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The sun had barely crested over the clouds, dawn just barely broken, and Simon was already up and singing.
“Will you stop that incessant yammering?” Jack murmured, sleep caked in the corners of his eyes.
Instinctively, Simon reached out to wipe the corners of his eyes, and Jack—perhaps even more automatically—batted his hands away. “Are you deranged?” he questioned.
“Sorry,” Simon muttered with downcast eyes. It was quiet for a moment, the only sounds surrounding them the buzzing of the earliest rising insects and twittering of morning doves.
Simon waited for Jack to say more—to hurt him again—and when he didn’t, he was emboldened further. “You know, there’s no one else here. It’s our own private camp.” Simon gestured around them wildly, though there really wasn’t much to the structure itself. “What are you so afraid of anyway?”
Jack didn’t know. He didn’t answer. Simon reached his hand out again toward Jack’s face.
This time, Jack let him wipe the remnants of sleep away. “You’re batty,” Jack whispered, but he let him carry on doing it. “You know that, right?”
Simon didn’t dignify that with a response. I like taking care of you, he thought to himself. Perhaps, in another life, he might’ve said it out loud, if he’d had a death wish. He didn’t say it out loud in this life, however—too afraid of this tenuous line they walked. He never dared say or do anything that might ruin a rare, precious, quiet moment between them.
“What were you singing before anyway?” Jack asked, softening slightly.
A small smile crossed Simon’s face. “Oh, you know. One of those pieces we worked on with the choir before the last holiday. O Magnum Mysterium.”
Jack grinned roguishly. “I remember, all right. I was treble for that piece.” He puffed out his chest with pride.
Simon rolled his eyes at the brazen arrogance. “Like you’d ever let any of us forget, head chorister.” He sneered saying his title. Laughing, Jack sat up straight and pushed Simon playfully against one of his bony shoulders. Simon walked closer on his knees and pushed him back, both of them doing so until their chests were heaving with laughter.
After their breathing calmed, Jack spoke again. “Read from the book,” he requested with sudden clarity. Simon’s chest was still rising and falling, but he shrugged, reaching for his tattered copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It had been buried deep in his recovered trunk, which they’d found weeks ago.
He picked up on Chapter XI, because that was always Jack’s favorite. He would double over in hysterics every time Simon got to the part where Huck dressed as a girl, trying to fool Mrs. Loftus. He’d told the story over and over to Jack, but it never seemed to bore him. Even when he was sick last winter, and Simon had read to him in an effort to distract him, he’d laugh weakly until the coughing fits overtook him.
Simon began to read in his signature series of character voices. Jack leaned back, his hands cradling his head, elbows splayed wide, and eyes closed. He listened for a few moments with interest before he cleared his throat. “That’s not the book I meant.”
“Hmm?” Simon mumbled, half-listening between paragraphs.
“That’s not the book I meant,” Jack repeated. “I want you to read from your book.”
Simon’s cheeks flushed. “M-my book?”
Jack’s eyes opened, and he nodded, never breaking Simon’s gaze. “Your book,” Jack repeated patiently. “Your diary,” he said with certainty, tilting his chin in the direction of the red leather-bound journal that rested on the packed dirt floor.
“I–I’m not sure where to begin.” Simon floundered, flipping through the pages with desperate urgency.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find something,” Jack insisted. “Just pick out a passage. Maybe one about your favorite… character.”
Simon knew his entire face and neck were flushed scarlet by now. There was nothing he could do to stop the warmth that crept over his entire body. He was red hot with mortification. And yet, he thumbed through the pages, looking for an entry that spoke to him.
They all did.
It was impossible. An impossible task, choosing.
Simon continued to flip nervously through the pages. He landed somewhere around early summer before he cleared his throat to read.
June 25th.
It’s a couple of weeks into the summer long vac. Jack and I are the only two boys left at this point. Most days have been nice. Some are more awkward. More quiet.
I can’t blame Jack for the quiet, really. It’s hard, being the only two left behind. And I’m sure he thinks I’m weird—
Jack cut him off, snorting.
“It’s not meant to be funny,” Simon bristled, moving to close the diary.
Instantly, Jack’s demeanor sobered. “No, no. Not funny. Go on,” he coaxed.
