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He’s twelve the first day they meet and Isaac is paraded in front of the class. Transfer student, the teacher says, then adds from England like it’s some impressive accomplishment they should all aspire to. Isaac is tall and spindly, with the long limbed anti-grace of puberty. Blond hair puffs around his head like a halo, and it’s only the bags under his eyes that keep him from being positively angelic.
Minho can’t take his eyes off of him, but he knows that the teacher’s look turns sour because the only free desk is Minho’s and he’s trouble. But Isaac is already walking toward him and she can’t say anything and Minho thinks, for the first time, that maybe he doesn’t have the worst luck in the world.
The metal clasps of Isaac’s backpack clang against the chair legs, and Minho actually lifts his head from where it had been resting on his folded arms.
“I’m Minho,” he says in a quiet voice as the morning ruckus resumes. He doesn’t extend his hand and neither does Isaac, but the boy does give him a tight lipped smile that doesn’t quite reach those tired eyes.
(and Minho wonders, because of those eyes, if the boy is like him)
Oddly, Isaac’s presence almost makes Minho pay more attention in class, and for the first time that week he takes notes. Mostly. The doodles help him focus—they do!
He steals glances at the other boy, but his eyes are always forward, pen to notebook.
His neck is long, his jaw defined and square and Minho wants to draw it.
(and he will, that night in bed by the dying light of a stolen flashlight. He’ll draw it and wonder what it would be like to touch, if the skin would be warm under his fingertips)
When the bell rings, he almost jumps. Usually, he anticipates the moments of freedom in the halls, counts down to the bell. But today, he is lost in Isaac.
He shoves the notebook and chewed pencil into a ratty knapsack and stands. When he looks up, there’s Isaac.
He’s half a head taller than Minho, but he looks timid, a hand scratching his neck.
“Um, hi,” he says with a little smile and pink cheeks. He licks his lips (they’re pink, too) and Minho’s chest aches. “I actually prefer Newt.”
“Newt?” Minho says, and he doesn’t have any idea what Isaac is talking about, but he wants him to keep talking.
“Y-yeah,” the blond says, and something in his eyes actually brightens a little. If that’s all it takes to make the boy happy, Minho will say that word again and again until his throat is raw. “Sort of a nickname. My dad, he’s a bit bonkers. Isaac Newton and all. But yeah, my friends call me Newt.”
Minho nods like he knows who that is, but at least now he understands. Not Isaac, but Newt. He feels privileged, like he’s a member of a secret club, because Isa—Newt, he didn’t tell everyone that at the beginning of class.
He told Minho.
***
It’s been over two weeks, and if Newt picked up that Minho is bad news, he doesn’t say, and neither does he shy away from him. They share four classes and lunch, keeping a table to themselves in the cafeteria, and Minho is happy because he’d been eating lunch alone because Ben (who is almost fourteen, but still in seventh grade. He is Minho’s best friend, and was his only friend until Newt) had a different time slot.
Newt carries his lunch in one of those fancy insulated packs, and they’re always perfectly prepared. Sandwiches with meat and cheese and vegetables. Soup in a thermos, fruits and cookies that look homemade.
When Minho has a lunch, it comes in a Walmart grocery sack. When he makes it, his peanut butter sandwiches are plain, without jelly, but sometimes there are apples. When his mother makes it, he gets rice and kimchi and not much else.
(Minho doesn’t think his mother knows how to bake cookies)
***
Newt doesn’t have a mom, and Minho doesn’t ask why. He knows there are photographs of a pretty blond woman in Newt’s house and they are from not long ago. She is smiling in all of the photographs and so is Newt and so is Newt’s father.
(who is behind the lunches and the cookies and the house too big for two)
They play video games and eat junk food and Newt’s father asks if he wants to stay for dinner.
He does, but he says no, because his mother cooks every night and Minho won’t abandon her.
***
Minho’s father fixes cars.
He’s good at it.
When he brings jobs home (most shops won’t hire a man who can’t stay sober), Minho helps. He likes diesels the most, and those nights of working with his father are good, from the grease under his fingernails to his mother impatiently calling them inside.
