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Roger knew there was something wrong with him. His father and the other kids at school reminded him of it every day. He looked different, taller and darker than his classmates with longer, wilder hair, and according to a girl he was partnered up with for a science experiment, he smelled bad. But the thing that set him apart most was his behaviour.
He was quiet most of the time, never put in an effort to make friends. When he did speak, it was monotone and dull, and apparently his voice was threatening enough to scare off anyone who tried to talk to him. He didn’t speak unless spoken to. Nobody wanted to hear him anyway.
However, there was times when he was the opposite of quiet, and not in a good way.
It was a Monday afternoon and Roger had walked into school with a bruise forming on his cheek, thanks to his dad. When his teacher asked about it, he shrugged, muttered “bumped into a tree” and took his seat at the front of the class.
He used to sit near the back, but after a few weeks the teacher moved him to sit at the table for students who needed extra supervision. Nobody said it out loud, but everybody knew that was what it was there for.
He shared the table with three other kids. There was Maurice, who couldn’t stay still or quiet for more than five minutes and had to regularly get up and take a lap around the school with an assistant teacher. Seated across from him was Lila, a girl who was friendly but easily angered and had a tendency to use her hands instead of her words, not too unlike Roger himself.
Then there was Simon. Simon wore orange coloured headphones and made little purring noises in the back of his throat that the girls found cute and the boys made fun of. Despite what other people thought, he was very clever — Roger noticed it all the time. More than anything, he was kind in a way that Roger would never be capable of.
Simon smiled at him as he settled into his chair. His smile was wide and made his dark eyes go all squinty. It reminded Roger of a smiling sloth.
It didn’t take long for the classroom to get loud. Roger didn’t like lots of noise at once. At best, it annoyed him; at worst, it made him feel like there were knives working their way into his skull from the inside out. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much when nobody else seemed to care. It was just one more thing that was wrong with him.
The teacher was saying something about long division, but Roger couldn’t even hear her over all the sounds flooding his ears. Even the tiniest things felt like needles sticking in to his brain.
Beside him, Maurice was rocking in his chair, tilting it backwards and then slamming it down on the floor. There were two girls whispering and giggling about something behind him. A boy was loudly arguing with his friend about which football team was best. Out of the corner of Roger’s eye, he saw Simon take his headphones out of his bag and put them on.
His teacher gave up on trying to finish off the lesson and announced that it was break time. Roger laid his head on the table with a muffled groan; break time meant even more noise, and even more irritating behaviour from his classmates. He wished everybody could shut up for a minute and be a bit more like him.
Lunchboxes clicked open, chairs scraped, conversations increased in volume. Roger began to scratch at his arms, feeling the scars that he’d already created from this habit. It was the closest he could get to clawing his skin off, which was what he felt like doing in that moment.
Somebody came up behind him and tapped his shoulder. Reluctantly, Roger lifted his head from his arms. It was Liam, a boy with big glasses and an even bigger mouth.
“Are you sleeping?” God, his voice was annoying. And what kind of a question was that? Did Roger look asleep to him?
“No.”
“Oh. I thought you were sleeping.” Liam didn’t notice Roger’s unimpressed expression, or just chose to ignore it. “Why is your hair so long? You look like a girl.”
“Shut up.” Roger was getting a headache from the classroom noises combined with Liam’s prying questions.
Thunk. Maurice slammed his chair down on the floor. Across the room, a group burst out laughing.
There was an itch in Roger that no amount of scratching could reach; it was under his skin, as if there were spiders in his blood.
“I’m just kidding. You’re not like a girl, ‘cause girls are small. You’re pretty big. And you have bushy eyebrows, girls don’t have those—“
Liam wasn’t annoying him on purpose, but Roger’s body didn’t seem to care about that. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d lunged forward. Liam didn’t fall over, but he stumbled back and his glasses fell to the floor.
“Roger!” The teacher called him, but he hardly processed it. There was shouting — he couldn’t tell if it was coming from him or somebody else. His cheeks were wet. He didn’t know when he’d started to cry. All he knew was that if he tried to sit still and be calm his teacher was shrieking at him to do, he would explode.
