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Neil only ever saw him after school, leaning against a tree and smoking a cigarette. He was skinny, pale, black bags under his eyes and blonde hair greasy and uncombed. He wore a black sweatshirt, even in ninety degree weather. His shoes were flat-footed and worn, frayed at the big toe and pinky, the fabric a faded pink.
The kid would stare out at the street, or at the lumbering stumbling high school students going home, or at the carpool lane, or at the sports kids stretching for after school practice. Somehow, though he never looked at the front doors, the kid always knew when his brother—obviously a twin—would walk out. He’d flick his cigarette and light another one just as his brother reached him, and then they’d leave campus together.
Neil would step on the smoldering butt on his way by.
*
Neil woke in the middle of the night convinced someone was watching him from the closet.
The house was empty, dusty, foreclosed—not fit for habitation. Neil had been living there for two months.
He startled awake from a tight cough in his throat, and then when his body settled back into his sleeping bag, fatigued and sweaty, he looked over at the closet and thought he saw someone there.
Limp, panting, Neil stared at the dark space—he knew that no one was really there, no one had found him, he was alone—and yet he couldn't shake the sight of a looming figure, pale smiling teeth, glowing eyes, watching from the crack between the doors.
He stared at the closet all night, waiting.
But nothing happened.
*
Neil was about to walk home the next day after school when he remembered the empty closet, the yawning dark, the pressure of a nameless beast—not real—pressing down on him, crushing him.
He stood in the middle of campus, right outside the front doors, and let himself be jostled around by exiting students.
He looked up to see the dirty, blonde boy leaning against the tree, smoking and staring at the line of buses. When his twin reached him and they started walking home, Neil waited five seconds and then followed.
*
Neil trailed after the scent of smoke. He didn’t care about any of his classmates. He didn’t even know the name of the twin that went to school, didn’t care about why the other one didn’t go to class, didn’t shower, blatantly smoked on high school grounds yet never got in trouble.
Probably Neil felt drawn to them because Neil had used up the last of his cigarettes two months ago, when he first stumbled into this random town, weeks after his mother’s death, and the smell of smoke, the burning ember, reminded Neil that he hadn’t been so alone once.
He stayed fifteen paces behind them, silent footsteps, deep inhales of secondhand smoke as the dirty, stinky twin lit another cigarette and another. They walked maybe a mile before they finally stopped at a house, and Neil kept going, kept walking, until the sun had set and he had found an underpass with leftover remains of a homeless camp, discarded wrappers, bottles full of a questionable yellow liquid.
Dropping his backpack, Neil lowered himself onto the ground, ignoring the stench of dank river water and trash. He knew he wasn’t safe here, but he still settled his head on his backpack, a corner of a binder digging into his cheek through the fabric, and closed his eyes. Rocks pushed into his back, his legs, so he curled onto his side to relieve the pain.
*
Neil went to school the next day smelling like the river and with a pulsing black eye. He had a forged doctor’s note claiming the wound came from an innocuous game of basketball with fellow neighborhood kids.
He skipped first period and spent the whole hour showering, washing out the blood under his fingernails. He thought the lacrosse coach might stop him, having seen Neil enter the stall, but Coach Hernandez continued to his office, acting business as usual.
Neil watched as streams of water slid off his body and twisted around his feet before going down the drain, and then he dried off and went to his next class.
Business as usual.
*
Neil didn’t follow the twins home again after school. He didn’t go back to the underpass. He went back to his foreclosed house, sleeping bag untouched save from a few spiders. He kept a pointed gaze away from the closet.
It’s stupid, but Neil was so tired. He knew that made him weak. Maybe if he hadn’t fought with a homeless person trying to mug him last night, he might have noticed that someone had followed him home after school, and he wouldn’t have been so startled when they started throwing rocks at his window.
*
Neil was out the back window before a third rock could clank against another windowpane. He was mentally counting up the amount of money he had left, hoping it’d be enough to last him through another school change, a final year of high school, as he shimmied through a windowsill with chipped lead-based paint and plopped on the ground.
Braced to run, Neil made it one step before a rock hit him square in the face, right in his black eye.
He cursed, tears leaking, as he glanced at his attacker: black hoodie, uncombed hair. Short. Familiar.
Confused, Neil hesitated. He was heaving, a rattling sound in his chest from the blooming cold he’d been fighting the past few days. His body shook with the desire to flee, yet his muscles locked, refusing to move.
He stared at the twin, the one who didn’t go to school, as the twin stared back. The kid looked bored, unimpressed. He was tossing another rock, up and down, up and down, in his right hand.
The twin caught and held the rock as he asked, “Why did you follow us yesterday.”
Neil, after a slight pause, answered, “Bored.”
The twin studied Neil further, tossing the rock again, up and down. “Bored,” the kid mused, unconvinced.
Neil shrugged.
He waited for the kid to do something else, ask another question. Neil was back to tallying his money, telling himself that he didn’t have enough, that he’d have to stay, that this kid couldn’t really hurt him, couldn’t really do anything—
—when the kid threw the rock, too fast to prepare for impact, hitting Neil in the face.
Neil recoiled, clutching at his cheek, glaring at the twin. He felt blood well beneath his fingers.
“You’re an idiot,” the kid said, assessment reached.
“Fuck you,” Neil hissed.
The kid was undeterred. “Follow us again and I’ll kill you.” His eyes looked dead. He had a real threat in his voice.
Neil was real pissed off. “Get in line,” he snapped.
He ran out of there then, ran as if he had somewhere to be, but he knew he’d come back to that house tonight, when it was too late to fall asleep, when he’d have to leave for school in a few hours.
*
“Andrew,” Neil’s history teacher drawled the next day at the start of class. “Nice of you to join us. What was it, the five F’s that finally brought you in?”
When no one answered, Neil looked up from his ugly doodles of foxes in the margins of his notes to see who the teacher was talking about.
The kid—Andrew, the dirty, blonde boy, Neil should have known—was already looking at him.
Neil glowered. His face throbbed. He had returned home at three in the morning to a stack of rocks outside the back window he had crawled out of, towering the way they weren’t supposed to in national parks. Neil had kicked the rocks so hard some of them had dented the siding of the already decaying house.
Andrew didn’t answer the teacher, but he did offer Neil a two-finger salute.
Neil turned from him, pretending Andrew didn’t matter, but his hands shook as he picked up his pen, as he tried not to snap it in half.
*
Despite having only history together, Andrew trailed after Neil between each class as if they’d walk in together. Neil did not engage or acknowledge. He ignored and stewed and felt relieved each time he entered his next class and Andrew kept walking, only to see Andrew again an hour later, standing outside the door like he’d waited his whole life for Neil.
