Alexander and you had been close for some time now. You lived in Crane for a bit longer than he had but he'd only met you about two years ago. Alex was always down by Solmens Creek or was in his treehouse with Tom whenever you would even bother to go to the beach. Crain was dying from all of the landfill in it's waters and by the time you'd turned 16 you were so ready to leave and never come back. But then you'd met Alex. Alex was pretty sarcastic and petty but once you got to know him better he was pretty nice to hang out with. You and him would go to his treehouse in Solmens woods and would look at all the frogs in the Creek from the window late into the night as Alex told you stories about the gods that spoke in his head. It was lovely.

But recently Alex hadn't been in the treehouse. Not even in his old log with his old soggy pillow. You would wait for him but he'd never come back home. You would have tried to look for him but you vowed never to leave the treehouse without a REALLY good reason. You'd like to classify this as a good reason but Alex did this all the time. It scared you sometimes. How he'd tell you stories of him sleeping in his old log because he didn't remember his way home due to his bad sense of directions. But he said that all changed when he met Tom.

You never met Tom but what you knew was that Tom was Alex's past lover that he didn't really wanna talk about. Tom was the only man that accepted Alex for being trans and was the only one Alex had seen a future with.. Besides.. well.. You.

"I'm back home- What are you doing ??"

You were looking at an old picture of Alex and Tom that sat up next to frog bones and a jar of cash that Alex had been saving up for ages. Alex walked over to you with his Mary poppins bag of food and some other stuff he either stoll or was 'borrowing' permanently. He said they didn't mean the same thing but it really did- And that damn bag. You always made fun of him for his Mary poppins cross body bag but Alex was in love with that thing

"Oh- That.."