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 8

Tuesday morning starts out well: Isaac does not have a "wet dream," his clothes are all in order, and the french toast sticks he has for breakfast at school are easily divisible into thirds. He says the pledge in homeroom, listens to Christian prattle on about the games they played, and heads over to reading class, where Mr. Guthrie is waiting at the back table. Days like these, even those including Mr. Guthrie, give Isaac a great deal of comfort in their rock-steady adherence to routine.

Isaac immediately sits next to Mr. Guthrie, but he does not look anywhere close enough to his face to see what emotion he may be displaying; all he knows is that Mr. Guthrie's shirt has a slightly thicker-looking fabric than normal, and that it looks purple most of the time, but there's a blue shimmer right at the crests of the ripples in the fabric as he moves. Isaac would be happy staring at the shirt, and the chest that it covers, for a very long time, if not for Mr. Guthrie's deep voice breaking him out of his reverie. "Good morning, Isaac."

"Good morning, Mr. Guthrie."

"I apologize that I was not here yesterday; they had me watching another class since the substitute teacher didn't show up." He shuffles some papers inside of a manila folder he has in front of him, pulling up a packet with all sorts of columns, numbers, and paragraphs on it. "So I was reviewing your education plan, and I will be recommending some changes to your reading goals for the year. Your annual review meeting is up in two weeks, and I will discuss them then. Are you familiar with what that is?"

Isaac replies, "Kind of, sir." He knows it's when a bunch of his teachers and his mom get together and talk about him, and then barely anything happens as a result.

"Well, this year, since you're 13, you're invited to join the meeting. That means you get to advocate for yourself. Do you understand what 'advocate' means?"

"'Advocate' means to speak for someone, sir. So I get to speak for myself."

"Essentially, yes. So if you think that we are making a decision that won't be helping you, you can ask us to change it."

"Yes, sir." He hasn't the first idea of what they would even say, so he can't imagine what he would say in a meeting like that. Just thinking of being seated at a table with a bunch of adults is harrowing to Isaac.

"Now, with that in mind, I have some different things I'd like to work on with you, to assess your abilities on other cognitive skills in reading."

Isaac spends the class period re-reading the story they read last class and writing a summary of it, and Mr. Guthrie checks over his work. When he finishes reading Isaac's work, he comments, "This is a solid summary of the story, though we can work on making it a bit more brief in some spots and more detailed in others. It's clear, though, that you read and understand the events of the story."

"Thank you, sir." He feels a little proud at actually having done something satisfactorily in reading class on the first attempt.

"Certainly," he says, and Isaac sees him nod through the shadow he casts on the table. "So if I were to ask you what a theme in this story is, would you know what I'm asking for?"

Isaac replies slowly, "A theme is...like a lesson we can learn from the story, or, um, like a thing th-that it talks about." Sadly, the concept makes as much sense to Isaac as his explanation sounds.

"That's a decent working definition to start, sure. So at the start of the story, the girl is left out of the boys' basketball games. Why did they do that?"

"They did that because...they said she was just a girl and girls can't play basketball."

"Good. What happened at the end with the girl?"

"She became a professional basketball player."

"So what lesson do you think we can learn, here?"

Isaac ponders it. He considers remaining silent, but it seems that Mr. Guthrie is waiting for him to try to answer, so he eventually says, "The lesson is that...girls can play basketball, too?"

"That's...close. Not bad. When we talk about themes, though, they're usually big things, not just basketball. If we wanted to make that statement more universal, so that everyone could benefit from it, not just basketball players, what lesson could we possibly draw from this story?"

After a protracted silence from Isaac, Mr. Guthrie finally says, "You can use this sentence stem: 'Girls can...'"

"Girls can...do anything boys can do?"

"Bingo," he says in a sing-song voice, and Isaac feels flush with accomplishment. "The story is about a girl playing basketball, but that's just the topic. The theme is that girls can do anything boys can do...and they can possibly even be better at whatever it is. Do you see how the story is trying to teach us that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. You're doing quite well so far this year. I'll be happy to report as such in your annual review."

As the bell rings, Isaac leaves class with a rare sense of pride at his work. He even considers briefly that maybe Mr. Guthrie isn't that bad of a person. Everything he's done has been trying to help Isaac, as far as he can tell. Isaac doesn't know exactly how to feel about all of it, but he at least leaves reading class with a positive attitude.

In the locker room, Isaac notices that Juan isn't there. A gnawing pit in his stomach burns as Isaac worries about him: is he okay? Is he going to be able to come back to school? Did he...

"Isaac, my man!" he hears over the herd of boys; Vin walks in and gives Isaac the slap-and-tap, much to Isaac's delight. "How's it going?"

"Good, Vin." Distracted enough, and feeling comfortable enough with Vin sitting next to him on the bench, Isaac throws caution to the wind and takes his shirt off right there in the locker room, rather than his private stall. He folds it up nicely, doing the same with his khaki pants after taking off his shoes and placing each of his socks neatly atop the correct shoe. When he's finally down completely to his briefs, he reaches into his locker, pulling out his gym clothes...which have a pair of sunglasses sitting on top of them. He puts his clothes down delicately, as if the glasses were some sort of primed explosive, and stares at the unexpected item in confusion.

Vin furrows his brow and reaches over, grabbing the sunglasses off of Isaac's clothes. "Whose are these?" he asks nobody in particular, turning them one way and the other. "Are these yours, Isaac?"

"No, Vin," Isaac says, sitting back down and slipping his gym shirt on.

"Huh," he says finally. "I guess we can...turn 'em into Lost and Found, or just give 'em to the coach. Weird. Maybe someone just put 'em in the wrong locker."

Isaac tries to construct a scenario in his mind where that would make sense, but he can't even figure out why there would be sunglasses in the gym at all. There's no sun to be seen -- or not seen, for that matter.

The thought doesn't bother him any more than just a nagging distraction, though, so he folds up his school clothes and puts them up. He turns back around and catches the eyes of Grease-Hair Boy, but the boy looks down at his own shoes almost immediately, messing with his laces. As Isaac watches the boy tie his shoes, Isaac is forcefully reminded of being different, but the thought doesn't last long before it is sliced into pieces by the coach's whistle.

Gym class itself goes decently, with various fitness stations like they often do. Isaac is intentionally careful with his stretching, making sure only to go as far down as others do, so that he doesn't draw much attention. Charlie ends up in the station group after him, whereas Vin is a few ahead. Dalla, though, is in Isaac's group; they partner up for crunches, and while Isaac is going first (dear Lord, does he hate the burn that crunches give him), Dalla smiles down at him from over Isaac's bent knees. "Hey, just wanted to say that that was really awesome what you did yesterday."

Isaac looks at Dalla's eyes for a moment, and in his chocolate-brown eyes, Isaac experiences respect, curiosity bordering on intrigue, and a light touch of dread. "Thank you -- nnrgh -- Dalla," Isaac grunts as he tries to pull one last crunch in before his abs give up entirely. He lies with his arms splayed out beyond his head, breathing deep to get his abs to uncramp.

The coach blows a short stab of the whistle, and calls out, "One minute, then rotate!"

Isaac knows that means to switch partners, so he sits up (with a bit of struggle) and puts his hands and knees on Dalla's shoes, who lays back and starts up his crunches. He gets only half as far as Isaac before he falls backwards with a heavy exhalation. Dalla takes a deep breath and sighs. "Crunches suck." Isaac smiles in agreement. Dalla attempts one or two more after a short break, but the whistle cuts his efforts short.

As the rotations go around, Isaac occasionally catches a glance of Vin doing activities, either jumping rope (though not as fast as Charlie) or doing jumping jacks or the like. He's just glad that Vin is being nice to him still, even though he technically never really was mean; rationally, Isaac knows this, though in his mind, there was a period of time about a day long where Vin was mean and didn't like him. Try as he might, he can't seem to shake the fear that that scenario may someday take place. As that thought inserts its tendrils into Isaac's consciousness, slowly turning his thoughts to anxiety, he catches Vin's gaze; even from across the room, without his glasses on, he can see and feel the momentary relief and happiness from Vin, and it gives him the strength to shut those absurd notions up.

At the end of class, Isaac remembers that he had left the sunglasses on the bench, but even though he's one of the first back into the locker room, they're nowhere to be seen. He supposes the coach probably picked them up; the thought doesn't go any further as he dresses back into regular clothes. Once Vin has his shoes back on as well, Isaac asks, "Do you want to play p-piano with me in the practice rooms today?"

"Actually, I, uh, got tutorials in history class today," he says with that weird half-smile. "Gotta keep my grades up for athletics, yeah?"

Isaac looks down, crestfallen. "Yeah, Vin."

"Hey, maybe tomorrow, though?"

Isaac huffs a bit, but nods.

"Have a good day, man!" he says as he gets up and heads out.

"Have a good day, Vin." He waves, but another kid has already diverted Vin's attention; he's another tall one, not as tall as Vin, but he's one of the boys that's always playing basketball with Vin during free time. Black tendrils weave through Isaac's ribs, giving off equal portions of fear and frustration as Isaac wends his way through the crowd to math class.

