sang out from the record player, and those words snagged something deep within me.
"Far from your loving arms," the lyrics continued, and it was like a mirror reflecting a longing I hadn't dared name. My throat tightened, the weight of what we were, what we might become, hung heavy in the space between us.
"Now I'm back again. And babe, it's gonna work out fine."
I turned to look at him then, our gazes locking in a silent conversation. In his eyes, I saw the same questions, the same fears, and hopes that kept me awake at night. But there was also a promise there—a silent oath that no matter what came next, we'd see it through together.
We didn't need words; our shared history spoke volumes. The laughter, the fights, the secrets we'd entrusted to no one else but each other. And now this—this uncharted territory that seemed as daunting as it was inevitable.
Jacob's hand found mine under the blanket, his grip firm and reassuring. We stayed like that as the song unfolded, a testament to change and return and everything in between. Our fingers remained entwined.
"Good song," I managed, my voice rough with emotions held too tightly.
"Yeah," he agreed, squeezing my hand once more before letting go.
"Can't you feel our souls ignite?" Peter Gabriel's voice soared, haunting in its intensity. The room seemed to shrink, the walls closing in, wrapping us in a cocoon of unearthly, enchanted music.
"Shedding ever-changing colours."
Jacob lay beside me, his breath steady and warm against my arm. The darkness of the fading night crept into the corners of his room, swathing us in shadows that flowed with the rhythm of the music.
"Like the river joins the ocean," the lyrics continued, threading through our silence. Jacob shifted, his knee brushing mine, an electric spark jolting through the contact.
"As the germ in a seed grows." I felt something stir within me—a recognition of change, of growth, that couldn't be contained in mere words or gestures.
"We have finally been freed to get back home." The line hung in the air, a declaration, a release. Jacob turned his head, his lovely blue eyes meeting mine, both of us searching for something unnamed but deeply felt.
"Man, this song..." Jacob's voice was a whisper, barely audible over the melody.
"Yeah," I said, my heart thumping erratically, as the music absolutely cast a magic spell over us.
"Like it knows something we don't," he added, a half-smile playing on his lips. It was that smile that always got me—the one that said he was in on a joke I hadn't yet heard.
"Maybe it does," I said.
And then we were laughing, soft chuckles that filled the spaces where words failed. As the song spiraled towards its end, we remained there, side by side, letting the music speak the truths we weren't ready to voice aloud.
The needle on the record player lifted, signaling the end of our journey through 'Supper's Ready.' Silence filled the room, thick with unspoken words and pulsing heartbeats. I glanced over at Jacob, whose eyes found mine in a silent conversation we'd yet to have out loud. The weight in my chest grew heavier, a mix of fear and longing.
"Felt like it was talking right to us, you know?" I murmured, my voice rough with emotions I couldn't quite name.
Jacob nodded, his black hair tousled and eyes shimmering with a sheen that echoed my own. "Yeah," he breathed out, his arm brushing against mine as if by accident.
A surge of warmth flooded through me, and without thinking, I reached out, my arm went around him. His reciprocal embrace was immediate and sure, an anchor in the sea of uncertainty we were both navigating.
"Is this... is it okay?" I asked, aware of how my voice trembled like the last notes still hanging in the air.
"More than okay," Jacob replied, his arm tightening around me. We leaned into each other, our embrace a silent pact made under the veil of night.
We stayed there, wrapped in the cocoon of each other's arms, unwilling to break the magic spell the music had cast. Our breaths synchronized, chests rising and falling together until even that sound seemed to fade away.
I must've dozed off because the next thing I knew, the room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of city lights filtering through the window. Jacob's steady breathing told me he was asleep, his head resting against mine. We lay entwined, holding onto each other with a care so profound it felt like we'd been doing this for lifetimes.
In the quiet of Jacob's bedroom, with our fingers interlocked and hearts beating together, we slept. We didn't talk about it—not then. But as we settled into dreams, our shoulders touching and breaths syncing up in the quiet darkness, I knew we had crossed an invisible line. There was no going back, and maybe, just maybe, that was perfectly fine.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
