Isaac lifts his head from his desk and looks at the teacher. Mrs. Stone is staring at him, eyes fixed directly on his; he looks at her eyes to see if he can glean some information on what she may want, but he gets nothing. At all. No emotion, no feeling whatsoever. She says something to him, but he cannot understand her — she is wearing something akin to a bandana across the lower half of her face, and her words do not penetrate the cloth.

Quickly ramping up in anxiety, he looks around the room, only to find every other person with some sort of obstruction in front of their face: some with cloth, some with their hands, and some don’t even have mouths. They all stare emotionlessly at Isaac, their jaws moving, but all that comes out is a wordless cacophony. When he looks back at Mrs. Stone, the cloth has covered her entire face; she puts her hands out in some kind of gesture, but without any clue from her face or words, Isaac is lost as to her meaning. He tries to scream, but when barely any sound comes out, he reaches up to feel that his mouth is missing, as well.

Isaac wakes up to the sound of his own loud gasp. He instinctively checks to make sure his lips are still intact and movable before rolling his eyes and berating himself for being stupid, even if he’s not fully awake yet.

Thinking of which, he rolls over and walks across the room to squint at his clock. Seeing as he has another two hours before his alarm, he does his best to get a bit more sleep so that his day doesn’t start at the wrong time.

Managing to get a few more fitful hours of light sleep, the soft blues of his alarm signal to him that the day should go just fine. He performs his morning routine flawlessly, gets breakfast at school without forgetting to pay, and makes it to the Living Room a few minutes early.

Isaac looks around to see that Ms. Jimenez is currently watching the room, whereas Mr. Coleman is not yet present. Curiously, David is already sitting in his favorite chair, feverishly drawing; his long, black hair waves slightly with the fervor of his pencil strokes. Isaac puts his backpack down in a chair near him and is about to look at what he is doing when he hears the unmistakable chatter of Christian rapidly approaching the door. The door opens to let in Mr. Coleman and Christian, who is excitedly explaining something about mitochondria and "ATP" to Mr. Coleman. Isaac vaguely remembers some of that nonsense from last year, and that’s as far as he cares to go with it.

"Isaac!" Christian practically shouts as he comes in. "You’re back!"

Isaac stares, processing. "I wasn’t gone. I was here yesterday."

"Oh, 'cuz, I mean I’m just kidding, 'cuz I had a dream where I didn’t see you for like a year." He laughs at the absurdity of his own joke and promptly walks off to go do his own thing without another word. This is fine for Isaac, who doesn’t quite have the mental or auditory capacity to deal with full-blown Christian at the current moment. Instead, he sits down at David’s table and watches him put the finishing touches on the manga-style woman that he has been working on.

With the same energy he puts into his work, he suddenly stops, gingerly putting his pencil on the desk. He silently stares at his finished creation for a few seconds; Isaac is flatly astounded at the craftsmanship of the piece itself — it looks every bit like a professional work of art. David leans in closely, rubs his finger on an area of the woman’s skirt to shade the pencil strokes a bit better, and then flips the page to work on a new canvas.

"That picture was really, um, really good," Isaac says quietly, instantly feeling nervous for unknown reasons.

David looks up at Isaac and points to him; an image of the finished work that he just put away resolves in Isaac’s mind. It takes Isaac a moment to interpret, but he finally replies, "Oh, I, it’s too good. I can’t take it." As a quick afterthought, he adds, "Uh, thank you."

David projects a vision of himself holding hands with the anime woman, though in his mind’s eye she is fully colored and somehow more realistic-looking. Then the image is replaced by David making out with the figure, and as his hand slides down her hip, Isaac’s mind is filled with hot, sparking rushes of excitement and lust.

Isaac squints, not ready for the sudden change in mood, and David lets loose with a surprisingly deep guffaw. Multiple people in the room look at the two of them, and Isaac’s cheeks light up. He whispers, "That’s…​that’s inappropriate!"

David looks back at Isaac’s eyes. Isaac sees a picture of himself standing with his arm around a clear, shimmering outline of a person. Though expressionless, Isaac feels through his eyes a certain sense of inquisitiveness.

Isaac stays silent for a moment, contemplating how to get across the fact that he isn’t sure what David was asking, when the picture changes to Isaac and the same anime girl, Isaac’s arm wrapped around her lovingly. "Oh. No, I don’t, um. I don’t…​" The words are hard for him to get out, especially with everyone in the room. "I don’t want to t-talk about it."

With a wide grin from David, the image changes to a sleek, shirtless, muscular man with chiseled features and a sultry gaze. A hint of excitement flares up unbidden in Isaac’s chest, and David grins even wider as the image turns into both Isaac and the man making out in similar fashion.