“Don’t you have a test to make up?” Neil finally snapped after three classes, when it was time for lunch, time for Andrew to leave him alone. “A book to report? A problem to solve?”
“My only problem is you,” Andrew told him, unbothered.
Neil rolled his eyes. He said nothing as he walked toward the cafeteria, unwilling to give up his only reliable meal source for some stupid, stinky boy.
Andrew, of course, followed.
*
As Neil scarfed down his shitty chicken fried chicken, Andrew beside him eating a bag of chips—breaking a chip into smaller and smaller pieces before sprinkling the crumbs in his mouth—Andrew’s twin marched up to the table like he had something to say.
Neil ignored him. Andrew ignored him.
The twin, annoyed, snapped, “What are you doing?”
“Eating,” Andrew said.
Nothing, Neil said. He took another bite. The gravy was cold, coagulated.
“Have you had your fun?” the twin asked. He gestured between Andrew and Neil. “What are you even doing here? I thought you said school was vapid and pointless.”
“Your girlfriend is vapid and pointless,” Andrew said.
Neil choked on his bite, coughing and spitting food and saliva all over his tray. The twins ignored him.
Andrew was crumbling more chips but not eating them. His brother was scowling, cheeks red.
“Shut up,” the brother hissed, shooting a quick glance at something a few tables away from them.
Neil, swallowing around crumbs lodged in his throat, turned to look at the same table, filled with bubbling, pink cheerleaders.
He turned to Andrew, who was also looking at the cheerleaders. Andrew seemed bored, but his fists were clenched. The chips were gone, just a pile of dust.
The twin told Andrew, harsh and mean, “You’ve skipped too many days. They’re going to kick you out.”
“I’m sure Nicky can think of some sob story for administration to get me to stay.”
The brother scoffed. “Sure, just use him more. Not like you care, anyway.”
Andrew said nothing. He pinched his fingers in his chip dust before flicking the orange powder in the direction of his brother.
Scowling, his brother huffed and stomped away, but he didn’t walk toward the cheerleader’s table, instead going and going until he was out of the cafeteria altogether.
Neil spared another cursory glance at Andrew’s profile, wondered briefly about the sob story, the Nicky, before remembering he hated Andrew. He went back to his cold chicken fried chicken. He took another bite. Andrew took another pinch of his chip powder crumbs and flicked them at Neil’s face.
Neil didn’t flinch, didn’t wipe the crumbs from his lips.
*
Neil stared at the tree Andrew should have been standing at after school, looking off into the distance and not knowing Neil existed.
From behind him, Andrew lit a cigarette and blew the first puff of smoke toward Neil's ear, toxic tendrils billowing over Neil’s shoulder before dissipating in the wind.
Toneless, still staring at the tree, Neil said, “What was it you said?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “‘Follow us again and I’ll kill you’?”
“Interesting,” Andrew said, exhaling more smoke. Neil tried not to show how much he breathed it in, how much he craved it. “A threat from the boy who ran.”
“Shouldn’t you be guarding your brother’s walk home?” Neil asked, hoping to annoy him. “Like a good little big brother.”
“We’re twins.”
“Someone has to fill those shoes.”
At that moment, the brother huffed by them, not even a glance back at Andrew. They both watched him disappear past the school grounds, going, going, gone, all alone.
Andrew took a long drag before saying, “Aaron will survive one day without me.”
“But will you?” Neil asked. He finally started his own walk home, sick of this day, wanting it over.
Andrew only waited a second before following. “Interesting,” he said again, but Neil didn’t ask why.
*
Neil walked around the block with the foreclosed house on it twice, not wanting to go in with Andrew around, before he had enough.
He stopped in front of a house around the corner from the one he was staying in, its mailbox an intricately designed steel dragon, eyes like googlies, bulging, waterlogged, stuck in a permanent sob.
“What do you want?” Neil asked. Despite how much he hated the situation and Andrew, he was surprised at the kid’s tenacity. No one had stuck with Neil for so long.
Neil hadn’t turned around when he stopped walking, and Andrew was still one step behind him. They stood together, Andrew’s putrid breath crawling down Neil’s spine, Neil’s back tensed for a fight.
“To see this line of people who want to kill you,” Andrew told him.
Neil frowned. So Andrew had taken his words for what they were: the truth.
“I seem to be first,” Andrew commented, and then Neil felt the sting of fire tickling the hairs on his neck. He jumped, a protective hand smacking his skin, and he turned to Andrew and glared. It was just a hint of pain, a grazing of dying embers, but Neil was pissed.
“Andrew,” he said, slow, enunciated, like Andrew’s name was born in his mouth. Neil said the only thing he could think of to make this kid leave him alone, the only thing left to do. “I followed you home because I’m out of cigarettes and if I light one in this house It’ll burn down and if I light one at school I’ll get kicked out. I do not care about you or your brother. I’ll either be dead or gone by the end of the school year, and if you keep following me, they’ll kill you, too.”
Finally Andrew didn’t have a snarky response bathed in apathy. He stared at Neil, breathing in his truths with the last of his cigarette. Andrew tossed it aside and immediately fished in his pocket for his pack, grabbing another cigarette. But instead of lighting it and putting it in his mouth, he reached a slow hand out and offered it to Neil.
Neil, after a small pause, took the cigarette with shaky fingers.
“So you do care,” Andrew said.
Neil, still looking at the cigarette, said, “I care what they do, who they hurt, to get to me.”
He looked up at Andrew and was surprised to see a dark understanding in Andrew’s expression.
“Idiot,” Andrew called him.
Neil shrugged. He slipped his gift in his pocket, took a deep breath.
“Follow me again and I’ll kill you,” Neil told him, and then turned around to walk home.
Andrew didn’t follow, but after three steps between them, he called out, “No, you won’t.”
Neil twisted around, walking backwards, and offered a two-finger salute.
Andrew didn’t react, didn’t follow, just watched Neil leave with the threat of tomorrow in his eyes.
*
When Andrew didn’t show up in history the next morning, Neil didn’t react. He didn’t look back at Andrew’s seat to verify it was empty. He didn’t place a hand on the unsmoked cigarette in his pocket, just to check if it was there, just to remind himself that the moment they’d had yesterday was real.
*
At lunch, as Neil stood in line for another congealed lunch substance, someone shoved their way behind him, ignoring the people they just cut in line. Neil caught the stench of BO and smoke. He did not turn around.
“Boo,” Andrew said, deadpan.