The nights working with dad are good. The nights after they finish a job and dad gets paid and hits the liquor store are not so good.
***
Newt is a good kid. He does well in school. He doesn’t get in trouble. In the halls, he’s friends with everyone.
(and no, Minho does not get jealous)
But he’s a good kid, and Minho isn’t, and so he never mentions the beers he sneaks from his father, or the cigarettes he pays bums to buy with stolen money
(Ben knows. Ben understands. Ben shares them under the freeway overpass and holds Minho’s spare cans of spray paint)
He’s thirteen when he brings home his first A.
Omma is ecstatic. She smiles and hugs him and father pats him on the back.
Newt is responsible, more than himself. Newt insists they study, and maybe Minho doesn’t want to repeat a grade like Ben.
(he’s not stupid. He just doesn’t care)
***
“5”
Newt’s lips are warm and he tastes like cherry cola.
“4”
His fingers itch to touch that jaw, the feathery hair, the back of his neck to pull him closer.
“3”
His hands make fists and his arms stay rigid at his sides.
“2”
It’s his first kiss, but he won’t tell anyone that.
“1”
When they pull back, a string of saliva connects them, like something in them both wants to stay joined.
It breaks easily enough and the room ignites with whoops and howls.
Minho scrunches his nose and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. A belated second later, Newt does the same, but there is a dark look in his eyes that makes Minho want to lean in again.
“If I’d known that was gonna happen, I’d’ve skipped the party,” he says, his voice dripping with false disdain as his heart soars because he kissed Newt. “Now spin the fuckin’ bottle.”
***
It is after that when mother finds his sketchbook. He walks in to her sitting patiently on his bed, his room cleaner than he left it.
Her mouth is tight and her shoulders square as she clenches the notebook in tiny hands.
Minho blanches when he recognizes it. Bile rises in the back of his throat and he feels the pinpricks of tears.
(he’s thirteen)
The drawings are damning, and none of them are of women.
Too many of them are of Newt. His hands, his neck, the sharp angle of his jaw or the gentle curve of his lips. Bits and pieces, perfected through meticulous study.
He is frozen as his mother stands.
(he is not tall, but he is already taller than she is)
Her eyes are brown and painful to look at, but he won’t insult her or shame himself by looking away.
He knows she’s looked.
“Omma…” he begins, but it’s the only word he can force out.
She presses the book to his chest and tells him never let father see.
***
The summer is lonely. Ben is in summer school (he’ll actually move on to the eighth grade if he does well enough) and Newt is out of town every other week with his dad.
Minho works with his father during the day, and sweat mixes with grease in the summer heat.
It’s a Thursday (not that it actually matters; the days all blend together in the summer months) and he’s removing a carburetor when a junker car with a trailer on the back pulls up across the street. The house has been vacant for months.
A woman exits the car, then a girl. His age. Black hair. A scowl.
But pretty.
(even he can see that)
***
Her name is Teresa Agnes and she has the mouth of a sailor. She wears scarfs, even in the summer, and smokes Virginia Slims and Minho doesn’t mind showing her the overpass.
(she doesn’t have an innocence to protect)
He sneaks a few extra beers for her until he learns that she prefers vanilla Pepsi.
Their first kiss is under the overpass. The roar of traffic drowns out any sound, and she smiles when they separate.
(because it was a kiss and because it was only a kiss)
Minho does too, but he doesn’t feel like his soul is on fire like with Newt.
***
His mother gives Teresa kind, closed smiles and his father doesn’t care
(that’s fine with Minho)
They spend almost every day together and he tells no one else about her until the first day of eighth grade. Ben laughs and hoots as he marches up the stairs holding a girl’s hand.
(he is a good boyfriend)
The older boy smacks Newt in the arm with the back of his hand.
“Fuckin’ told ya, Cahill. Minnie’s too busy getting some to hang with us.”
