Choosing August

Chapter 2

I should probably mention my name.

I’m Augustus.

August, usually.

Augie, if you really know me.

Augustus makes me feel fat. I realize that probably doesn’t make much sense, but it does. Augustus sounds heavy. Grand. Like I should be draped across a marble couch somewhere, eating grapes while someone paints my portrait.

August is fine when I’m being addressed professionally or formally. It sounds clean and respectable. The name professors use when calling attendance or when someone is trying to get my attention without pretending we’re close.

Augie belongs to the people who actually know me.

So, unless you know me, call me August.

Looking at Cal, Bryson, and Titus, there wasn’t a single obvious thing connecting them. They didn’t look alike. They didn’t dress alike. They weren’t even attractive in the same way.

They simply all looked good.

Good teeth. Good hair. Beautiful skin.

And that was before getting into their bodies—the muscles, the shape of them, the way each one carried himself. Three completely different versions of masculinity, all somehow equally unfair.

Then there was me.

I wouldn’t call myself ugly. I didn’t look like a model either.

I was average. Plain, maybe. Chubby.

When I took my shirt off, I was soft and hairy and looked more like a mountain troll than one of the guys from the academy’s promotional brochures. When they took their shirts off, they either had hair in exactly the right places or none at all. Their stomachs flexed with abs. Their chests had pecs. They had muscles, sharp lines, and those stupidly perfect V-shapes disappearing beneath their waistbands.

What were we talking about again?

Right.

Me.

I was soft. Chubby. Hairy.

I had a good butt, though.

A beautiful, big ass, actually. No reason to pretend otherwise.

I also had beautiful eyes. At least, that was what Bryson told me.

He said they were fierce—bluish green, but never exactly the same shade twice. Sometimes they looked more blue. Sometimes more green. According to him, they changed with the light, my clothes, my mood.

He used to stare into them.

Usually when we were alone.

Usually when he wasn’t with his girlfriend.

I didn’t think I was ugly. I only understood that I wasn’t as attractive as everyone else seemed to be. Not in the obvious way attractive people were, where they walked into a room and knew heads would turn.

I came across nerdy. Dorky.

My fashion sense probably didn’t help.

Most days, I wore T-shirts with jeans or shorts. When I was trying, I added an open button-up over the T-shirt, like an extra layer automatically made the outfit intentional.

Comfort mattered to me.

I tried to look decent, but mostly I tried to look like myself.

I guess that brings me to the girlfriends.

I’ll start with the one who bothered me less.

Cal’s girlfriend was named Margie.

Margie was sweet. She was nice. She also demanded a lot from him.

Not in a superficial, spoiled, nightmare-girlfriend kind of way. It was more of a Hey, I’m standing over here, and I matter too kind of way. She didn’t act as though having a boyfriend completed her. She could take care of herself. She had opinions. She took up space and expected the people around her to respect that space.

I understood it.

She was Cal’s girlfriend. She was supposed to matter.

Sometimes she took up a lot of space, but I wouldn’t describe her as clingy. Cal was simply always chasing after her. Margie would move, and Cal would follow. She would need something, and he would be there. She would make plans, and somehow his plans shifted around hers.

I didn’t resent her for it.

Not exactly.

She wasn’t taking Cal away from me on purpose. She was simply building a life with him, and I was slowly realizing that life might not always include as much room for me as it once had.

Then there was Bryson’s girlfriend.

Kelly.

It was bad enough that Bryson was openly dating a girl while keeping me hidden. It was worse that the girl was beautiful.

Kelly was the kind of beautiful that made sense immediately. She knew how to dress. She knew how to stand. She knew which expressions made people like her and which ones reminded them not to cross her.

She could be slightly superficial.

She could also be cruel when she wanted to be.

Kelly never had a serious problem with me. She tolerated me. She knew I sometimes tagged along with Bryson and accepted his explanation that I was one of his close friends.

Sometimes we even talked.

Sometimes she seemed cool.

Then she would become rude or snippy without warning, and everyone around her was expected to adjust. She monopolized Bryson’s time. She always needed him somewhere. Needed him beside her. Needed him to answer the phone. Needed him to come find her because something had happened, or someone had upset her, or she had decided his attention had been elsewhere for too long.

Usually, that attention had been on me.

If I had earned a dollar every time Bryson apologized and left to comfort Kelly, I could have bought Talon Lake.

I tried not to hate her.

It was difficult.

I had feelings too.

There. I said it.

I was in love with Bryson.

And he was going to break up with her.

He was going to go public with me.

At least, that was what he kept saying.

Boy, was I wrong.