Neil didn’t reply, but he also didn’t stop Andrew from following him through line, from steering them toward a table right next to Aaron, who was scowling into his canteen of soup—didn’t stop Andrew from sitting flush against him, thighs touching, as Andrew stole the chips from Neil’s tray, as he smashed a fist on the bag to pop it, crumbling everything, before he pulled out the barest piece of chip and placed it on his tongue as if it was something to dissolve.
*
Neil didn’t want Andrew to follow him home again so he wandered aimlessly around after school until he finally found a room Andrew wouldn’t enter.
He’d made it three steps into the library before he realized his shadow had detached.
Neil turned. Andrew stood at the threshold, a bored expression on his face, almost unimpressed, vaguely disgusted.
Neil raised a challenging eyebrow. Andrew just turned around and walked away.
Finally alone, Neil went to the shelves and grabbed volume seven of a manga he’d never read. He sat at a table and read the same page over and over until the librarian told him that it was time to go home.
*
They didn’t say a word to each other again until Friday, their early out day, the day when Andrew would walk home with his brother and not see Neil again for two days.
It was one in the afternoon and Neil felt torn between sloughing off his extra baggage by fleeing to the library again or walking to a park bench and budgeting his money and meals for the next week when he felt a heavy finger dig into his bruised cheek.
Neil swatted at the hand near his face, turning to glare at Andrew. They stood in the middle of a hallway, students exiting school around them, excited for the weekend. Andrew only had eyes for Neil.
“What,” Neil snapped.
“Will they find you over the weekend?” Andrew asked, cocking his head and staring at the greening bruise on Neil’s face.
Neil frowned. “Who?” Did Andrew know about his homeless fight?
“The people who will kill you.”
“Oh,” Neil said. “I don't know.”
“Hm,” Andrew said, still staring at the bruise. He said, “And if I call the cops to go to that house tomorrow, they won’t find your dead body?”
Neil shrugged. “Probably not.”
“A marvel you've made it this long.”
Neil glared. “Fuck you.”
Andrew said nothing else. He pinched Neil’s cheek once more, staring at the puffy skin and moving away before Neil could retaliate.
*
On Saturday, the police came to Neil’s foreclosed house.
Neil cursed Andrew’s name as he balled his sleeping bag—the only thing too big for his backpack—under his arm and shimmied once more out the back window just as the cops let themselves in.
*
Someone kicked Neil in the stomach. He woke with a shout, disoriented, tired, as he curled in on himself, wheezing through the pain that was more startling than hurting.
After three breaths, the person who kicked him said, “The boy who lived.”
“Shut up,” Neil said, trying to understand himself and his surroundings. He was at school. It was Monday. Andrew just kicked him. He was alive. He was getting sick. His head hurt. He couldn’t move.
“Why are you sleeping here,” Andrew asked, crouching down beside Neil. He pried Neil’s arms away from his stomach, and Neil had no strength to stop him. He glared instead as Andrew began poking at Neil’s stomach, checking that it was okay.
“I don’t want to miss class,” Neil said. He had entered school as soon as they unlocked the front doors, and none of the teachers arriving hours early for the day stopped him from following them in. He couldn’t get into the library, librarians not having arrived yet, so he swayed and stumbled his way to his history class. He laid down against the wall beside the door, intending to rest his eyes until the bell rang.
Andrew, still fiddling with his tummy, found Neil’s belly button through his shirt. He shoved his finger in the concavity. Neil scowled, finally pushing Andrew’s hands away.
Standing, Andrew said, “You’re five minutes late.”
Neil’s head whipped up. He looked around the empty and silent halls. “Shit,” he said.
“Did you not sleep this weekend?” Andrew asked, watching pitilessly as Neil rose, slow and rickety, to his feet.
Neil shot another glare in Andrew’s direction. “Not after the cops showed up at my house.”
“It’s not your house.”
“Whatever. I can’t go back there for a few days, and it’s not a good idea to sleep on these streets.”
Andrew studied Neil’s face, his tired eyes, bloodshot and watery—his fading bruises, his swollen nose.
“Nowhere else to go?” Andrew asked, but not like he cared, not like he didn’t already know the answer. “No friends in town? No family?”
“Shut up,” Neil said again, stomping into his—their—history class. Andrew followed, yanking on the straps of Neil’s backpack, but Neil refused to react, not wanting to give more of his frustration away than he already had.
*
Someone poked Neil on the back of the head. He jolted with a start, prepared to swing, but his history teacher took a bemused step back.
“I know it’s droll, but I really need you to stay awake for my class.”
Neil blinked a few times before looking at the clock above the door. He’d only been in class for ten minutes. He looked back at his teacher, saying nothing.
“Do you think you can stay awake?” the teacher asked.
“No,” Neil said.
Classmates snickered, and the teacher sighed. “You can’t stay here if you aren’t going to pay attention.”
Neil kept his mouth shut, but he opened his notebook as if he was going to stay awake and pay attention for the next thirty minutes, despite his head already drooping, his eyes already closing.
He thought he heard the teacher sigh again, more classmates laugh. His head felt so cloudy. He almost forgot where he was.
“This constitutes a detention, Neil.”
“Seriously?” a girl asked. “I thought detention was, like, an eighties thing.”
“Well, today it’s a ‘happening right now’ thing,” the teacher told her. He went to his desk and rustled around until he found a pink slip of paper. He wrote something on it before walking back to Neil’s desk.
“Get up,” the teacher said, holding out the slip to Neil. “And get out. Your detention is with Coach Hernandez.”
Neil stared at the slip, trying to make sense of the words— fell asleep in class, scribble scribble scribble, hasn’t showered, scribble scribble scribble. Signed, A. James . Neil took the flimsy paper. He stood up. He turned toward the door.
“Your notebook,” Mr. James said, his tone light. More classmates laughed.
Neil grabbed his notebook. Clutching it to his chest, the bag slung on one shoulder wide open, Neil walked to the door. He was almost out when he heard Mr. James say, “Detention doesn’t also include you.”
Someone zipped up Neil’s backpack. Someone else in class behind them said, “I don’t think you can fight this, James.”
Mr. James sighed once more, defeated.
*
Andrew guided Neil to Coach Hernandez’s office through the boy’s locker room. Gym was still in session, and the Coach’s office was locked. Instead of interrupting class, Andrew pushed Neil onto one of the benches in the locker room, pinching the pink slip out of Neil’s unresisting fingers.
Neil laid down on his back, his legs bent at the knee, feet flat on the ground. Andrew leaned against a row of lockers, reading the paper.
“Stinky,” he said.
“I’ll shower when you shower,” Neil countered.
