Eye to Eye

Isaac slouches in the chair in the nurse’s office, utterly deflated and defeated after the assault. He numbly holds an ice pack to his knee; the very act of breathing hurts, but he has no emotions left, nothing to express except the occasional wince or sucking hiss at a sharp pain somewhere on his body. Jason turned out to still be alive, much to Isaac’s relief; he hates the kid, but he really doesn’t want anyone to die. He didn’t watch as Jason was carted off in the ambulance, since it stabbed his eyes to look at the flashing lights for too long.

Next to Isaac, Vin is slouched over, staring at the ground blankly, resting his arms on his thighs with his hands clasped together hanging between his knees. Isaac keeps glancing over to see if he can see anything else, but all he can figure out is that Vin’s eyes are extremely puffy, his nose is red, and he seems to have absolutely no expression at all otherwise. He won’t look anywhere but the one spot on the floor that his eyes are glued to, though, so Isaac can’t see his thoughts. For once, that seriously bothers Isaac.

Juan, whom Isaac was rather surprised to see at first, is sitting in the chairs along the adjoining wall, close enough to speak quietly to — not that anyone is speaking. At least, not the kids. Principal Miller is on the phone in the nurse’s office, making calls to each person’s parents. Isaac is well aware that his mother is going to be a nightmare when she comes in; he just wonders how Vin’s parents are going to react. Jason’s mom is on the way to the ER to meet Jason, and Juan’s parents aren’t coming, since he wasn’t directly involved.

Principal Miller finishes the phone calls and sits down at a counter, opening his laptop. "Isaac, is the ice pack doing okay for you still?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Now, let’s start with each of you giving your story. Isaac, do you want to tell your side of the story first?"

Just thinking about telling the story brings back the horror that he just endured, quickly putting tears in his eyes and locking up his voice. He shakes his head rapidly.

"I’m going to need you to tell me what happened from your perspective so that I have documentation. We need this to make sure that Jason leaves this school and doesn’t hurt you again."

Isaac squints a few tears out of his eyes. "Can I…​wait? For my m-mom?"

The principal nods. "Yes, that will be fine. Juan? You say you witnessed it happening. What were you doing at the time?"

Juan takes a deep breath. "I was in cross-country, sir, and we were on our first break, so I went to go get a drink of water. I went past the bleachers, and I heard some talking and, like, a scream, so I got closer to see what was up, and I saw Jason and two other boys beating Isaac up. So I --"

"Can you tell me exactly what you saw?" the principal interrupts.

"I saw one boy with kinda longer hair holding Isaac’s arms, and there was another boy but I couldn’t see him that well through the bleachers. I saw Jason kick Isaac in the knee. Isaac was on the ground with, like, a shirt wrapped around his head. I knew if I went up there, I’d just get my — I’d get beat up, too, so I ran to go get help." Juan looks over at Isaac, who studiously avoids meeting him eye-to-eye.

"Who did you go to first?" Principal Miller asks, typing away on his laptop.

Glancing at Vin, he replies, "I ran to the basketball courts and told Vin and his friends. They were practicing layups and stuff, but I ran up and told them, and they took off toward the bleachers."

"Why didn’t you tell an adult first?"

"I--" Juan hesitates. "I was closer to the courts, and Coach was out at the track still, so I just went to Vin and them first. I went to go get Coach like right afterward."

"What happened next?"

"By the time I got back there, the only people there were Vin, Jason, and Isaac. Jason was on the floor and wasn’t moving, and Vin was with Isaac. I didn’t see what happened, sir."

More typing. A few clicks. Typing. "Now. Vin, tell me what happened from your side."

Vin remains silent, not moving his eyes off the floor.

After a protracted silence, Principal Miller urges, "If you don’t give testimony, you could end up being entirely blamed for this, to the point that you could go to jail. If you have anything to say to defend yourself, now is the time."

The silence stretches on a bit longer before Vin mutters, "They were hurting Isaac. I had to make them stop."

"What did you do after Juan came and got you?"

"Ran there. Saw Jason. Threw a basketball at him. We wrestled. I knocked him out."

"How did you knock him out?"

"I hit his head on the concrete until he stopped fighting."

"How many times did you do that?"

"I don’t know."

"What did you do after he stopped fighting?"

No reply.

"Did you stop?"

No reply. A tear trails down his cheek and drips onto his pants.

The principal types up some more stuff and then instructs everyone to wait until the parents arrive. During that time, nobody looks at anyone else; the principal works on his laptop, Vin stares at the same spot, tears dripping slowly for a while, hardly blinking. Juan looks around the room, eventually pulling out his phone to mess with it.

After about ten minutes, Ms. Brooks shows up. She takes one look at Isaac and gasps, "Oh my God. Isaac." She kneels down and looks at his face; he squints quickly to avoid eye contact. "What did they do to you? Where did they hurt you?" She touches his cheekbone, making him hiss and recoil at the sudden pain.

Isaac puts down the ice pack and lifts his shirt slowly. He points out each spot: his abs, his ribs, his knee, and the two spots on his face. Though he can’t see his knee, he is sure it’s going to look ugly; his abs are already starting to look discolored. He would look at his ribs if it didn’t involve using them to turn and look.

"What…​happened…​to my son?" she asks the principal in short, stabbing words.

Without seeming to react to Ms. Brooks’s anger, Principal Miller replies, "He has been waiting for you to get here so that he can tell the story. Isaac, if you will."

Isaac tells the story, piece by agonizing piece, as well as he can, starting from the piano room. He recounts every time he got hit, as well as most of the words he remembers Jason saying. "And then I took off the th-thing on my head, and then Vin was hitting Jason’s head on the ground, and then, but I told him to stop and then he did." After a moment, he adds, "Please don’t get Vin in trouble. He h-helped me. I mean, he saved me."

"I do not believe that Vin is a legitimate danger to anyone on the campus," Principal Miller states, "and he was defending someone that was already being physically assaulted, so there is no need to punish him here. However, I cannot guarantee that charges won’t be pressed. Jason’s family has a right to prosecute, since their son was seriously injured."

Isaac’s mother puts her purse down on a nearby chair without breaking eye contact with the principal. "Their son? What about my son? What about these bruises? His ribs may be broken! Jason wasn’t even supposed to be ON SCHOOL GROUNDS! What about that?! Criminal trespass?! Assault?!! They have NO right to press charges!"

"Ma’am," he responds, his voice rising slightly, "I have no say in any of that; we will have to wait for Jason’s parents to make that decision--"

"And YOU act like you have no control over anything! I’m not even sure you do! First, multiple students harass and torment my child, then one of them provokes him to violence — which he has never done before, to anyone, and now the same child, who was already suspended, comes back on campus anyway and viciously assaults my son. And what have you done about it? Nothing! NOTHING!" Isaac begins to flinch at each of her accented words, even despite the pain in his ribs and abs when he does so. He begins to rock in his seat to work off the stress.

"I realize that you are justifiably concerned and upset, but this level of --"

"UPSET?! I’m PISSED! My boy was just brutally beaten on your campus!"

"And his assailant is unconscious, in the hospital with a possibly fractured skull, in serious condition. Does that make you happy?!" Isaac has never heard the principal raise his voice, which makes it all the worse for him now that both his mother and his principal are yelling at each other.

"I don’t care what happened to Jason. I care about the fact that I cannot trust my son’s safety to you." She nearly hisses the last statement out. "I will have your job and your freedom if you don’t fix this problem immediately."

"Steps are already being taken, Ms. Brooks. I’m calling in additional security in the places that — Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Ward." The principal looks over Ms. Brooks’s shoulder through the doorway. "Let’s move to my office, now that the injuries have been assessed."

Isaac hobbles slowly with them as they all go to the more spacious office area. Inside, his mother immediately begins again with the tirade she hadn’t finished, while the Wards demand to know the story. Isaac can barely handle one angry adult, much less four, so he begins to shut down, only listening for important words as he retreats into his own rocking, whining world.

He is pulled back to attention when he hears Vin’s name. His father asks, "So it’s this again? You’re gonna go and Superman yourself into suspension?"

"We’re not suspending him," the principal interrupts.