“Slim your ugly face, Ben,” Minho says, but the words hold no bite as he looks at Newt and the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
***
When Teresa asks, he shows her. There are more books now, all hidden in his room. They’re done in pencil, mostly, because Minho likes the freedom of revision.
(Teresa swears he draws better in pen)
He’s never shown anyone before. Ben asked once, and so Minho socked him. Newt never did.
But Teresa asks, and Teresa never asks for much.
(and somehow, even if he can never love her like he should, he will show Teresa his soul)
***
“You love him.”
Minho snorts, even as his heart clenches at the suggestion.
“We’re thirteen years old.”
He doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t deny what she saw in the pictures, because he can’t.
It’s true.
“Romeo and Juliet were just kids.”
“Yeah. And they fuckin’ died.”
(he may not have a girlfriend anymore, but he still has Teresa)
He’s fourteen the first time he gets arrested.
It's frustration, more than anything.
(there is no one to hold him back this time)
He is an artist, and there is a part of him that wants recognition.
But maybe moving from the underside of a freeway overpass to the side of an apartment building wasn’t the smartest decision he ever made.
It’s two AM, and the cop gleefully reports to him that his mother said she would pick him up at a decent hour in the morning.
(he does not sleep)
***
It is the only time his mother hits him. She is courteous at the police station, silent as they drive home, but when they arrive she slaps him across the face and tells him that he is an embarrassment.
Blood trickles from his lip.
I did not push you from my body so you can waste your life!
***
Father remains ignorant of the incident.
He doesn’t know if his mother does this to protect him or because she is ashamed.
(he doesn’t know why she does a lot of things)
He spends the next two Saturdays cleaning his graffiti.
(it was art)
They say they will keep it off his record.
He is supposed to be thankful.
(he is angry)
(it was art)
***
“Why don’t you tell anyone?”
The ice burns against his eye, but it’s for the best. The swelling will go down enough by morning that he can open it.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Newt’s room is twice the size of Minho’s, and they can both lay on the queen size bed comfortably, homework included.
It’s just them tonight.
(the first night in a long time)
“Don’t bloody play stupid with me,” Newt says, and there’s anger in his voice. Minho glances at him with his one good eye. “Your dad did that.”
“So?”
No denial, only one defiant syllable.
“So why the fuck do you let it go on?”
The words are punctuated by The Giver flying across the room and banging against the door.
Newt is breathing heavy.
No one has ever been indignant on his behalf.
He repeats the same words his Omma gave him many years ago.
There is more to a person than bruises.
***
Newt doesn’t bring it up again, even as summer comes and the bruises become more frequent.
Dad never used to hit him in the face.
Minho never used to be so belligerent.
Some nights, he doesn’t come home. He knows it worries Omma, but he is safe.
(safer than home)
He has Newt and he has Ben and at worse there is the overpass.
(once there is Teresa. He sneaks in through her bedroom window and holds her
and more
they pretend they are what each other wants)
***
There is no room left under the overpass.
He doesn’t stop
He evolves.
(if he is better in pen, he is genius with a cannon)
***
He likes bridges and train cars.
(that one’s a stereotype)
He gives up apartment buildings in good neighborhoods and anything related to religion or government.
He isn’t here to make political statements. He just wants to let his art free.
He is fast. They don’t catch him
(until they do)
***
He’s lucky it’s for graffiti and not joyriding with Ben.
One is a misdemeanor, the other a felony.
He is unlucky that his father picks up the phone, and the man has no qualms picking Minho up at three in the morning.
For the first time, he fears that his father will truly hurt him.
(perhaps the only reason he stops is Omma’s crying)
***
Omma doesn't make him go to school that day.
Even if most of the bruises can be covered, there are stabs of pain with every movement.
Teresa brings his homework and he tells her he was jumped.
(she does not need to believe him)
***
Omma makes him go to school the following day, after forcing cup after cup of root tea down his throat.
Navigating the hallways is hard, and Minho folds in on himself. By third period, he is ready to break, but he does not because he has Teresa and Newt and Ben.
They act as a buffer between him and the world.