There was a long silence, and Neil creaked an eye open to see Andrew staring off into the distance, suddenly bored and uninterested in Neil and everything around them.
Neil closed his eyes again.
*
Someone blocked Neil’s nostrils with their fingers. He jolted awake, opening his mouth for air. His eyes focused slowly, and eventually Neil recognized the ceiling of the boys’ locker room. He tilted his head until he found his assailant, but Neil’s eyes still took a moment to focus. Fingers were still on his nose. He was still breathing through his mouth, his breath sour and dry.
Andrew was frowning down at him. He moved his fingers and then flicked them in the direction of the door, where the rising cacophony of rowdy, sweaty teenage boys loomed ever closer.
Neil pulled himself up off his back, but he had to wait for his head to stop spinning before he stood up.
By the time he was on his feet, the gym boys had entered the room.
Andrew put a heavy hand on Neil’s back and pushed him, lightly but determinedly, in the direction of Coach’s office just as the man entered, an eyebrow raised in their direction. He eventually settled his attention solely on Neil.
“Why are you darkening my doorstep when you should be in class? Or, better yet, in bed.”
Neil patted around for his pink slip of paper as Andrew held it out to the coach. They stood in front of his desk, side-by-side, as Coach Hernandez perched on a corner on the other side instead of his chair. He snatched the paper and silently read, a small frown on his face.
He looked back up at Neil, pursed his lips, and then sighed heavily.
“Fine. Sleep here.” He pointed at a clear space of floor in his office. “Don’t touch anything.”
Neil lolled his head in the direction the coach had indicated. He wanted to ask if sleeping was the typical punishment in detention. When he didn’t move right away, Andrew gave Neil another gentle shove until Neil fell to his knees. Andrew wrangled Neil’s backpack off and dropped it on the ground, pointing at Neil and then the bag to indicate he should lay down.
Neil laid down. He closed his eyes.
He could hear Coach Hernandez writing something at his desk. He heard Coach say take this to the front desk.
He heard Andrew say no.
More words, more orders, you can’t stay here too, that’s not my problem, who even are you, don’t you have a class to teach boys to wrangle, fine just don’t touch anything, wouldn’t dream of it Coach.
Then someone plopped on the ground beside him, and Neil fell asleep.
*
Neil woke with his forehead pressed against Andrew’s thigh.
He felt sweaty and grimy, his face melded to his bag, his body fused with the floor. He needed water, food, a hot shower to ease his muscles, a cold shower to cool him down. He needed off the floor, wished he didn’t have to sleep on the floor, wished he’d never have to ever again but he would, tonight and the next night and all the rest of his days until—
Andrew flicked Neil’s ear.
“Ow,” Neil said. He didn’t move. He took a deep breath, smelled linen and BO. He rolled onto his back. “How long was I asleep?”
“It’s past lunch.”
“Damn,” Neil said. His stomach grumbled.
Andrew flicked his ear again, and when Neil turned to glare at him, Andrew pointed at Coach’s desk. Neil sat up and saw two lunch trays.
Neil frowned. His memory from the start of the day was hazy and fleeting, wisps of impressions, vague understandings—but always Andrew, a hand at his back, a voice in his ear, a leg to lay on while he slept.
Neil ignored the sudden burning in his throat. His life was not his own, not even for this, not even for something to matter to him.
And yet, Neil also ignored the warning in his chest, the terror in his bones, as he rose and grabbed the lunch trays, handing one down to Andrew, refusing to sit until Andrew took the tray, refusing to eat until Andrew took a bite.
*
That night, Neil thought he heard laughter outside his window.
He was back in the foreclosed house, after sluggishly walking home from a school day full of “detention.”
He hadn’t been sure if Andrew was going to follow him home again, but Andrew had abandoned Neil for Aaron as soon as the final bell rang. Neil had just stepped out of the shower, not having left the boys’ locker room all day, splitting his time between resting and finding ways to stare at Andrew without him noticing. Eventually Coach Hernandez had grumbled enough about the “smell” that Neil had gotten up and entered the showers, hoping to finish before gym class ended and others came in. Andrew hadn’t followed, and by the time Neil came out, Andrew gave him a slow look, up and down, before pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against and leaving just as the school day ended.
So Neil had trudged on alone. He broke back into his empty house and curled into the sleeping bag he had haphazardly spread on the floor in the bedroom again, despite the haunted closet. This room had the best window to escape through. He smashed his body against the wall under the window and fell asleep, and then he woke hours later to a low chuckle. He thought it was outside, and then he thought it was inside, and then he thought it must be outside, and then he lay, frozen and still, not breathing, not blinking, waiting to hear it again, telling himself it wasn’t real, telling himself it was.
He needed to leave this house, this town. He needed to stay. There was no one and nothing for him here.
There was—Andrew.
Neil’s muscles relaxed. Breath seeped from his chapped lips. He closed his eyes.
He slept, and his father wasn’t there when he woke up.
But he knew it wouldn’t be long.
*
Neil leaned against Andrew’s tree in the morning and waited. It took all morning, right until the first bell, when the twins finally rounded the corner. Aaron looked tired and cranky, and Andrew wore pants that were too long, torn denim dragging with each step. His dirty hair, almost brown from lack of showers, stuck up on one side and lay smooth on the other side of his head.
The sun rose as they crossed the street, Andrew smoking and Aaron rubbing his eyes, but Neil felt a small humor rise when he noticed their gait was in sync. Both right feet stepped forward, both left feet followed. Pink sunlight glinted in their blonde hair, and Neil felt memorized by the flyaway spikes in Andrew’s hair, the staticy strands, as if he’d just woken up.
Neil watched them cross the street in the early morning light until the twins finally looked up and noticed him. Aaron’s scowl scowled harder and he pushed past them both in a flurry of annoyance.
Andrew slowed at the sight of Neil, studying his face, his eyes.
“Ditching?” Neil asked by way of greeting. They were both late by now, the final bell ringing as they stared at each other.
“Are you?” Andrew asked, finishing his cigarette and flicking it at Neil’s chest.
Neil shook his head, ignoring the ash seeping into his threadbare sweater. He needed to go in, but he took another moment to stare at Andrew, his sallow skin, the black bags under his eyes, the chipped nails.
Eventually, Neil kicked off the tree, saying nothing. He headed toward the front doors, mentally preparing an excuse for tardiness. He heard no footsteps behind him, but when he entered class, Andrew shuffled in behind him, as if he’d always been there.
*
At lunch, Neil asked, “Who’s Nicky?”