"Well, that’s a surprise. Last time you didn’t send a kid to the hospital. Seriously, Vin, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Vin doesn’t answer. Isaac wants to speak for him, but he knows it won’t do any good.

"Vin, do you understand that you can be thrown in jail and fined thousands of dollars for doin' dat kinda shit?" His dad doesn’t raise his voice or anything, but his inflection is a little sharper than normal and his accent makes some of the words hard for Isaac to comprehend. "Do you?"

Vin mutters something in response. His dad says, "You wanna say that a little louder for me?"

"I deserve it."

His dad rolls his eyes so hard it takes his head with them. "Oh, come on, save me the damn pity pahty. Y’ain’t gettin' sympathy from the guy who has to pay for your mistake, the same mistake you just can’t seem to learn from. I raised an upstanding citizen, not a damn UFC fighta. And now some little jackass is in the hospital because you 'couldn’t stop yourself.' Look, if I went around beating up all the people that pissed me off, the hospitals wouldn’t have enough beds, a’right?"

During this whole time, Isaac watches Vin’s face slowly crumple, squeezing teardrops out and rolling his lips back to expose a gritted-teeth grimace. No sound comes out, though. Isaac finds himself crying as well, even without looking into Vin’s eyes.

His dad stops mid-monologue. "Really? You’re crying even though you’re not even suspended? Man up a little, wouldja?"

Vin’s mom says, "Dear, that’s enough."

"I dunno, Deb’ra," he says with a raised eyebrow, "I dun think I’ve gotten even a few hunn’ed dollars outta this one yet, unlike the fine I’ma hafta pay."

"Kerry. This is your son, not a business venture. Getcha head outta y’ass for a sec, eh? Put yerself in his spot."

"Yeah it ain’t a business venture, 'cuz I don’t lose money in my business ventures." He pauses and looks at Vin for a moment. "A’right, look. How 'bout we get this other kid’s parents on the phone and talk out how we’re gonna manage all this? I wanna get dat outta the way, and then we can talk about whatever was goin' through his mind."

They call up Jason’s mom, putting her on speakerphone. The arguments get heated to the point that Isaac shuts it all out; all he can see is Vin, who has taken up the same pose as he had in the nurse’s office. He seems to be calmer, at least until the news: Jason’s skull is broken, and he needs immediate surgery. At the mention of that, Vin’s eyes go wide and he exhales fully; he places his hands on the back of his head and doubles over, his elbows resting on his thighs as he begins to shake violently, though he still makes very few sounds. Isaac wants desperately to go over and hug him again, or rub his back, or his arms, or something, anything to make him feel better, but he is afraid that it would probably just make things worse.

Isaac looks back over to Juan, who is putting his phone away. Juan explains, "Mom wanted to know when to pick me up. I was telling her to wait and I’ll tell her later." After a short silence with both boys watching Vin, Juan half-whispers, "So, are you okay?"

Isaac shakes his head. He doesn’t have the words to say all the things wrong right now, but saying "yes" would be a huge lie.

"I’m so sorry I didn’t get there faster," Juan says. "I was afraid they’d just catch me and beat me up, too, but I should have just yelled or something. I’m sorry."

Isaac thinks about it; that probably would have made things end more quickly, but even he didn’t think about it until now. "It’s okay," Isaac responds. He doesn’t have anything else to add, but at least that part is okay.

He sees his mother walking toward him, so he turns to her and looks down; he doesn’t want to make her feel his pain. However, she just quietly walks up and says, "Hold still a sec." She gently lifts his glasses off his face, messes with the nose pieces a bit, uses her shirt to wipe one of the lenses, and hands them back. "I’m surprised nothing serious happened to those," she remarks. "At least he didn’t try to give you a black eye." She mutters something under her breath that sounds a bit like a curse word.

"Thank you, Mom." He puts his glasses back on.

The conversation continues on the speaker, with all parents having input, first quite loudly, then somewhat more calmly; Isaac continues to listen only barely, instead being torn between trying to occupy himself on his phone and watching Vin slowly deteriorate. Eventually, the parties come to a tentative decision: since both parties involved in the fight were culpable, neither side wishes to press charges, but only if the Wards pay a portion of the medical bills. "Yes, my son is a little asshole that takes after his father in the worst ways," she says, "but your boys aren’t the ones in the hospital. Your boys aren’t the ones unconscious with their skull smashed in." Isaac hears a pause and something like sniffling on the other line. In a broken voice, she continues, "Nobody deserves that." Isaac half-expects his mother to have a response to that, but she remains silent and stony-faced.

After the phone call ends, Vin’s father looks at him and shrugs a bit. "Sounds like you did a real number on 'im. Honestly, I’d hate to be the kid on the receiving end." He sniffs with a half-smile. "Look, I’m sorry I blew up atcha. You did the right thing the wrong way. I guess that’s better than the other way around, yeah?" He looks at Vin for a moment, who does not respond. "Well," he continues, "either way, we need t’get goin'. Mr. Miller, you need anything else from us?"

"Not tonight, no," he replies. "I have testimonies from each of the boys, and I’ll get some tomorrow from the others that were present. As far as the three bullies, they will all be expelled from this school, either to be in the alternate education building or home schooled. There’s no place for that kind of sick behavior in this school. I will be hiring extra security to watch the areas of most concern, and we will continue to monitor the situation for any fallout."

Ms. Brooks takes a deep breath and says in a low voice, "This school is one step from being a news story." A little louder, she turns and says, "Come on, Isaac. Can you walk okay?"

Isaac stands up, wincing at the pain in his knee. "I think so, Mom." He joins her in walking out of the office; as he walks by Vin, he finally looks up and into Isaac’s eyes. The feeling Isaac gets is nearly incomprehensible to him, like a mesh of a million different feelings, but all together, he feels…​cold. Empty. Fear, frustration, and a sort of feeling of determination all mingle together to create a vast, scary expanse of emotion. Isaac opens his mouth to say something, but Vin looks back down quickly. He makes no sound, no other motion than to put his head back down and stare at the floor. Isaac takes one last look at Juan, who is talking in Spanish to his mother, before following his mom outside.

Back at home, Isaac’s mother takes a look at him and shakes her head. "I swear to God, if I ever see that kid again, his ass is in jail." She assesses Isaac up and down, lips pursed. "Isaac, I need to see how bad you got beat up. Can you take off your shirt and pants for me?"

Having never had any serious issue being undressed in front of his mother — with the exception of when he was busy with himself — he does as asked. She takes a look at each spot, careful not to touch anything. She clicks her tongue a few times as she looks at everything; eventually, though, she remarks, "At least he doesn’t know how to seriously hurt someone. Isaac, I’m sorry, but I need to see if he broke a rib. I’m going to press down on the area here. Let me know if it hurts too bad."

Isaac grits his teeth as his mother pushes on his ribs. It hurts, but not any more than any other bruise would. He grunts a bit.

"That seems promising," she says with a slow nod. "Can you take a deep breath?"

He does so, and exhales. It hurts a little, but it doesn’t stop him from doing so.

"Okay, good," she sighs with a deeper nod. "I don’t think it’s broken. We may take you for x-rays anyway, to be safe, but you seem okay. The knee doesn’t look too bad, either. So is that everywhere that you got hurt?"

"He kicked me in the testicles," Isaac responds, flinching reflexively at the memory.

"He — ?! That asshole!" Pressing her lips together again, she takes a long breath through her nose. "Isaac, I’m sorry, but can you take off your underwear? I need you to show me, just in case."

Isaac hesitates. For some reason, being down to his underwear is fine to him, and he’s been naked in front of his mother plenty of times, but now, after the things he’s done, it almost feels like that area is his own, now, an area that is his alone. Still, he drops his underwear, checking the area himself. His right testicle is definitely very sensitive, and he feels a dull pain underneath it on the bony area. "He hit me right here," Isaac points out.

His mother looks from a respectful distance. "Does it hurt currently?"

"A little."

"We’re going to need to get you examined, I think." Isaac puts his clothes back on as his mother heads over to the couch. "So why did you follow Dennis? You know you shouldn’t trust strangers."

