Chapter Text
It hadn't hurt, the day that Benji had cut out his own heart.
It was tangled throughout with olive branches and carnations, twisting painfully like the large scar on his left hand.
He had long since become an empty boy.
Later on, he would pass down his story, speaking boldly as he hadn't been able to do for years.When he had last passed on a story like this, he had scribbled it on a slip of paper that he slipped into Nick's back pocket before he left for the summer. His mother was the principal of Wickwood, so he had to painfully watch Nick wave goodbye as he boarded the bus. Hiding from the hidden truth in the story.
Many words fit Benji, none of them kind. "Tranny" was the worst, but "martyr" and "savior" hurt too, those words twisted from religious leader's bravery to a degradation of Benji's anger. But he couldn't help it. His mother, her "experiments", his old name, Theo's cold anger, oh god, his anger that Benji deeply regretted, it surrounded him, smothering any peace he may have felt. He had been here since he had turned twelve, putting everything he had into the dingy white walls, his work, and Nick. Benji desperately needed Nick. He was Benji's, wholly in everything, and Benji starved without him there.
Although Benji's "summer" (what a lie that was) was over, he didn't feel whole yet, despite going back to Wickwood. To Nick. Currently, he was absorbed in nervousness about his final year. He sighed as he laid his head against the glass, the forest a blanket blotting out the horizon. It felt like a tunnel of snarling green, a drive normally taking an hour slowed by his mother. She was oddly quiet, usually responding to constant work messages and calls. She was stiff and formal, almost as if waiting for something horrific to happen. She periodically checked her rearview mirror to look at him. Benji pretended that he didn't notice, stuffing an earbud in his ear. Benji had his notebook lying open, an empty page staring up at him. He wrote poems with biblical wrath, cruel stories of sacrificial lambs and lovers condemned.
An old, wounded dove once lay in the weeds.
A local painter came to him, and fed him apple seeds.
Once, he didn't return, as his lover kept him with her word.
She died choking on bloody feathers, unheard.
"I love these", Nick said. "What do they mean?"
Benji had hidden his internal burning at Nick's comment. "They don't mean anything. They're like thorn pricks. They're just supposed to hurt." Like a miniscule drop of blood; a solemn I'm here. I'm alive.
Nick was the only one that could understand the stories. Benji's mom didn't. Even Theo couldn't, a betrayal between the two. He sat stiff and cold in the front seat of their minivan, locked in a silent war with Benji's mom. He couldn't tell about what, though. Benji and Theo looked almost identical, medium height despite not being related, with puberty massively shortening the height difference between them. The main difference was that Benji had flaming red hair, and Theo had a calm blond colour. But Theo was rough, tough and unbreakable, while Benji was more like a scrapbook of bent feathers and crushed petals, soft and weak. Theo was someone that everyone knew, and Benji was someone they could only ask "Have I seen you before?".
Theo was dressed perfectly in the New Wickwood uniform, a white collared shirt, moss green tie, and deep emerald pants, without a button or hair out of place. This year would be his salvation, him fitting in perfectly in the puzzle of their school. But Benji suspected that this year would damn him, thorns dragging him down to the earth in a violent whirl. Nick would be waiting for him, and that relieved Benji. They could share their arts, Benji's poetry and Nick's collages. Theo and Benji were Nick's, and he was theirs, from always through to the end of time. They had been like this since the day they met.
Benji hoped they could be like this forever.