"Stop it!" Isaac says, squinting his eyes shut and laughing a bit. "That’s inappropriate! You can’t say, um, think…​th-things…​you can’t do that in school!"

More laughter from David, but their mental conversation is overridden by the morning announcements. As Isaac recites the Pledge along with the principal’s voice, he sees David begin a new drawing with the quick outline of a face and a short hairstyle. As Isaac prepares to go to class, he notices Mr. Coleman watching him out of the corner of his vision.

Reading class is gratefully uneventful. Mr. Guthrie doesn’t have any special lessons for him, and the regular lesson is decently accessible; figurative language is easy to identify — clearly sadness is an emotion and cannot loom like a stormcloud — and as long as Isaac doesn’t have to guess at the meaning of a given symbol, he’s happy to do the work. Things go smoothly until the bell rings, at which point Isaac’s brain helpfully reminds him that he’s presenting something in gym class today, and proceeds to kick his anxiety up a few notches.

Though Isaac has felt more comfortable in recent times with dressing out in the main room, today he feels he could use a smaller space to keep out the world; he takes his stuff and dresses out in the bathroom stall, which nobody attempts to interrupt. He exits to the gym and scans the bleachers, finding Charlie and Dalla already sitting together with Juan finding a seat near them. As he approaches, Juan grins his disarming, toothy grin and nods up at him. "Hey, you ready for today?"

"No, Juan." Isaac locks eyes with him long enough to share his dread for the upcoming event.

"Hey, it’s all right, okay?" Juan says with a placating hand in the air. "I already talked it over with Charlie and Dalla, and Charlie’s going to be the gallina for the demonstration, which means all you gotta do is not get tagged by the blindfolded guy."

Charlie rolls his eyes. "This is gonna be hard, isn’t it?"

With a raised eyebrow, Dalla quips, "Whassa matta? You chicken?"

"I see what you did there," Juan says with a grin.

"…​I don’t get it," Charlie comments, looking to Isaac for help and receiving nothing but blank confusion in response.

"So," Juan says after a moment, "I suggest we go first, since it’s super easy and then we can relax after that." Just as the anxiety flares up in Isaac’s stomach, Juan adds, "You literally don’t even have to talk, other than to sometimes say 'I’m over here!' or 'You can’t find me!' when we’re playing the game. Is that…​is that cool?"

"That’s cool, Juan," Isaac says after a moment of deliberation.

"Awesome. Oh, and uh, you’ll have to hold hands with other people, but yeah."

Isaac has no idea why that suddenly puts a pit in his stomach.

As class officially begins, the coach cuts the air with his whistle and commands attention. "Okay, boys, today we’re going to start with the Regional Games projects. Few rules first off: one, no hurting anyone. I don’t care what the rules are, you’re not tackling, punching, kicking, body-slamming, you get the idea. Two, participation is mandatory. This is two grades: project and participation. If you don’t like the game we’re playing, great — it’ll last a few minutes and we’ll check out the next one. If the game can’t include everyone, then whoever sits out has to be first pick in the next game. The goal here is to experience a variety of physical games and to be active. If I catch you 'actively refusing' to participate, you’ll be running laps on the other side of the gym, and you’re still getting a failing grade for the participation side of the project. So do us all a favor and be part of the whole deal, all right?" After getting no complaints from the boys, the coach claps his hands once and calls out, "Okay, which brave soul wants to go first? I give extra points for volunteers, by the way."

Juan springs up from his seat, startling Isaac slightly. "We will!"

"All right, great! So first, tell us what the game is called and where it’s from. Then, explain the rules — how to play, how you win or lose, et cetera. Give us a demonstration if you need to, and then we’ll all try it out."

Juan turns to the crowd. "Um, okay, so the game is called La Gallina Ciega, which means 'The Blind Chicken.'" A few of the boys snicker when he mentions the name; Juan also titters in that way that Isaac has seen people do when things aren’t funny at all. Juan continues, "It’s from Mexico. It’s um, it’s basically like Tag, except you hafta wear a blindfold if you’re the 'gallina'. So you put the blindfold on, you get, uh, the people spin you around a few times, and then you count 10 seconds. Okay. So everyone else playing has to make a circle around that person and hold hands. The blind person has to try to tag someone — we usually play where you have to tag like the chest or shoulders, not just the arms — and everyone else tries to move out of the way while holding hands and calling out things like '¡'Toy aca!' or '¡Encuéntrame!,' or in English they would be 'I’m right here!' or 'Come find me!' or whatever, since they’re blind." Looking up at the coach, who is busy scratching his pencil on a clipboard, Juan asks, "Is that…​enough?"

The coach looks up. "Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. So go ahead and get your group down here for a quick demo, and then we’ll try it out after that."