—
The “quiet room” was a dreary space, not much bigger than a cupboard, with a beanbag and a cushion shoved in the corner. It was mainly used as somewhere to put little children after tantrums. Or in Roger’s case, older kids who somehow hadn’t grown out of tantrums yet.
He was sitting on the floor, gripping his knees and trying to comprehend what just happened. After he had an “episode” like that, he rarely remembered what he had been thinking during it, or what exactly he’d done. He vaguely recalled throwing something heavy, and being lifted up by the armpits while kicking and screaming. He’d probably done some damage to the classroom, and gave his classmates quite a fright.
Good, he told himself. They deserve it. He still didn’t feel anything but shame.
Slowly, the door creaked open. Roger hid his face, expecting another condescending staff member. He peeked at the visitor through his fingers and was pleasantly surprised to see Simon smiling gently down at him.
“Hello,” his voice was soft and smooth, soothing the buzz in Roger’s head a little. “Can I come in?”
He nodded and patted the floor beside him. Simon sat down cross legged, leaning his shoulder against Roger’s.
“It was noisy in there, wasn’t it?”
Another nod.
“I don’t like it either.” He held out a pair of headphones, like his orange ones, but these were blue. “That’s why I wear these. You can take this pair, if you want. I have others.”
Roger stared at the headphones resting in Simon’s small hand, thinking of how much calmer Simon looked when he put them on. “Are you sure?”
His voice was scratchy from all the screaming and crying, but Simon didn’t seem to notice. He nodded enthusiastically. “Keep them! I promise they’ll help.”
“Thanks.” He took the headphones and placed them around his neck. He attempted a smile, but had a feeling it looked creepy, so went back to his usual blank look.
“You’re welcome!” Simon reached into his pocket. “I also have this…”
He produced something green and fabric, and dangled it in front of Roger. It was a pocket-sized soft toy in the shape of a lizard, clearly well loved.
Carrying around a toy was exactly the kind of thing that got you beaten up. Roger worried about Simon sometimes; he was such an easy target.
“It feels nice. It helps me sometimes, when I get upset.” He held it out for Roger to take.
He looked at the floor and gruffly said, “I’m not a baby.”
Simon didn’t respond. He gently pushed the lizard against Roger’s clasped hands. He gave in and took it.
It did feel good to have something to do with his restless hands, and when Simon looked away, he briefly brought it up to his face. It smelled like Simon — flowery soap and wool. The scent was more homely to Roger than the scent of his own home. He had a sudden urge to bury his face in Simon’s chest and hug him tight.
Roger was not very good at fighting urges.
He wrapped both arms around Simon, a little roughly, and tucked his face into his neck. Simon was taken by surprise at first, but hugged back, stroking Roger’s back.
Roger could feel Simon’s silky hair tickling his nose, Simon’s cheek pressed to the top of his head. Simon made that tiny purr-like hum in the back of his throat that he did when he was happy. It was like a lullaby to Roger; he would have fallen asleep if a teaching assistant hadn’t come to take him back to class.
At the end of the school day, Simon caught up with Roger as he was walking out. He pressed the lizard toy into his hands for the second time that day.
“You can keep it tonight.” He fidgeted with his sleeves shyly. “To help you sleep — you seem tired.”
Roger zipped it safely in his pocket. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Simon was grinning so wide that all of his teeth showed. “Will you… do you want to sit together at lunch tomorrow?”
The idea of having somebody to sit with at lunch time was completely foreign to Roger. It excited him so much that he couldn’t hold back a smile — or, his version of a smile, which resembled a wolf baring its teeth. “I’d like to.”
Simon gave Roger a quick, giddy hug. After pulling back, he hesitated for a second before kissing him quickly on the cheek, right over the mark
left by his father. He ran back to his mum before Roger could react.
Roger rubbed his cheek as he walked home, not because of the bruise, but in hopes of reliving the moment Simon had kissed him. For once, he wasn’t dreading going to school the next day.