Page 66 of Trust Me

“Got an ode to beans to lift a guy’s spirits?”

His shoulders shook, but I couldn’t hear his laugh over all the noise. After a minute, he cleared his throat.

“Oh beans, you musical nuggets of joy,

You toot-powered treasures no shame can destroy;

In burritos or soups, you reign as cuisines clown,

Long live the bean in its gassy, glorious crown.”

“Truly, you have a gift.”

He offered me a bow, then leaned against the counter. “I bought a ton of beans the other day.”

My nose wrinkled. “Why would you do that?”

“I saw this TikTok about how most of us will die if our grid ever goes down. I freaked out and got a bunch of dry food, packaged it all up in airtight jars, then realized I didn’t have a good place to store them, so I had to go buy a shelf at Home Depot.”

“Well, you’re stocked for the apocalypse. But maybe don’t watch more of those videos.”

“I mean, you’ll be on my doorstep as soon as the lights go out, so it’s good for both of us.”

“Facts.”

“You’re supposed to say, ‘Aw, how sweet, Remi.’”

“Aw,” I replied ultra-dramatically, leaning my chin on my fist. “You’re so sweet, Rem. Taking care of me all the time and shit.”

“Damn right. Without me, where would you be?”

“Eating beans beneath an overpass instead of in your spare room.”

He shuddered. “What a nightmare.”

“What’s a nightmare?” Dean asked when he joined Remi behind the counter.

I looked him up and down, unable to help myself. He was wearing a brown t-shirt, which seemed unstylish in theory, but in practice, it turned his pecs into mountains of chocolate I wanted to devour.

“Beans under an overpass,” I said.

“What sort of nightmares are you having?”

“Not a nightmare,” Remi countered. “Reality is a cold bitch.”

The frown on Dean’s face made me look away, but I found myself glancing at him again. I wished I hadn’t, because the discreet way he studied Remi was eerily similar to how he’d watched me before, when he was trying to understand me. At the time, I’d felt special. Being a bug under a microscope might not be ideal, but it meant you were interesting, with secrets someone would devote time to uncovering. It meant you had value.

But like with all those years in foster homes and group homes, there was a layer of competition to that sort of thing. I’d have killed for my friends to find a family that wanted them. At the same time, that meant there were two less parents interested in offering that to me.

In the end, we were all just victims of chance and bureaucracy back then. If they didn’t incentivize families to provide temporary homes, we would’ve been living in alleyways, begging for scraps.

For some, that would’ve been preferable.

I watched Remi as he went back to making drinks. Once again, I thought about how the past affected the trajectory of our lives. Some had survived hell and went on functioning, faking it and hoping they could keep doing that until they died. That was the cold reality the professionals didn’t tell you.

“Why do you look like that?” Dean asked. He continued to line up clean glasses beneath the counter, seemingly not paying attention to me, although I knew that he was.

“It’s just my face.”