Eye to Eye

By: XPud
(© 2018-2019 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

xpud@tickiestories.us

Chapter 6

The gentle feel of a warm breeze blowing through Isaac's hair soothes him as he looks out across the grassy fields just outside the school. As he stands in the field, watching the students file into the school, a random thought crosses his mind: How did I get here?

No sooner does he think that than his mind begins to unravel the dream before his eyes, and he slowly wakes up to feel Vin's slow breaths stirring the hairs in the center of his scalp; it tickles, though it's not intense enough to bother him. He opens his eyes and assesses his body to see that he is curled up, facing Vin with his arms tucked in near his chest. Vin is facing him, one arm resting down along his body, with the other tucked underneath the pillow that they have ended up sharing. Isaac's head is tucked in to where he is looking at Vin's chest; watching it rise and fall slowly is mesmerizing to Isaac.

He stays there, just existing for a few minutes, watching Vin's chest rise, feeling the warm tickle of his breath...rise, tickle...until the round, blue tone of his cellphone begins to chime from behind him. He doesn't want to wake Vin up, especially since his mom warned him against it, so he very carefully moves the covers off himself and sneaks over to the dresser; he reaches into his folded pants, procures his phone, and turns off the morning alarm. He checks to see if Vin noticed, but he is still exactly the same as Isaac left him. He watches Vin a moment longer, both to make sure that he stays asleep, and for other reasons he can't quite put into conscious thoughts, before he very quietly opens his suitcase zipper and pulls out his other set of clothes. He lines everything up the way it should be before taking off his old underwear and putting everything else on in the proper order. He packs his other clothes neatly away and zips everything back up; then, he quietly unlocks the door and heads out into the game room, closing the door behind him so that he doesn't accidentally wake Vin up.

Outside the room, the house seems almost uncomfortably quiet. The thin, hidden ringing of silence creeps into his ears, hissing its inscrutable, colorless tone in the absence of other sounds. He wonders if there is something actually making that piercing, unrelenting sound, or if it's just the way that silence itself sounds.

Either way, he hates it. He eyes the keyboard, knowing that the piano is off-limits.  He sits down at the keyboard and turns it on, keeping the volume low. Testing a note or two to get a feel for the response of the keys at the lower volume, he plays a bit of the Für Elise just as a warm-up. Then, on a whim, he begins to scroll through the possible instruments that the keyboard can sound like, settling on a beautiful synthesized sound called "Fantasia" -- a bell-like sound with strings following it. Each note rings in his mind like a small, hollow, blue glass sphere with a vanilla-colored stream behind it, like a school of sonorous fish swimming through the scales he plays.

He begins to play the Arabesque by Debussy again, reveling in the new texture and scene that the "Fantasia" instrument paints with the song. He loses himself in the waterfalls of the melody and the tumultuous churning of the accompaniment.

Just as he reaches the grand, regal middle section, a deep voice behind him says, "Not bad."

Isaac shrieks, startled, and immediately covers his mouth. "I'm sorry!" he says quietly behind his hand. He turns to see Brandon standing a few feet away with his hands in his baggy pockets. "You scared me," Isaac whispers loudly, catching his breath from the adrenaline rush.

"Yeah, I noticed," Brandon replies, rubbing an ear. "Where'd you learn to play like that?"

Isaac thinks about the question; he never "learned" to play in any one spot, so he's at a loss how to answer it. He considers a few paths before he realizes the futility; instead, he responds with, "Did I wake you up?"

Brandon shrugs, "Nah, I've been up for a bit. Woke up early, no idea why. Heard music, came out to see what's up. Or who's up, anyway." After an awkward silence, he walks a little closer. Glancing over toward Vin's door, he lowers his rumbly bass voice and says, "So...you and him are pretty good friends, yeah?"

Isaac notices that Brandon asks questions the same way that Vin and the rest of the family does. "Yeah, um, Brandon."

He looks at Isaac for an uncomfortable moment. "Look, I'm not here to ruin friendships or anything, but...be careful."

Isaac furrows his brow in confusion. "Careful about what?"

Brandon glances back over his shoulder again. "Just say...Vin hasn't always been that nice. Especially to people..." he looks Isaac up and down, "...like you."

Isaac looks over at Vin's closed door in confusion and concern. What does he mean by that? Isaac wonders. Vin hasn't always been nice? He's always been nice to me. Is he faking it?

Brandon takes advantage of the uncomfortable silence to say, "Just a warning. Something to think about." With that he leaves, walking down the stairs.

Isaac does indeed think about it. If Vin is just pretending to be nice...maybe he did that so that we could have sex. Maybe--he gasps as he realizes this next thought--maybe he did that so that he can get me in trouble for having sex!

The thought panics Isaac a little. With shaky hands, he pulls out his phone and calls his mom.

"Hey Isaac," his mom says as she answers. "You ready to come home?"

"Y-yes, ma'am," he says as steadily as he can.

"Okay. Be there in fifteen to twenty minutes. You want to wait outside so I can just pick you up?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"That's fine. Just be outside in about fifteen minutes. See you soon."

"See you soon, Mom."

She hangs up, and Isaac quickly begins to get the rest of his stuff together. Thankfully, Vin seems to be a very heavy sleeper, so Isaac has no trouble getting his suitcase, leaving Vin none the wiser as he sneaks out and down the stairs, one at a time, to the front door.