Still not a lot happens throughout the rest of the day regarding Juan's emergency trip; Isaac doesn't hear any news, and nobody mobs his lunch table asking questions, like he expected would happen. It almost always happens in movies and stories that he's watched and read, so he finds himself stuck between feeling uncertain that they won't still show up, and disappointed somehow that they haven't. It's not that he wants to talk to a bunch of people asking a ton of questions all at once -- he'd rather be stabbed -- but he can't help but feel like the movies lied to him. It's a bothersome thought, but not one that he can hold onto for long while Christian incessantly fills the lunchtime air with chatter.

The rest of the day goes by, and Isaac calls his mom to pick him up instead of going to the piano rooms; Juan wasn't here today, and Vin is in tutorials, so Isaac just decides it's not worth staying. At home, his mind is occupied with the feelings of jealousy that he gets when thinking about Vin hanging out with other friends. He can't pinpoint why he has them, yet, but he definitely knows that any other sort of jealousy he's had before didn't feel like this. He had had friends in years past who would go play with other people instead of him sometimes, and he would feel...more mad than anything else. Indignant, perhaps. Upset that he didn't get to have fun. This is completely different; Isaac knows that, until he can figure out why, it's going to bother him. 

*** 

Wednesday morning, Isaac is up and prepared for school a half-hour early, to make it for the meeting and still have time for breakfast. He feels less anxious about the broken routine than about the meeting; his mom talked him through the routine change, and he internalized it enough to feel that he had control over it. Mom makes a quick eggs, bacon, and toast breakfast -- with his toast cut into three strips -- with the explanation that "I want you to feel nothing but full and proud. Heroes don't get to go hungry today." Isaac gets bacon, so Mom can have whatever reason she wants.

They arrive at the school a few minutes before the scheduled time; Isaac sits with his mother in the office, staring at a painting of five kids of mixed gender and ethnicity, all with weird hairstyles and clothes. Isaac assumes they were probably painted before he was born.

"Stop picking your finger."

Isaac looks down, noticing his unconscious habit, and clenches his fists. "I'm sorry, Mom." He looks around the room, dying to find something to occupy him in any way whatsoever; the only sound, the occasional rustle of paper behind the front desk, does little to calm Isaac's nerves. With a lack of any other significant sensory input, he takes to humming the "Shevat" song as quietly as he can. He certainly can't imitate the emerald rains, but the melody itself isn't too hard. At least, until the highest note; at one point, he would have been able to reach it just fine, if a bit squeaky, but the note just isn't there anymore. He tries to make sounds up there, but all that comes out is a hoarse, atonal squeak.

"What are you doing, dear?" his mom asks quietly.

"I was trying to sing a note, but I can't."

A smile stretches across her face, but she just says, "The others should all be here, soon. Just sit tight."

He gets the "sit" part, but he doesn't get to contemplate the rest of it as the office door opens, revealing Juan and his parents, followed immediately by the Wards. Isaac lights up at the sight of Vin, and is pretty happy to see Juan, as well. The twinkle in Juan's eyes brings with it a deep gratitude and satisfaction, with a bit of nerves vibrating underneath it all; Vin's mismatched gaze tells a story of pride, flowing both inward and outward, but there's a touch of something else, the feeling Isaac might get if someone tried to mess with his food at lunch; paired with it is a warmth around Isaac's eye, as if...

Then Isaac notices that the area around Vin's blue eye is discolored. Isaac gasps, standing quickly. "Vin!" he cries out, "you hurt your eye!" He walks over quickly to him to see it better; as he does, he feels a rush of bashfulness, a fleeting moment of anger, and that signature relief feeling he often seems to feel from Vin.

Vin rolls his eyes, breaking contact, and smiles. "Well, not technically, but yeah, I have a black eye. No big deal; I've gotten worse from basketballs." His mother glances at him, and he looks at her for a quick moment as well. Turning back to Isaac, he looks barely into his eyes and then quickly toward the carpet, saying, "We can talk about it later, yeah? Let's go get the meeting started."

Isaac takes a moment to ponder why they call it a black eye when the eye itself doesn't change color at all, and even the area around it is more blue and purple, or maybe even yellow and green like his nose looked the other day, but definitely not black. They don't call it a "black nose" or a "black arm" when you get bruised elsewhere, either; it just doesn't make sense.

"Hey, Isaac," Juan says, his voice sounding back to its regular raspy timbre.

Isaac, in his concern for Vin, had nearly forgotten that Juan was here. "Oh. Hi, Juan," he says, looking near him and waving. Juan waves back, smiling; Isaac hazards a glance at his jet-black eyes and feels amusement and gratitude, with a low bubble of nervousness.

The receptionist leads the group into a conference room with a long, oval table and fancy rolling chairs. The walls are lined with bookshelves filled with binders, but Isaac cannot figure out what most of them are for; many of them have some acronym and a year range as their only title, while others just have a series of numbers. The receptionist, a younger lady with dark brown hair pulled into a bun, begins saying something in Spanish. It takes Isaac by surprise, though he's aware that there are many students at the school whose parents do not speak English. Juan's family nods and sits halfway down the table; then, she turns to everyone else and gestures toward the other side. "Please, have a seat. The principal will be here shortly." She herself takes a seat directly in the middle of the side facing Juan's family, and the other families flank her. Isaac makes sure that his mother sits between him and the receptionist, for comfort's sake.

For a minute, there's just some small talk among the members of each family. Isaac is fascinated by Juan's fluent Spanish as he responds to his parents; he doesn't sound like he has an accent or anything when he speaks English, either. Shortly, though, the principal finally comes in and has a seat at the head of the table. "Good morning, everyone," he says with a big smile, "I'm very happy to have called this meeting, if for no other reason than that for once it's good news." The parents and others laugh a little bit; Isaac just stares at the table and listens. "So as you know, Juan had a life-threatening emergency happen in gym class a few days ago, and thanks to the quick actions of these two fine gentlemen here, he has had a full recovery and is ready to get back to school. He and the family wanted to say a few words first, though; Ms. Cynthia Rodriguez will translate for us."

Juan's mother, a short, round woman with a similar hairstyle to the receptionist -- though significantly grayer -- begins talking, taking occasional pauses for the receptionist, Ms. Rodriguez, to translate what she's said. "A million thanks for saving my son's life," she begins. "When we got the phone call that he was taken to the emergency room, we were so afraid -- we didn't know what happened at all. We found out there that Juan had an allergic reaction, but he had never had one in his life before, or we didn't think so. The doctor said that it was a strong reaction, that if the two boys didn't do something, he...would have died." She stops; Isaac looks up to see her eyes shut tight and her lower lip quivering. She takes a shuddering breath and adds in a wavering voice, "God has sent two angels down to watch my boy. Thank you, God!" She breaks down in tears. Juan, who is between his parents, gently places a hand on her shoulder, but Isaac can see that his eyes have tears in them, too.

"Isaac is the real hero," Vin points out. "I was runnin' the Pacer test still, so I didn't see what was happening until like everybody started crowding around Juan. Isaac is the one who called out to Coach when he noticed it."

Isaac, unable to see Vin through all the adults in the way, huddles up in his chair, grabbing his legs. He really doesn't want to be a hero, because then people start paying attention to him, and that's just way too many eyes. He feels his mother's hand rest lightly on his back, and he exhales, not even realizing he was holding his breath.

Juan speaks up, in English. "The doctor said that allergies can still happen at 12 or even later. He also said that it's kind of rare, but sometimes people don't get allergic reactions unless they eat something they're allergic to and then go exercise, so they think maybe I've been allergic to peanuts, but I just never exercised afterward. He called it some really long name, but it's a thing, apparently."

"Wow, weird," Vin comments. "But you're all good now, yeah?"

"Yeah, except that I'm never gonna eat another Snickers bar." He giggles a low, raspy laugh. When Isaac looks back up, he sees the smile shrink on Juan's face. "But really, guys. Thank you."

The principal nods. "On behalf of the school and of the Loyola family, I extend our gratitude and pride that we have such fine, upstanding young men at our school. We're working on proper recognition, but for now, it's close to class time. Thank you all for being here; as I understand it, the Loyolas would like to thank each of you personally."

Juan's family goes into the hallway. As each person leaves, each of the Loyolas shakes their hand and says thank you in either English or Spanish (Isaac at least knows the word "Gracias"). When it comes to Isaac, The father shakes his hand, Juan shakes his hand, but the mother pulls him in for a deep hug. Isaac makes a strange, surprised squeak, which makes the other boys laugh, but the mother pays no mind. She breaks the hug and looks Isaac directly in the eyes; the feeling of love and gratitude is overwhelming to Isaac. Isaac does notice, though, that her eyes are the same deep, dark, almost-black color as Juan's. She gently cups Isaac's cheek with one hand as a tear courses down her own, and she says, "Mi ángel."

Isaac does not respond, instead looking away from the strong emotions as soon as she removes her hand and continuing down the hall after the others. He hears Juan saying something in Spanish as the door closes behind him. Outside the office, his mother says, "See how good you made her feel?"

"Yes, ma'am, but I made her cry."

"Those were tears of joy. We've talked about that before."

Isaac is aware of the concept, and he did realize when he looked into her eyes that she didn't feel any sort of sadness, but the idea of someone crying when they're not sad still eludes him. "Yes, ma'am," he replies simply.

She gives him a quick hug. "Have a good day at school, honey."

"Have a good day at, um...have a good day, Mom."