Juan looks at Charlie, Dalla, and Isaac — he is sure that the majority of the yellow, staticky nervousness he feels is himself, not Juan — and the boys join him on the gym floor. Juan asks, "So who wants to be the gallina?"

Dalla solemnly decrees, "I hereby volunteer Charlie."

Without moving his eyes, Charlie remarks, "I hate you."

"You wanna?" Juan asks. Charlie rolls his eyes and shrugs, and Juan digs in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a black bandana with stylized white skulls and red flowers on it. Folding it into a blindfold, he ties it around Charlie’s head and waves in front of him. "Can you see?"

"I see my eyelids."

"Okay. Now we make a circle around him and hold hands." Juan holds his hands out to both sides. Dalla takes one and puts his other hand out to Isaac, who hesitates a moment. Are people going to think I’m gay if I’m holding hands with a boy? With two boys? Juan already knows, but what if others start making fun of — wait, they have to do it, too. Stupid, Isaac. Stupid. He darts his hands out and takes both of theirs; where Dalla’s hand is soft and warm, almost squishy, Juan’s is cold and smooth. The feeling Isaac gets confuses him — he can’t tell if it’s embarrassment, excitement, or something else entirely, and it bothers him.

"Oh, wait, we have to spin him around," Juan notes, breaking the grasp almost immediately to tend to his duty. He starts guiding Charlie’s rapid twirling, though it is clear that Charlie is taking care of most of it himself. After a moment, Juan puts his hands back out. "Dude, you only need to spin three times!"

"Oh," Charlie says, slowing his whirling down to face the area between Dalla and Juan. "Okay, I think I’m ready," he says as he staggers slightly.

With a thin-eyed smile in Charlie’s direction, Juan grabs Isaac’s hand again and announces, "And…​go!" as he jerks Isaac quickly to the right. Isaac almost loses his footing, but steadies himself just as Charlie lunges at the space where Juan was a moment ago, tagging nothing but air. "Ah-ah, ¡'toy aca!" he says with a toothy grin.

Charlie follows Juan’s voice, except that he continues to look too far in one direction and staggers forward, almost clipping Dalla, who taunts, "Nah brah, over here!"

"Sit still!" Charlie says through a laugh, flailing over near Dalla, who pulls both Juan and Isaac toward him to dodge Charlie’s hands. Normally this sort of high-energy, unpredictable activity would stress Isaac out, but he finds the laughter and grins contagious, giving in to the moment.

Juan leans over to Isaac and calls out, "You gotta say some things, too — it’s part of--whoa!--the game!"

Isaac gets yanked toward Charlie’s hand, but manages to duck before it swings into his ear. Laughing, he thinks back to the original suggestions Juan had and tries to mimic them as best he can, which comes out like a strangely pronounced, "Toy akkah!"

"C’mon, y’all know I don’t speak Spanish!" Charlie complains, though his smile seems at odds with what he’s saying. Isaac looks over to Juan to see if he can get guidance on how Charlie is feeling, since Charlie’s eyes are covered. Instead, he sees that Juan is looking at him with a completely inscrutable expression: mouth slightly open as if to say something, a slight smile, eyes narrowed ever so slightly. The jumbled bundle of emotions that Isaac feels in that quick moment are difficult to untangle for him, but he feels a web of surprise and disbelief wrapped around bits of the feeling like when Isaac watches a cute cat video on the Internet, a fleeting feeling like when someone would ask him to talk about math or other interesting subjects, and a surge of the pulling of attraction.

The moment is fleeting, but it lasts just long enough for Charlie’s flailing hand to connect with Isaac’s shoulder and quickly find its way to his chest. "Got you!" Charlie barks. "Whoever you are."

"Aww," Juan and Isaac groan together as Charlie removes the blindfold. Isaac ventures, "So…​does that mean that I’m it, now?"

The coach interjects, "It would, but that was just a demo. Pretty simple game, I think we can just jump in. Any questions from the audience?" Nobody says anything, so the coach continues, "All right. Let’s break into two groups then; I think a good eleven to twelve people should make it interesting. Let’s break you guys up; two of you go to this side," he says, motioning to Charlie and Dalla, "and you two stay here. Okay, everybody else, break yourselves up into even groups — I reserve the right to change anyone around with no grumbling."

As the two groups form, the coach comes over to each group to appoint the first person to be "la gallina," handing the first group a spare white t-shirt for a blindfold; when he gets to Isaac and Juan’s group, he suggests, "Since you were tagged, Isaac, you can be 'it' over here."