As Isaac tests the deadbolt lock to determine which way to turn it to unlock, he hears Vin's mom ask from around the corner, "Is someone leaving?"

Isaac freezes, for some reason immediately feeling guilty and afraid, as if he were doing something explicitly forbidden. As she comes around the kitchen corner in through the dining room, Isaac says, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm sorry. I just need to go, um, wait outside for my m-mom."

"That's fine, dear. No need to be sorry. Just turn the deadbolt to the right -- it's backward from how it seems."

He does so, hearing the satisfying thock of the deadbolt opening. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Sure. It was nice having you over; I know that Vin was happy. Is he awake, by the way?"

"No, ma'am."

"Hm. I'll have to drag his sorry butt out of bed for church if he doesn't get up soon. Anyway, you have a good weekend, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am. I mean, have a good weekend, ma'am." Isaac drags his suitcase out the door as she waves goodbye; as the door closes, he hears the muffled thock of the deadbolt sliding back into place.

The muggy late summer air clings to Isaac like a thin film as he sits out on the front of the driveway. He thinks over and over about what Brandon actually meant, about the possible ways that Vin could be hiding his true intentions, and about the fact that Vin made him do something illegal. In his mind, there are too many pieces to fit together, like the time he accidentally mixed up the pieces of two of his jigsaw puzzles.

It all leaves him feeling uneasy and uncomfortable, but he is ripped out of his reverie by a tickling at his elbow. He looks down to see an orange nose sniffing at him; Mack looks up at him and communicates a feeling of delight and companionship. Isaac smiles, temporarily forgetting his woes as he gently pats the cat's head. After a few pats, it backs its head up and sniffs for a few seconds at Isaac's hand intently, and then headbutts it with an audible purr. Isaac giggles and holds his hand still as Mack walks himself back and forth, petting himself on Isaac's open hand.

Suddenly, the cat stops and stares down the street with its ears cocked forward. Shortly after, Mack turns and trots toward the backyard fence as Isaac catches the sight of headlights rounding the corner of the street where Vin lives. His mother pulls up to the side of the street, and Isaac springs up from the driveway. He rolls the suitcase over and hoists it into the back seat before climbing into the passenger seat himself. He finds himself wishing that his mom won't ask anything about the night, but his wishes are dashed within seconds.

"So how was it?" Mom asks.

"...Good, ma'am," Isaac answers slowly.

"Just 'good'? Did you have fun?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She doesn't ask anything else for a few moments, making Isaac think that the conversation might be over. Instead, she finally asks, "Isaac, is everything okay?"

How does she always know something is wrong?! he ponders. He's not really sure how to answer, though; if he says "no," then he's going to have to explain everything, and he really doesn't want to be in trouble. But he doesn't want to lie, either. He hates having to lie, and not just because he's terrible at it.

"Honey, what happened?" she asks with a certain firmness to her voice. "Did Vin upset you?"

"No! No, ma'am." At least that is true.

"Well, you don't seem very happy. I would expect you to be happier after a wonderful night over at a friend's house. What were some of the things you did?"

Isaac takes a little bit to put this one together. I can tell her some of the things. "Um, we played p-piano, and then we had dinner -- um, no, we had dinner first, and then we played some on the piano, and, um, we talked a lot." His face feels warm thinking about the parts he left out.

Nodding, she replies, "Well, that part sounds pretty good. So why are you upset?"

Isaac freezes. If I tell her what Brandon said, maybe she won't let me go over there anymore. Maybe I won't ever be able to see Vin again. Still, he knows that she won't give up until he says something, so he mutters, "Vin's brother, um, he...he kinda scares me." It is true. Maybe it's enough for her.

"Oh...did he threaten you or bully you?"

"No, ma'am."

"So..." she drags out, "...you just find him scary?"

After a pause, Isaac confirms, "...Yes, ma'am." A pit forms in his stomach.

She nods slowly, but she doesn't say anything in response. After a bit, she says, "Well, if you ever want to talk about anything, anything at all, you know I'm always happy to help you. Right?"

"Right, ma'am."

The rest of the car ride is silent; he hazards a few glances over at his mom's face, but can't read anything about her expression, especially not from a profile view. He likes his new ability, as overwhelming as it can be, but sometimes he wishes he could just trade it for being able to read people's faces like everyone else seems to be able to.

Isaac is still deep in thought about the topic by the time they get home. It has been really nice to know what Vin is feeling all the time, he considers. He has also been putting Vin's facial expressions to the feelings he gets from him, which has helped him learn a bit. But, he reminds himself, Brandon said that Vin "hasn't always been that nice to people...like me." What does that mean, "like me?" Other boys? No...he hangs out with other boys all the time. No, I know better. He means "different." What else could he mean? He knows I'm different. And just like everyone else, he probably is just going to turn on me right when I think he's a good friend.

Isaac goes back and forth with these thoughts, unable to reconcile what he has seen with Vin from what he has been told by Brandon. They haunt him throughout the day, following him into school on Monday, where they occupy him so heavily that he only snaps out of it when Christian practically screams his name.

Mr. Coleman whips his head around from where he is helping one of the other kids. "Christian! You know you're not supposed to yell."