Andrew had somehow obtained a cinnamon roll from the school's mini market. He was picking off the frosting a pinch at a time, squishing the thick buttercream between his fingers before popping it in his mouth.
He didn’t look up at Neil’s question, but his fingers slowed in their ministrations.
“No one,” Andrew eventually said.
“Hm,” Neil said. He slurped a spoonful of his chicken noodle soup. “What’s the sob story he told to stop them from expelling you?”
Andrew finally turned from his bare naked cinnamon roll. He stared at Neil as he said, “Probably better than your sob story.”
Neil tilted his head in consideration. “Maybe,” he conceded.
“Who do they think you live with?” Andrew asked.
“Traveling parents,” Neil answered, flinching at his easy truth, at conceding one of his secrets. But he thought he knew Andrew’s game, and so he said nothing more, and waited.
Andrew waited, too, and then abruptly ripped off a giant chunk of his cinnamon roll and scrunched it in his fist, wet crumbs spilling, dark cinnamon seeping from the folds of his closed hand.
“He’s my cousin,” Andrew said. “Legal guardian.”
“Hm,” Neil said again. He took another slurp of soup.
*
Andrew walked Neil to the library after school but hesitated when, instead of walking in, Neil silently trailed behind Andrew, as if to follow him home.
“Sad little puppy,” Andrew accused him when Neil hadn’t stopped following him once they were outside waiting for Aaron by the tree. “Go away.”
Neil gave him a half smile. “No.”
Andrew studied Neil’s expression, his easy stance, his fidgety limbs, before he reached out with both hands and pinched Neil’s cheeks, pulling until it hurt.
Neil brought his arms up and covered Andrew’s hands with his own, pushing down so the pinch didn’t hurt so bad. Andrew’s hands were sweaty, sticky, pressing warmth into Neil’s face.
“I hate you,” Andrew said. He didn’t pull his hands away. He stared into Neil’s eyes.
“Okay,” Neil said. Andrew released the pinched grip he had on Neil’s cheeks, but he didn’t try to pull out of Neil’s hold.
“You stink,” Andrew told him.
“I don’t have access to easy running water, unlike some people.”
Andrew ignored Neil’s subtle hint. “Stop living off the streets.”
“When I’m dead.”
“Which will be when, exactly?”
“Soon,” Neil said, finally lowering his hands. Despite their lifeless banter, the words still echoed deep in Neil’s bones, and he decided it was time to go back to his house for the night, away from this conversation and talk of his impending doom.
He gave a little cough as he took a step back, noticing that about now was when Aaron should be stomping out of school.
“Drink water,” Andrew ordered him.
“Take a shower,” Neil countered.
They glared at each other, and then Neil took the first step away. Andrew let him go.
*
The next day, someone threw a water bottle at Neil’s face.
Neil took the hit, plastic bouncing off his cheekbone with a heavy little pop. He was sitting in the hallway outside his history class waiting for the bell. He looked up, already glaring, and then cleared his expression when he noticed that Andrew had wet hair and pink skin. Neil caught the faint whiff of Axe body spray.
He reached for the plastic bottle slowly rolling away from him. He twisted the cap, took a big gulp. Andrew watched.
Meeting Andrew’s eyes, water bottle still at his lips, Neil slowly patted the space beside him, offering for Andrew to sit beside him.
He didn’t. Andrew walked into the classroom without a word, before the bell had even rung, without even a look back.
*
Neil knew routines weren’t safe for someone like him, but he couldn’t help falling into one with Andrew. He’d meet Andrew in the morning, and they’d have a wordless fight about something stubborn—showering, eating a full breakfast, completing homework—and then they’d go to class and Andrew would follow him around between classes, and then they’d eat lunch together and offer small truths about themselves—Neil’s father wasn’t a good man, Andrew was raised in foster care until he somehow or other accidentally ran into Aaron at a football game in a state neither of them had lived in at the time, Neil’s mother was dead, Andrew’s mother was dead—and then they’d finish their afternoon classes.
They’d walk out together after school and stand by the tree waiting for Aaron, but Neil would make sure to leave before the twin arrived to glare at them for being together.
One day at lunch, as Aaron had huffed by them to sit at a table within staring-creepily distance of the cheerleaders’ table, Neil was finally annoyed enough to ask, “What’s his problem?”
“You,” Andrew answered. He was desecrating a snickers bar today, pulling out the peanuts and coating his fingers in caramel and melted chocolate. Neil had never seen Andrew wash his hands. He tried not to be repulsed.
“I’ve never said a word to him.”
“And yet he knows how much of a problem you are.”
Neil was affronted. “How am I a problem?” Embarrassingly, his voice had a prepubescent crack in the middle of the word “problem.”
“Who hit you those few weeks ago?” Andrew asked, seemingly changing the subject, but Neil knew this was Andrew’s way of proving his point.
“Just some random homeless man,” Neil answered, as if that somehow proved his point that he wasn’t a problem.
“Fighting you for that house?” Andrew asked. He had finally pulled out all the peanuts and was smushing the candy onto the table. Neil rarely saw Andrew eat.
Neil, annoyed, placed a hand on top of Andrew’s, stopping his smushing. Andrew instantly jerked his hand back and slammed it on top of Neil’s and the ruined snickers.
Neil didn’t try to get his hand back. With his free arm, he grabbed his roll from his pot roast and offered it to Andrew.
Andrew didn’t take it. He asked, “Why did a homeless man punch you.”
Neil didn’t say anything. He held the roll closer to Andrew’s face. They stared at each other for two minutes.
“I hate you,” Andrew told him. His hand was still pinning Neil’s to the table.
Neil shook the roll in offering.
With another quick jerk, Andrew removed his hand from Neil’s and grabbed the roll from him. He reared his hand back like a seasoned pitcher and threw it, hard and fast, away from the table. A second later, Neil heard Aaron yelp in fury.
Neil turned back to his tray. He didn’t have any more finger food, and really, he didn’t want to see Andrew put any more substances on his fingers. With a quiet sigh, Neil slowly pushed his tray in-between them. He took out the spoon from his plasticware and held it out to Andrew in offering.
Andrew didn’t take the spoon right away. Neil was worried Andrew would smack the utensil and ignore his food offering again. He could see the fight in Andrew’s eye, the question, the answer, and finally Andrew reached out and took the spoon. He stabbed into the pot roast, but thankfully pulled the bite into his mouth.
Neil said, “It wasn’t at that house. I was sleeping by the river.”
Andrew didn’t say anything for a while. He and Neil took turns eating bites of pot roast until it was all gone, and then Andrew said, “Don’t do that again.”