As Juan folds the bandana back into a neat blindfold, Isaac feels a sudden flush of fear. The idea of being "it" was usually annoying for him because everyone always seemed to be faster, but when Juan wraps the blindfold around Isaac’s eyes, memories rush into his head: the black shirt being whipped over his head and across his face, the punch to his midsection that started the assault, the feeling of panicked helplessness, each impact on his body in visceral detail. As if resonating with those memories, his mind conjures the image of Mrs. Stone with the cloth wrapped around her entire face from his nightmare this morning.

Isaac frantically claws at his face, flinging the bandana to the ground. He feels the tears well up and out, warming his eyes and streaking his face as the adrenaline courses through him. The only two thoughts of any import in his mind at that moment are I have to get away from here! and, to a lesser degree, They’re going to call me a crybaby now! which only serves to reinforce the first. He turns and dashes for the locker room, tripping over his own shoe in the process and landing hard on his chest. He hears Juan and the coach both call his name, but safety is more important; he pushes himself up and nearly sprints the rest of the way to the locker room, where he clambers over the benches and darts into the stall. He climbs up on the toilet, where he wordlessly hyperventilates, tears streaming in rivulets down his cheeks.

As he sits, nearly panting between sobs, his first instinct is to review the situation. What happened? Why did I get scared of a bandana? No. It wasn’t the bandana. It was the shirt. The memories try to come flying back, but Isaac squeezes his eyes shut tight enough that the feeling distracts him. He rocks on the gently-creaking toilet lid, trying to catch his breath as the adrenaline slowly subsides.

A few minutes pass with Isaac focusing on the motion of his rocking, the occasional drip from the leaky shower head nearby, and the distant commotion of the boys finishing up their game of la gallina ciega. Isaac takes the time to wonder how a memory can be as terrifying as the actual moment itself was, if only fleetingly; it seems unreasonable to him that he should feel afraid of something that can’t hurt him anymore. But then, he notes, thinking about Vin still makes me feel happy and excited, and thinking about the times that we…​ Isaac cuts the train of thought before it, too, affects him viscerally.

He continues to rock until the sobs and his heartbeat both slow down to manageable levels. He jumps slightly at the slice of the whistle in the background, and he knows that he needs to go back out there so he doesn’t get a bad grade. Isaac takes a deep breath, sighs, and slides off the toilet. Opening the door, he is surprised to see Juan walking around the corner and into the locker room just as he himself was leaving. "Oh. Hi, Juan," he says, quickly using his shirt to wipe his eyes.

"Oh!" Juan jumps slightly. "I didn’t think—​I didn’t know where you were. You scared me." Juan’s smile quickly assures Isaac that there are no lasting effects from it, but he is unwilling to look into Juan’s eyes to confirm it. "I was just checking to make sure you’re okay."

"I’m okay, Juan," Isaac replies, though he isn’t entirely certain how true that is. "I just got scared."

"What…​what scared you?"

Isaac thinks of the best way to explain. "It reminded me, the, um, the blindfold reminded me of…​when I got beat up."

"Oh." Juan looks down. "Dammit. I am so sorry. I didn’t even think about it."

Isaac is taken aback by Juan’s language for a short moment, but he responds, "It’s okay, Juan. You…​I didn’t know that it…​would scare me." Isaac walks past him, saying, "We need to go back out there."

"You sure you’re good?"

"I’m sure I’m good," he repeats, feeling more confident in his almost-lie.

They rejoin in the middle of the description of the next game; a boy with short dark hair which stood up almost like someone had rubbed a balloon on it was explaining the rules for a game from Japan he called Daruma-San Ga Koronda. "One person is 'it,' and they stand at a spot, like at a wall or a tree, or whatever, and they look away from the group. Everyone else starts at a line, and while the one who is 'it' is looking away, they can walk or run toward him, and if they get to him, they win. But the person --"

"Oh! So like 'Red Light, Green Light'!" comes a shout from the audience.

The boy looks back for a moment before replying, "I guess so? We call it something different in my family. Anyway, the person who is 'it' has to say "Daruma-san ga koronda!" and then turn around. Anyone that they see moving has to go back to the start. …​That’s it."

"Okay," the coach says with a nod. "Questions?"

A boy with wavy, sandy brown hair raises his hand. "Is this from Bleach?"

The boy in front grins. "The manga? No. Shunsui’s Shikai took it from the game. It’s been around forever."

Charlie raises his hand and asks, "What happens when someone tags you, and, uh, do we have to say that…​whatever you said?"

"Whoever tags the person becomes 'it' for the next round. And no, you can just say something like 'The Daruma doll fell down!' in English."

"Ah." He mouths the word "Daruma" a few times as the coach asks for further questions. At the silence, the coach claps his hands together once and announces, "Then let’s see a demonstration. Dan’s group, please show us how this is done."

