Adult Content Warning
This work could have adult content. If you continue, you have agreed that you are willing to see such content.
-
Tags
Summary
At some point, he stopped mid sentence and looked at me in a way that made the whole small room feel suddenly much smaller. “Y’know…You never flinch at me, Petey,” he said. “Everyone else flinches.”
I didn’t understand, at only fifteen, what a dangerous thing it is to be told you do not flinch by a person who has spent his whole life testing exactly how far a person can be pushed before they do. I took it as a compliment, and I have spent the years since trying to forgive myself for how much that compliment meant to me, how many later choices it quietly authored without my permission.
OR
Twelve years. That's how long Pete thought he was safe. Then there's a knock, and Gary Smith is standing on his porch wearing an adult's face and a boy's smile, and Pete opens the door anyway.
Some people you don't get over. Some people just wait.