Despite the uncomfortable, different opening to the day, the real start to the day goes by somewhat smoothly. Nothing exciting happens in reading class, just Mr. Guthrie guiding Isaac on more literary principles. In gym, Juan's friends are happy to see him back in gym class, and he even jokes a bit about peanuts being poison. The sunglasses are still gone, too, which is a major relief to Isaac.

Back in the locker room, Isaac sits next to Vin while changing back in. When he's finished, he asks, "Vin?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you busy today, after school?"

"Wednesday practice," he nods.

"Oh." Isaac sighs. "Oh!" he remembers, "um, do you want to maybe come over on the weekend? Mom said that she would like to maybe do something like a movie or dinner, or something." He thinks that was everything she said, though when she said it, it didn't sound so stupid.

He gets that look where his lips look sad but his eyebrows go up, rather than down. Suddenly, Isaac finally realizes where he's seen that look before, the same one that was on Mrs. Hobbes' face, too: there was this meme he's seen online a few times, where Barack Obama has the same facial expression with the caption "NOT BAD." He wonders if that's what the expression means, and if so, does that mean that the idea of coming over is "not bad"? Was that what Mrs. Hobbes was thinking when he first described his synesthesia to her?

Vin breaks Isaac out of his reverie with, "Yeah, sure, that sounds fun." He gets a big smile as he looks at Isaac, holding out his hand. "Saturday movie day."

Isaac gives him the slap-and-tap and grins back at Vin, who sends a stream of amusement and excitement through their connected gazes. "See you then, Vin!" Isaac says.

Vin narrows his eyes a bit, the amusement growing. "See you then, Isaac," he says with a full-on grin that looks to Isaac almost like a laugh waiting to happen.

The day passes by quickly, and Isaac stops by the piano rooms for the first time in a while, if only to run through the songs he's learned recently. His fingers maintain their memory almost perfectly, as if they belonged to another mind entirely; Isaac almost feels as if he is just listening to his hands play his favorite song, with almost no direct interaction with them. He realizes how silly the idea is, but just for a tiny bit, he can almost pretend that his hands belong to someone else -- or no one else at all, their own free agents, making beautiful music just for Isaac to hear and see.

Between songs, he looks out the windows in the doors on each side of the room, half-expecting to see someone looking in, but everything is quiet. When Isaac runs out of songs to play through, the silence begins to get heavier and heavier, until he finally takes a walk just to escape the oppressive ringing of silence. He calls his mom and gets a ride home, super excited for the idea of Vin coming to his place this Saturday. 

*** 

Isaac wakes up before his alarm on Thursday, instantly putting him on alert. He puts a hand down his pajamas to check for nocturnal emissions, but everything checks out as normal, including the "morning wood" he often seems to have. He spends a minute lazily playing with himself, wondering how long he has until the alarm goes off.

The stimulation, though, sends feelings and desires to his brain, preventing him from going back to sleep. He sits up in his bed, staring at his erection, feeling more than usual like he needs to "cum"; he was going to get used to using that term, since Vin pointed out that he sounded weird calling it anything else. Eyeing the door and listening carefully to make sure his mother didn't break routine for whatever reason, he closes his eyes and lets his mind wander to the first thing that interests it. As is almost always the case, Vin is the first thing on his mind. He imagines Vin carrying him again, thinks back to the time they had...did it count as sex? he asks himself. Well, the time we masturbated together, he decides to call it. Either way, watching Vin's face contort as he started ejaculating, seeing the semen pooling up around Vin's fingers as he stroked upward, all of it excites Isaac pretty quickly along the path to orgasm.

Then he remembers Vin's black eye, and a pang of worry shoots through him. Did he get in a fight? Was it with Brandon? I know he was mad at Brandon...I hope everything is okay. Brandon is scary. With a sigh, Isaac pushes the thought out of his mind; quickly, it's replaced with Juan and his onyx-black eyes and dark black hair. He thinks it's kind of naughty to imagine since he doesn't know Juan all that well, but he thinks about playing with Juan's hair, the short, bristly side and the back of it. He tries to imagine what Juan's face might look like if he did it, but it's hard to resolve the idea in his mind; he settles for switching gears to imagining Juan playing with his hair, instead. He wonders what Juan's privates look like, certain that they are probably more like his than Vin's. He remembers when Juan started to get an erection in gym class when looking at him, and it makes Isaac wonder if maybe Juan likes boys in a sexual way, too; the thought of it is titillating to Isaac, and the excitement mixes in with his already heightened state.

Knowing that he's probably close to orgasm, he thinks about what it would be like if he just went over and touched Juan's penis, even through his underwear, and the very notion of it sends him overboard. He cups his hand such that he can't shoot anywhere else, but it's not the most powerful ejaculation he's ever had. He feels the golden-yellow pulses of pleasure as he throbs a few times in a mild -- but still satisfying -- orgasm.

When he's sure he's done, he looks in his hand, noting that it wasn't a lot of semen. He licks it out of his hand, not wanting to get anything else dirty, and finds it a little bit saltier than the last time he tasted it. He wasn't aware the taste could change. Logging that info away for some other time, he sits in bed, enjoying the after-effects of his masturbation session, until the comforting blue chimes of his alarm ring out. He smiles, okay with his little deviation from schedule since it fit almost perfectly in time with his normal routine.

He gets dressed and goes to the bathroom, looking in the mirror as he does every morning. He notices that, as his hair has grown just a bit, the cowlick in the front of his hair over his right eye is sticking straight up. He tries to get it to sit down with some water, but it steadfastly denies him. He tries a little bit more, but eventually all he has is soaking wet hair that won't sit down. Frustrated, he grabs a towel and dries his hair out, ignoring the problem so that he can continue on schedule.

When he and his mother are downstairs and mostly ready, he asks, "Mom?"

"Yes, doodlebug?"

"Is my hair...does it look good?"

She stares at him for a moment with an inexplicable smile; he meets her gaze and feels a mixture of emotions, one of them the sort of feeling he might get at seeing a tiny kitten, and one of them like how he felt when he found out one of his old friends was moving away. The mixture takes him by surprise and confuses him, so he looks down, blinking a few times.

"Yes, honey," she says softly, "it looks very cute. Your little cowlick is adorable." She flicks the little hairs a few times as if brushing something off their tips; Isaac reflexively flinches at the sudden stimulation, shying away from her attack.

"Okay, Mom," he says, still flinching. He reaches up and scratches his cowlick to replace the feeling.

The school day begins normally enough: breakfast, the screaming kid who can't calm down until he's in the Living Room, too much Christian for this early in the morning, the usual. Mr. Guthrie isn't in the reading classroom again, though. Isaac, in the greatest show of rebellion he can muster, tries to sit at the back table again. Surprisingly enough, Mrs. Stone looks in his direction and doesn't tell him to move. He's not sure if she forgot to tell him, or if she wants to tell him later, or...

By the time they get to individual work, she walks by his seat and makes sure that he's doing his work, but she says nothing. Isaac continues his work with renewed vigor and satisfaction, feeling like she actually cares for once.

Gym is pretty regular for the day; every time Isaac sees Vin, he thinks about the upcoming weekend and gets both excited and increasingly nervous about it. He shares a few glances with Juan here and there; he just exudes friendliness with a touch of curiosity and some other emotion, not entirely unlike the feeling Isaac gets when watching Vin play basketball.

The typical conversation pops up at the end of class: Isaac finds Vin in the locker room and asks if he's interested in piano time.

"Thanks, bud, but I'm shootin' hoops today with the guys. See you Saturday, though, yeah?"

"Yeah, Vin," he says with annoyingly mixed emotions.

Juan, however, shows up right as Vin walks off. "Hey, Isaac?"

"Yes, Juan?"

"I got track today, but um, you maybe wanna try again with the violin thing in the piano rooms tomorrow?"

"Oh yeah. Um, yes, Juan, I wanna try again."

"Cool." There's an awkward silence between the two. "Well, I guess, see ya tomorrow, then."

"See ya tomorrow, Juan." He waves when Juan does, and gathers his stuff to prepare for the bell.

Math class ends up a bit more interesting than normal. For one, the seats are arranged in groups of four, which makes Isaac's heart drop. He walks in and plants himself on the wall, glancing around the room with nowhere to hide.

Mr. Crawford announces, "Each table group has a list of names on a sticky note in the center. Please look for the "Third Period" sticky note and your name." After making the announcement, he walks over to Isaac. "You're going to be working in a group today, okay?"

"...Yes, sir."

"Don't worry; I put you with some nice students, who actually need a bit of help on this. I want you to help them out, okay?"

Isaac's breathing quickens. He doesn't reply.

"It's just one problem, and I know you can do it. I want you to at least try to work with them. Can you do that?"

After a long pause, Isaac takes a deep breath. "...Yes, sir."

"Good." Mr. Crawford pats Isaac on the backpack strap across his shoulder; the sudden sensation makes him jump slightly, but it is not particularly unpleasant or anything. Mr. Crawford directs him to the desk that is still closest to the wall, as is his usual, and he waits with dread as the students file in. The first to arrive at the group is a girl with long, thin, dark hair and red-rimmed glasses; her eyes look like she is probably Asian, though he doesn't stare for long. The next girl is round-faced with short hair, done up in what Isaac has heard called a "pixie cut"; her eyes are a lighter blue color than his. They start up a conversation as the final person arrives, a heavy-set boy with dirty blond hair combed to the side and deep-set brown eyes. He manages to avoid meeting anyone's glance and, having gathered enough information about them, looks down at his desk. He notices the sticky notes in the center, as well as a white envelope that hasn't been sealed. He can barely make out a folded piece of paper within.

