Heron, as I’d grown used to calling him, folded eight paper cranes as a eulogy to his former self, every day before he did anything else. He’d been doing this for months, preparing for the first of a series of surgeries that would make him more himself.

We lived in Cove Town, in those early years, back when I still liked to be called Reeds, just my natal surname but it was better than the given name that I had long since shed and vowed to never utter again for as long as I live. 

“Today’s the day,” Heron announced as he arrived, late as always but it didn’t matter. One look into those rust-green eyes, and I’d forgive him any infraction.  His eyes were like copper, sometimes I felt like I could taste metallic hose water on the back of my tongue when he looked at me; like I could almost hear the rusted metal swing set in my backyard, that through abandonment over time would breathe itself green.  That’s what his eyes were like, that’s what he was like - embodied nostalgia like a walking time capsule of my accumulated emotional history.

He’d sighed as he sat down upon a large rock, in a hidden grotto we found that I’d started calling Sock Port,  to distinguish it from all the other hidden spots that I did not share with him, or anyone, other than Gordon, my tulpa. I’d been trying to force the form for Gordon for weeks, and it was just last night that I’d felt him finalize and flutter out of me like a guiding light, something warm that would buzz in my ears when I needed to feel comfort and less alone.  

“Today is the day  I sacrifice my innards to the gods of Change.”

I sat upright and pulled my knees to my body, the scrape of the beachy sand made my senses purr and I tried to ignore it.  “When? I mean what time?”

“Not til four, that’s why I wanted to see you before it happened. Just in case it goes poorly. I wanted - needed  -  to see a friendly face before I die and become Hezekiah Ramos officially.”

“It will go great, I’m happy for you. You’ve waited so long for this.”

He gave me a weird expression and  I felt awkward. “What is it? Did I say something wrong?”

“No. But there is one other thing, one other reason I wanted to see you before the surgery.”

“Okay?”

And then he moved toward me, sat down next to me and looked at me before leaning toward me to press his lips against mine.  He lingered for a moment before breaking the kiss, and  I opened my eyes, not having remembered closing them, and exhaled slowly. 

“Will you be there when I wake up,  will you visit me after? Pretty please? With cherries on top?”

I wrinkled my nose.  “I don’t like cherries.”

His eyes flicked over to my backpack,  “Pretty please with a backpack full of manga on top?”

I chuckled.  “That’s better.”

“So?”

My eyes went to his lips again, my own still buzzing from that kiss. I already wanted another one. I leaned forward to whisper. “On one condition…”

“Name it.”

“Kiss me again?”

Heron laughed, the sound low and throaty, making the hairs on my arms stand to attention. But he did lean in to kiss me.  The heat of the grotto, the sound of the crashing waves and the distant din of beach goers, all seemed to fade away to nothing. I raised a hand to caress the side of his face and he broke the kiss to nuzzle the tip of his nose against mine, and then rubbed his cheek against mine, stubble rough against smooth.  I felt like my breath was pouring out of me, panting, trying to go into his mouth, liking the heat of his body over mine.  

“I think we’re falling in love a little bit.”

“Yes.” 

“Does this make us boyfriends now?”

He pulled back and looked at me, eyes wide, lips twisted, thinking.  “I think I’d like that. Would you?”

I chuckled awkwardly, “I used to hate summer, too much heat, and nothing to do, no school. Only reading and wandering around  while my parents worked, and now … now I can think of it as the season that brought me you, Hezekiah Ramos.  My boyfriend.”

And the warmth of his smile, as I said his name, lit a fire within me, giving me something to nurture, something to build, like a kind of purpose.  

“So tell me, did you finally get a form for your tulpa? I know you’ve been working steadily on that.”

“Actually yes.”

“What form did he choose?”

“He’s a firefly, I think.”

“That’s amazing.”

“What’s your tulpa’s form again?”

“She’s kind of a dragon.”

“Do you think she’ll change forms as you do?”

I watched him take a heavy sigh and frown in that pensive way again, then he gave a loose shrug.  

“I guess I’ll find out.”

“Did you make it to a thousand cranes before today like you’d planned?”

He grinned. “Yes,  I am going to make them all into a giant mobile to hang in my room next.”

“What if your tulpa changes form from a dragon to a crane afterward?”

Hezekiah smiled, “She just might. And that would be just fine.”

“The Boy with the Crane Tulpa has a nice manga title when you think about it.”

Chuckling, he looked at me, “So does Reeds and the Firefly Tulpa.”

“It does. Maybe once you’re healed up, we can collaborate on those ideas together?”

“I’d like that.”

And then he just stared at me, and I stared back, and deep within those eyes, I could see the dragon fire of his tulpa reaching for the fledgling firefly light of mine.