"But Mr. Coleman, but Isaac, but Isaac wasn't listening to me and I wanted to talk to him but he kept not, not listening so I had to, I had to yell at him so that he could hear me when I'm talking to him."

Mr. Coleman and Christian get enveloped in a short argument over the appropriate way to get someone's attention while Isaac calms himself down from being startled. He knows he needs to stop thinking about the problem, but he cannot figure out a way to reset his brain enough to focus it somewhere else. It doesn't help that the next class, reading, has moved on from inferences to mood, yet another thing that Isaac hates trying to figure out in literature.

Mr. Guthrie is decently helpful, though: he sets up a couple of scenarios at the back table for Isaac where Isaac looks at a picture and imagines walking into that scenario, and Isaac has to guess the mood by what he sees. The first one is a party where people are jumping around and laughing, which Isaac easily identifies as "happy." The next one is a kid sitting in his room on his bed with his chin in his hands. Isaac guesses, "Um, he's maybe bored?"

Mr. Guthrie nods, "That's a fair assumption. What makes you think that?"

"Because he's not playing games, and he's sitting like he's bored."

"Okay," he responds, "and just to work on inferences a little more, why do you think he's bored? What do you think caused this?"

Isaac thinks. It's obvious that he's bored because he's not playing games, but Isaac can't figure out why the boy wouldn't be playing games.

After a long enough pause for Isaac to think it out, Mr. Guthrie adds, "What if I said that his friends were right outside playing ball without him? Why would he be here, bored?"

"Because...he doesn't like ball?"

"Let's say it's his favorite thing ever, but he's still here. What might stop him?"

Isaac racks his brains, but he can't think of anything. Eventually, he ventures, "He...maybe he's sick?"

Mr. Guthrie pauses a moment. "I actually hadn't considered that answer. That could definitely be a possibility. What if I told you he broke a lamp just thirty minutes ago? Why would he be in his room?"

"Oh, 'cuz he is in trouble."

"Good. So now let's go back to the very beginning. If you just saw the boy sitting there with his head in his hands, do you see how you could infer that he might be sick, or grounded?"

Isaac considers it. "Maybe?"

Mr. Guthrie smiles. "We'll keep working on it." He stays silent a moment; then asks in a quieter voice, "So, have you learned anything new about your gift?"

It takes Isaac a moment to process what he means. His mind goes back to the last conversation that they had in his office, and he immediately begins to feel uncomfortable. He is unsure what to say, so he relies on his typical response: silence.

"Have you tried it out any since we last talked?"

"Yes, sir," he replies quietly.

"How many people have you tried it with?" he asks. After an uncomfortable silence, he adds, "Let me ask a different question: have you figured out if you can control whether it happens? Is there a way to 'turn it off,' so to speak?"

Isaac shrugs, "I don't know, sir."

"Hmm," Mr Guthrie grunts. "Well, if you would like, we can run a few experiments later on. I can pull you out of this class and we can test a few things out. Maybe I can help you find out more about it."

The thought of figuring out more about his weird ability is interesting to Isaac, but he can't pinpoint why he doesn't want to do that with Mr. Guthrie; even though he thinks Mr. Guthrie is attractive, he just feels...uncomfortable around him.

Without any further words on the subject, Mr. Guthrie goes back to helping Isaac on the idea of mood in literature, but between Brandon's warning and Mr. Guthrie's insistent prodding, Isaac's concentration is broken. He rocks in his seat and only occasionally answers questions so that he doesn't get in trouble. He makes extra sure not to meet Mr. Guthrie's eyes; he doesn't ever plan on doing it again.

After class, he heads to the gym, where he is one of the first into the locker room. He changes out in the stall as usual, but he hesitates before leaving. What if Vin is out there? he thinks. What do I say to him? What if he asks why I left without saying goodbye? Maybe he knows what Brandon told me. These and a swarm of similar thoughts paralyze him in indecision until he hears the coach's whistle to get ready for class. He waits a moment longer until the sounds die down before trailing the boys out into the gym.

The gym is set up in stations; the coach is already dividing up the boys and sending them to different starting stations. Vin catches sight of Isaac and smiles broadly, waving at him and calling out, "Hey!"

Isaac, though, quickly breaks eye contact and walks over to the coach to get a station assignment. He is sent to a station practically on the opposite side of the rotation as Vin, which makes it easier for him not to look over at him. Every urge in his body is to look at Vin, to smile at him and get giddy seeing him smile back, to feel the wash of excited emotions between them...but the suffocating fear of the things that Vin might do to Isaac keeps his eyes cast down to the floor.

Once each group is at their stations, the coach takes a few minutes to explain what each station's rules and procedures are. After that, he blows the whistle -- the sawblade sound makes Isaac jump, even when he expects it -- and everyone begins. The first station Isaac goes to is the frisbee catch. Isaac is pretty terrible at throwing the frisbee, but he is okay at catching it if it comes close to him. After a few throws around the group of boys, one of them says, "Hey, Isaac!"

Isaac looks up to see one of the boys that he was playing ball with during the first week: a smaller, skinny boy with fuzzy, strawberry-blond hair and a broad smile; the light glints off the green-banded braces on the boy's teeth. Once they meet eyes, Isaac feels a sort of general friendliness, a welcoming sort of feeling, mixed with the remnants of recognition. The boy puts his hands up in the air and says, "Throw it to me!" as he stands near the wall of the gym about ten feet away.