Once the bell rings and everyone is seated properly, the teacher explains, "Today is going to be a review of the different techniques you've learned over the last few weeks, since we're going to have a quiz tomorrow to see how well you've done." He continues over the gasps and groans in the classroom, "The problems on the quiz won't be identical, but they will be very similar to the ones we're discussing today, so you might want to pay attention. Each group will have a word problem to figure out; you need to write the equation that it is looking for, solve that equation, and then present your answer to the class. In eight minutes, I want you to be ready to present, and I want you to choose a presenter; additionally, choose one person in the group that the presenter can call on for help, or to answer questions. Speaking of which, are there any questions?"

His meta-question is met with silence.

"Then open the envelope in the center of your group and begin." On the smartboard, he projects an eight-minute timer, and the sound of rustling paper fills the air as the groups begin.

The long-haired girl takes the paper out of the envelope and reads in a smooth alto voice, "Three consecutive even numbers add up to 150. What is the smallest number?"

The boy stares forward blankly. "How the heck...would you figure that out?"

Short-Hair says, "Well, I mean, 'the smallest number' is the thing we're looking for, so that's x, I guess."

They stare at it a moment longer. Long-Hair breaks the silence: "First off, what's everyone's names? I'm Lin."

"Steffie," responds Short-Hair.

"Damon," the boy says.

They all look over at Isaac, who realizes there's no way out of the situation. "I'm...Isaac." He continues to stare at the desk, nervous and embarrassed.

Lin continues, "Okay, good. So. Steffie says the smallest number is x. So we have 'x and some other stuff = 150.' Ideas?"

Damon ventures, "Maybe...divide by 3?"

"That's just gonna give three of the same number," Steffie points out.

"Yeah, but then you can just add some to it to find what the others are," he replies.

At the ensuing silence, Isaac looks up to see Steffie staring flatly at Damon. "Then we wouldn't have 150 as our answer if we added numbers. You can't just throw numbers in there while nobody's looking." She picks up the envelope and pantomimes sweeping stuff underneath it. "Don't mind me, just hiding some numbers up in here."

Lin snorts a laugh while Damon rolls his eyes. "Fine, I give up."

About that point, Mr. Crawford finds his way to their group and checks on the progress. "I see nothing yet is written down; what do we know so far?"

Lin explains how far the group has gone. "But we're stuck on how to figure out the other numbers."

Mr. Crawford looks directly at Isaac. "Do you have any idea how to set the equation up?"

Isaac hesitates in a silent moment of futility. Under the combined gazes of the teacher and his classmates, he finally responds, "If...if the smallest number is x, then th-the next consecutive number, um, the next even number is x + 2, and then...and then th-the next is x + 4. So..." Isaac takes the paper with the word problem on it and, in the blank space beneath, he writes out 

x + x + 2 + x + 4 = 150 

He adds in parentheses as an afterthought, "Um, so it's easier to see the numbers." 

x + (x + 2) + (x + 4) = 150 

Pointing to each term, he says, "This is the smallest number, and then th-this is the middle one, and then th-this is the biggest." He hazards a glance up to see if anyone is staring at him or making faces, or otherwise making fun of him; every set of eyes is glued to the paper.

"Good," Mr. Crawford says with a smile. "Now, can we clean that up to be easier to solve?"

"Yes, sir," Isaac obliges. "Since they're all being added together, we can move them around to be...like friends, with their friends, so all the x are together, and the numbers are. So x + x + x is just 3x, and then 2 and 4 make 6, so... 

3x + 6 = 150 

Damon interjects, "Wait wait whoa, but...now we lost all the other numbers. Like, how do we find out all three?"

"We only need to find the smallest," Lin points out.

Isaac nods his head. "Yes, we only need to find the smallest, because x is just the smallest number, so we solve for x. We take away 6 first, so that's gone... 

3x = 144 

"And then we divide by 3 to get rid of that..."

He quickly scratches out the long division on the paper, during which Steffie mutters, "Dang, man. Look at him go."

"And then you have x = 48."

"So..." Damon stammers, "...that's the answer? 48 = 150?"

Isaac quickly shakes his head. "No, 48 is the smallest number, like it says here." He points back to the word problem for evidence.

"Oh."

Lin picks up the slack. "So then 48 + 50 + 52 equals...yeah, that's 150."

Steffie starts clapping. "Bravo! I still have no idea what you just did, but bravo!" At a look from Mr. Crawford, she backpedals a bit, "I'm kidding. I see how the problem worked."

"So you're presenting then, right?" Damon asks Isaac.

Isaac's eyes go wide. "Um, I...um--"

Mr. Crawford walks over and kneels next to him. "If you say exactly the things you just did when solving it here, you'll do fine. I know you can do this. You even have a few minutes to practice explaining it again." He repeats, "You can do this, Isaac."

Isaac clenches his fingers around his thumbs to stop himself from picking nervously at them. "Yes, sir."

"When we present, I'm going to call on you as the second person, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

Mr. Crawford nods and walks to another group. Lin asks, "Do you want to go through it again?"

"Yes, um, Lin." He gets out a fresh piece of paper and explains it to the group again, just to make sure he can get through the explanation; the math itself is very simple to him, but it always helps him if he gets a chance to practice what he's going to say, so his nerves don't overwhelm him.

The group decides that Lin is probably the best candidate for a tag-team. When it's time to start presenting, the center group goes first; a thin, dark-skinned boy with a tall, flat, deeply curly hairstyle stands and explains his group's word problem. There's some small applause after he's done, and then Mr. Crawford calls out, "Group 2, if you will present yours."

Isaac takes a deep breath and stands on shaky legs. He reads the problem out loud perfectly, though there is a definite waver in his voice. He goes through the explanation again, though in the middle of it, his tongue betrays him: "So you can group the letters and numbers together, and then then th--..." He stops, realizing he was about to go into a stuttering loop. Taking a deep breath, he continues, "Th-the expression becomes 3x plus 6 equals 150..."

When he finishes, he sits back down amid light applause. Mr. Crawford calls for the next group, and a boy with slightly longer hair brushed toward his face stands up, smiling. The smile turns into a grin and he prominently stutters, "Th-th-th-th-th-th-the next problem is..."

The class erupts into chitters and giggles; Mr. Crawford looks at him directly and simply states, "Detention for harassment. Another spokesperson from the group, please." The boy looks at Mr. Crawford with his mouth wide open, but he says nothing as he sits down. The class laughs louder as the group quickly figures out who should present, instead.

Isaac turns beet-red and shrinks in on himself. Damon leans over and mutters, "What an asshole. Don't let him bother you. He's a dick."

"You did fine," Lin reassures him.

"Yeah," Steffie agrees, placing her hand on his desk near him.

Isaac clenches his eyes shut, feeling the rush of frustrated, embarrassed tears attempting to burst forth. He rocks slightly in his chair, as much as he can without causing the desk to move, and breathes through the sting. When he opens his eyes, only one tear trickles down his nose, but he quickly wipes it away with a finger. maintaining his view of his desk.

As the group lets another member present their problem, Lin whispers, "You okay?"

Isaac nods. He hates his stuttering probably more than others do, but getting reminded of it particularly stings.

"Well," Steffie inserts, "you did really good." She emphasizes it with a series of almost-silent mini-claps. He looks up to see her smiling broadly; he doesn't make eye contact, but he can't help but smile at how happy she looks about it. He sniffles once and goes back to looking at the desk, less upset than before.

At the end of class, while everyone is gathering their stuff, Mr. Crawford walks over to Isaac's desk. "Thank you," he says amid the noise.

Isaac furrows his brow. "Why?"

"For being the best presenter I had today. I appreciate it. Thank you."

"Y-you're welcome, sir," he says tentatively.

He looks up in time to see Mr. Crawford have the barest hint of a smile on his face as he turns to go back to his desk. He's not a very cheerful person, or at least not one who smiles very often; Isaac wonders if maybe that's the most he can smile. Still, Isaac manages to leave the class with a dose of confidence in himself and vindication that that jerk got detention for being mean.

The rest of the day flies by, and even though nobody is planning to join him, Isaac decides to stop by the piano rooms anyway. By the time he gets to the choir room, there's nobody around; he can see the door across the room just finish closing, so he assumes he just missed the last person, which is fine by him. He heads to his typical piano room, the one in the middle. He sits down at the bench and scoots it up to where he can reach the keys easily and opens up the lid. Inside, though, he finds the sunglasses again, which rise up with the keys as the lid is lifted. He freezes, completely spooked out.

Thoughts race through his mind as to what it could mean, or why they are there at all. He knows that the chances of someone putting sunglasses in the wrong locker are decently high, considering, but nobody would accidentally leave sunglasses in a piano. That is just absurd. The thought would make him laugh, if not for the pattern completely freaking him out.

He notices that there is a slip of notebook paper folded up in the arms of the sunglasses. He chews on his lip and picks at his thumb, contemplating whether he should just close the piano and walk away, or if he should investigate. It's creepy, it doesn't make sense, and it's freaking him out, but...he knows he would just wonder for the rest of his life if he didn't look.