Neil didn’t know what he meant. Don’t get punched again? Don’t sleep by the river? Don’t offer him food?
Neil shrugged.
“If you have nowhere else to go, you come to me,” Andrew told him, unimpressed with Neil’s shrug.
Neil looked up, startled. But Andrew didn’t look any more serious than usual—as always, his face was lifeless, his eyes bored, his expression blank.
“I seem to recall a threat of death if I followed you home again.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
The bell rang, startling Neil out of this strange interaction with Andrew. “See,” Andrew said, rising, leaving Neil’s empty tray and his ruined snickers. “A real problem.”
*
Someone was outside Neil’s front door. He had fallen asleep to a silent house save for the mice in the walls, the moths fluttering on the ceiling, and then he had woken to a strange moaning sound, an exaggerated approximation of someone pretending to be a ghost, screaming for help, begging for someone to hear them.
Neil stared wide-eyed at the closet, waiting for the man, convinced this wasn’t real, just a dream, just a ghost—
—but the moaning grew louder, and then someone started banging on the front door, loud and violent, rattling and frantic, like they were locked behind a door and just trying to get free—
—but the front door was rotted, and the lock could easily be broken.
Heart racing, sounds of loud and mocking wails taunting him, each bang clanging through his body, telling him to run, telling him to hide, telling him to get out, go away, run, Junior, run
Neil sat up, gathering his things. He crouched along the wall under the windows, hoping no one outside could see him, calculating his chance of escape through the bathroom window when someone started wailing and banging on the backdoor, too.
The house was shaking with the force of them, front door and back, screams and moans and furious fists on wooden doors, so loud Neil couldn’t hear anything but them, couldn’t think of anything but his fear, his need for it to stop, for everything to stop, for them all to go away, even himself.
He couldn’t stay in this house, but he couldn’t wait until they came in for him, either. He just had to hope he was fast enough.
He was always fast enough.
Without another thought to second guess himself, Neil sprinted to the bathroom window and shimmied out, ignoring the scratch he gave himself in his haste, ignoring the pang in his ankles as he landed wrong. He hit the ground running and didn’t look back, even when the banging stopped as soon as he was out of the house, even when no one followed him, even when he couldn't be sure if anything that happened at the house was real or if he was always just so, so tired.
*
Neil spent the night in the hedges outside of school, not sleeping, waiting, until he saw Coach Hernandez’s car pull into the parking lot at five thirty in the morning.
He stepped out as if it was a completely normal thing to be hanging out in the school bushes this early, but the coach was unfazed. Hernandez continued scanning into the building as if no one was behind him, but he held the door open for Neil to follow him inside without a word.
*
“What are you doing here this early?”
“Can I have detention again?”
*
Neil was sleeping behind Coach Hernandez’s desk one minute into first period when someone slammed into the office. He opened his eyes but didn’t stir.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” Hernandez drawled, not looking up from the papers he shuffled through on his desk.
“Shouldn’t you?” Andrew asked. Neil heard Andrew step further into the office and closer to the desk, and the next moment he was staring up at an upside down Andrew staring down at him. Andrew did not look pleased to see him.
“I’ve still got five minutes while the boys change.”
Andrew flicked his fingers as if to shoo the coach away. Hernandez huffed.
“Not this time, Andrew. If you stay, I have to tell the principal.”
Andrew didn’t seem to care, flicking his fingers again in acceptance, but Neil sat up. “Wait,” he said. “We’re going.”
Both the coach and Andrew stared at Neil with a dubious raised brow.
“I’m fine,” he told them, and each of their dubious brows raised higher. “Really. An hour of sleep is enough for me.”
Andrew grew tense at his words. Coach Hernandez frowned before giving up and saying, “Fine. Get out. If you make it to class before I make it to the principal’s office, we’ll call it even.”
Neil nodded, and then he grabbed his bag and headed toward the door. Andrew followed, and the coach sighed once before following after them, turning in the direction of the gym and letting them walk the hallways alone.
*
“I told you to come to me if you have nowhere else to go.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Anytime.”
“I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
“I never sleep.”
“Uh, okay. I also don’t want my father’s people to find you.”
“I can handle them.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
*
At his words, Andrew reached into the sleeve of his hoodie, and Neil caught his first glimpse of Andrew’s arms, sheathed with black armbands. Andrew also slipped his fingers into the armband of his left arm and pulled out a knife.
Startled, Neil glanced around the hallway to make sure no one was around before closing a quick hand over the offered knife.
“What are you thinking?” Neil asked. “You can’t have that here. And you probably shouldn’t have those up your sleeve, either. What if you cut yourself?”
“Shut up,” Andrew said. “I am not stupid.”
“But you carry around knives at school?”
“I will not let anyone hurt me. I won’t let anyone hurt you, either.”
Neil didn’t know what to do with these words, dropped at his feet as if they were nothing, as if they meant nothing to Andrew, as if they meant everything to Neil.
“I won’t lead them to you,” Neil eventually said, his voice quiet. “No matter what.”
Andrew’s face turned severe. “I hate you,” he said.
Neil nodded. He felt tired. “I know.” He tightened his fist around the blade in Andrew’s hand—it was a pocket knife with a worn red handle, closed for now. Andrew let him take the knife and then dropped his hand. They continued on to class in silence.
*
Neil lied to Andrew and told him he was still staying at his foreclosed house, but really Neil would stay on school property as long as he could, hiding in the hedges or staying in the locker room and hoping no one searched there after school. If it looked like someone was suspicious, Neil would spend the night wandering the streets, hiding from cops or sleeping at covered bus stops.
It was still warm enough Neil didn’t have to worry about freezing when he slept outside, but fall only lasted so long.
No matter where he stayed for the night, Neil always ended up wondering about Andrew: what he was doing, why he followed Neil around, what made him swear to protect Neil from his father. Andrew didn’t even know about the scars; what made him think that a pocket knife was enough to protect Neil?
Still, these thoughts kept Neil warm at night, and lulled him into sleep, and persuaded him to wake up in the morning instead of just staying where he was, just resting his eyes, just never getting up again.
No. Not when he had somewhere to be. Not when someone was waiting for him.
*
“Why do you always do your homework.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Waste of time.”
“I don’t have anything else to do.”
“Join a club.”
“Join with me.”
“Waste of time.”
“Then why tell me to join one?”
“You seem like you need something to obsess over, and I’m annoyed that it’s school.”
“What else is there?”
“Hobbies. Sports.”
“Hm. Do you think Coach Hernandez would let us join the lacrosse team?”
“Us?”
“I’ll join if you join.”
“And if I jumped off a bridge, would you?”
