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Sighing heavily, I hooked my arms around my legs and rested my chin on my knees. “I bet I’m better at it than you are.”
“Hmm.” His lips twitched, and he turned his attention back to staring straight ahead. “So let’s have it.” Flicking a trail of ash onto the grass, Joey took another drag of his self-made cigarette. “Who made you cry?”
“Why?” I arched a brow. “Are you going to beat them up?”
“I might,” he replied with a lazy shrug. “If you need me to.”
“I don’t need anyone.”
Now hedidsmile. “I figured.”
“What’s so funny?”
“You,” he replied. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”
“Who?”
“My younger self,” he surprised me by saying, before turning to face me. “Listen,” he said, all business now, scowl firmly back in place. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but either way, we’re still going to end up at the same conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“You telling me who made ya cry, and me fixing it for ya.”
“Why?” I narrowed my eyes. “Why would you help me?”
“Why wouldyouhelp me?” Joey shot back, fisting the jumper he was wearing. I knew it came from the bag I had given himbecause I remembered the green thread mam had used to fix the sleeve.
“I did that forShannon,” I explained. “Besides, you don’t even like me.”
“I don’t have to like you in order to help you,” he explained calmly, taking another drag of cigarette. “I just have to help.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that, kid.” Letting his head fall back, he exhaled heavily and let his shoulders relax for what I thought might have been the first time ever. “Besides, I don’t like owing people.”
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I kept quiet, dutifully studying the scary boy sitting beside me.
The one I knew wasn’t like the others.
He remained beside me, smoking his strange cigarette until there was nothing left. It wasn’t until his cigarette was quenched and the tiny stub was tucked in his pocket that Joey spoke again. “Iwillreturn the favor, kid.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied, tracking his every move as he stood up and dusted himself off. “How?”
“That’s up to you,” was all Joey replied before he turned around and walked away. “I’ll be seeing ya, kid.”
RECTUS ABDOMINUS
Hugh
FEBRUARY 19, 1999
GIBS DIDN’T COME TO SCHOOL TODAY, WHICH WAS BEYOND STRANGE CONSIDERING WEgot cake from the teacher on our birthdays.
In all the years I’d known him, which was literallyallthe years of my life, he’d never once refused cake on his birthday. Hell, he even demolished the cake given out onmybirthday.
That could only mean one of two things: either he was at death’s door or had passed through it.
When I reached his front porch after school and tried to let myself inside like I’d done every day since I’d learned how to walk, I was met with resistance.