"I know, Mom." He pulls his shirt over his head carefully, wincing in preparation for his nose to hurt. "But he said that Vin wanted to t-talk to me."

She looks as if she wants to say something, but she looks up and nods. "Of course. I can’t really blame you for that one."

Isaac considers stopping the conversation and heading to his room to entertain himself, but the idea of sitting down in the recliner seems so much more appealing. He plops down and sighs. "Why do people hate me so much?" he asks.

"People don’t hate you," she says with a slightly tilted head.

Isaac looks at him mom incredulously; their eyes meet for a moment, filling his chest with a strange sort of sadness, as if he were watching a sad moment in a movie, but much stronger. He quickly looks away, though, not wanting his mother to feel how he does. "Then why do they beat me up?" he asks the carpet in front of him.

She comes and kneels down in front of Isaac, making it harder to avoid her eyes. "Honey, listen. Just because there are a few horrible people out there doesn’t mean that everybody hates you. Obviously you have two friends who care very much about you and want to see you safe and happy. Mr. Coleman has always been very interested in watching you succeed. And if we’re both being honest with ourselves, most of the students at that school don’t care about you at all. That’s just part of life — most people out there just don’t even know you. But you know what they’d think if they did?"

Isaac can’t help himself but answer, "That I’m weird?"

His mother pauses for a long moment, making Isaac wonder if he said something wrong. Before he can apologize, though, she says, "Isaac, why does it bother you so much this year? Before now, you’ve only occasionally mentioned your differences, and I thought…​I thought we were finally somewhere further along, that we were getting past this." She sighs and stands up. "Look, you’ve had a very stressful day, and it’s not a good idea to have these conversations on a bad day. Just remember that everyone’s weird in their own way, and if we weren’t, life would be incredibly boring."

"Vin’s not weird," he counters.

"Just as weird as everyone is."

He scoffs, "Mom, no he’s not! I, I can’t talk right, I never get it when people make jokes or, or say figures of speech, I get called all kinds of names at school, and then…​people want to fight me for some s-stupid reason, and then…​and then I’m gay and that makes them hate me m-more…​" He works himself into tears of frustration by the last part. "And then I can’t look at people in the eyes 'cuz it--" He immediately clicks his jaw shut, almost biting his tongue in the process. Stupid! STUPID! he berates himself. I almost told her! …​Quick, finish the sentence with something, anything! "--cuz it…​makes m-me…​feel weird." God, I’m so dumb! That isn’t going to work! Still, he has nothing in mind to fix it, so he just resorts to silence.

Instead of a response to his tirade, she just waves her hand a little bit at him. "Scoot over." He does so, and she sits next to him in the recliner, putting her arm around his back, gently pulling him in for a hug. He can’t quite figure out why, but the gesture fills him flush with a sudden urge to cry; unable to fight it, he chokes up, rests his head on his mom’s shoulder, and lets loose. His mom runs her fingers through his hair and softly coos, "It’s okay, baby. You’ve had a hard week."

Normally, he would be frustrated at not understanding why he feels how he does, but he feels so exhausted by everything that it’s not even worth the effort to do anything but cry about it.

It doesn’t last long, a few minutes at most, but by the time the tears stop flowing, he feels completely, utterly drained. He just leaves his head on his mother’s soaked shoulder, sniffling and staring blankly ahead as she continues to stroke his hair for a minute or two.

"Mom."

"Yes, Doodlebug?"

Isaac wants to say something. He knows there is a feeling he wants to express. Nothing coalesces, though, so all he has in reserve is, "I’m sorry."

"Don’t be."

Isaac considers her response silently.

They both end up watching TV together as Isaac ices down various spots on his body for a few hours, until dinnertime; Eileen cooks up a heaping batch of spaghetti with six large meatballs to share between them, and Isaac devours it hungrily. Just moving his jaw causes pain in his nose and cheek, but the food is way too good for him to be distracted for long.

The bath is less appealing; bending his midsection or his knee makes him cringe in pain, and he hates looking at the now-dark spots where he was hit. Still, soaking in the warm water does help relieve some of the stress he has been holding onto unwittingly. The only need he has other than being clean is sleeping, but he resists going to bed early for fear of messing up the routine. Instead, he plays a few games of Clash Royale, listens to a few of his favorite songs, and heads to bed at the appropriate time.

Isaac wakes up after an odd dream where he suddenly had super powers and flew off into the sky to save someone. He never gets to know who he was going to save; the alarm interrupts right at the good part.

He gets dressed, uses the restroom, and checks himself in the mirror. He laments how ugly his discolored face looks, and seeing the bruises on his nose and cheek brings flashbacks of yesterday, doubly souring his mood. At least I don’t have any new pimples, he considers.

Walking is painful, but it seems that Jason didn’t put all his force behind the kick. Isaac limps a little bit to alleviate a bit of the pressure, which causes the spot in his side to ache with every compensatory step. His mother notices and hovers over him until he snaps at her about it, but she doesn’t respond sharply, instead just suggesting that Isaac be careful getting in the car.

At school, he can feel the eyes of everyone starting at him, but he doesn’t dare look back. He does notice that the two boys that were in the cafeteria area yesterday aren’t here today, which gives him a small sigh of relief. Nobody says anything to him about his bruises, though, not even the cafeteria ladies, at least until he gets to the Living Room.

"Isaac! Did you get in another fight?!" Christian asks the room, and possibly the room across the hall. Isaac does not answer, instead heading to his favorite spot and running his hands in the rug. Undeterred, Christian asks again, "Isaac? Did you fight someone? Isaac? Isaac!"

"I don’t want to t-talk about it, Christian," he responds with more than a little force behind his words.

Christian replies, "But I wanna know if you were in a fight because I bet you totally won the fight just like last time! Bam! Woo-yahhh!" Christian howls like a martial arts master in one of those old movies while trying to kick the air. He manages to lean back far enough with his kick to unbalance himself and tumble backwards into his chair, which only serves to makes his fall to the floor that much more awkward.

Isaac gasps and rolls forward onto his knees instinctively, flinching back at the pain but crying, "Are you okay?!" at Christian, half-concerned, half-trying-not-to-laugh-and-failing.

Mr. Coleman walks in the door with David just in time to see Christian bust out laughing with his legs essentially up in the air, splayed out over the overturned chair. Isaac laughs in concert, and even David looks over and makes a goofy sort of giggle. Mr. Coleman sighs and asks, "What happened?"

Christian is still too busy laughing hysterically, so Isaac responds, "Christian tried t-to be a ninja and then he fell over." Christian laughs more, making Isaac laugh more as well.

Mr. Coleman gets David situated and helps Christian up, and after everyone calms down, Mr. Coleman takes a look over at Isaac. "Isaac! What hap—​are you okay?"

"Yes, Mr. Coleman. I got beat up." It doesn’t cause him significant distress to admit it or anything, just…​dealing with Christian’s energy is draining to Isaac right now. Funny, but draining.

Mr. Coleman’s eyes, drawn to Isaac’s bruised face, make contact with Isaac’s gaze; Isaac feels a rush of that same emotion he had when Jason first insulted Vin, as well a foreign sort of feeling, one that he’s felt only from others, a sort of sadness mixed with longing, like feeling sad, but because of someone else, or maybe for someone else. He has felt sad when, say, someone else was sad; this emotion, though, is more of a one-way feeling. The concept is foreign and confusing to Isaac, but he looks away without taking time to analyze it further.

Mr. Coleman almost seems to deflate as his shoulders slump and his head droops a bit. "Isaac, I’m sorry. Who did this? Did they get caught? — Sorry, one question at a time: who did this to you?"

"Jason in my gym class, and then Dennis, and then it was a boy in my reading class — they did it to me."

"Did they get caught?"

"Um, Vin and two of his friends caught them, and then Vin…​um, beat up Jason." Just mentioning it again gives him chills.

Mr. Coleman stares over Isaac’s head. "I’ll have to follow up on things, make sure they aren’t able to do something like this again. I’m so sorry this had to happen to you."

Isaac frowns. "Mr. Coleman."

"Yes?"

"Why do people say 'I’m sorry' when it’s not their fault?"