“Probably, yeah.”
*
Neil woke one morning on a park bench with a piece of paper resting on his face. Neil sat up and brushed the paper off, thinking it stray garbage, but when it landed, face-up, gory details in plain view, Neil knew it was a note made just for him.
He stared down at the piece of a paper, a ripped off page from some local motel’s stationary. It had no words, baring only a jagged smiley face, content in its message, knowing its point came across.
Neil was out of time.
*
“What’s the matter with you?” Andrew asked when he found Neil that morning sitting against Andrew’s tree. Neil tilted his head up to see twin expressions of disgust on the twins’ faces.
“Tired,” he replied.
Aaron gleaned that answer sufficient and continued on to school. Andrew’s frown deepened.
“Stop it,” he said.
Neil, amused, smiled briefly. Stop what, he almost asked, but didn’t have the energy.
“Get up,” Andrew told him. “It’s time for class, little boy.”
“Not today,” Neil said. “I don’t even have my backpack.”
Neil had left it at the foreclosed house, the bag and any money he had left. He buried it in the ground and stacked rocks over it the way Andrew had those weeks or months ago, in hopes that when Andrew came looking for him, he’d find the only thing left of Neil.
He thought about leaving a note in there explaining everything, but he had a feeling Andrew wouldn’t care. Instead, he’d left a simple thank you, andrew on top of his perfectly folded shirts, his poorly completed homework.
Neil stared up at Andrew now, at his ill-fitting clothes and his wet hair slowly drying into a slight curl. He let the rising sun burn the silhouette of his only friend into his retinas. He’d take this sight to the grave.
“Stop it,” Andrew said again, but Neil didn’t know what he meant this time.
Neil closed his eyes.
After a second, he felt Andrew drop his backpack and plop onto the ground beside him. He heard rummaging, and a carton opening, and a lighter flicking. A moment later, the acrid scent of smoke filled his lungs. He took a deep breath, holding it in as long as he could. He’d keep this with him, too.
When the cigarette was long gone and the chill in the morning air had faded into a pleasant afternoon warmth, Neil opened his eyes and saw Andrew already staring at him.
There wasn’t a response to that look other than to stare back, but suddenly there was a question in Andrew’s eyes as they roamed Neil’s face, lingering on his lips, and then he asked, “Yes or no?”
“Yes,” Neil said, and then he closed his eyes as he felt Andrew brace his palm on Neil’s neck and lean in.
*
The school day ended with an explosion. Neil had let Andrew lead him aimlessly around town, sometimes talking, sometimes kissing, but always with the intent that by the time the final bell rang, Andrew would be back at school to walk Aaron home.
But as they entered campus ten minutes before the end of the day, a loud explosion went off somewhere inside.
A strange stillness settled around them, and then Neil heard the fire alarm, the screams.
Andrew took a slow step toward the school, and then faster, and then he was running inside. Neil made as if to follow, but he saw three figures rounding the corner of the building, out of Andrew’s line of sight.
Neil let him go without calling a goodbye. He knew that whatever chaos was happening inside the school, Andrew would be safer there than he would be with Neil.
*
Neil considered running, despite his resolve to stand and fight. The sight of them—his father’s people—seemingly knowing where he’d been this whole time, filled his chest with such dread and despair. He had never been free.
But then he remembered he’d buried his bag and all his money, and he really didn’t have another choice.
The only thought remaining was when to reveal he had a knife, but it seemed a mistake to reveal to the Butcher of Baltimore that Neil, too, could use a knife.
Maybe taking the knife had been a mistake. Maybe everything Neil had ever done had been a mistake.
But, perhaps most of all, hesitating for too long was his biggest mistake of all.
By the time he had decided to keep the knife hidden, Lola and Romero had him surrounded, and high schoolers and teachers were starting to spring from the entrances. They needed to be gone before the cops showed up, before Andrew came out again with his brother.
“Time to go, Junior,” Lola said in greeting, wrapping a fist around Neil’s forearm. Her brother mirrored her on Neil’s other side.
Neil didn’t say anything as they took him away.
*
They taunted him on their hellish drive to who knew where, burning his face and slicing his skin. He acted as unruly and rude as possible so they wouldn’t grow suspicious, wouldn’t search his person, just think him an annoying little boy who never learned from his mistakes.
But then they stopped the car and pushed chloroform over his face, and Neil couldn’t fight anymore.
*
Someone slapped Neil hard on his left cheek, throbbing already from the cigarette lighter burn.
He spat out the blood suddenly welling in his mouth, and the person who slapped him laughed. “Help me out,” they said to someone above them.
Confused, Neil opened his eyes to a wooden box in the middle of a pit. He lay flat on his back, his body numb from whatever the chloroform did to his body. He couldn’t move. He watched as the person who slapped him—Lola—was pulled out of the box by her brother. Dirt clumps fell into the box, crumble hitting him in the face. Understanding slowly dawned in Neil.
“No,” he said, his voice slurring.
“Yes,” his father said, and Neil froze. He searched frantically for him, tried to make his body move, but he was too sluggish, too slow. His father seemed everywhere and nowhere. Neil could only see the night sky, the walls of his pit, six feet deep, and the cheap wood of his coffin, slowly pressing in.
“No,” Neil said again. He tried to lift an arm.
“I would have buried you by your mother,” Nathan said, “if she had anything left to bury.”
“Please,” Neil said, and then he saw his father, standing at the foot of his grave.
“Here lies Nathaniel Wesninski,” Lola said. “He died as he lived: begging for his life.”
“No,” Neil said again. His life had been more than that. It would be more than that.
“He was an ungrateful child,” Nathan continued.
“And very stupid,” Lola lamented.
“He is survived by no one,” Nathan finished. “And he lived as he died: alone, and afraid.”
“Stop—” Neil said, one last time, able to push himself up, able to try—
But Romero jumped into the coffin and punched Neil so hard in the face that his head slammed back onto the cheap wood. He saw stars, and then he saw darkness, and then he watched as they slowly lowered the lid onto his box and buried him.
*
The only sound left in the universe was Neil’s heavy panting. Sometimes he could feel himself laying flat on his back, and then a bout of disorientation made him forget where he was, made him think he could just sit up and he’d be fine.
His tomb was dark, and infinite. He’d scream to hear a noise, and then he’d hate the sound so he’d stop, and then the oppressive silence filled his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his ears. There was nothing, nothing, nothing.
He wanted to rip his hair out, bite all his nails off, scratch and claw at the wood until he was free.
He didn’t want to move, to think, to breathe, just in case any shuffle of his body would somehow push him further into the ground, further away from the world.
