My parents are sleeping in before work, which I can't blame them for. Even though it means that I'm responsible for Ben. At least he's old enough to feed himself - he's been able to use the toaster since he was three, I swear.

"I can't wait to go outside," he says excitedly as I spread peanut butter over his toast thickly. (Fun fact: He hates smooth peanut butter. With a frightening vengeance.) "Snow days are the best."

I smirk down at him, pushing his plate over. "What happened to the whole 'Jerry' thing?"

He blushes. It's adorable. "I mean, absinthe makes the heart grow fond," he says, as if reciting classic Shakespeare.

It's not even worth correcting him - besides, he's too cute, anyway. "Do you have your box for your party all ready?"

He smiles in a way that's easy to tell it's genuine. "Yessir. It's Ninjago-themed." Of course. He's been obsessed with that forever. He pulls the box out of his back pack - this beat-up shoe box that he's drawn hearts all over and taped slightly off-coloured pictures of the ninjas. (I was obsessed with Jay when I was a kid. And I hated Nya for toying with his heart.)

"It's awesome," I tell him honestly, because it's definitely the coolest Valentine's Day box I've ever seen. (And shows me I didn't care even way back in elementary school.)

"And it's roomy," Ben adds. "That's important."

"Yeah, it is." I ruffle his hair, and that's when it hits me: "Hey, dude, do you wanna swing by the animal shelter today?"

His face lights up; with his cheeks puffed out from how hard he's smiling, he looks like a very devious chipmunk. "Can we? Can we really? I wanna see kittens."

"Of course," I tell him. There are two bonuses to taking my adorable little brother to the animal shelter on a snow day: 1) My adorable little brother really is adorable, even more so around animals of the infant-type, and 2) there's an equally adorable (if not blasphemously more so) boy who works at the animal shelter. And he has a surprise for me.

The animal shelter isn't too far from our house - the roads have just been cleared, but the car is practically invisible under a pile of snow, and Ben got all bundled up in about five hats and twice as many scarves, so I tell him that we can walk. (He's jazzed.)

We walk along the packed-down street gutters, Ben seeming torn between hanging onto my arm like a stereotypically clingy child or picking up chunks of snow along the road and bunting them (in a way that sends snow soaring into my beat-up boots, but I don't say anything).

"Do you think Mom and Dad would let us get a kitten?" he asks right as I'm opening the door for him and shaking snow off my boots. I can see Josiah's mom behind the counter, beaming at us in that Josiah-like-way that I can't seem to get out of my head.

I make sure the door shuts tightly behind us. "Maybe. Why?"

He's already taken off his gloves and is holding them out to me. I take them, even though I have no where to put them. "Well"--he looks quite thoughtful, which isn't unusual for him--"it's just that . . . you're leaving after this year, and then it'll just be me. I don't want to be lonely." He stares at his feet.

I give him a too-tall, one-armed hug. "So, your plan is to replace me with a cat?"

"No," he says, suddenly grinning like Mom, "a kitten."

"Hey, there," says Josiah's mom. She legitimately sounds like someone from Fargo. 'Hee, deere', not 'hey, there'. But she's smiley, and so is Ben, and who am I to get in the way of overly-smiley people being happy?

"Hey, there," I say to her, not sounding like I come from Fargo, but still am nonetheless friendly. "We came to look at some animals."

She jots something down I can't see behind the counter. "Well, Josiah's in the kitten room right now." Weel, Joh-si-ee-aah's een the keeten room rieght noa. I never knew that I needed to hear that sentence spoken that way before. "You can go back to see him, if you'd like."

"Thank you," I say to her.

"Is that your brother?"

I nod, looking down to Ben - who's quite busy looking at the floor. "Yeah. This is Ben." He waves meekly without looking up.

Josiah's mom places a bowl on the counter. "Well, Ben, if you sanitize your hands before you leave, you can take a sucker. Okay?"

"Okay," he says, quiet. He's painfully shy at times, but no one ever holds it against him. Especially seeing as his entire grade seems to adores him to much to even consider being mean to him. (They'd better not. Otherwise, they'll have a pesky, overly-anxious, gay theatre nerd on their case. And no one wants that. Or, admittedly, thinks about it.)

The hallway to the kitten room is violet-hued and decorated with paintings of dogs and cats - and a picture of Bob Barker, which looks to have been actually autographed with the message, "Make sure to spay and neuter your pets!"

I can picture a young Josiah running around these halls. It's cute - I like it.

It's definitely one of the most innocent things I've pictured with Josiah in the past twenty-four hours.

The main kitten room is actually huge. They have three litters in there - it's a lot to handle. (I helped clean the litter box yesterday - trust me, I know.) (Sidenote: I don't know if I did that because I'm a nice person, or I just really wanted Josiah to think I'm one.)

"Kittens!" squeals Ben, hurling his jacket towards me and making a break for a tiny mottled-ginger kitten lounging by the door.

I should tell him not to be too much - but I'm too busy staring at Josiah.