Mr. Coleman thinks for a moment. "Sometimes, when people say 'I’m sorry,' it’s not an apology. It means that they feel sorry for someone else, or that they feel bad that something bad happened to someone else. Does that make sense?"

After a moment, Isaac looks at Mr. Coleman directly and responds, "Do you feel sorry for me?"

The feeling he felt earlier from Mr. Coleman flares up again as he responds, "Yes, Isaac. Nobody should ever have to get beaten up, especially if they didn’t do anything wrong."

Isaac logs the connection away for later analysis; apparently the feeling that Mr. Coleman was giving Isaac earlier is "feeling sorry" for him. Isaac tries to think if he’s ever felt that way for someone else; he cannot come up with anything from his past that would make him feel that way, but when his mind conjures up the idea of Vin sitting and staring, tears slowly dropping from his chin, and the vast, empty feeling he got from Vin’s eyes, the feeling in his chest matches pretty closely with Mr. Coleman’s emotions.

Mr. Coleman smiles a bit as a thread of amusement insinuates itself into the emotional mix. "You usually don’t look me in the eyes when you ask questions, Isaac."

Isaac immediately looks away, self-conscious and afraid of making Mr. Coleman feel bad by proxy. "I’m sorry, Mr. Coleman. I’m sorry."

He laughs, "It’s okay, Isaac. I’m just a little surprised. Impressed, even. But now that I know about…​well, the reason you don’t look at people, it all makes more sense. It actually makes me wonder if that’s why more of my students choose not to look at people."

"What do you mean?" Isaac asks.

"Well, many people on the spectrum choose not to look at people directly in the eyes. I just wonder if --"

Mr. Coleman is interrupted by a loud grunt and a fist pounding on the table. David has found his way to his favorite seat and is demanding his drawing materials. Almost immediately afterward, the intercom beeps and begins to broadcast the pledge of allegiance; Mr. Coleman busies himself with setting David up while Isaac, Christian, and the others in the room recite the pledge with the principal. After the announcements are done, Isaac takes the few minutes left to prepare himself mentally for the incoming day.

Reading class features a quiz on grammar. He takes longer than necessary on it, both because he wants to make sure he gets the answers correct and because the only allowed activity after the quiz is reading, which he’d rather avoid; Mrs. Stone doesn’t have any good science or math books to read, and Isaac isn’t interested in fiction. No sign of Mr. Guthrie, but Isaac doesn’t exactly need help on this, anyway. He expects a B or so, based on how he feels he did on it.

More than once, he gets the feeling that other people are staring at him; he looks around the room to notice one or two people quickly look back at their tests, and Mrs. Stone calls out one person for having "wandering eyes," her odd way of telling someone to keep their eyes on their own paper. Isaac idly imagines someone’s eyes popping out and walking off on cartoon legs, checking out the classroom. Most importantly, though, Isaac does not see the bald-headed boy; he breathes a small sigh of relief, even though he knows that the boy can’t do anything to him in class.

Gym class is another story entirely. Whereas people in reading class generally didn’t talk to him or make any mention of things, Isaac is veritably assaulted with questions when he gets to the locker room. First, Charlie cries out, "Holy shit, Isaac! What happened?!"

Before he can open his mouth, Dalla and Juan turn around and see him; Juan turns around to look, but doesn’t say anything; Dalla, however, exclaims, "What the shit?!"

Isaac barely has time to get to a bench with his clothes before there’s a crowd of people around him asking what happened: Charlie, Dalla, the boys from the ball group, and even a few boys he doesn’t even know start looking at him and talking about his face. Isaac is immediately overloaded by the situation and freezes. He cannot figure out what to say, to whom he should respond, much less how he should respond, and the thoughts rushing through his mind are a jumble of Too much — go away — can’t answer everything — why me -- and the like. He slowly crumples up, hunching deeper into himself as he begins to hyperventilate. He tries to say something, anything to get them all to stop, but nothing comes to mind, not even a word as simple as, "Stop." He wishes he were in the bathroom stall, but right now it feels worlds away.

"Guys, chill!" someone yells out over everyone. "Back up! You’re freakin' him out!" The crowd backs up a bit; Juan leans in closely from the other side and says, "Come on, let’s get to the bathroom."

Isaac can’t move, though; he can’t even think to get himself moving. Only his lungs seem to have any ability, and they’re making up for everything else with their speed. He begins to wonder if it was worse to be actually punched, or to have to live with the attention he keeps getting from having been punched.

A few tense moments pass, until Juan gently tugs at his arm; that, combined with the idea of being out of the room, is strong enough to overcome his paralysis. He clutches his clothes tightly and scrambles across the benches to dash into the bathroom, putting his clothes down and locking the stall door before taking advantage of the fact that he’s sitting on a toilet; he was never really one to pee out of fear or nervousness, but he figures he has to go anyway. He uses the opportunity to breathe it out, to stare at the slightly-vandalized stall walls, and to let some tears out for a moment — not sobbing or anything, just a bit of silent weeping to let the stress of the situation out.

He sees a pair of feet, then another; flashbacks of the first time the mob of kids came up and stole his clothes race through his head, but he recognizes the bright white sneakers that Juan wears. That, and only two pairs of shoes stand there, facing away from the bathroom door; nobody else comes through the area except to pass by to the urinals or elsewhere.

He flushes the toilet and sniffles, wiping his face off with toilet paper and throwing it in the receding water. He takes his shoes off and begins to dress out, when he hears a tentative knock on the door. Juan’s raspy voice asks, "You okay in there?"

"Yes, Juan, and, um, Charlie, I think," he replies before pulling his shirt on. "…​Thank you."

"No prob," Charlie says. "Uh, sorry for calling attention to you like that. I shoulda thought about that. But, dude, what happened with your face?"

"I got beat up," Isaac admits. "Um, can I come out now?"

Both pairs of feet shift out of the way, and Isaac totes his regular clothes out of the stall. Charlie narrows his eyes and asks, "Was it Jason? I swear to God…​"

"Yes, Charlie, it was Jason, and then it was some of his friends, too." Isaac looks down at the floor and watches his feet on the way back to the benches, but nobody comes back up to bother him.

As Juan and Charlie get their own clothes and dress out quickly, Charlie replies, "Well, did he at least get expelled? He’s been a dick for as long as I’ve known him."

"He, um, he went to the hospital."

Charlie pauses with his gym shorts halfway up his legs. "I’m sorry, what?"

"Jason went to the hospital." Isaac is certain he said it clearly the first time.

"For…​beating you up?" Charlie asks, frowning deeply. "I’m not — did you, like, fight him back?"

Isaac takes a deep breath, already tired of telling the story. "Vin beat him up bad enough that his h-head was bleeding and then he went unconscious, and then two other boys, um, Mal and someone else, chased the other two boys away."

Charlie blinks a few times. "Holy shit," he mutters. Isaac is surprised at his continued use of swear words, but he doesn’t make mention of it. The whistle cuts in from the gym anyway, forestalling any other conversation for the time being.

Class ends up being a rather boring game of volleyball, a game that (like most physical games) Isaac isn’t great at. He doesn’t put a lot of stock into it, though, so by the time he leaves, he’s just happy to be done with it all rather than upset at being on the losing team. Back in the locker room, nobody asks any questions about his face anymore; even Dalla and Charlie seem strangely quiet about things.

Nobody has anything to say about his face in math class, but he sees multiple people stealing glances at him, especially at the beginning of class. He’s used to that sort of thing from the cafeteria, but today, here, it just serves to make him hyper-aware of how much he cannot avoid attention. He just wishes he could disappear, or sink through the floor, or something strange like that, anything to stop people from looking at him so much.

Lunch is a relief for Isaac, as it is a place that he can reasonably expect people to stare at him; this is precisely why he always sits in the corner with his back to everyone. At least the meal today is exciting: three chicken tenders, a dinner roll, a banana, and some baby carrots, all fine things to Isaac’s palate. He has a seat, preparing his food to be in decent, accessible portions, before Christian finds his way over.

"Hi, Isaac."

"Hi, Christian."

"Are you going to eat that banana?"

"Yes, Christian."