The boy who gave the explanation, "Dan," goes to the wall on one side of the gym. The coach directs the other three boys to stand at one of the marks for the basketball court on the gym floor, far enough away from Dan that they would have to do some fast walking to get to him. A shredding tweet of the whistle, and the three boys begin to approach Dan. One, a leggy 6th grader, begins to dash over there whilst the other two take more of a power-walking stride toward him.

Dan calls out, "Daruma-San ga…​koronda!" and spins around to look behind him. The farthest boy had stopped by the time Dan started talking and was barely a quarter of the way there; the middle one made it over halfway before planting his feet in place on "koronda." The sprinter, however, stumbled another step forward after trying to stop too quickly, and stomped his feet all the way back to the starting line.

This went on a few times, with each repetition of the phrase being slightly different in speed; two of the boys were caught off-guard at least once, but the middle boy managed to get within a footstep of Dan before Dan turned around, and they both knew he was doomed the moment he turned back. Sure enough, the moment his eyes were elsewhere, the middle boy tagged him in the back with a "Hah!" and they all gathered back up at the coach. On the way back, Dan turns to the leggy one and mentions, "You’re fast at running, but you’re not fast at stopping."

"Shut up," he replies with a roll of his eyes and the barest hint of a smile.

Everyone gathers up to try it in one big group, since there is plenty of space in the gym. The kid who asked about the Bleach reference volunteers to be 'it' for the next round, and everyone else lines up. While Isaac is on his way, though, the coach stops him and says to him in a low voice, "I want you to participate in this one, but we need to talk afterward."

"Yes, sir. Coach." He makes his way to the line-up, trying to ignore the dread of the incoming conversation.

The game runs smoothly; multiple people get caught on the first few turns, but eventually most people catch on quickly. Isaac isn’t the fastest runner as it is, but he is very good at walking — and equally good at stopping — so this exercise comes naturally to him. Each time he hears "Ko-" from the last word, he immediately freezes so that he isn’t caught. He doesn’t win, but he takes it as a personal victory that he never once has to go back to the start.

After the session, Isaac tunes out the discussion of the next activity, both because he knows he won’t be part of it, and because he is too busy wondering what the coach is going to say. He catches a bit of the commotion as the kids line up in two parallel lines, facing away from each other, and as another boy calls out something, everyone starts running in the same direction. More importantly, though, the coach comes up to Isaac and directs him over to the side of the room.

"Isaac," he begins. "What happened?"

"I…​got scared, Coach." After an awkward pause where the coach continues to stare at him, he continues, "It, the bandana, reminded me of…​when I got beat up."

The coach takes a deep breath and nods his head slowly. "Got it. …​I’m gonna talk to the counselors and Mr. Coleman about getting you set up with a counselor."

Isaac shakes his head. "I don’t want to go to the counselor." The only thing he can think is that there will be yet one more person that knows about him and his ability.

"It’s not a bad thing, it’s—​look. You reacted like…​" He takes a slow breath. "I’ve known people with PTSD. Now I can’t diagnose anything, so I’m not saying you do have it, but you really need to talk to a counselor, because that’s not a normal reaction to a black bandana. You get me?"

Isaac scrutinizes his statement for the potential of him trying to refer to Isaac being different, but he thinks about it for a moment. He’s right, Isaac thinks, people don’t usually get scared of a bandana. The thought isn’t comforting to him in the least, though, and he has to fight hard not to shed tears as he responds, "I get you, Coach." Then an idea hits him: "Coach?"

"'Sup?"

"I have a therapist. Um, I…​had one. I could maybe talk t-to him about it."

The coach closes his eyes and shakes his head very slightly as he replies, "Sure, that’s fine. You just really need to talk to someone with a degree in psychology, I don’t care who it is, but, yeah — do yourself a favor and get help for it now, not years later." He claps a rough hand on Isaac’s shoulder and stands up. Isaac sees him reach for the whistle with enough time to clap his hands over his ears; the whistle cuts through still, but his protection helps immensely. The coach gathers everyone up and announces free-play for the remainder of the time, since the next game would probably go over time.

Isaac joins the ball-bouncing group as usual, as it gives him a more mindless task to engage in whilst his brain processes the idea of going back to his therapist. Dr. Green (who was not at all green) was a comforting person to be around, and he definitely helped Isaac learn to control himself instead of lashing out and melting down the majority of the time. He would probably be able to help with this, too, Isaac considered.

As he tosses the ball back and forth in the circle, he finds himself glancing over at the basketball courts; he feels a momentary shroud of resentment try to settle in on his emotions, but he turns back in time to catch the ball again and toss it to someone else. This happens once or twice before the whistle cuts off their time in gym class.