He's wearing his usual band sweatshirt (he's a flute player) and stroking a small sandy kitten I recognize from yesterday from the white mark on its face - it wouldn't leave me the frick alone. "Hey," I say, shutting the door behind me and shoving an over-eager kitten back with my foot. It proceeds to attack my shoe.

Josiah turns, and the wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look of surprise he gives me makes my heart freaking melt. Now, I'm not going to say that I think he's Secret Guy. I just hope he is.

"Hey," he says back. He's always so kind when he speaks. I don't think he even has it in him to be mean. Especially with that smile he has - the one he's giving me right now. The one that's throwing my balance too off-kilter, making me too aware of my entire body and every breath I take.

Then, he says it: "So, you came for your surprise, huh?"

Yes. Yes. Yes.

"Yeah," I manage somewhat coherently.

"Cool." He picks up the kitten he's stroking and carries it over with him while my heart thuds too fast. "So, it's probably kind of lame--"

That sounds like Secret Guy - he says that all of the sweet things he says are "probably cheesy and cringey".

"--but we decided to name this cat Nick. Since you helped out so much yesterday."

"What?" No. What? No.

That's not what this is. It can't be.

He chuckles a little. "I mean, dude, you helped scoop the litter box. That deserves a whole fleet of kittens named Nick."

He holds it towards me. Him. It. The gender of this stupid cat really doesn't matter - not right now, not ever. "So, what do you think? As the name-inspirer, you can totally change the name if you want to. Something cool, if you want. Like, Gut-Ripper. Or Butt-Clencher. Or Tad Cooper. I don't know. It's up to you."

He laughs, uncomfortably, as I continue to stare in numb shock. "Are you okay?"

I don't answer at first. Then: "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks."

There's a tug on my sleeve. Ben. "Can I hold him?" he whispers to me.

"Yea-yeah," I tell him in a voice that's just as much a whisper. "I'm going to hit the bathroom, my dude."

He looks terrified - he probably hates the idea of being left alone, and I'm a total douche for doing it, just the worst brother in the world, but I can't. Not right now. I . . . No. I need to be on my own.

The bathroom's bright teal walls seem too peppy for me right now. It's nothing to cry over, I tell myself. It's nothing important. Not that I'd been thinking of Josiah for the past few years in the back of my mind. His smile. His blue eyes. The pale, freckled skin of his shoulders I want to graze with my lips. His Adam's apple, which bobs when he laughs and was made to be kissed. His curly bangs, which fall over his forehead when they get too long and beg to be pushed back.

But he's not Secret Guy. He's just not.

And, yet. . . .

There's a part of me that's hoping that he'll come into the bathroom and comfort me, that he brought me my ice cream, that he's got a platter of grapes or something that will make me feel wanted. Feel loved.

And I know that's, like, sick or twisted or selfish or whatever. But I'm not a Wanter. I'm a Nothing, really - I sit there and observe and act as a backdrop to everyone else. Act, act, act: Act happy, act funny, act sly, act witty. Act like I care more than I do, act apathetic when I want to care.

Secret Guy is still out there, at least. Secret Guy, who spent all night last night sharing the bits of himself with me that I want to get to know - want to get to savour. Secret Guy, the guy who realized he was gay because of me. Secret Guy. He seems to care. And . . . I think I care back. A lot.

Josiah isn't Secret Guy. Secret Guy is Secret Guy. I can't exactly mourn someone I never lost.

Someone I never had in the first place.

I rinse off my face with the frigid water from the sink - my face was looking awfully red and blotchy before; I don't need to walk out there looking like an over-emotional eejit, now do I? Even if I feel like one. Even if I am one.

I head back into the kitten room, where I see Josiah has kittens climbing all over him again, and Ben is holding what looks like a Mr. Nick the Cat.

Steady yourself. You. Are. Fine. Quit overreacting.

"Hey, Ben," I croak, rubbing my forehead with the back of my sleeve tiredly. "I'm not feeling too well. I think we might wanna head back."

"Nick, wait—" Josiah begins, his brow all scrunched, pulling the curly bangs from his eyes.

But, I'm done. At this point, I can't handle any more of his sickening kindness – kindness I don't even need right now.

"It's fine," I assure him. "I'm fine. I-I'll see you tomorrow."

He doesn't seem happy, and I now know I cleaned that litterbox to make him think I was a good person.

Because, I don't even turn around as I leave.

Ben looks so heartbroken (wonder what that feels like), I'm half tempted to jump up and shout, "Just kidding! You can continue to play with kittens and avoid your fear of loneliness." But I seriously don't have it in me - besides, I've been putting Ben before me since I was, like, ten. There will be more kittens at different times for him. I mean it.

"Thanks," I say to Josiah's mom with a giant, fake smile as we're heading out the door. Ben echoes me quietly, shoving his lollipop in his mouth. I help him bundle up again, and we're off.

I keep telling myself that this isn't the end of the world. I mean, seriously - a day ago, there was no Secret Guy. Well, I had no knowledge of him, at least. Two-days-ago Nick would tell me to "shut up and move on".

Josiah's not Secret Guy. So, I'll just have to wait and see who is.