"Oh, okay." Christian shoves a huge section of his own banana in his mouth and chomps down. For once, he waits to swallow before saying, "So what happened in the fight?"

Isaac has just taken a bite of chicken, so he sits and chews, no faster or slower for anyone’s sake, and swallows. "It wasn’t a fight. I got beat up."

"But what happened?"

"I got punched and kicked a lot. They hit me in my stomach, my nose, my cheek, my knee, and my…​right here." He points to his side.

"Did you hit them back?"

Isaac almost chokes on a bite of roll as Christian asks the question. "I—​Christian, I couldn’t hit back. They held my hands and then they put a, a shirt over my head so I couldn’t really see, and then they kept hitting me and hitting me, and…​" The rest of the roll falls out of Isaac’s hand; he looks at it as it shakes uncontrollably. "I don’t want…​I don’t wanna talk about it." He squints and rocks for a moment, trying to get that horrifying ordeal to stop replaying in his mind.

Christian waits a moment, but he quietly asks, "Did you maybe try to kick them?"

"I couldn’t!" Isaac snaps back, far more loudly than he expects himself to. "I couldn’t do anything! I was too scared!! And then, and then I was on the ground, and--!!" Isaac’s yelling devolves into crying as he puts his paper napkin to his face in a feeble attempt to hide from everything.

Isaac cries into his hands and napkin for a moment, trying to regain composure. The images batter his mind, but he squints and rocks harder to shake them away. He feels a strange pressure on his leg, though, one that makes him stop rocking for a moment. He opens his eyes to see that Christian has shifted seats to the one next to Isaac, and he is pressing his hand on Isaac’s knee — his unbruised one, thankfully.

Christian says, "I’m sorry, Isaac. I, I didn’t mean to make you cry, but I was just trying to help if, to help you, um, to maybe see what you coulda done. But, um…​maybe there wasn’t anything you could do. I wish I was there so I coulda helped you fight them." Surprisingly, he doesn’t make any of his normal illustrative gestures to demonstrate his fighting skills.

Isaac sniffles a bit and stares at Christian. "They woulda beat you up, too. You’re not a good fighter, Christian."

Christian’s mouth drops and his eyes go wide. "I am, too!"

"You tried to kick the air and then but you fell over a chair today."

Christian looks even more shocked for a moment, but suddenly busts into wild, cackling laughter, loud enough for Isaac to lean away from it. Isaac can’t help but laugh, even while sniffling a bit, at Christian’s absurdity (and the memory of the event itself).

Isaac asks, "Christian."

"What?"

"Have you ever been in a fight?"

"I—​well, I mean, yeah. Once, because this one kid took my candy off my table and I won it from answering a question in class so I yelled at him to give it back and he said no so I hit him in the face and then we got into a fight."

"Who won?"

"The teacher stopped us. But—​but I got the candy back!"

"Just because you were in a fight once doesn’t mean you’re a good fighter, Christian."

"I mean, I watch them fight all the time in anime…​" Christian trails off.

Isaac shakes his head. "If you were there, you would have been b-beaten up, too."

Christian slumps over, taking his hand back from Isaac’s leg. "Yeah, I guess you’re right. …​I bet it was really scary."

Isaac nods. "I never want to do that again."

"…​I’m going to go sit back down and eat my lunch now." Christian stands up quickly and follows his word.

Isaac looks over at Christian’s face to see if he can glean any information about his emotional state, but he looks as normal as always to him: no crying, no eyebrow furrowing, no frowning. Isaac assumes Christian is okay, and goes back to eating his own lunch. Still, something about the way that Christian was acting leaves Isaac feeling a bit confused. He knows that pondering it without having any solid ideas is only going to be frustrating, so he goes back to counting the times he chews his food and the amount of bites he takes of each item.

The rest of Isaac’s classes are as boring as always, leaving him glad to be out of school by the time the bell rings. He eagerly goes and waits by the eagle, but Vin doesn’t show. He waits until most of the crowd of bus riders has streamed by, but still no sign. Crestfallen, he considers the practice rooms, but a shudder of fear paralyzes him before he even takes a step in that direction. Then he remembers that he hasn’t called his mom about it, so it’s likely she’s already on her way. He resigns himself to going home bored.

Back home, Mom accosts him with her litany of concerns, making sure all of his injuries are improving, not worsening. They have a quiet dinner, Isaac entertains himself reading online about the history of graphing calculators, and he goes to take a bath. He takes his time to unwind, letting the warm water soak into his sore muscles and leaving his mind to wander. He doesn’t feel much like masturbating; when he thinks of his typical fantasies and memories, the image of Vin staring blankly at him and the feeling of emptiness that came from his eyes chills Isaac, giving him the shivers even in the warm water. He pushes the images aside and focuses instead of cleaning himself, figuring that maybe he can ask Vin about it tomorrow in a text.

As he finishes his nighttime routine and snuggles under the covers, his mind tosses around the ideas of the quinceañera next week, the gym class sport project, and wondering how Vin is doing. It doesn’t help him fall asleep.

Saturday, Isaac starts his typical morning routine, but everything is immediately thrown off by hearing his mother’s voice from down the hall. He peeks around the hallway to see his mother, already dressed, talking on the telephone; while he is relieved that she’s not talking to someone who’s actually in the house, it still raises his suspicions. He listens in just in time to hear her say, "Great. We’ll be in very shortly, as soon as I get him up—​oh, there he is." She glances over and sees Isaac spying on her; he instinctively ducks behind the wall, though he is perfectly aware that she saw him. He sighs and walks around the corner, feeling guilty for his brazen act of espionage.

"Good. Thank you. Bye." She hangs up the phone and smiles in Isaac’s direction. "Good morning, Isaac!"

"Good morning, Mom." He walks into the living room and stands awkwardly, looking around near her.

"Sorry to mess things up a bit, but there’s been a slight change to routine."

Isaac’s fists clench involuntarily. "What’s going on?" he asks.

She smiles, but Isaac ventures a glance at her eyes to see what it means — and it’s not pleasant. "We need to go to the doctor to get your bruises looked at, and they’re only open in the morning on Saturdays` . So we’re headed there right now, and we can get breakfast or brunch on the way back."

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"Why are you doing this? Now the day won’t go right."

His mom takes a moment to answer. "Isaac, you know that we talked about this with your therapist. That’s just an obsession, not reality. The fact that your day starts out differently has no bearing on the events that will happen — that’s just not logical."

Isaac doesn’t respond, though his brain screams, But it always happens! He instead walks back into his room and gets his socks and shoes, putting them on left-first, as is proper. When he walks back into the living room, his mother already has her purse over her shoulder. "You ready?" she asks; he nods.

The day is sunny, if a little cloudy. Whatever horrible thing is going to happen doesn’t seem to be the rain, today. The doctor’s visit is bad enough, but it can’t be both the triggering event and the outcome; that wouldn’t be fair. If things could just mess up his day by throwing off his routine and by being the result of throwing off his routine, nothing would make sense. _Which just means that something else bad is going to happen, Isaac dreads.

They get to the waiting room. The chairs are made of an uncomfortable fabric like a sack of potatoes, and the TV is blaring some weird, oily-textured jazz music as a smooth, beige female voice talks about the signs of diabetes. Isaac decides to remain standing as his mother goes to the receptionist and signs in.

Isaac notices that almost nobody is in the waiting room, an unusual sight for him considering the other times he’s been to the doctor. Accordingly, a nurse shows up in short order with a clipboard. "Brooks?" the heavily-accented woman announces.

Isaac and his mother head into the hallway; Isaac weighs in at just shy of average and is led to an examination room, where the nurse puts him through the typical, annoying routine. Isaac can deal better with it now than he used to — he had more than a few fights with his mother at the doctor’s office when he was younger — but the whole process of having to breathe deep multiple times quickly, of gagging on the tongue depressor, and of generally being poked and prodded like a science experiment always stressed him out.

When the doctor herself finally enters the room, Isaac is already rocking himself on the exam chair. "Good morning, Isaac," she says pleasantly, her thick, dark ringlets bouncing behind a tightly-pulled band keeping her hair out of her face.