***
He doesn’t go out at night again for a long time.
He obeys father.
He feels pathetic, and not only because his father beats him.
But because he cannot defend himself if he tried.
(weak)
He’s fifteen when Omma has enough and kicks dad out. There’s shrieking and crying and both Minho and his father are staring wide eyed at the placid woman who becomes a hurricane. Dad’s things are on the curb within minutes, carried only by his mother’s arms.
(thin as twigs, strong as iron)
When dad is gone, half his things packed into the back of the shoddy El Camino and the rest left scattered on the gravel that is their lawn, Omma cracks with a sob, and sinks to the floor.
Minho can’t do anything but hold her.
(he knows he will never see his father again)
***
When Omma is asleep, Teresa smokes with him on her porch.
She holds his hand and doesn't mention the tears
***
His mother does nails at a salon. She was once an artist like him, but the world and his father and maybe Minho himself killed that part of her.
Her English is bad.
It does not pay well.
***
The bruises fade.
His mother picks up spare jobs. Babysitting. Cleaning houses.
Minho fixes cars under the table.
He’s cheap, because he’s fifteen and with no official training, and father’s former clients think they can pay less.
(they can. He is desperate)
He often gets the parts for free.
Ben helps with that.
***
Omma will only accept his money if he takes up a sport or club.
She doesn't want him to become bitter.
(it is too late)
None of them appeal to him, because the clubs bore him and he's not meant for teamwork
Track becomes the obvious choice
(he outruns the police more than he doesn’t)
***
There are two more at the lunch table. Gally, who is too much like Minho for them to get along.
(maybe that’s why they are both Ben’s friend)
Alby, who pays too much attention to Newt for them to get along.
(but he can’t hate him, not when he makes Newt laugh)
Minho stops taking any lunch. It costs too much.
But he and Omma, they are afloat.
***
Newt doesn’t come to school one day, and Minho wouldn’t worry, until it happens the next day. And the next.
Newt’s phone goes straight to voicemail, so Minho bikes himself over to the nice neighborhood. There is no answer when he rings the doorbell.
He calls Teresa, and Ben, and even Alby. They are worried, too.
Minho sits on the porch until night comes and a car pulls into the driveway, almost blinding him with its headlights.
Mr. Cahill’s clothes are rumpled. His eyes are red.
He doesn’t look like he’s slept in days.
“Minho.”
He says the word like it was inevitable.
“What happened?”
(because there is something wrong)
Mr. Cahill pauses and Minho feels like his heart is being weighed.
(and Minho is suddenly aware of how long he’s known this man
how many times he has raided his fridge or upped his power bill with ceaseless hours of Mario Kart
how word of Minho’s record must have reached his ears by now
how he was never unkind
not once)
“Newt’s in hospital.”
“I wanna see him.”
No how or why. Just one demand, because if Newt is there, then Minho needs to be with him.
Mr. Cahill checks his watch and Minho knows it’s late.
“Son, it’s past eleven, they won’t let you in. Your mother will worry.”
“I don’t care. I need to see him.”
Maybe it’s pity, or sleep deprivation, or simply the knowledge that Minho will bike himself to the hospital anyway, but Mr. Cahill relents, and Minho knows so before the man even speaks.
“I need to grab a change of clothes and a shower. Be useful and make a pot of coffee.”
***
They won’t let him into the room, so he curls into a hard chair in the waiting area, his ass going numb after the first fifteen minutes.
He calls his mother, tells her that he will be spending the night at Ben’s
(Ben will lie for him, always)
The car ride plays over in his head.
He is not stupid. He can read between the lines. Mr. Cahill didn't need to say what Newt was doing on that roof.
***
Minho has been in the hospital once.
His collar bone was broken.
Omma told him to say he fell out of a tree.
He was nine, and already a very good liar.
***
Words are limited. They are nothing but pointed edges. They are used to hurt more than to heal.
Minho does not trust them.
He trusts art.
He steals a pen from a nurse’s station, and finds a brochure with a blank back page.