Isaac tries, but the frisbee flies wide to the right; the boy sees the trajectory of the frisbee, though, and dashes over to catch it just as it bounces off one of the safety pads on the wall. "I'm sorry!" Isaac calls out.

"It's all good, I caught it," the boy replies. The boy then throws it to another boy that Isaac recognizes from last week's group. Eventually it comes back around to Isaac, who manages to catch the frisbee after it thumps into his chest. It doesn't hurt, but he still staggers a step back, laughing in surprise. The other boys join in the laughter and throw their hands up; Isaac throws it to one of them, but somehow manages to fling it directly at the other boy instead.

"Dang!" the fuzzy-haired boy says. "Nice juke!"

Isaac has no idea what a "juke" is, but he laughs in response anyway. Shortly, the whistle blows, and the boys are off to the next station: jump ropes. Isaac can do jump ropes decently, if slow, but he watches the strawberry blond boy whip the jump rope fast enough to hurt someone as he hops over it again and again. After they both tire themselves out, they hand the ropes to the other two boys and catch their breath.

While they rest, the boy asks Isaac, "So you're friends with Vin Ward, right?"

Isaac takes a moment to think about it. He knows he heard Vin say his last name once on Saturday, but he doesn't associate the name; he's just "Vin" to Isaac. He replies, "Yes..." He realizes he wants to say the boy's name, but once again, he has no idea what it is. He really needs to get better at learning these things.

"That's cool," the boy says with a smile. "Vin's pretty cool; I wish I'd hurry up and get a growth spurt so I could play basketball like he does." He says this while looking off in the distance instead of looking at Isaac, which normally Isaac wouldn't notice, except that he is certain the boy is looking over at Vin.

Isaac takes a moment to gather up the will, but he finally asks, "Um, what's your name?"

The boy stares back at him for a moment, though Isaac is careful not to meet his gaze. "Oh! Sorry. I'm Charlie, and, uh, that's Abdallah -- he goes by 'Dalla' or sometimes 'Dolla Bill.'" He gives a short giggle as he points to one of the boys in the group, a boy with darker skin and a slightly bigger frame, though he's not any taller than Isaac. "We were playing ball the other day with you, remember?"

"Yes...Charlie." He wonders why anybody would call someone a piece of money, but he doesn't question it openly. He decides to ask the more important question, though: "Why were you, um, clapping when I got...when...um, at the fire drill?" He doesn't want to remember it in detail, and it shows in his ability to describe it.

"Oh, uh..." he stammers, "we were just, you know, cheering 'cuz you got out of there. At least, I was. The others were probably clapping 'cuz they saw me and felt like making noise, I dunno."

Isaac gets a pit in his stomach; he knows where this is leading, but he needs to hear it. "But everyone else got out just fine, and I..." I needed someone to save me from a stupid sound and some flashy lights, he finishes in his head.

"It's cool," the boy says. "I got an 'Aspie' brother. I totally get it. He can't deal with loud sounds and things, either."

"What does 'Aspie' mean?" Isaac inquires. He's heard it said before in reference to some of the people in his homeroom, but he doesn't know what it actually means.

"You know. Asperger's. It's like autism, kinda, I guess? I should probably know more about it, but eh. To me, he's just my brother. He's a little different, but it's cool." The other boy, "Dalla," puts down the jump rope and takes a breather; Charlie picks it back up and starts going crazy with it again, whipping it around twice for each single jump he takes.

Different, Isaac muses. It's always back to that. He knows that he has some label according to the school, mostly so he can receive services and be in the homeroom that he's in. The therapist that he goes to a few times a month has also given him some official diagnosis, but Isaac's mom has told him multiple times that the only word she wants him to use to describe himself is "Isaac." Isaac rolls his eyes as he thinks about how impossible that is: "I'm Isaac. I'm an Isaac with Isaac eyes and Isaac hair." But, like it or not, the one word that describes him best is "different."

Still, it seems to him that people either really care that he's different, or they really don't care. There's no middle ground. Charlie and Dalla seem to not care, so that's good, he thinks. Now how does Charlie move the jump rope that fast? He doesn't get a chance to figure it out before the whistle blows to go to the next station: push-ups.

Isaac hates push-ups. Still, he wants to follow directions, so he tries his best and manages to get six of them before he collapses. Charlie pumps out a good fifteen before resting a moment; Dalla does "modified" ones, where he rests on his knees instead of keeping his legs straight, and he still only manages four of them before taking a break. Isaac muses, at least I'm not the worst at something in P.E.

After Charlie goes another round of fifteen and stops to catch his breath, Isaac decides to press the issue further. "Um, why...why are you...nice to me?"

Charlie gives him a weird look, and for a quick moment, Isaac meets him eye-to-eye. He gets a rush of confusion, uncertainty, and the sort of feeling you'd have when looking at a puppy with three legs; he quickly looks away, though, as Charlie answers, "Well, why not?"

"What do you mean?" Isaac asks, intently studying the waxed gym floor.

He replies, "I mean, why not be nice to you? You're not annoying or mean or anything." He shrugs and adds, "Besides, like I said, my brother is that way, so I get it."