Finally, curiosity and courage win out. He very gently moves the sunglasses, placing them on the music rack and taking the slip of paper out. He unfolds it; inside, in very sharp letters written in red ink, it says,

stop LOOKING AT

PEOPLE

voodoo FAG 

DON'T TELL ANYONE

Next to the words, there's a picture of two eyes that have been scratched out heavily, and the word "ANYONE" is underlined over and over again.

He throws the paper as if it bit him; his heart leaps up into his throat as he immediately enters panic mode. He quickly darts glances out the windows in the doors on either side of him, but there is nobody around. Hands shaking, paralyzed with fear and indecision about what to do, Isaac sits and hyperventilates until he begins to feel lightheaded. He desperately wishes someone would come into the room, but he knows that he can't tell anyone about this or...or he doesn't know how bad it could be. Realizing that the paper could count as "telling someone" if he left it there, he picks it up and busies himself tearing it into meticulously tiny bits, one after the other, until there's no way the note could be deciphered. He then considers throwing it all away, but just to be safe, he tears a piece of paper out of his notebook and pours the shreds into it, crumpling it up tightly. Then he leaves the piano room, looking both ways outside the door to make sure nobody is sneaking up on him, and quickly walks over to the trash can, practically spiking it in as hard as he can. It makes a resounding TOONK sound, which makes Isaac jump and emit a strangled squeaking sound; only then does he realize he's stress-whining again.

Flapping his hands and shifting his weight back and forth, he sits and stares at the trashcan as if it were going to explode. After about a half a minute, he whips his head back to the piano room, looking for someone or something. He slowly walks back to it, peering inside carefully before going in and snagging his backpack quickly. He wrestles his phone out of its pouch and holds it, but he stops. If I call Mom now, he thinks, she'll know something is wrong, and I can't tell her, and then she'll be upset if I don't tell her what it is. The thought freezes him yet again. I can't tell anyone.

Isaac finally sits, defeated, on the piano bench. He puts his phone back into his backpack and takes the sunglasses as well; can't leave evidence, or someone might find out. He plants his face into his hands, crying as quietly as he can for fear of someone finding out. He spends the majority of the next hour alternating between crying, pacing, rocking, and trying to calm down enough to hide this from anyone that might see him, including his mother.

Near the time that she would normally come to pick him up, he heads to the bathroom. After washing up, he looks at his face; his eyes are red and bleary, solidly giving him away. He racks his brains for some way to hide the evidence, when suddenly the puzzle piece falls into place. He slowly reaches into his backpack, takes out the sunglasses, and replaces his regular glasses with them. They're almost a perfect fit for him, if a touch too big. He looks at himself in the mirror. He looks...like a kid with sunglasses on. He doesn't feel cool or mysterious, like they say you're supposed to. He doesn't feel silly or dorky or anything. He just feels like the world is darker, and that he can't see his own eyes any longer.

The remainder of the time is spent thinking of things to say if he's asked about them, which he knows he will be. At his mom's call, he sits outside, actually thankful that the sunglasses help keep some of the sun out of his eyes so that he doesn't have to squint anymore. When her car arrives, he has a little trouble realizing it's her dark blue sedan -- it looks black through the glasses. Regardless, he heads over and gets into the car, throwing his backpack on the floorboards in front of him.

"Hi, doodle--why do you have sunglasses?"

"I found them," he replies truthfully.

"But where? They probably belong to somebody."

"I don't think so."

"Well, where did you find them?" she asks, pulling out of the parking lot.

"At school. Um, twice. I mean, the second time I saw them, I took them."

"Well, if you hear about anyone losing their sunglasses, you better give them back."

"Yes, ma'am."

After a pause, she asks, "So why are you still wearing them?"

Isaac pauses to gather his thoughts on this one. "It helps with the sun, and, um, so...so I don't have to look at people." That doesn't count as telling anyone. She already knows that he hates looking at people. It's fine. He's not revealing anything.

"...Hm," she snorts. "Interesting idea. I know that bothers you. You know you can't just wear them in classes, though."

"Why not?"

She laughs, "Because, honey, you have to be able to see. Besides, where are your regular glasses?"

"In my backpack, um, in the side thingy so they don't get crushed."

"Well, you seem to have this all figured out, then. Still, I don't want you wearing them in classes."

"But I really want to." That part is now hauntingly true.

"Honey...you never fight me on these kinds of things. Why is this so important to you?" she asks.

"...Please, Mom."

She sighs heavily. "I guess I can send you with a note. If you can't see something, though, like on the board or whatever, you better put your regular glasses on, young man. I don't know what wild hair you've got going on here, but I'm not going to let it get in the way of your schoolwork. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She hesitates a moment, and then laughs again. "I swear, just when I think I understand you..."

Later, at home, he takes his sunglasses off, both because there's nobody left to look at, and because it's actually kind of hard to see in the light level in the house. He tries to distract himself from the haunting feeling of dread and uncertainty the mysterious letter has infused in him; he finds himself constantly checking over his shoulder or around corners, even in his own room. He knows that there's no possible way that someone could be hiding in the closet, for example, but it doesn't stop him from nervously glancing over there once in a while.

Eventually, he has a sandwich for dinner and goes to take a bath; he has no desire whatsoever to do anything fun in it, instead washing up and then lying there, staring upward with his head just above water, trying everything he can to stop seeing the sharp red letters coming back at him. The memory of the crimson demand follows him to bed, and the last thing that he can think in his head, over and over, is the last line:

        DON'T TELL ANYONE

It does very little to help him sleep. 

*** 

The next morning's routine doesn't waver, regardless of yesterday's shake-ups. He gets dressed, gathers his materials, and is ready at the usual time. The only change is that, just before entering the school, he puts on his sunglasses instead of his regular glasses.

He eats breakfast, goes to the Living Room, and watches as David, the kid who screams until he's put in the corner of the room, comes in. He seems more agitated than normal, though; he's primarily nonverbal, but his screeches seem to be a particular syllable, almost a "reh" sound.

Isaac finds this curious, but Christian comes over and starts up the morning chatter. "Hi Isaac! Did you get new sunglasses? I like them. They make you look cooooool, like, like those really cool guys with motorcycles on movies."

Isaac smiles. "Thank you, Christian." He certainly didn't feel cool in them, but if it works, it works.

Christian sits in a chair and puts one leg and both arms out, pantomiming riding a motorcycle. He begins to make poorly-imitated motorcycle sounds: "VrrrrrRRRRRM VRrrrrrrrmmmm SCRRRR!" Then, in his lowest possible voice -- not particularly low at all, in either volume or pitch, but the effect is there -- he tries in vain to impersonate Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent: "Come viss me if you want to leev." Back to his normal voice, he says, "Just like that! What do you think?"

Isaac snorts and laughs at him. "You sound stupid." He immediately realizes that he accidentally insulted Christian, but before he can even gasp, Christian cracks up laughing, making more motorcycle sounds even worse than before. Finally, Ms. Jimenez comes by and calmly asks, "Christian, I need you to please be quiet for a moment. Mr. Coleman is having some difficulty calming David down, so please be respectful."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, "but what, what is the matter with David?"

"Don't worry," she reminds him. "This is his journey. Just please be quiet for now." Christian pouts a bit, but he acquiesces.

Isaac looks over in David's direction; he is already in the corner, but he seems to be unable to calm down. His eyes are wide and he keeps looking past Mr. Coleman's shoulders. Thinking for just a moment about things, he wonders if maybe he can help. He doesn't know exactly what he could do, but he really wishes that David would calm down. Maybe... he thinks, maybe I can...feel calmer for him. He had never thought to use his ability to intentionally make someone feel in some way; it had been incidentally helpful once or twice, but mostly just a bother for him that others would feel the way he did. But just maybe...

Isaac walks up behind Mr. Coleman and tries to look into David's eyes. David locks gazes with him, and Isaac gets a rush of panic, of abject fear, from David, but he gets something more. Isaac is aware immediately of a bathroom, one from the school he went to in fourth grade; he recognizes the purple and green tiles of their school colors. He is not in the bathroom, per se, but he is looking through a pair of eyes that was in there. The image turns around to face the door of the bathroom, and there is a boy there, but he can't make out the boy's face. The boy pushes the owner of the image over, and Isaac feels the memory of being punched in the stomach as he stares at the ceiling for a split second before the image fades. Isaac takes a deep breath, feeling his stomach reflexively; he has no idea what just happened, but he almost feels like what he saw was one of his own memories, like a dream that was so strong he had to convince himself it wasn't real.

Isaac walks back to his backpack and sits down on the floor, trying to make sense of what just happened; meanwhile, David finally begins to screech a little less intensely, taking longer breaths in between each, until he finally calms down enough to huddle mostly silently in the corner as he usually did.

The announcements come on, and Isaac stands automatically. He recites the pledge with the sunglasses on, and when he sits down, Mr. Coleman comes over. "Good morning, Isaac," he says, a bit breathier than normal. "Can I ask why you're wearing sunglasses?"

In response, Isaac fishes in his backpack and finds the letter his mother wrote for him. "Isaac would like to wear sunglasses; they are a source of comfort to him, so I would like to try this to see if it helps him out. He is not to wear them if they interfere with his schoolwork. If you have questions, please contact me at the number below. - Eileen Brooks

Mr. Coleman reads it and hands it back. "Okay, I guess. Isaac, do the glasses help you feel more comfortable?"