"Good morning, Dr. Tanner," he replies.

"So you’re here to take a look at your bruises, right? What happened?"

"A group of boys beat him up at school," his mother replies. "We just want to make sure nothing is broken or requires additional support to heal properly."

"Understood," the doctor nods. "So let’s take a look. Where are we concerned about?"

"They hit me in--"

"The boys injured Isaac in the face--" Ms. Brooks stops as Isaac stares at her. "…​Sorry, Isaac, why don’t you tell the doctor what happened?"

Isaac looks back toward the doctor. "They hit me in the stomach, and then the nose, and then the knee, um, and then the…​in my testicles, and then the cheek. And then he kicked me right here in my side." He points to each spot as he names them.

"Ouch!" the doctor exclaims with a grimace. "Which one hurts the most today?"

"The knee hurts the most."

"Well, let’s have a look. Can you remove your pants?"

Isaac goes through the same ordeal as he did with his mother, this time allowing the doctor to poke and prod at each of his injuries. In addition, she tests his range of motion on the knee — slight swelling and reduction of motion, but not significant — and does a lot more squeezing on Isaac’s side, giving Isaac a very confusing mix of tickle and pain. When it comes time to remove his underwear, he hesitates.

"Isaac?" his mother asks. "The doctor needs to see the injury to make sure it’s not serious."

"It doesn’t hurt that bad, Mom."

Ms. Brooks pauses for a moment. "Dr. Tanner? Is there something we should look for to see if the injury is significant?"

The doctor smiles slightly. "In all honesty, you’d be surprised at the amount of impact a testicle can take before there’s serious injury. Otherwise, there would be a lot of men making a lot fewer stupid decisions." Isaac’s mom and the doctor both laugh heartily, leaving Isaac to wonder what decisions she was referring to. "In any case," the doctor continues, "unless there is a very large amount of bruising on the testicle or scrotum itself, chances are that there’s no lasting damage. …​Basically, he wouldn’t be well enough to say that it 'doesn’t hurt that bad.'"

"It doesn’t hurt that bad," Isaac emphasizes.

Eileen looks at Isaac for a moment, back at the doctor, and back again at Isaac. "Well," she finally responds, "do you think we’re in the clear for his side injury? That’s the other one I’m worried about."

"We could take an X-ray if you are particularly worried, but unless Isaac has a larger-than-normal tolerance for pain, I’m sure he’d know if something were broken."

Nodding slowly, Isaac’s mom says, "Okay. Good. So my boy will be back to his cuter-than-cute little self in no time, right?"

"Mom." Isaac pushes her shoulder a bit. She laughs lightly.

"He’s young, and I’ve seen a lot worse. I can write a prescription for high-dose ibuprofen if the knee or side cause him too much pain."

Another look at Isaac, and she replies, "No, I think we’ll be okay. Thank you."

Dr. Tanner writes down a couple of things on a clipboard while saying, "Is there anything else today?"

"No, ma’am," Ms. Brooks says. It sounds weird to Isaac to hear his mother say "ma’am" to someone else.

"All right, then. Great to see you both, and how about we just have a routine physical next time, all right?" she smiles.

After a nice pancake breakfast at a nearby brunch place, the two of them go home to enjoy a relatively quiet Saturday. Between cartoons, Clash Royale, and listening to music, the time passes by quickly, at least to a point.

In the middle of the fifth listen of "Shevat," he suddenly remembers a very important thing he hasn’t asked his mom.

Running into the living room, Isaac announces in a loud, firm voice, "Mom."

She jumps slightly on the couch. Reaching for the remote and muting the TV, she asks, "Yes, Isaac?"

"Can I go to a keense—​um, keesin…​a party with Juan? It’s next Saturday." Isaac can’t figure out why his heart suddenly kicks up over twenty-five beats ber minute faster than normal.

His mother cocks her head a bit, a small, strange smile blooming on her lips. "Do you mean a quinceañera? Is this for that other boy, Juan?"

Isaac blinks at his mom. "How do you know everything?"

His mom just laughs musically. "Doodlebug, moms know a lot more than you think. That, and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen Juan around; I figured you and he were probably friends. But a quinceañera isn’t usually for a boy."

"The …​keen-sin-yerra is for his sister, and then he doesn’t want to be b-bored."

"Well," she says, smiling, "any party that you actively want to go to sounds like a good idea to me. I’m fine with it."

Isaac grins. "Thank you, Mom!" _So maybe the day is going to go okay, he considers. He remains skeptical, but open to the possibility.

As the afternoon goes on, Isaac finds himself looking again and again at his phone, wanting to text Vin and talk to him about the other day, but each time he considers it, he is paralyzed by the prospect. First off, he hates starting up conversations. Secondly, he doesn’t even know what he would say if he did start one up. 'Hi, Vin. You looked empty and scary when I looked at you.' Certainly not going to work. 'What are you feeling Vin I don’t understand.' Equally stupid-sounding. Should he call Vin? What if Vin was playing basketball, or doing something important? Isaac wouldn’t want to interrupt him.

Eventually, though, he finally gathers every ounce of courage he has and texts Vin:

Isaac: Hi

He waits. No response. His heart sinks a little lower every minute. This must be the result of Mom throwing off his routine. This is where the day goes bad.

When his phone starts playing the call sound — which he hears so rarely, it takes a moment for him to even recognize the golden sawtooth buzzing sound of it — it surprises and confuses Isaac. He stares at it for a moment, unsure of what to do.

Ring. Do I answer it?

Ring. I don’t know the number. It’s probably spam.

Ring. _But I just texted Vin, and then the phone started ringing…​

Ring. But I don’t like talking on the phone, but it could be Vin, but I hate when it’s spam…​ With a sigh, he hits the "Accept Call" button and says, "Hello?"

"Hey, Isaac! It’s Vin. How ya doin'?"

"Uh, uh…​g-good! H-how are you?" Isaac asks, completely uncaring about his stuttering, or that the phone is palpably shaking in his hands.

"Well, uh…​let’s go with 'better,' heh."

"Are you…​okay?" Isaac asks, concerned about what his words mean.

"Yeah, I am now. It’s…​it’s a long story. But hey, thanks for answering the phone by the way — I know it was a weird number, and I usually don’t even answer my phone when it’s a number I don’t know. Damn spam calls."

Isaac frowns at the phone. "Wait. Why didn’t you call me on your phone? I thought you called me because I texted you."

"What? Oh, yeah, about that…​I don’t have access to my phone. That’s why I called you on this line."

"So…​you didn’t get my text?"

"No. I guess we’re just psychic, heh. Same wavelength." Isaac can hear the slight laughter in Vin’s voice. "So hey, uh, do you maybe…​wanna come visit? My parents came by today, y’know, to drop stuff off, but people can come visit at 6, too."

Isaac pauses a long time, trying to figure out a lot of missing context. "Where…​are you, Vin?"

"Right. So, uh, don’t freak out, okay? But…​I’m at the hospital."

"Wh--?!" Isaac gasps. "Vin! Why are you at the hospital?!"

"I told you not to freak out, heh."

"I’m not freaking out!" Isaac’s voice cracks at the height of his inflection.

Vin just laughs. "Okay, okay, yer not freakin' out. But yeah, I’m at the hospital for…​reasons. I can explain more when you’re here, yeah? So…​you wanna come visit? I’d really like to see ya."

Isaac runs into the living room. "Mom!"

She jumps, nearly spilling iced tea on herself. "Isaac, you scared me!" she says with a breathy laugh. Gently putting her glass down on the coffee table, she mutes the TV again. "What’s the matter?"

"Can I go visit Vin tonight at 6?"

"That’s a bit sudden. Wait—​what do you mean, 'visit'?"

"He’s at the hospital."

"I—​I’m sorry? What happened?"

"I don’t know. He says he will explain when I’m there."

"Is he okay?"

"Yes, Mom, he said that he’s fine and that he will expl…​um, yeah." He stops short of repeating himself, his face warming a bit at his mistake.

"Yes, that will be fine. We can go."

Isaac turns back to the phone. "Mom says it’s okay, Vin."

"Sweet! I can’t wait to see you!"