(it is the first time he has ever drawn for someone)
***
It is morning. Newt is awake. Mr. Cahill excuses himself for coffee.
Minho steps into the room like it's a minefield.
Newt avoids his eyes.
His leg is wrapped in white from foot to thigh.
“Stupid bloody accidents, yeah?” Newt says. A weak smile.
(tired eyes)
Minho wants to be mad, to yell, to throw Newt’s own words back in his face.
Why don’t you tell anyone?
Instead, he strides to the bedside and presses his lips to Newt’s.
***
Newt tastes like stale air.
It is shorter than their first kiss.
It's without pretense.
(more damning)
***
When he pulls back, he looks Newt in the eye and pushes the drawing against his chest.
“People love you, ya dumb fuck.”
He backs away, falls into a chair, and pretends not to notice the tears and sniffles from the bed.
(his hand finds Newt’s)
***
He doesn’t know the details, but he knows there is physical therapy three times a week and a different kind of therapy on Wednesdays and Fridays.
He knows Newt has the same disease which took his mother.
(he learns why Isaac prefers Newt)
Newt is not in the hospital for long, but he doesn’t come back to school. Minho brings him his assignments, and they study in Newt’s room. Sometimes there is Alby, Teresa, and even Ben and Gally show up.
But more often than not, it is Newt and Minho.
The drawing hangs proudly across from Newt’s bed.
***
They don’t talk about the kiss.
He’s sixteen before Newt returns to school, his hair worn long and his cast gone.
(a limp that will plague him for life)
He doesn’t smile as much anymore, but when he does they are genuine.
He smiles when Minho draws for him.
***
He passes them in class and in hallways, at lunch on milk cartons, in borrowed library books (“Minho!”).
Doodles, sketches, landscapes. Comics, funny ones that tell raunchy jokes or mock Mr. Janson and his ugly rat face and stupid homework code.
Newt smiles at them all, and most of them make their way onto the wall, framing the first drawing.
***
It is the faces of all those who would lose something without Newt. Teresa and Ben and Gally, Alby and Mr. Cahill and Omma and Teresa’s mother Ava.
Dozens of kids from school, Harriet and Sonya and Rachel, Aris and Brenda and Winston. Jeff, Clint, Sigmund, Jackson and George and Nick.
Everyone whose heart had been touched by Newt.
(Minho himself, though he blushes at the self portrait)
***
His name is Tommy and he follows Newt like a dog.
***
Minho doesn’t hate him, but neither does he understand why Newt keeps him around. Thomas is not smart, not funny, not particularly useful in any way.
He asks too many questions.
Thomas joins the track team and he is fast.
(maybe Minho hates him a little)
***
Summer's coming and he smokes cigarettes on the front porch. There's a half fixed jeep in their front yard and Minho’s Pepsi grows warm.
(no beer since father left)
He sees someone climb out of Teresa’s window across the street. The form is clumsy, failing at stealth.
It is Thomas, and he freezes when he sees Minho seeing him, his face taking on the sort of fear a man gets when he is faced with his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.
Minho offers him a Pepsi.
There are no threats
(Minho could never do anything worse than Teresa would)
***
Ben dies in July.
Minho sits through the funeral in stony silence wearing his father’s suit.
Omma and Teresa hold his hands.
***
He doesn’t speak to people for days. He does not go to school.
Omma confronts him. He bites back his curses and stalks out of the house.
He has one goal in mind.
***
He meets Thomas on the way.
It is by mistake.
(wrong place, wrong time)
The boy is buying Gatorade at a 7/11 and he sees Minho and stutters out a greeting.
Minho looks at him for several seconds before jerking his head to the side.
“C’mon, Tommy.”
***
He doesn’t stop, not for hours. Thomas is silent beside him, passing cans of paint as ordered.
Minho wipes away tears with stained fingers.
When he is finished, Ben smiles down at him, his body framed by angel’s wings
He doesn’t care if it’s a cliche.
(Ben deserved better)
***
When he shows Gally the painting, the dude actually hugs him.