"Yes, sir." Comfortable in that he's not going to find out what horrible thing will happen if he doesn't, anyway.

"Okay. You do know that sometimes you'll have to take them off, though, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. We'll give it a try." Mr. Coleman walks off, and as he passes Ms. Jimenez, Isaac hears him quietly say, "Never a boring job, is it?" with a smile. Ms. Jimenez laughs.

The bell rings shortly, and Isaac begins his academic day. In reading, he walks up to the teacher and shows her the note immediately upon entering; she reads it and frowns. "We can try it, I guess," she says with a weird spike in the tone of her voice. "Come with me." She walks over to the back table, where Mr. Guthrie is already stationed. "Isaac has a letter that states he is allowed to wear the sunglasses in class. Feel free to have him take them off if they're causing a disruption."

Mr. Guthrie nods and rumbles, "I think it's a fine idea. It shouldn't be a problem."

Mrs. Stone stares back at Mr. Guthrie with one raised eyebrow (her, too?!) for a moment before walking back to her desk.

Isaac sits down in his usual seat at the table and gets his notebook and textbook out to prepare for the class. As the others file in, the bald kid from the other day mentions, "Ooh, look at the cool kid in the back!"

The boy that sits next to him adds, "So mysteeerious." A couple of other kids giggle and start to talk about it; Isaac tries his best to shut it out, but it still stings. He finds the fact that his eyes are hidden to be a source of comfort, though, since it makes it harder to see any tears he might shed, as well.

Mr. Guthrie, for his part, makes almost no mention of the glasses. All he says at the beginning is, "Can you see the words in the book well enough?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay." And that's it.

Class goes by; at one point, Mr. Guthrie is talking, but he stops suddenly, looking over at a pair of students being noisy. Mrs. Stone happens to quiet them down fairly quickly, and Mr. Guthrie looks back down at Isaac, who happened to be looking up at him to see why he stopped. Their eyes meet, and Isaac feels...a little bit of irritation, some confusion, and that's about it. Mild impressions, and he can't feel anything resembling the echoes he would often get of his own emotions. He only feels one set of curiosity: his own. He quickly looks away, logging that information for later. Mr. Guthrie simply says, "Where were we?" and they continue with their work.

Isaac wears his sunglasses into the locker room, but he still has to put them away when he dresses out. Before he gets a chance, though, a couple of boys notice him and make comments to each other. Notably, Grease-Hair doesn't say anything to him about it, but he does see the boy looking at him.

As he sits down in his usual spot near Vin, Vin says, "Hey there, Mr. Mysterio. I was wondering where the sunglasses went."

"I found them in the piano room," Isaac responds as he gets his clothes out.

"In the -- really? You didn't just take them from here?"

"No, Vin."

"Well, that's weird." He lifts his shirt off and places it to the side; as Isaac reaches down to unstrap his shoes, he gets a decent look at Vin's smooth chest and lightly-defined abs. Vin slips his gym shirt on and continues, "Wonder why they were there."

Isaac doesn't respond. He just finishes dressing out and puts both sets of lenses on top of his neatly-folded clothes in the locker.

Later on, in a lull in the middle of class, Juan jogs up and smiles at Isaac. He looks at Juan, getting an onyx eyeful of anticipation and excitement. Panting for breath, he asks, "Hey, you still up for hanging today in the piano rooms?"

Isaac very quickly looks down, a pang of fear running through him for having made eye contact with someone. "Um, I, um...Can, can we meet somewhere else, maybe? I don't...want to go to the piano rooms today."

Juan doesn't respond immediately; Isaac looks up a bit and sees that he is frowning. "O...kay. Um, I dunno where we could do things without...the piano. Um, I guess, maybe...maybe we just meet in the orchestra room? There's a...a piano in the corner that maybe we could use." He takes a few more panting breaths, but he doesn't seem to be having a difficult time breathing or anything.

Isaac desperately hopes he doesn't have another allergy attack, even though he's pretty sure Juan will never touch a peanut again. "...Okay, Juan," he says after some consideration.

Juan shrugs and nods. "Sounds good. See you there!" he says with a toothy grin. He jogs off back over to the other side of the gym, where he, Charlie, and a few others are timing themselves on sprints across the gym, not unlike what they had to do in the Pacer test the other day. Isaac watches him, intensely interested in his smile and the way he moves.

A basketball soars past Isaac's field of vision suddenly, causing him to yelp and hop backwards. He looks back at the escaping basketball and then over from where it came, where Vin is smiling over at him. "Sorry!" he calls out. "Hey, can you get that for us?" The other tall kid that Vin often talks to and another boy, not as tall but definitely a broad-shouldered, athletic kid, stare over at Isaac.

Isaac looks between them a moment, but quickly turns and chases the ball over to the bleachers, unceremoniously cornering it and picking it up delicately. He walks back to where he was and pauses, unsure of something so simple as how to give back the ball: does he throw it? Does he run back and give it to them? If he gives it, will they call him a "pussy" for not throwing it? If he throws it, will they make fun of his technique? He can't throw worth crap, so either way he goes about it is bound to fail. So, he sits there, frozen, with a basketball in his hands, hoping for some keen insight into what to do.

Vin says, "Throw it!" with a pantomimed basketball throw.

Isaac looks at the ball, then back to him; even at this distance, he can feel the encouragement and anticipation in Vin's eyes, and an echo of his own paralyzed indecision.

Vin breaks eye contact for a moment, looking around for a second or two, and then looks back. He calls, "Just throw it underhand!" He demonstrates a double-handed underhand toss from between the legs.

Isaac looks down, takes a deep breath, and attempts what he just saw Vin do. He swings it back between his legs, but he lets go just a little too late, sending the ball much higher in the air than he anticipated. He gasps, wondering what they'll say about it, but they all immediately track the ball as it flies up, running underneath where it's going to land, and immediately jump for it as soon as they can. Vin easily bats it out of their reach into his other hand and spins out of their flailing arms, dribbling it twice and shooting it from the free-throw line. It hits the backboard, rebounds off the inner lip, circles twice, and falls through. "HAH!" he shouts, pumping a fist as he goes to get the ball; the other two start yelling over each other at him, and Isaac cannot make out their individual complaints.

The rest of his day falls a bit more into normal territory, "normal" including the expected jibes at his sunglasses in each class from at least a few people. During lunch, Christian keeps telling him he looks like the Terminator and making ridiculous sounds, to the point where he ends up spitting broccoli bits on the floor. Other than that, the only other interesting thing in the day comes from art class, where Mrs. Hobbes tells him that multiple people have come by to see his artwork.

"Who came by to see my artwork?" he asks with equal parts fear and nerves.

"Well," she starts, "I should be more precise by saying that one person came by to see it, and I showed it to your other teachers in preparation for your 'ARD' meeting." Isaac is aware that the "annual review" meeting is sometimes called "ARD" for short, so he understands the reference. She continues, "The gentleman who came by to see your work was suitably impressed. He was a student of mine last year, actually."

"Was it...was it Vin? Vin Ward?"

She smiles. "Yes, actually. Not too bad at art, himself."

Isaac wonders what sort of art Vin may have created, but the idea that all of his teachers saw his art begins to gnaw at him. "But...why did you show my art to...all my teachers?"

"Isaac, it's a normal part of working with our students. We share our students' work and progress all the time. It's not like we all live in our own little bubbles. Don't worry; it was nothing but good things said about it." She smiles. "Go ahead and focus back in; you're doing great."

Isaac obliges, though inside he is torn about how to feel.

History class, strangely enough, is the only class where Isaac ends up having problems with the sunglasses. The teacher, a large man by the name of Mr. Jones, reads the note and tells him, "Look, kid, unless it's a doctor's note, you're not wearing sunglasses in my class. I don't want you back there sleeping or whatever. I need to be able to see your eyes."

"But Mr. Jones, um, sir, I don't want to sleep in them, I just want to wear them so I don't have to...to look at people."

Mr. Jones stares at him for a moment, but Isaac refuses to give eye contact. "The answer's no, Brooks. Have a seat. Your mom can call me later about it."

Isaac takes them off and heads to his seat, half petulant and half genuinely upset; more than anything, though, he takes personal offense at being accused of doing the wrong thing in class; he'd never sleep in class, unless it was an accident. Ironically, he spends more time with his head down (and not being bothered about it) than he does paying attention to the lesson.

Thankfully, science class is at least moderately interesting (and the teacher is okay with the sunglasses), so other than a few snickers and comments about them, nothing really comes of him wearing them. Soon enough it's the end of the day, and Isaac heads to the orchestra room, which is connected on the opposite side of the piano rooms. Still, he takes the hallway path rather than walking through the piano room itself; he takes a large path away from it out of principle.

He opens the door to the orchestra room, immediately freezing as he begins to take it all in. It's relatively similar in size and shape to the choir room, but it is still unfamiliar territory, a feeling unaided by the fact that the entire room is artificially darker through his sunglasses. He feels small in relation to the wide-open space; there are a few people chatting near the music stands in the center of the room, but they seem to pay no notice to him as he stares around in discomfort. He doesn't see Juan yet, so he stands in one spot, just outside of the pathway of the door, and tries to formulate a plan on how to function.