"But..." Isaac begins, but realizes he doesn't really have anything to say to that. He agrees with it -- or at least he tries to make sure he's neither annoying nor mean to people. After racking his brain to come up with something that would give him the answer he seeks, all he can produce is, "The only people that are really nice to me are you and my friends, and then Vin."

"Dude, Vin is nice to everyone," Charlie remarks. "He wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless that fly was bothering one of his friends, anyway. Then he'd smash it to bits."

Isaac's eyes widen. "Really?"

"Dude, you remember last year when he got suspended for beating up some kid?"

Isaac doesn't remember this, but the very notion scares him. "No!"

"Yeah!" Charlie says with a smile. "Some stupid kid was making fun of one of Vin's friends, calling him a 'fatass fag,' I think, and Vin told him to stop, right? So the kid keeps going on, and like you could see something snap in Vin. Next thing you know, the other kid suddenly is all face-to-the-floor, gettin' the shit beat out of him. Two teachers had to pull Vin off him...it was insane."

"You just said 'shit.'"

"So did you."

Isaac puts his hands to his mouth, shocked at his own mistake.

Charlie bursts into laughter. "I don't care. Coach does, but whatever."

Isaac is perplexed at how Charlie just somehow doesn't seem to be bothered by anything. Either way, Isaac tries to imagine Vin going berserk on someone; he can't quite picture it, but he wonders if that's what Brandon meant. Maybe Brandon was talking about him not being nice to bullies.

No, Isaac reminds himself, he said "people like you." I'm not a bully. The question is whether Vin did -- or would do -- that to a "different" person.

Isaac falls silent and contemplative for the rest of the stations, only doing enough work to not get yelled at by the coach. At the end of the class, he rushes to get dressed first. The moment he comes out of the stall, though, he sees Vin staring him down from the locker room bench. Their eyes meet and share a flurry of emotions: anxiety, fear, confusion, worry, longing...

"Isaac?" Vin asks over the cacophony of boys.

Isaac approaches him, desperate to ask him what Brandon meant, to talk to him, to have things back to normal, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He thinks for a few more tense moments, but he finally just starts repeating, "I'm sorry," as he hightails it out of the locker room. He hears Vin call his name one last time as he runs down the hallway, but he doesn't look back.

He stops running as he turns the corner, but he walks as fast as he can to his math class. As usual, Mrs. Davis is standing in the hallway. "Good morning, Isaac!" she says cheerfully,

Isaac doesn't stop, though. He utters a hurried, "Good morning, Mrs. Davis," as he power-walks into his classroom and sits down as fast as he can. He hangs his head and rocks in his seat, trying to stop his emotions from boiling over. As others file into the room, he hears a few comments pointed at him, wondering what he's doing or why he's rocking, but he's used to tuning them out by now.

Class begins after the bell rings, and as usual, the teacher essentially leaves him alone. He opens the textbook to the page they're learning from and begins to read, rocking in smaller and smaller oscillations as his nerves calm. He works through a few problems on the page so that if Mr. Crawford needs to see his work, he can show him that he understands. After that, he goes a few pages ahead and begins work on the next topic.

Soon is lunch, and by then, Isaac is once again calm and ready to deal with the crowded lunchroom. He stands in line, trying his best to think about lunch and math, not about Brandon and Vin. The entree choice is between a ham and cheese melt on a pretzel bun, and a very large cheese stick; Isaac doesn't get the appeal of the cheese stick, so his choice is obvious. He gets a side of broccoli and some diced peaches, pays for his meal, and sits down, waiting for Christian to show up.

"Hey, Isaac!" Christian says with a big smile as he sits down with one of those ridiculous cheese sticks and a tray of marinara sauce. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry that I yelled at you this morning. Um, Mr. Coleman wanted me to say sorry since I scared you 'cuz I didn't mean to. I just wanted to, to get you to listen to me, and you, um, you weren't listening to me." He dunks his cheese stick in the sauce and shoves a large chunk into his mouth to punctuate his statement.

Isaac isn't used to people apologizing to him, so he's not sure what to say. "Okay, Christian," is all he can settle on, and it still feels weird. He takes a bite of sandwich to have a reason not to say anything else.

Surprisingly, Christian doesn't immediately launch into more conversation, instead taking some time to devour the cheese stick. It's big enough to take him four bites, so there's a decent window of radio silence before he finally speaks up. "Um, Isaac?"

"Yes, Christian?" he replies after a bite of peaches.

"Do you maybe want to play some Clash Royale after school today? I got a bunch of new cards and I, and I wanted to, I wanted to play some against you and maybe win a lot."

Isaac thinks about it. He would normally go straight to the piano rooms, but even the thought of that today makes him nervous. "Okay, Christian," he says. "Maybe we can do it when w-we get home today."

"Cool!" Christian replies enthusiastically. "I'm gonna beat you so bad!"

"No you won't," Isaac says, smiling. "Your deck is not n-near as good as mine."

"Uh huh! Yes it is!" His voice cracks on the last word. Wide-eyed, he continues, "I got a lot more epic and, and legendary cards, and I leveled my, um, my Miner, so you better watch out!"

"Then I can just put Lava Hound in my deck. Your Miner will go down."