"You too. I mean I can’t wait to see you, either."

"Heh. See you soon, Isaac."

"See you soon, Vin."

Isaac hangs up and stares at the phone for a good minute or two while trying to untangle a dense knot of different emotions. He can’t figure out at all by this point whether this counts as a good day.

As Isaac and his mom walk into the hospital, Isaac gets a feeling of being out of place, or in very much the wrong place. He sticks close to Eileen as she walks up and speaks to the receptionist, giving the information Vin texted them.

They go down sterile halls to another area with its own reception desk; the woman behind the counter takes their information and then asks that they both empty their pockets, including phones. Isaac reluctantly hands his over at the behest of his mother, and they are led down another hallway, this one of dark wooden paneling with various landscape scenes painted onto the walls themselves. It’s definitely a more calming atmosphere than the solid white walls of the other hospital areas, but Isaac still feels very uncomfortable with the unfamiliarity of the area.

Isaac’s mother and the other woman chat occasionally about things that Isaac completely tunes out as he slowly grows more anxious with each turn, with each door they pass through. He begins to fear that he will not be able to find his way out — or, more accurately, that he already has no idea how to find his way back out. He realizes that this is why they are being led by someone who works here, but the reassurance, as usual, doesn’t dull the anxiety at all.

Eventually, they reach a sort of lounge area, with various round tables and chairs that match the color scheme of the dark brown walls and muted earth-toned tile floor. In the middle, Vin sits, dressed in a burgundy polo shirt and khaki pants, idly scribbling with a green colored pencil on a piece of paper on the table. He seems somehow calmer than Isaac is used to seeing him, in almost an unsettling sort of way.

However, when they approach, Vin looks up and his face blossoms into an open-mouthed grin. Looking Isaac directly in the eyes, he exclaims, "Hey!" as he stands up.

Isaac feels all of his own emotions looped back at him, but he doesn’t find the deep void he felt the other day; this time, his emotions are met with a fresh infusion of relief, excitement, deep warmth, guilt, shame, and something akin to desire, almost the sort of feeling Isaac might have if he promised not to tell someone about a surprise birthday party — he knows it would be almost impossible to hold back. The entire situation hits him in just the right way that, for reasons Isaac can’t even begin to understand, he is overwhelmed with the need to cry. Granted, he’s used to finding himself crying in weird situations — it comes with the territory for him — but this time he is completely perplexed as to why his eyes and face decided to betray him in such a way.

Vin’s face contorts into a strange mixture of potential emotions, though still with a smile on it."Aw, buddy, don’t cry — I told you I’m okay, yeah?"

Vin takes a step toward Isaac, who instead dashes across the room and nearly tackles Vin in a hug. Vin laughs and hugs him back for a solid ten seconds before saying, "I promise, I’m fine, Isaac. Really."

"I know," Isaac says into Vin’s shirt. "I don’t know why I’m crying."

This just makes Vin laugh more; under normal circumstances, someone laughing at Isaac crying would only serve to make him angry, but something about Vin’s laugh, the bounce of his head on Vin’s torso, and the situation itself, makes the laughter contagious; Isaac laugh-sniffles along with Vin for a moment before Vin breaks the hug. "So how are you?" he asks.

"I got hurt in six places, but the doctor says they’re not bad."

Vin’s smile falters for a moment; he takes a deep breath, though, and says, "But how are you feeling? Are you okay?" He pulls out a chair next to Isaac. "You can come sit, too," he says to Ms. Brooks.

"Actually, I think I’ll go get a drink. I’ll be back in a bit." She goes around the corner, raising her hand and speaking to someone out of sight as she herself heads down the hall.

Vin stares after her for a moment as Isaac takes his seat. Vin follows suit, and Isaac responds, "Yes, Vin, I’m okay." Isaac takes a moment to examine Vin’s handiwork: there are a small set of colored pencils on the table, most of which have been used in different patterns to color in a complicated, spiraling design. It looks to be a page torn from a coloring book, but one that is too complicated for little kids.

After a moment of studying the design, he gathers the courage to look up and ask, "Um, so why are you in the hospital?"

He sighs, still smiling. For a brief moment, their eyes connect, and Isaac feels the strangest mix of shame, sadness, attachment, and some sort of…​happy-sad mix, another unfamiliar feeling to Isaac. Vin looks down and takes a few long breaths before saying, "So the night that…​the whole event happened, y’know, with Jason, I was in a pretty bad place."

"Where were you?"

Vin pauses. "Oh, no no, I mean, like, mentally. Sorry, heh. I didn’t mean to hurt him like I did, but I couldn’t stop myself. I…​I sometimes have a bit of a problem with anger, heh. …​So, I, uh, I did something pretty stupid that night and they had to take me to the hospital the next morning."

"What did you do, Vin?"

"I…​took a whole bottle of sleeping pills. Benadryl."

Isaac’s eyes shoot open. "Vin! It’s dangerous to take that many pills! You could die!"

"I know. That’s…​that was kinda the point."

A long moment of silence passes as Isaac processes Vin’s response, a cold fear slowly settling in his stomach. "You…​were trying to die?"

Vin nods, the smile gone from his face. "Yeah. I tried to commit suicide."

Memories of the vast emptiness echo back to him in the look in Vin’s eyes, though now it is mostly just exhaustion and shame, with a sort of feeling of being small, or being underneath everything. It’s hard to process, so it takes forever before Isaac can finally, breathily ask, "…​Why?"

"So that I didn’t have to be afraid that I’d kill someone again."

"What do you mean?" Isaac asks, more frantically than he intends to.

Hands out, Vin says, "So lemme just start out by saying that no, I don’t want to die anymore. I talked to a shrink here and we hashed a coupla things out, so I don’t—​I’m not gonna try to commit suicide again. I promise." He extends a hand across the table. Isaac grabs it and holds it tightly. "Heh, dang, I forget how strong your grip is," he remarks.

Isaac, still burning with questions, tries to ask something, but all he manages is, "So why did—​what…​I don’t…​get it."

Vin stares at their clasped hands for a silent few seconds. He says quietly, almost as if he were talking to their hands instead of Isaac himself, "Okay. So they told me I need to start seeing a therapist, and I know I’ma hafta tell them eventually, so I’ma practice on you. You deserve to know, anyway. So…​I got a few things to tell ya, but you gotta promise me something: one, you won’t ever tell anyone else, and two, that you won’t hate me or be scared of me."

"You asked me that when you told me you used to be a bully."

"…​Yeah, I guess I did. But this is a little more than that. I—​y’know what, screw it, I’m just stalling. Lemme just tell you. But still: promise?"

"Okay, Vin. I promise I won’t tell anyone or be scared of you."

He sighs. "Okay. So, back before I moved here, I used to be…​well, I told you the story. I used to bully other kids an' all that. So there was this one kid, Cade was his name. A lot like you actually: glasses, lighter hair…​pretty cute…​heh, not that I really thought much about it back then, but even if I did, I’d NEVER admit it…​but yeah. Anyway, I used to give him a hard time, like I’d make fun of the way he walked, or his glasses, or whatever. Nothing huge. I really didn’t think it would make a big difference.

"Well, it did. He got mad one day and started yelling back at me, like screaming at me. My friends were around, so I had to, y’know, look good in front of them, so I kept teasing him, just havin' fun makin' him mad. So he…​he attacked me, in front of the stairs at school—​he just yelled, 'I’ll kill you!' and he came at me, right? Well, I may not have been that tall or muscular or whatever at the time, but I’ve been in more than a few fights with Brandon, so Cade had no chance. I dodged him and shoved him back. He lost his balance, fell backwards, and hit his skull on the edge of the stairs."

Isaac realizes the pattern. "Did he go unconscious?"

"No." Vin pauses a while.

"…​Did he die?" Isaac asks quietly.

Vin shakes his head, eyes tearing up. "No. He cried, I laughed. I told him, 'If you can’t kill me, why don’t you go kill yourself?' All my friends started 'oooh’ing and bein' jackasses. An' then, later on…​" Vin’s voice catches, giving him pause. He stares off blankly, lower lip quivering as he finishes, "…​later on, he did."