Shortly, Juan shows up through the middle piano room, scanning the room and finding Isaac almost immediately. "Hey! Come on over to the piano. Lemme grab my violin real quick." He goes off to a closet area, coming back shortly with a small black case and a bow.

Isaac still hasn't moved yet.

"You coming?" he asks as he sets up a chair and a music stand near the piano.

Isaac looks around the room, plotting a variety of courses he could take to get to the piano across the room. After an agonizingly long time making up his mind, he settles for pacing the perimeter of the room until making his way to the piano, where he walks around the back side of it and stares at the cushioned, black leather bench. He admires the Yamaha grand piano in all its glossy black glory, so much so that he feels inadequate to even touch it.

Juan uses his bow to point at the bench. "Go ahead. It's fine."

Isaac looks at the bench a moment longer, fighting against his own internal paralysis, and finally sits down at the piano. He delicately lifts the fallboard, leaning it almost silently back, and stares at the keys. It almost looks brand-new to him; he can't even really see finger oils or anything on the keys. It's almost like a freshly-opened jar of peanut butter -- it's hard to want to mess it up.

"So I heard you playing the other day -- it was really, really good." Juan gets his violin out of its case as he talks. "How long have you been playing?"

"I don't know," he responds. "Um, since I was maybe...six." He remembers that that was the first time he had access to a piano keyboard, in the music room at the school he went to.

"Man, that's still really good. I've been playing violin for like a year now and I still feel like I suck at it." He situates the violin under his chin and checks his posture. "Were piano lessons hard?"

Isaac stares at the black music stand on the piano. "I never took lessons."

The violin slides out from under Juan's chin, almost hitting Isaac's shoulder. "Whaaaat?" he says with a sharp crack in his voice, "No way!"

Isaac's cheeks heat up, but he says nothing.

"You really never took lessons? You just taught yourself? Did you, like, watch YouTube videos or something?"

Isaac shakes his head. "I just taught myself."

"Man, what the hell," Juan says breathily. "That's some serious talent." He balances his violin on his thigh and nods at the piano. "Hey, you should play that song you were working on when I came in the last time."

"I don't remember which one it was."

"Oh, well...I guess just anything. I just wanna hear you play again, really." He punctuates his thought with a little laugh.

Isaac hasn't explored the "Arabesque" in a while, so he decides on that one, putting his fingers delicately where they'll begin. On the first key press, he is instantly enamored with the rich, full sound that the grand piano gives, even with the lid closed.

He plays the first few measures, but he doesn't get very far before Juan's eyes shoot open. "Ooh! One sec." He gets up, placing his instrument on his chair, and goes into the orchestra room office. Isaac watches him ask a question of the young-looking woman in there; she nods to him, her auburn ringlets bouncing, and Juan grins. He comes back out and half walks, half skips over to the piano, lifting the lid and propping it up. "She said we could open it up. Okay, now try!"

Isaac giggles nervously at Juan's energy, but he starts it up again. Each note resonates in the open room like a blossom of color, taking on a warm, encompassing feeling. The waterfall section becomes a vast cascade, the left-hand accompaniment a deep, sylvan woods; the regal section marches forth like a Roman legion saluting their emperor. Isaac completely loses himself in the exploration of the piece, closing his eyes and letting his fingers paint for him an enchanting movie of swirling colors, serene landscapes, and body-suffusing waves of harmony.

At the last galloping arpeggiation leading up into the stratosphere and the final landing note, Juan just breathes out, "Daaaaaaang. How long did it take you to learn that?"

Isaac remembers back to how Vin reacted when he admitted the truth, and it stops him from responding.

"Must have taken forever," Juan says, nodding slowly. "Hey, can you play a G natural?"

Isaac knows enough about the piano to find the keys fairly quickly by name, so he hits the G closest to middle C.

"Sorry, one octave down, and can you hold it down? I wanna see if I have my tuning right." Juan picks his violin back up from his lap and situates it.

Isaac hits the key and lets the sound resonate; Juan plays a note, and the best way that Isaac can describe it is that it sounds greasy to him. He flinches a bit, and Juan chuckles. "Yeah, one sec," he says, twisting the tuning knob and trying again. This time, the note is thinner, less greasy; Juan tries one more time with a refresh of the piano note, and it sounds almost like they merge together into the same shape, like the sharp roof on a flat house.

Juan then begins to play two notes at a time, listening and adjusting, until he has four notes that all sound like a solid orange in relation to each other, without a hint of greasiness. "There. Okay, um, do you know the Für Elise?"

"Yes, Juan."

"Cool. So I know this part so far..." He plays the melody of the first movement on the violin. Instead of the browns and sky blues that Isaac would see from the piano, the violin gives off a creamy beige on the lower notes, transitioning through a pale yellow into silvery notes at the top of the range. When he finishes, Isaac watches the violin with keen interest as Juan puts it down on his thigh. "So...what did you think?"

Isaac breaks out of his reverie and blinks. "You play very nicely."

Juan grins, his big front teeth practically glinting. "Thanks! It took a while, but that's a good song to practice on. You uh, you wanna play it on the piano while I do the violin?"

Isaac has never played music simultaneously with someone else; the thought, for some reason, excites him in a way that he does not expect. To him, the very idea of it is almost akin to some of the things that he and Vin did. After an awkward silence, Isaac finally decides, "O-okay, Vin. I mean, um, Juan. I'm sorry."

Juan just laughs. "It's all good. I only wish I were that tall, right?"

Isaac smiles at his disarming reply. "Um, so, how...?"

"I'll count us in, and you can play the left hand and I'll do the right hand. So just join in at the right spot. Sound good?"

"Sounds good, Juan."

"All right." He counts, "1, 2, 3, 1, 2--" and then begins the melody. At the low note, Isaac plays the left hand in perfect rhythm; listening to the interplay between Juan's violin and the grand piano gives Isaac chills and sets his heart rate up a notch. He continues playing with Juan, and though the song itself isn't complex or difficult, the act of interlocking his accompaniment with Juan's melody works a complex magic on Isaac's emotions.

When the movement begins a rapid climb up the octaves, Isaac isn't sure where the left and right hand would break, so he just plays the entire thing with Juan, leading into him playing both right and left hand as Juan doubles him on melody. By the time he's done, he has goosebumps down one side of his body and a straining erection. The last part confuses him greatly, but he doesn't get to speak for his emotions.

"Haha, that was cool!" Juan says with a huge smile as he puts the bow down. "Not bad!"

"Yeah," Isaac says, studiously staring at the keyboard.

"So..." Juan says, clearing the air after a pregnant pause, "why are you wearing sunglasses? If you don't, um, mind me asking."

"So people can't see my eyes," he replies truthfully, without thinking about it.

"...But why? That seems kinda weird, no offense. I mean, everybody looks at each other's eyes. It's just a thing."

Isaac's erection is softening by this point, not causing any real issue, and his heart has calmed down a bit, anxiety about the current topic notwithstanding. Isaac looks around the room; the two people that were in there near the beginning have since left, leaving the boys as the only two within earshot. "Because...I...I have a thing. With eyes. Um." He stops, unsure if he wants to go any further.

"Like...a fetish?" Juan asks, a grin forming under furrowed brows.

Isaac looks at him in shock that he would suggest that, and he can feel amusement and confusion from Juan's deep eyes. He focuses on the violin in his lap, instead, saying, "No, not like a fetish. Like, things...like, I get too close with people if they see my eyes. Like with feelings. Rrrrgh, it's hard to explain." Sighing, Isaac takes off the sunglasses. "Do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Uhhh...yes? Why, what's up?"

"Look at my eyes."

Juan locks eyes with Isaac. Isaac feels the amusement drain away along with Juan's smile as the anxiety and lingering excitement echo back to him through Juan's eyes, along with a rapidly-changing melange of confusion, awe, wonder, excitement, curiosity, interest, and a little touch of arousal mixed within; Isaac isn't sure if that's a remnant of his issue earlier, or if that's the same as it was in gym class that one day.

Juan stares for a few seconds longer before snapping his eyes shut and shaking his head slightly. "What--what just...I don't...how are you doing that?! That felt weeeeird!"

He puts back on the sunglasses silently, unsure of how to react to Juan's reaction.

"I mean," Juan says quickly, "it's really cool, like, it made me feel like all kinds of things, not like bad weird. But that's...I dunno, like it kinda blows my mind."

"I don't want to make people feel...weird."

Juan doesn't respond immediately to that. "So like...you know you could become rich and famous, right?"

"I don't want to become rich and famous. I really don't want to become famous."

"But you'd be okay with being rich?"

Isaac smiles. "Okay, I would like being rich, but I don't want to be famous."

Juan nods, smiling. "Okay, that's fair. I'm gonna be a famous soccer player and make millions, so I'll be both rich and famous."

Isaac has no particular reason to disbelieve him, so he takes the comment at face value.

Juan continues, "No, but like, that...whatever you were doing right there...that was really cool. I swear to God, that's like some kind of telepathy!" At Isaac's blank stare, he adds, "You know, like mind-reading and talking in people's minds and stuff?"

Isaac thinks about it for a moment. "But I don't, um, I can't talk at people or, or read their minds, like, words. I think it's just feelings. Oh, and, um, this." He takes off his sunglasses again. "Look."