After getting dressed, Juan asks, "Hey, you wanna meet up in the orchestra room again today?"

"Okay, Juan — uh. No. I am going over to Vin’s house today. I’m sorry, Juan."

"Oh, no problem!" Juan replies with a smile. Isaac doesn’t understand how someone would smile after getting told that they weren’t going to get their way; to him, that is the precise opposite of something that would make someone smile. He glances at Juan’s eyes for confirmation or explanation, and he feels a quick breeze of disappointment and another small jumble of emotions that he cannot figure out before Juan bends over to pick up his gym clothes and put them away. "See you tomorrow!" Juan calls over his shoulder as he passes Isaac by.

"See you tomorrow, Juan," Isaac says automatically, though his mind is occupied resolving the conflicting evidence he was just presented. Suddenly, he remembers Vin’s request regarding Juan, but before he can even call his name, Juan is out of sight already. Isaac sighs heavily and mentally berates himself on the way out of the gym.

A quick exchange between Isaac and Mrs. Davis followed by a quiet, productive math class provides Isaac a refreshing buffer against the anxieties of the morning. Lunch ends up relatively boring, with Christian building a wall of speech about Clash Royale and the human body systems, which Isaac did enjoy learning about last year, but isn’t interesting enough to elicit much response from Isaac.

That is, until he announces, "Today we started learning about the reproductive system." Isaac nearly chokes on his steak finger, for some reason not expecting the conversation to end up on this topic. He doesn’t say anything, though, so Christian continues, "I already knew about that boys have penises and girls have vaginas, and boys have testicles and girls have ovaries, so like I guess I already knew most of the stuff about it, except like there’s a tube called the vas deferens and also a thing called the prostate gland and some other stuff, and it’s cool 'cuz they all help make semen."

"I know, Christian," Isaac replies. "I learned it all last year."

"That’s pretty cool stuff," Christian says, taking a bite of baby carrots. Stopping for a moment to look at his food, Christian takes two peas and a baby carrot and arranges them on his plate. "Look, Isaac!"

Isaac looks at Christian’s "art" and flicks the carrot out of position. "Stop it, Christian."

Christian just laughs obnoxiously for a moment. He picks up the carrot, and just as Isaac takes his sixth bite of pizza (out of an estimated nine total), Christian gasps. "OH! Isaac! Did you know that Goku’s name was also 'Kakarot?' It means 'carrot!' They called him a carrot, and Vegeta is short for 'vegetable!'"

"Who’s Goku, Christian?"

Christian’s eyes go wide. "You haven’t watched Dragon Ball Z?!"

Isaac vaguely remembers seeing a show by that name, with a bunch of spiky-haired yelling people, and found himself disinterested. "No, Christian."

"Oh, man! It’s one of the best cartoons out there! There’s a man named Goku, but his real name’s Kakarot which is basically 'carrot' but his friends just call him Goku, but then he meets, he meets this guy named Vegeta and another guy, Raditz, who’s his brother, but…​"

Isaac is content to tune Christian’s explanation of what sounds like way too much stuff and instead focus on eating three carrots, three grapes, and another steak finger, all in rotation. He finds himself thankful that Tuesday didn’t end up with some horrible sweet meat thing.

A particularly long-winded explanation later, Christian blurts out, "Do you know how to draw a penis?"

Isaac stops just before biting his carrot. "Why do you keep talking about penises, Christian? It’s annoying."

Christian stares for a moment. "I don’t keep talking about penises. I just needed to know if you knew how to draw a penis because I need to work on a poster for the human body systems and my group wanted me to do the reproductive system because they were all too scared to do it and I said okay, but I don’t know how to draw a penis really good."

"I can’t draw, Christian," Isaac says with a shrug. "Lots of boys draw penises in things, like dictionaries. Maybe you can ask someone else, Christian."

Christian barks a laugh. "One time Mr. Schmidt — he was my English teacher last year — one time someone drew a penis on a boy’s forehead in the English book on the story we were reading, and Mr. Schmidt saw him do it, and so the boy was trying to say it was already there but he got caught, and then Mr. Schmidt roasted him for like five minutes about how that’s not where penises go, and it barely even looks like one, and if he was a boy he should know what they look like, and how he should be embarrassed to try to make someone else’s art look better with a badly-drawn penis on someone’s forehead. Oh my God everyone was laughing at him so hard and he turned super red and maybe I think he started crying a little bit, but it was so funny! Um, I don’t think he ever drew a penis again. Probably nobody ever did in that class, haha." Isaac knows that the story is supposed to be funny, but all it sounds like to him is a bunch of people picking on someone else. Christian concludes with, "So I just want to make sure I draw it right."