"Well..." Christian stammers, "I'll just Zap it when it dies so that you lose all your lava puppies!"

They banter back and forth for some time about which cards will take out others, what they'll do when the other person casts this spell or summons that creature, and the like. They keep each other occupied for the lunch period; near the end of lunch, Christian says, "So, um, I'll be on after school, so we can play then, okay?"

"Okay, Christian," Isaac says with a smile. "We can play then."

They go to throw their trash away just before the bell rings; Christian and he part ways at the first hallway, where Christian calls out, "I'ma beat you later!" with an excited grin.

Isaac doesn't want to raise his voice over everybody else, so he just shakes his head at Christian with an equally large grin, one edged with competitive spirit. The thought occupies him through history class and into art, until the teacher starts making her rounds, checking on people's progress. She reaches Isaac and asks, "How are you today, Isaac?"

"Good, ma'am," he says, using a ruler to draw perspective lines for today's assignment.

"Did you get a chance to work on the song picture?"

Isaac looks up at her, confused for a moment about what she means, when it suddenly hits him: I didn't even start on it! His jaw drops open and his eyes go wide as he tries to find something to say in his defense; as usual, all he can resort to is repeating, "I'm sorry!" over and over.

"Isaac," she says with furrowed eyebrows and the tiniest start of a smile on her face, "it's okay. It's not a regular assignment, so it wasn't 'due' or anything. I just want you to work on it in your free time."

"But, but I said I was going to do it, ma'am," Isaac says, arguing against himself. "I can, I can do it tonight!"

Ms. Hobbes kneels down and looks at his face; he stares intently at his desk, unwilling to let her feel his shame. She quietly explains, "Isaac, you're overreacting. I want you to take your time on it. Why don't you start it tonight, and then you can take as long as you want on it, as long as you keep working on it a little bit each day?"

Isaac looks around at the floor and his desk, tossing the idea around. "Yes, ma'am," he decides. "I can start it tonight."

"Good," she says with a nod and a smile. "I'm excited to see how it looks." She gets up and goes to another table as Isaac files that assignment away in his head for when he gets home.

The rest of school is uneventful; as Isaac is on his way out, he calls his mom.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mom. I don't want to stay to play p-piano."

There is a pause on the line. "Oh. Uh, okay. Do you want me to come pick you up now?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Okay. I'll be there in a little bit."

"Thank you, Mom."

"Love you."

"I love you too, Mom." He hangs up his phone and puts it quickly in his pocket, heading outside to wait.

On the way home, his mom starts out the typical inquisition with, "So how was school?"

"Good, Mom."

"Did you get a chance to see your new friend, Vin?"

Isaac pauses. Is he still my friend? he asks himself. He debates this idea for far longer than the typical response time.

His mom waits for a while; when she gets no response, she asks slowly, "Isaac? What's going on?"

Isaac doesn't understand what she means, so he doesn't reply. She probably knows everything that happened, he guesses. She always knows.

She sighs. "Isaac, I know you're growing up and becoming more independent, but all of a sudden I feel like you're hiding things from me. You've never done that before. It makes me feel..." she trails off. Sighing again, she adds, "I just want to make sure you're okay. I'm worried about you, Isaac."

"I'm sorry," he mutters. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Please just remember that you can talk to me. I promise that, whatever it is, I won't judge you."

"Yes, ma'am." He's not sure what to make of that comment, but he knows how he's supposed to answer.

They make it home under an oppressive blanket of silence. Nothing more is said about the day, or about Vin; instead, Isaac goes to his room and waits on Clash Royale for Christian to log in. They play for a few hours straight, right up until dinner time -- Isaac still wins most of the games, but Christian does manage to beat him twice. He's going to talk about that all day tomorrow, Isaac laments as he makes his way to the bathtub after dinner.

He starts out his bath with no intention of masturbating or anything of the sort. In fact, when his mind drifts to those thoughts, Vin is at the forefront, and it sends a wave of fear and guilt through Isaac; he immediately tries to put something else in his mind in an attempt to forget those thoughts entirely. He thinks of the beautiful colors and cascades of the Arabesque, and he gasps when he remembers he was going to start that up tonight. I can do some of it after my bath, he reassures himself.

He washes his body, but when he gets to his hair, his mind is once again filled with thoughts of Vin running his hands softly against the grain, electrifying every nerve in his scalp and instantly leaving him fully erect. He stops and analyzes the moment. I really did enjoy when Vin did that, he considers, and Vin seemed to really like doing it. He runs his hand along the bristly, short hair on the side of his head, closing his eyes and imagining that Vin is the one doing it, looking into Isaac's eyes and exploring the feeling with him. The excitement of the feeling quickens his breath and sends an urgent call to his groin, begging for attention.

But he's a bully! Isaac's mind asserts. He beat people up and was not nice to other people!

Yes, he thinks in response, but he was defending that one boy, and he defended me, too. I haven't seen him ever bully anyone.

Isaac contemplates a new thought: Can a bully change? Can someone become nice? The thought gives him pause. He had never considered that people could change so dramatically, but maybe Vin was actually a bully in the past. Isaac thinks back through the week and realizes that Vin never once seemed like he was going to make fun of Isaac or play a trick on him; the only thing he has that points to Vin being anything but a nice person is what Brandon said, and what Charlie said about Vin beating up a bully. He doesn't think either one would lie to him; why would they?