Long, strong arms almost crushing in their efforts.
Minho lets him.
(he’s getting a little better at not being selfish)
***
Later, he adds Tommy’s face to Newt’s wall.
***
The world crawls by slowly, and Minho is numb to it all.
He’s seventeen and spends his birthday under the overpass. He's not alone. There's Teresa, her hand enveloping Thomas’s for most of the night. There’s Gally, chatting it up with Siggy and Alby and a few others. More are scattered in the space, clinging the circles of light made by trashcan fires.
There’s Newt.
(and if he held Newt’s hand on the way down, it was only to help him balance)
And there’s Ben, watching them from his wall.
***
There is beer (Newt has his first, and then his first three, and Minho is a little afraid he’ll trip between the limp and the buzz) and cigarettes and weed.
There is laughter and talking and kissing.
(they are teenagers, and tonight is all that matters)
As night bleeds into morning, people wander away. The fires grow low.
Soon, it is only him.
And Newt.
***
He shows him the art, painted on the walls through all the years.
Each one has a story, and Newt smiles and laughs and once he cries.
When they have seen it all, they sit on milk crates in front of the only burning fire.
The heat makes his cheeks warm.
(and so does Newt’s shoulder pressing against his)
He hasn’t felt this good in a long time, and so he leans in to press his lips to Newt’s.
***
Newt pushes him away and Minho recoils like he's been burned.
The blond stands up, unsteady for a moment, and then faces away from Minho, his arms crossed in front of him.
Minho doesn’t want to speak.
(perhaps if he does not, the world will stay in this moment and the rejection will never be complete)
“Newt…”
Newt shakes his head furiously, and he turns to face Minho. There is a scowl and unspilled tears.
“I can’t do it,” Newt says. His fingers are tight around his bicep, the fabric bunching. “I can’t let you bloody kiss me again and spend the next god knows how long wondering if it meant something.”
Minho is silent, his mouth dry.
(words betray him)
“I’m not strong enough,” Newt says, throwing his arms to the side. “I know the first one was some buggin’ game, but then you had to go and do it when I was in hospital!”
Newt looks down and tears flash in the firelight as they fall
“And then you said nothing about it.”
His chest is a pit that is about to swallow itself.
“I can’t kiss you and then spend years waiting for you to want to do it again.”
Newt turns and Minho can hear the uneven crunch of his footsteps even as his eyes lose focus.
He’s walking away. Newt is walking away and Minho can’t move. He can’t say anything and the world is a blur.
Newt is walking away.
Minho blinks and his own tears fall and his vision clears.
He sees Ben.
And Ben… he would tell Minho what a world class pussy he's being right now.
He snaps out of it and leaps to his feet.
He is fast and Newt hasn’t gotten far. He reaches him, circles around to the front, grabs his arms, and forces him to stop.
Newt does not tower over him (as much) anymore, nor is he as timid, but somehow Minho is reminded of seventh grade, when Newt was Isaac.
“I wanna kiss you everyday,” he says and it’s probably the lamest confession of love ever, but words have never been his strong suit. “I wanna make up for every day since seventh grade that I didn’t.”
***
Newt tastes like beer.
There is no hesitance in this kiss, no uncertainty.
He knows they have both played over this in their minds a thousand and one times.
Newt’s tongue pushes into his mouth and Minho walks them back until Newt’s back hits a wall. His hands seek the bare, pale flash of the blond’s hips.
Long fingers tangle into Minho’s hair.
***
They make it back to Newt’s house just before sunrise, sneak up the stairs quietly.
(he doesn’t know how Mr. Cahill would react, with parental anger or with happiness that Newt is enjoying himself)
They fall asleep tangled with each other.
***
The way they spend the following day is not much different than before. They eat junk. They play video games and fight over the good controller.
They wrestle.
But there are more kisses to be had.
***
When he walks into his home with Newt’s fingers wrapped in his, Omma says nothing.
She grabs a third bowl for dinner.
Newt pretends he likes kimchi.