Page 37 of Fear
Tobias was pretty sure she knew there was something wrong with him, but there was no hatred, loathing, or threat in her eyes, so he didn’t think she had figured out he was a monster. He could deal with this. Jake expected him to deal with this.
“Ummm,” he started, and then glanced back.
Jake was glowing at him. Tobias was relieved that he had tried looking and talking to the real woman before Jake told him to. Every time Jake smiled, Tobias felt a strange level of buoyancy filling him up like light.
“Tobias wants a library card,” Jake told her. “We live down Bluff Road. Right, Tobias?”
Tobias nodded and turned back to the librarian. “Yes. I . . . I am here for a library card. Please.”
She hadn’t stopped smiling. So far, so good. “That’s no problem, library cards are what we’re here for. Here, fill out this form and bring it back when you’re done, and I’ll get you your card right away.”
Tobias took the piece of paper gratefully and turned away. He almost handed it to Jake but then, glancing down at it, realized he could do it himself. He knew the address and Jake’s phone number since Jake had shown it to him the day after they’d arrived in Boulder. The form didn’t ask much else.
He took a pen from an alcove with two computers labeled catalog search, and slowly, in his best handwriting, filled the form in. Jake was still smiling, hands in his pockets and leaning against the computer table, looking up at the second floor like he had no doubt Tobias had this handled.
Tobias hesitated over the name line, and then carefully wrote Tobias. That was the name that Jake always used, and it would be a dead giveaway to put down 89UI6703.
Once finished, he brought it up to the counter. He was careful not to let the librarian touch him when she took the form. He didn’t want her to touch a monster, even unknowingly.
“Tobias,” she said, and he managed not to flinch. “Do you have a last name, hon?”
Tobias froze. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, fear hitting him like a fist to the diaphragm. He had hoped, he had really thought that this was going to work, that he was going to have a card that said he could check out books, that he would just be able to hand in the piece of paper with a few lines of information on it, and everything would make sense because that was the way it worked in the real world.
That was how it would work if he hadn’t been born a monster. He should have known that he wouldn’t be able to get away with it.
“I thought . . . N-n-no . . . s-sorry.” He tried to reach over to take the form back. Maybe if she didn’t have evidence of him, she would forget this and wouldn’t remember the stupid monster that thought he could act like a real for a day.
Then Jake put his hand back on Tobias’s shoulder. “It’s Tobias Hawthorne,” he told the librarian. “Hawthorne with an E at the end.”
The woman’s smile returned full force. “All right,” she said, made a note on the sheet, and began typing on the computer.
Tobias felt the world sliding sideways. Jake had said . . . Jake couldn’t possibly mean that. He had to blink rapidly because his eyes were full of little bits of sparkles, and he felt lightheaded. He must have misheard. Jake wouldn’t have . . .
But Jake was still speaking, this time in a low voice to him.
“I hope you don’t mind, you didn’t have a last name in your file,” he said, and if Tobias hadn’t known better, he would have thought that Jake was nervous.
Tobias just stared at him, full in the face. “You mean that’s really my name? L-Legally?” He couldn’t hide how much this meant to him, and he didn’t know how it showed on his face.
“We can change it if you want to.” Jake did look worried now. “I mean, it would take more paperwork, it was hard enough convincing them—” He glanced at the librarian. “Well, it was a hassle, but your last name can be whatever you want it to be. I mean, I know that Hawthorne can be . . .”
Tobias couldn’t stop the smile, but he could duck his head. Then he remembered that Jake liked to see him smile. That he looked the happiest when Tobias could bring himself to look him in the eye. “No, that’s—that’s good. Hawthorne is . . . perfect.” Because it’s your name. He would be able to keep Jake’s name forever. Even if they took it away from him someday on paper, he would know that for a time he had been Tobias Hawthorne.
FOR JAKE, BRINGING Tobias to the library had turned into a treat all by itself. Much as he hated Tobias’s double-twitch every time he saw something he loved (twitching once to hide whatever reaction he’d had, twitching twice because he hoped that Jake hadn’t noticed the first one), he loved to watch Tobias awed and wide-eyed. It let Jake see the world in a new light. Especially the parts he never really thought about, like libraries.
The only stomach-dropping stop was the second after he told the librarian Tobias’s last name, because . . . well, he hadn’t exactly shared that with Tobias yet.
But the radiant smile he got in return went a long way to convince him that giving Tobias the Hawthorne surname was, at least, not one of his fuck-ups.
“Hawthorne is . . . perfect,” Tobias said, and for one minute, Jake was blissed out with unaccustomed success.
They checked out a few good-sized books, including a biography of Mark Twain, and walked back home. Jake couldn’t stop smiling, and every time he looked at Tobias clutching the books close to his chest or saw him reach into his pocket to feel the brand-new library card, he thought he was going to crack from the rush of relief and happiness.
When the librarian handed over the card with another bright smile, there had been a space on the back for the cardholder’s signature. For the first time, Tobias had written his name, Jake’s last name, in careful letters that wobbled just a bit.
He couldn’t imagine anything better than this.
AS THEY REACHED THE apartment, Jake’s cell phone rang, and he jumped in a totally professional hunter-reflex way. Tobias jumped too, of course, and Jake tried to wave at him reassuringly as he yanked the phone out of his pocket. He didn’t even know why he had it on him when it only rang once in a blue moon and nearly gave him a heart attack when it did.