Isaac thinks about the dilemma for a moment. "Um, you could look online, Christian. Maybe…​you could look at Wikipedia, or um, like a medical site." Lowering his voice, he adds, "…​Or porn." Isaac flushes at saying the word.

Christian’s eyes go wide and he all-too-loudly whispers, "I’m not gonna look at porn! Ew!"

This reaction almost surprises Isaac; for some reason, he just figured that everyone in the world his age looked at porn except for him. "Oh," he says after a moment, but can’t think of anything to follow it.

"…​Do you look at porn?" Christian asks, this time in a passably moderate volume.

"No, Christian," Isaac answers flatly.

"Oh. Okay." Christian stares at his last carrot for a few seconds. "My friend Kevin, he moved away last year, but I was at his house and he wanted me to watch porn with him, and…​it was really weird. He started, you know. Doing the thing."

Isaac pauses, processing it. "You mean he was…​masturbating?"

"Yes!" Christian hisses. "Right there! On the couch next to me!"

Isaac is disturbed, both at the idea that someone would do something like that when it’s clearly not an acceptable thing unless the people are going out, and at the fact that he finds himself slightly aroused by thinking about it. Looking around for onlookers or lunch monitors, he leans in and asks, "What did you do?"

Christian puts his hands together and starts to twiddle his thumbs, a gesture that Isaac has seen him do occasionally when he is very uncomfortable; when Isaac had asked him about it, Mr. Coleman mentioned the word "stimming," and pointed out that it was very much like when Isaac rocks back and forth or picks at his fingers. This gesture makes immediate sense to Isaac, far more than a wrinkled brow or turned mouth would. "I’m sorry," he quickly says, "I’m sorry, Christian, I didn’t mean to upset you."

Continuing as if Isaac had not interrupted, Christian mumbles, "I just sat there until he asked me if, if I knew what 'jacking off' was, and I told him I did, but I didn’t want to do it. He said it’s okay, nobody would know, his mom wouldn’t be back for an hour, and his dad was out on the rig, and…​so I stuck my hand down my pants and, I guess, pretended to do it. It was really creepy and weird."

With a bundle of questions about the situation in his mind, Isaac picks the one that forms itself in his mind the most clearly: "Is he, um, was he gay?"

"The porn was guys and women, so I don’t think so." After an awkward silence punctuated by Christian popping the last carrot in his mouth, he asks, "Do you? You know."

Isaac analyzes his options. This is one of those things people aren’t supposed to talk about in public. When other people talk about it, they get made fun of. Most boys do it, from what I’ve learned online, and they just pretend they don’t. I don’t think Christian is pretending, though, because he doesn’t lie to me, as far as I know. If I tell him, he probably won’t tell anyone else. He already knows things about me that he would make fun of me for if he was going to do it. As long as nobody else hears, I guess it’s okay. He takes a breath and replies, "Yes, Christian. I…​" He lowers his voice, to be safe. "I masturbate." At Christian’s bug-eyed stare, Isaac adds, "A lot of boys do, Christian. I looked it up, and over half of boys start to…​do it by thirteen, and over ninety percent do it by seventeen."

Christian’s eyes return to normal, and he looks down a bit. "I’m thirteen, and I don’t masturbate."

"Not everybody does, Christian — only half, or maybe a little over." Isaac notices that Christian is still twiddling his thumbs. "Does it…​are you upset, Christian?"

"Why do you?"

Isaac stops to think; he has never been asked, nor really even thought about, specifically why he does. "I do because it feels good, Christian, and then, sometimes I just feel like…​like I need to. I don’t know how to explain it, Christian."

"I don’t wanna talk about it anymore," Christian suddenly announces.

"O—​okay, Christian," Isaac stammers.

Christian gets up to throw his trash away, and the rest of lunch passes by in loud silence.

History class is as exciting as it ever is — a packet of papers and a textbook to find the answers in. He learned a few years ago that, even if the material is boring, he could treat it like a scavenger hunt and it became at least tolerable. Art and science, though interesting enough, pass by interminably slowly; every minute on the clock seems to take a minute longer than the last one, even though Isaac is well aware that that is not true. It doesn’t make it go any faster, though, he laments.

The class finally wraps up, and the final bell rings. Isaac tries to be either first or last in line, depending on the circumstances that await him; today, he barely hears the teacher wish them a good day before he is around the corner and power-walking to the eagle statue. Dodging people and backpacks on his way, he bursts forth into the main lobby and is very momentarily disappointed that Vin didn’t somehow get there first. Taking advantage of the timing, he takes out his phone and calls his mom.

"Hello?"

"Mom. Can I go over to Vin’s house?"

"You were just there for two days, honey."

"Not all of those two days, Mom."

"I—​yes, I get that. Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time over there?"