Juan looks into his eyes, re-establishing the interplay of emotions between them; notably, the excitement is higher, bringing with it a bit more of some other sort of feeling, one he can't quite pin down. While Juan looks at him, Isaac touches his own nose.

Juan immediately reaches up and swats at his nose as if a fly landed on it. "Wait, what?" he asks, his eyebrows lowering as confusion suffuses the link. He crosses his eyes to look at his nose, temporarily breaking the link and making Isaac giggle at how silly he looks. "Wh-what's -- what did you do?" he manages to ask again as he looks back at Isaac.

Isaac smiles and pokes his left arm with his right index finger a few times, making Juan look away to stare down at his own arm. Notably, Juan looks down at his right arm, eyes wide, eyebrows suddenly shooting up. Juan exclaims, "No way! I could feel that!"

Isaac giggles, for once feeling a bit playful with his weird abilities. "So like, it, um, it makes me feel really...close to someone else when I look, and it's, it's kinda weird sometimes."

Juan just looks back at him with his wide, deep black eyes; Isaac takes a moment longer to admire his eyes, letting the emotions of awe and wonder flow freely. He can feel the vague stirrings of arousal again, but at this point, it's impossible to tell why. "That is the coolest freaking thing ever," Juan breathes.

Isaac blushes a bit and shrugs bashfully, finally looking away. "I guess so. Sometimes I don't like it."

"What?!" Juan rasps out hoarsely. "How could you not like that?"

"Sometimes...I don't want people to know how I feel." Hearing himself say those words aloud takes Isaac by surprise, leaving him unsettled in a way he doesn't have words for.

"Oh. Wait. So like, I was feeling what you were, and you were feeling what I was, right?"

"Yes, Juan, and also a little bit...back? Like, if I feel one way, I can feel it come back."

Juan frowns. "I don't get what you...you mean like, say like I feel happy, and then I look at you, and I feel the happiness come back?" He uses his hands to illustrate the emotion going one way and coming back to him.

"...Yes, Juan."

"So like, microphone feedback, when it's too close to a speaker."

Isaac hadn't thought of it that way before. "Yes, like microphone feedback."

Juan pantomimes the popular "mind-blown" hand gesture. "That's crazy. Yeah, no, that's definitely like some kind of telepathy. Oh my God, that is...you're like a superhero!"

Isaac sighs. "I am not a superhero."

"Pff," Juan retorts, "I mean you're basically doing at least what Aquaman can do, except it's not just fish and dolphins and stuff."

Isaac is only passing familiar with Aquaman, really only having paid any attention to the superheroes that ended up with their own Saturday morning cartoons. "Um, but I can't make things do what I want."

Juan rolls his eyes, "You still have a freaking awesome power, and I bet science can't even explain it! Like, you could seriously change the way people see the world!"

The more excited Juan gets about the idea, the more Isaac shrinks in on himself. He responds, in a timid voice, "Please stop."

Juan blinks and looks at Isaac. "What'd I do?"

"You keep...I don't want to be famous. I don't want to change the world. I don't want to..." I don't want to be different, he finishes in his head.

"Oh." Juan pauses. "Sorry. I didn't mean to...I get carried away sometimes. Sorry."

"It's okay, Juan," Isaac says. It's a practiced response; even if it's not completely okay, it's how he knows to answer apologies.

The already-awkward conversation takes another long pause. Juan eventually says, "So, I gotta go pretty soon, but, um, you wanna come wait with me outside?"

"Okay, Juan." Earlier moments aside, he finds Juan to be a very nice person, and after their little duet, he feels a connection to Juan that wasn't there before; he figures a little afternoon heat isn't the worst thing ever.

Isaac calls his mom and lets her know that he is ready to be picked up, as well, and they both head out to the benches just outside the door nearest the cafeteria. There are a couple of skaters screwing around in the courtyard as there often are, but nobody pays the two of them much mind. They sit silently for a bit, when Juan abruptly says, "Thank you, um, by the way, again, for the other day. I really can't thank you enough for that."

"Yes, you can, Juan," Isaac replies. "I mean, you already did thank me enough."

Juan opens his mouth to reply, but pauses a moment. "That's not what--I mean...okay," he finally stammers out. "But I was thinking that maybe, maybe we could hang out more. I really liked playing music with you today, too, and that whole thing with your...uh, you know." As an afterthought, he stammers, "And, you...you seem pretty cool."

Isaac smiles and mutters, "Thank you, Juan." After an awkward moment, he realizes the other thing that Juan said and quickly replies, "Oh! Um, we could hang out more, Juan." He looks over, sunglasses still on, to make sure that Juan doesn't look upset or anything; all he gets is a rush of excitement from Juan's eyes, confirmed by his smile.

"Cool!" Juan says, looking at Isaac's obscured eyes. Even with that, Isaac feels the feeling from before, but this time it's strong enough to recognize: Isaac interprets it as something halfway between the excitement of running toward a playground, and the thrill of opening a present, but with something else underpinning the whole thing, a sort of pulling feeling. It's a bit much for Isaac to process, and he glances down to break contact.

Juan turns back to watch the skaters for a bit while Isaac processes things. His mind suddenly makes a connection between that last feeling and the moment that Juan was looking at his underwear that other day in gym; this time, the feeling was much, much stronger, but looking back, it was definitely there. Since almost the first time we met, he thinks, Juan has felt that way, and it's stronger now.

Isaac takes a chance, for the sake of knowledge. "Juan?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you...like me?"

Juan doesn't respond. He slowly turns his head toward Isaac, "As...a friend? Yeah, you're pretty cool."

Isaac takes a deep breath. "Um, so, do you remember the time when w-we looked at each other in the locker room, and then you were..." Suddenly, he is overcome with a flush of embarrassment and nerves, and he cannot continue his line of questioning. "Um...n-never, never mind. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm sorry, Juan."

Before Juan can respond, a skater with shoulder-length dark hair and skin a little lighter than Juan's calls out, "'Ey, Juanito! Why you hangin' with Mime Boy?"

Another one picks up his board and sidles up next to the first, this one with uniformly buzz-cut black hair and a little lighter skin than either of them joins in, "Yeah, you some kind of maricón or somethin'?" Isaac is unfamiliar with the word he used.

"Why the fuck you think I'm a maricón?" he asks, his voice suddenly showing a thick Spanish accent.

"Well," says the first, "Why you hangin' with some fag?"

"If talking to a boy makes you gay, then you two must be pinches maricones, too." Juan spits the words out forcefully; Isaac can see the saliva fly from his mouth in the sunlight.

Suddenly, the first one begins a rapid-fire Spanish litany of harsh words at Juan, none of which Isaac can follow. Juan stands up and begins the same, both of them going back and forth in full Spanish. Isaac can only catch occasional words like pinche and maricón, and occasionally the word verga.

In the middle of the verbal fight, Juan looks out to the pick-up lane and sees an old white pick-up truck. "Chúpame, joto," he says as final words to the skaters, before turning to Isaac. "I gotta go. I'm gonna tell my dad to wait until you get picked up."

Isaac looks at Juan with a mix of fear, awe, and indecision. He takes Juan's leadership, replying, "Okay, Juan."

"See you later."

"See you later, Juan."

The skaters jab a couple of other words at Juan, but they head off back to their skating, even before Juan gets to the truck. Thankfully, Isaac's mom shows up right behind them, and Isaac makes his way over there quickly, keeping tabs on the skaters on the way there.

Thankfully, the conversation on the way home starts out fairly easy for Isaac. "How was school?"

"Good, Mom."

"And did anyone give you trouble about the sunglasses?"

"Some kids made fun of me." He doesn't mention the history teacher's refusal, if only to avoid being caught in the middle of angry Mom and some teacher she needs to yell at. It's happened enough before that Isaac is happier just dealing with the issues if they're not that bad.

Her lips draw up tight. "They need to mind their own business."

"I know, Mom."

"...Did you just agree with me on that?" she asks with a strange inflection.

"Yes, ma'am. They need to mind their own business."

He doesn't get an immediate response. He looks over to see a smile spread across her face, which breaks into a grin and light laugh. "Good. I'm glad you agree."

"So you didn't have any problems with schoolwork or anything, right?"

"No, ma'am."

"Good. Well, it sounds like they're working out okay. We'll keep checking on it. If it keeps helping, we can bring it up at your meeting next week."

His stomach sinks a level or two at remembering about the meeting. "Yes, ma'am."

She doesn't keep up the questioning any further than that, though. On the way home, Isaac realizes that he didn't get an answer from Juan, which makes him kind of frustrated. He wants to understand those emotions better, and he knows that Juan seems pretty nice, so maybe he was okay with him asking. But then, he told those skaters that he wasn't gay, or at least, he thinks that's mostly what was said. It was hard to follow even before it went fully Spanish, and there's no way he could understand a thing after that. Maybe he lied to them to protect himself, Isaac considers. People do that a lot. But also, maybe he isn't gay, but then what do those feelings mean? Too many variables leaves Isaac in an irritable, grumpy state until he decides to put his earbuds in and listen to piano music on YouTube.

Thankfully, the day calms down after Isaac gets home. That is, until he remembers that Vin is coming over tomorrow, at which point Isaac stays wound up almost an hour past his bedtime. He doesn't know what movie they're going to go see, but the idea of sitting next to Vin for hours is more than enough for him.

To be continued...