Eventually, the confusion of the entire thing wears him out, and he makes a brash decision: I'm going to ask him about it tomorrow. Hopefully Vin will tell him the truth and he won't have to worry about all this confusing, contradictory talk.

But...what if it makes him mad at me? he wonders. Maybe I might upset him. The thought itself upsets Isaac a bit, leaving him nervous about the idea. But I have to know!

Isaac sighs and clears his mind; his brain is too full, and he is tired of thinking about it. Instead, he looks down at his semi-hard erection and decides that it is a better use of his attention at the moment. Thinking about his penis itself is enough to get it hard, and he begins to think of a few of the events from that night: the moment that Vin enveloped his penis with his hand; the feel of his thumb slowly rubbing against the sensitive underside; the feeling of that combined with his ultra-gentle touch, slowly climbing up the back of his neck and exciting the hairs --

Isaac reflexively hunches over, managing to shoot his nose with the first volley of mostly-clear semen. The second one shoots out half as high, landing in the bath water, and the next few dribble down his hand. It's more than he's used to seeing himself produce; as he relishes the ecstasy of orgasm, he idly wonders if it's because he's growing more, or just what he was thinking about, that made him shot so much. He does know that if he keeps up that kind of orgasm, he'll end up with sore abdominal muscles.

It takes a moment for his head to clear from the euphoria, so he takes a final moment to think about things. I hope he still likes me, especially after today, he thinks. I bet he thinks I hate him now, since I kept running from him. I just hope he'll talk to me still; then I can find out why Brandon said what he did about Vin. He wipes the glob of semen off his nose, giggling a bit at having shot himself like that -- the forehead is one thing, but that almost went up his nose -- and gets to washing his hair for real.

After the bath, Isaac carefully pulls out the sheet of canvas from his binder and the acrylic paints and brushes from his backpack. Getting some earbuds from his room, he sits at the kitchen table and listens to the "Shevat" song again on his phone. He closes his eyes and explores the soundscape that the flowing piano song creates before him. When it finishes, he looks at his canvas and decides to create a single scene that encompasses most of the different elements of the song: light blue sparkles in the top left to show the intro, with a sinuous indigo line for the left hand. To the right of that, he slashes across the page with green lines to show the emerald rain falling down on the beige waves of the accompaniment near the bottom of the sheet. He adds in a golden-yellow swirling wind to represent the soaring melody in the chorus, having it dance about as the melody itself does. By this point, he doesn't have much room for the rest of the song, so he contents himself with having illustrated the first half of the song. To give it some depth, he spends a half-hour shading it in with a pencil to look more like a nighttime scene. He manages to go through quite a bit of pencil, sharpening it over and over to keep a usable tip. Eventually, he has a complete synesthetic scene of the first half of "Shevat, the Wind is Calling."

He takes a moment to examine his work. Isaac stares for a while, wondering why it looks nothing like the song in his mind. For a brief moment, he considers tearing it up and trying again, but he cannot come up with how he could possibly recreate the images in his mind. What he has drawn, he figures, is the closest he will get. Oh well, he thinks with a sigh, I'll turn it in and see what Ms. Hobbes thinks. Hopefully it's good enough.

As he is holding the artwork up to examine it, his mom walks in from the living room. "Paints?" she asks. "You're being careful not to make a mess, right, honey?"

Panicking, Isaac quickly flips over the paper plate he was using for an easel and covers his work. "Yes, ma'am," he mumbles.

His mom gently flips the paper plate over, moving it out of the way so that it doesn't get unintended paint on the picture. "You don't need to be ashamed of it," she tells him with a soft, smooth tone of voice. "You are an amazing artist, honey. May I ask what it is?"

He can't think of a single thing to say about it for an agonizing moment, but he finally says, "It's an ansign--ans--an a-assignment for art class." He silently berates himself for stuttering so badly. An awkward moment passes where he desperately hopes she won't ask him to explain it to her. His therapist knows about the synesthesia, but he's never spoken directly to his mom about it...and he really doesn't want to have that conversation.

"This is beautiful, Isaac!" she says breathily as she examines his work. "Do you have a title for it?"

"Not yet, Mom," he replies. Thinking about it, he changes his mind and says, "Actually, I--I think I will call it 'Wind.' No...um, 'Shevat.'" It's as good a name as any, and Isaac hates coming up with titles for things.

"Shevat?" his mom asks, pronouncing the word differently than Isaac did. "Like the Jewish month?"

Isaac's eyebrows shoot up. "There are Jewish months?"

"Well," she responds, "if you didn't know that, why are you calling it 'Shevat'?"

"Oh, um, because it's the name of a song." His cheeks grow red as he waits for the inevitable conversation topic to spring up.

"Oh," she says, and pauses, looking at nothing in particular. "I'd like to hear the song, sometime, if you would play it for me. I'd like to know what made you make such a brilliant work of art."

Isaac smiles in spite of himself. He knows his work isn't "brilliant," even though she likes to call it words like that. "Yes, ma'am," he says, unplugging his earbuds from his phone and rewinding the song. As he plays the song for her, she takes a seat at the table and listens silently throughout the song.