He felt like a little boy buried in a box by his father.
He felt like a grown man who’d spent his whole life fighting for something only to lose.
He felt like he’d die soon.
He felt like his death wouldn’t come soon enough.
He felt the rage of a half lived life, felt the sorrow of his mother’s death, felt the finality of his own.
This was the end.
Neil took a deep breath, closed his eyes or maybe kept them open, it didn’t matter. Everything was black down here.
Soon his hyperventilating dissipated into soft breaths, quick flutters of his heart, a steady pulse in his veins. He took another deep breath, counted to ten, counted to fifty.
He thought about his foreclosed house, the fake man in his closet—but still a place to come home to, at least for a little while.
He thought about his school, his teachers. People who knew his name, who cared when he didn’t show up. Somewhere safe to eat, to shower.
Neil thought about Andrew.
His mortal enemy, his only friend, his two hour lover.
Andrew would not forgive him, he knew. Andrew would somehow find his grave, and stand at the foot of it, staring down at the mounded earth, a gravestone with all the names of his past lives, nathaniel, chris, alex, neil, neil, neil , and he’d smoke his cigarette in silence before dropping the butt and walking away.
Sweat and blood ran down Neil’s temples, cheeks, the back of his neck. He felt very aware of his body, all its hurts and pains, the length of his limbs, the beat of his pulse—and a foreign object, lodged in the front of his pants, a gift from a surly, dour boy.
A knife, to protect himself.
Neil pulled out the knife. He focused his eyes, as if he could train them to the darkness and see the ridges of the pocket knife. He could not.
Instead he learned the edges of the blade with his fingers, found the switch, heard the snick of the blade opening.
He traced the sharp edge with light fingers, but he wasn’t light enough. The blade sliced into his skin, his already wrecked hands. He felt blood drip onto his neck.
Neil’s breath came faster. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought his hands were shaking. With the knife grasped in his right hand, he slowly brought the tip to the pulse point on his neck. He felt the cold steel bite into his flesh.
He counted to ten, counted to fifty, and then he jerked the knife away from his neck and slammed his fist into the lid covering his face. Dirt and debris fell into his nose, his open mouth. Neil coughed.
But he punched again, and again, and dug the blade into the wood, and started gauging deep heavy lines into the lid of his coffin.
*
*
*
“Many expectations are placed on high school seniors: get good grades, apply to college, join clubs, go to prom. These expectations have been placed on graduating high schoolers since high school first started, and they’ll likely continue long after this graduation speech ends. And they all sound the same, don’t they? Graduation speeches. We came, we saw, we conquered, we did exactly what is expected of us.
“And this is true. Our graduating class isn’t more or less special than the millions of others graduating right now, or the millions before, or the millions after.
“But we still have time. We still have time to shape ourselves into the people we are meant to be without societal expectations. We are more than graduating high schoolers, and we will be more than who we are today. And I’m proud of us. I’m proud of what we’ve been through this year, and I’m proud to see what will become of us outside of these walls, and outside of what many people expect from young kids barely old enough to give consent.
“Thank you, and congratulations to the graduating class. We did it!”
*
“Can you stop crying?”
“I’m just so proud of my boys!”
“Shut up.”
“ You shut up! Tell me you didn’t see the day that Andrew would graduate high school, either.”
“You had to bribe him with scotch to get him to walk across that stage to accept his diploma. He didn’t even shake the principal’s hand.”
“Yes, well. At least he didn’t stab him.”
“At least.”
“Where is he, anyways?”
*
Andrew was leaning against a tree at the front of the high school. He wore a stuffy black graduation gown over white-washed jeans and a black hoodie. Sweat poured from his temples down his neck. He lit a cigarette, the flame from the lighter scorching his already hot nose.
He stared out at the emptying parking lot, at the field where sport kids used to stretch.
He finished his cigarette watching everyone leave. A slight breeze ruffled his hair, tousled the graduation cap perched precariously on his head.
Andrew finished his cigarette and lit another, watching until all the people were gone, until it was just him and the wind.
*
“Andrew still hasn’t answered his phone?”
“When has he ever?”
“Well, he never answers for me, anyways. But seriously, I’m hungry. Is Katelyn still coming to eat with us?”
“Yes. Let’s go say hi to her family now while Andrew is still gone.”
*
Andrew walked into the boys’ locker room and straddled one of the benches.
He reached through his robe down into his hoodie sleeves down into his armbands. He fumbled until he found the lumpy thing stashed within and pulled it out: a worn down, beaten red pocket knife.
Its blade was mangled and dull, twisted and tarnished. It couldn’t open or close properly anymore, but Andrew could force it to do one or the other with enough strength. He did that now, jerking the blade open, snapping the blade closed, until someone behind him said, “How many times have I told you not to bring that here.”
Andrew jammed the knife closed again. Without looking away from it, he said, “Only one more time, Coach.”
*
“Seriously, I’m ravenous. Where the hell did he go?”
“I seriously don’t know. Have you tried calling Neil?”
*
“Have you come to relieve me of my burden?” Coach Hernandez asked. “I swear he only uses me for my office.”
“I do,” Neil said, emerging from the coach’s office and smiling down at Andrew from behind Hernandez. Neil had shed the graduation gown as soon as he left the stage, and then he waited for Andrew’s name to be called before he fled to Coach’s office, taking a break from the people and the stares. After some heavy-handed hints about casualties this year during the speeches, everyone and their mother-father-grandparent-aunt-uncle-cousin snuck glances at Neil’s scarred face and mangled hands, and so he left.
He’d slept until Hernandez arrived thirty minutes later, and then waited thirty more minutes until Andrew showed up.
“You two have darkened my doorstep long enough,” Coach said, but not like he meant it. They had been on the lacrosse team long enough to know him by now. “Shouldn’t you be out partying or getting arrested?”
Andrew stood up as Hernandez spoke, slipping the mangled knife back into his sleeve. Neil didn’t know why he still carried it around, but he never brought it up.
*
“Can I just say that they are so cute together?”
“Ew, why would you say that?”
“Um, because they’re not around right now and I won’t get stabbed? I’ll be so sad when they move out together to go to college.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re moving out, too!”
“Stop crying.”
“No!”
*
“We’re leaving, Coach,” Neil said as Andrew moved to stand at his side.
They both gave their coach one final salute before turning to leave.
“It’s a good school,” Coach Hernandez told their retreating figures, as if he hadn’t said this to them a million times before. “They've got a team with a lot of potential. I’m sure you boys will give them hell.”
“Go Foxes,” Andrew said, deadpan, as the door closed behind them.