Isaac, speechless at the story, watches Vin’s facade slowly crumble as he says, "He…​he was only in 5th grade, and he…​h-he hung himself at his house a week later. I told him to kill himself, and he did. I was just some s-stupid little fuckhead, doing fucking stupid things, and someone died 'cuz of me. I killed him, Isaac."

"But you said he killed himself--"

"No, Isaac, he died because of what I said. If I didn’t say that, if I didn’t make his life hell and then tell him to kill himself, he wouldn’t have died! He wouldn’t have--" Vin is overtaken by sobbing, leaving him convulsing, unable to continue.

Isaac scoots closer an, for lack of a better thing to do, rests his hand on Vin’s leg. He can’t think of anything to say, but he can’t sit there and do nothing while Vin hurts.

After a bit, Vin composes himself a bit and sniffles, "So…​I didn’t take it well when I found out. Word got out that I told Cade to kill himself. I basically shut down. Barely ate, barely went to school, all that. Magically passed that year, no idea how. That summer, Dad gets a job offer and the chance to move to Texas, and he took it. He never said so, but I think he did mostly for me, honestly. So we moved here, away from…​all that, and I promised myself I would start over, wouldn’t be the asshole I was back then. Actually got in a few fights with bullies, trying to get them to stop fuckin' with other kids. Got a reputation for being, well, brutal in a fight, and people started listening to me. Then I got tall, and a LOT o' people started listening, heh." He looks at Isaac, who gets a flood of mixed emotions he has no time to parse before Vin looks back down at their hands. "So then fast forward a bit, I meet a kid who reminds me of Cade: light hair, glasses, all that, and he’s getting picked on by a couple of shitheads in the locker room."

Isaac marvels for a split second at the coincidence until he realizes that Vin is talking about him. "I reminded you of Cade?"

Vin smiles, "A little. It was enough to make me think about it. Enough that I told myself I wasn’t gonna let anything happen to you. I couldn’t let what happened because of me…​happen again, y’know? So I thought at first I was just gonna kinda watch over you, make sure people didn’t fuck with you, but things quickly changed. I realized how damn cool you are, and…​how much I like you." He squeezes Isaac’s hand tightly for a moment. The smile fades again from Vin’s face as he says, "So when I heard someone was beating you up, and then I saw it was that little shit-eater Jason, something in me just snapped. I, I just…​I dunno. The only thing that was going through my head was making sure he didn’t do anything more to you, or to anyone. And…​now he’s in the hospital. I guess I did my job, yeah?" He smiles, but a fresh wave of tears fills his eyes. "So when I’m an asshole, people die, and when I try to save people…​I still almost kill someone. So I told myself…​" Vin’s voice becomes soft, shaky. "I told myself that if all I can do is hurt people, then I should just go to sleep. I can’t hurt anybody when I’m asleep. And then I…​well, yeah."

Isaac wipes his own tears away, barely even aware that he had started crying again. "I don’t want you to die, though, Vin."

"I know, I know, it was really fuckin' stupid." With a snicker, he adds, "Also, turns out Benadryl is almost impossible to kill yourself with, so double stupid, heh. But, uh…​hm. Your mom’s been gone a while. Funny."

Isaac looks behind himself, suddenly worried. "Maybe she got lost!"

Isaac feels a hand on top of his. Vin says, "Pretty sure she can find her way, or ask for help. You don’t gotta worry about your mom gettin' lost, yeah?"

"…​Yeah, Vin," Isaac agrees, turning back around.

"Well, before she gets back, I did have something else to say."

"What is it, Vin?"

He slides his fingers under Isaac’s hand, and picks it up to hold it with both of his own. "Even when I was sittin' there bein' stupid and thinking about how to kill myself, there was something else on my mind the whole time: I wouldn’t have done that for anyone else. I mean, I’m an idiot for a lotta different reasons at a lotta different times, but I’ve been the biggest dumbshit recently, and not even because I tried to off myself." He chews on his lower lip for a second. "Isaac, why did you run away that day at the basketball courts?"

Isaac takes a moment to reply, "I ran away because I, because you…​you and the girl were talking to each other and then she put her hand on your cheek, and I realized that you two were going to go out, and, and then…​"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait," Vin says, suddenly smiling. "See, now I was thinking it was cuz I wasn’t paying attention to you and all, but you thought that Leila and I were…​oh hell no! Hah, she’s more like one of the boys to me. I woul—​I guess that wouldn’t really stop me, would it…​let’s say she’s more like a sister to me. Like, I just don’t see her that way. Neither of us really wanna be together; she just plays like that. But, so, you ran basically because you were jealous?"

"…​Yes, Vin. I ran because I was jealous." His face warms at the admission.

Vin leans in and looks at Isaac, eye-to-eye, and responds, "Well, then, listen up. I love you more than basketball, more than, than being popular, more than life itself. I’ve never felt like this about anyone." As he speaks, Isaac’s chest is filled with warmth, belonging, desire, determination, and the feeling that Isaac gets when everything in his day goes exactly in the right order, a feeling of rightness. "So now I’m gonna fix the biggest mistake I’ve made since I moved to Texas." He takes a slow, deep breath and asks, "…​Isaac, will you be my boyfriend?"

Isaac gasps, "Yes!" As the word echoes off the walls, Isaac looks around with his head tucked down, as if to hide from onlookers. In a lower voice, he says, "Yes, Vin—​I’ll be your boyfriend!"

Vin lets go of Isaac’s hand, stands, and opens his arms; Isaac, utterly without regard of who may be watching, throws himself at Vin and hugs him tight enough to make him grunt. Vin wraps his arms around Isaac, and Isaac forgets about feeling afraid, forgets about his pain, and for the first time in a long while, forgets about feeling different; he only feels loved.

Suddenly, Vin maneuvers them both face to face and plants his lips on Isaac’s. Isaac’s eyes fly wide open and he yelps, "Mmph!"

Vin quickly breaks the kiss. "Oh, uh, I’m sorry! I don’t, I didn’t mean to—​uh, was that too much? I just…​I was so happy that you, y’know, still wanted to, and I just thought…​y’know, that people usually kiss when…​" He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. "…​Sorry."

Isaac, meanwhile, is flush with a whirlwind of emotions, the smallest of which is surprise, the largest being serious excitement. He quickly reaches into his pants and adjusts himself before it becomes too uncomfortable; he has never found a kiss to give him an erection before, but he’s also experienced all kinds of new things in recent weeks. Picking at his thumb and breathing a bit more heavily than he expects, he replies, "It’s okay, Vin. I was just, I didn’t expect it. I’ve never kissed someone except for Mom before, and then my grandma and grandpa."

Vin laughs a thin little laugh, unlike his usual laughter, Isaac notices. "Well, maybe I shoulda said something, heh. …​How 'bout we don’t get ahead of ourselves and wait 'til later for kissing, yeah?"

Isaac thinks about it: he really likes the way the kiss made him feel, but he also doesn’t really know what to do with a kiss, especially not the weird, crazy kisses he always sees in movies. He eventually agrees, "Yeah, Vin. We can wait 'til later for kissing."

"Okay." Vin just looks at Isaac for a silent moment; Isaac glances at his eyes, and his already-uncontrollable giddiness and feeling of gushing affection are only augmented by Vin’s matching emotions. Vin scoops Isaac up, hugging him tightly enough to lift him slightly off the ground; Isaac squeals at his feet leaving the ground, and the irrepressible emotion of the moment leaves him giggling like a child.

When they finally release the hug, Isaac jumps at the sound of his mother’s voice behind him. "What did I miss?" she asks with a couple of candy bars in her hands.

End of Chapter 14

Woooo! They said the words! They did the kiss thing! Kinda, anyway. So…​these last three chapters have been quite the roller coaster. Not that any of this story hasn’t been, though, to be honest, but that’s why we’re all still here, amirite? Well, we’ve still got story to go, even with this delightful milestone, so let’s see where it takes us. As always, I adore hearing from you, so don’t be shy — drop me a line at PhillipBontemps@gmail.com; I look forward to your commentary every time. Cheers! <3 XPud/PhillipBontemps