When the song finishes, Isaac looks at his mom; she is staring out the back door through misty eyes with a small smile on her face. He immediately grows concerned. "Mom? Did I make you cry? I'm sorry!"

"No, dear," she says with a bigger smile, wicking the tears from her eyes with a finger. "I'm not upset. Sometimes people shed tears when they see or hear something beautiful, or remember something intensely happy."

Isaac logs the info away for later use, but isn't sure how to apply it here. Equally concerned and confused, he asks, "So why are you...why did you shed tears?"

"Just thinking how much your father would have loved that song, and the name of it, too."

Isaac stays silent. It is a rare thing that Isaac's mother talks about his father, and it's usually only enough to state some relevant fact before moving on. He wonders why she would bring him up now.

She continues, "You know, your painting looks like something he would have 'seen' when he listened to good music. I know that sounds strange, but..."

Isaac practically stands up in his chair. "He had synsethe -- syn-es-the-sia?!"

His mother blinks silently for a moment at Isaac. "Yes, he did...How do you know about synesthesia?"

With an overwhelming feeling of equal parts excitement, belonging, and wonder, Isaac exclaims, "I have that!" Pointing to his panting (and smudging a section accidentally), he explains, "Th-this picture is my, um, what I see when I hear that song! This part up here is the beginning, where it's like there are stars, and then this is the second part of the song, um, and then, and then down here is the part that is in the bottom, the uh, the left hand, and--and then this is the end of that part of the song. The first half."

He looks to his mom, whose eyes are completely full of tears. He doesn't get why what he said would make her cry, and for a moment, he begins to panic. The moment is cut short, though, when she lunges forward and pulls Isaac in for a lung-squishing hug. "Isaac, you have no idea what that means to me," she says over his shoulder with a wavering voice. "You really are your father's son."

Well, of course I am my father's son, he thinks. Who else's son could I be? He hugs his mom back, if for no other reason than to help her stop crying. He knows she said she's not upset, but he can't help but feel partially guilty for making her cry. After a long moment of hugging, he says through her shoulder, "So...you don't think I'm, um, weird for seeing sings -- um, seeing s-songs?"

She releases him and smiles broadly, though her eyes are still welled with tears. "No, honey. Of course I don't. Your father was the same way; he was even doing research into it." She laughs, wiping away her tears. "Imagine how thrilled he would be if he knew his own son was like him."

He doesn't have a ready answer to her and can't imagine something about a person he never met, so he stays silent for a while. Eventually, he asks, "Um, Mom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Why do you never talk about him?"

"Well," she says, taking a deep breath, "I didn't want you to feel like you were missing anything in your life. I wanted you to feel like having me around was enough, not like you were...well. It's not important." There is a pregnant pause in the conversation, with Isaac unaware of what to say in response. Eventually, his mother says, "Well, I don't want to keep you from finishing your work, and it's getting close to your bedtime, anyway. You don't want to stay up too late."

"No, ma'am." He wants to know more about his dad, but he doesn't want to reopen the issue for fear of making his mom cry again. "Um, I'm done, though," he says as he starts to gather the supplies up. She helps him cap everything cleanly and put away the mess; she gets a plastic bag for him to carry the picture back to school in so that he doesn't mess up the texture or anything before he gets it to art class.

Later on, as he is lying in bed, he thinks about the whole episode. Mom is sad about my father, he considers, so that means she maybe misses him or liked him. Married people are supposed to like each other, so I bet they did. On one hand, Isaac wishes he had met his father and maybe seen how he interacted with his mother; Isaac figures that it would be better if his father were still around, if he made Mom happy.

On the other hand, though, Isaac feels no void or longing when he thinks about his father; he merely feels curiosity, a curiosity deepened by the conversation today. Until now, his father was merely the vehicle by which he was conceived, the sperm to his egg, nothing more. His mother had said a few things here and there about him, but in Isaac's mind, he may as well have simply left after his job was done and nothing would have changed. Now, though, Isaac wonders how much his dad really had to do with things. He wonders, If my father had synesthesia, did he pass it genetically to me? Is it even genetic? Was it maybe a random chance? He spends some time wondering about whether the chance would have been more or less than getting struck by lightning; since he's never known of anyone else with synesthesia -- except, now, his father -- he figures it's actually less likely than the one-in-seven-hundred-thousand chance to be struck by lightning, though he knows that there have to be at least a few more people out there like him.

He lies in bed wondering what his dad was like. He remembers once when Mom said he was the "spitting image" of his father -- it took a bit of explaining later to stop him from crying, thinking that his mother had insulted him. She explained what it meant, and that he's still the cutest boy she's ever seen, regardless of how he views himself. By that logic, Isaac surmises, his father must also have been cute, at least to his mom. He can't figure much more out before he starts falling asleep; his last thoughts are of whether his dad would like the "Shevat" song because he would see the same things as Isaac or not, and how if anyone makes fun of him for seeing colors, at least he knows that he's not as different as he thought he was.

To be continued...

Author's note: It’s great to be back writing again; I assure you that these stories will not end, though they may take a back seat when the road of life gets too bumpy. But enough of that; let’s get to the important question – when will Isaac trust Vin again? How is that going to work out? Find out sometime (hopefully soon) in Chapter 7!