Simon wasn’t convinced. He leveled Jack with a glare. “Go on,” Jack whispered, repeating himself. “I want to hear it. I–I remember that day.” Simon raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. “At least, I think I do.”
That was enough for Simon. He read on.
Even if he thinks I’m batty, though, we do go on walks together quite often. That part is nice. Today’s was eventful, to say the least.
We went out to Horseshoe Lake today. We wore macs and wellies because it was drizzling and we wanted to see if we could catch any toads or maybe even a lizard. No such luck, even walking across the stream to get there.
Simon took a quavering breath. He wasn’t sure if he could read on. Jack’s eyes were completely focused on him. He felt like a bug under a microscope. Jack nodded, almost infinitesimally, giving him the permission he needed to continue.
We didn’t find any critters, no, but they found us. When we were down by the lake, one of us must have disturbed a wasp’s nest somehow, because Jack was bitten seven times by the bastards. He ran away, protecting his face with his hands, hoping to get far away from the nest, I imagine. That porcelain face of his needed protecting.
Simon allowed his gaze to flit up to assess the look on Jack’s face. His cheeks were red, but he didn’t look disgusted, nor disturbed. With newfound confidence, Simon kept reading, even though doing so felt as if he was cutting himself open and letting Jack have a look inside. He’d never bared his soul like this in front of anyone before.
And, of course, I followed him. Blind fool. I’d follow Jack anywhere, though this was admittedly a particularly dire occasion.
By the time I caught up with him (Jack was always a fast runner), he’d already submerged himself fully in the lake, full kit and all be damned, trying to get away from the wretched wasps. And when he got out, he was shivering. Even being late June, it was a chilly, misty morning. I wished, helplessly, that I had some warm sweater or something to lend him, but I had only the clothes on my own back. I kicked myself for not bringing something extra.
Still, stings aside, it wasn’t a bad morning. That is, until I went and soiled it all, like I always seem to. I only meant to tease him. At least, I think I did. But, I swear it, I meant him no harm.
I just wanted him to be okay again, so I touched his back with my hand and kissed him, just once, on the cheek. And it was then that I saw the wasp on the back of my own arm.
He looked at me, his piercing blue eyes uncertain for a moment. We held there, like two musicians during a fermata, waiting for a conductor’s next cue. And then he saw the wasp. And he pulled away from me and bolted without a word.
I can’t explain the state that I’m in. The state of my heart. He’s my best friend. I know I’m not his. That doesn’t matter.
But now, Jack is gone. He ran away.
But I can tell you: I love him each day. Though we have sparred, wrestled, and raged, I can tell you: I love him each day.
Simon’s chest was heaving like he’d never caught his breath earlier.
“Is that all?” Jack whispered.
“That—” Simon stammered, disbelief palpable in his voice. “That’s all, Jack.”
Jack nodded placidly.
“You know, I never intended for you to read my bloody diary anyway. You stole it in the first place,” he spluttered. “And it’s not my fault, the power you have over me. And now you’ve got me reading the thing aloud for you like some daft Mother Goose. It’s embarrassing. You have to know that.”
Jack remained quiet. His expression was blank for a moment, and Simon was starting to feel well and truly humiliated, until Jack spoke again.
“You’re my best friend too.”
Simon blinked rapidly, his huge eyes still skeptical. “I am?”
“You are. Don’t tell the others.” Jack stretched his arms out to him. Hesitantly, Simon crawled into his embrace. Jack held him for a while, and then, wordlessly, they shuffled around so Simon could be the one holding him. They both needed holding so badly, it was a need that could be felt between them—negotiated without speaking.
Don’t tell the others. Simon had heard those words before. They were different together, in the long vacs, before Jack would inevitably drop him like a stone when the other boys returned from holiday. It was devastating.
But here, on the island, it was different all over again—and in an entirely new way. Who else did Jack have, really, but Simon himself? None of the other boys would let him be this way. Soft, like how he was now, curled up in his arms. Simon smiled to himself in the private knowledge that he was the only one who knew this separate piece of him.
Later the same day, the sun had still barely dipped below the horizon, dusk just barely settled, and Simon was already humming again.
But this time, Jack didn’t tell him to be quiet.
Instead, he listened quietly for a while before eventually joining him on the melody.