"…​No, ma’am." Isaac couldn’t really imagine what "too much time" would really be as far as spending time with Vin goes.

There is a pause on the line before his mom responds, "Well, I’m sure he and his family would like a break from having company all the time."

"He invited me, Mom. He wants me there."

"Isaac, I’ve made my decision: not today."

"…​Can he come over to our place then?"

The silence from the other line goes on long enough that Isaac begins to worry he might have said the wrong thing. Just as he prepares to launch into his apologetic chant, she replies, "You know, that’s not a terrible idea. I don’t have anything planned for dinner, though, so it’s just sandwiches or whatever we have. He can come over if he’s okay with it."

"Yesss! Thank you, Mom!"

"Of course. I’ll be there to pick you up shortly. And Vin, if he’s coming."

"Okay, Mom."

"Love you, Doodlebug!"

"Love you, Mom."

"Bye."

"Bye, Mom."

Isaac stands near the eagle, watching all the hallways leading into the lobby, though he knows that Vin comes from the hallway on the eagle’s right side. He catches a glimpse of Juan heading outside, but as Isaac watches him leave, he hears, "'Sup?" in a deeper voice, just at his right ear. He screeches and jumps, his shoulder connecting with Vin’s chin, making his jaw clack shut.

Vin recoils, rubbing his chin and laughing. "Whoa! You got a mean right shoulder there!"

Torn between the irritation of being startled and the shock of having accidentally hit his boyfriend, Isaac blurts, "Why are you okay?!"

Vin blinks. "…​What?"

Isaac’s brain plays back what he said, and his entire upper body warms up. "I-I meant, I, I didn’t mean that!"

Vin is too busy guffawing to respond.

"I meant to say, 'Why did you do that?' and, 'Are you okay?' but--"

"It’s cool, I get it," Vin interrupts. "I just…​that was amazing. Hah! Uh, sorry for scaring you." He moves his jaw around a bit with his hand on his chin.

"…​Are you okay?" Isaac asks, forgoing the other question and quietly seething at himself for his mistake.

"Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Barely hurt at all. Just took me by surprise, heh. I guess that makes us even, yeah?"

"…​I don’t know, Vin." Isaac considers how one would properly balance out surprises. Are they a one-to-one thing no matter what, or do some count for more?

Vin looks at Isaac. "Hey." Isaac looks up to him, and he finds himself awash in warmth and sparkling excitement, with a deep foundation of care supporting it all. Vin says, "I’m glad to see you."

The words almost seem pulled from Isaac as he replies, "I’m glad to see you too, Vin." He breaks contact to quickly look around, making sure nobody was listening to their conversation; as usual, not a soul even glances their way.

Vin asks, "Shall we catch the bus before it’s too late?"

"Oh!" Isaac slaps his forehead for forgetting. "My m-mom asked if you wanted to come over to our house instead, Vin, and then she said that your family would probably like a break from company."

Vin looks to the side with raised eyebrows, an expression Isaac has seen on memes before, usually preceded by a scrunched-up face that he recognizes as disgust — he assumes it is supposed to represent the opposite. Vin nods slightly and replies, "Actually, I could probably use a break from my family as well, now that I think about it, heh. Lemme call and make sure they know. Your mom comin' to pick us up?"

"Yes, Vin. She usually meets meet—​I mean, she meets m-me at the bench outside."

"Cool." As they both head outside, he makes a call. "Hey mom? Cool if I hang at Isaac’s? …​Yeah, no, I’m not goin' to practice. Why…​Mom, we already talked this out, I--" He pauses, holding his breath for a moment, and then sighs heavily. "A’right, yeah. I’ll go talk to him real quick. …​No, no, you’re right, that’s not cool o' me. I’ll talk to him. So then it’s cool? …​I mean I was just gonna use my allowance to get an Uber back—​I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I’m pretty sure she’ll drop me off, but I can call you if I need a ride. Cool? …​A’right. Bye Mom." After a slightly longer pause, he adds, "…​Love you too," and hangs up. He stares off somewhere indeterminate for a moment before putting his phone back in his pocket. "Hey, uh, we gotta stop by the fields for a sec, gotta talk to Coach before we head to your place. Cool?"

"Cool, Vin." Isaac doesn’t care so much what they do at this point, so long as it’s together. Except watching movies with fire alarms in them, he muses with irritation.

They head to the athletics fields, Isaac staying fairly close to Vin but trying his best not to look like they’re together. By the time they get there, though, Isaac finds himself much farther from Vin than he realized. Vin notices as well and asks, "Isaac? Whatcha doin' all the way back there?"

Isaac honestly isn’t sure of the answer, other than to reply, "I didn’t want us to look like we’re…​" He doesn’t finish the sentence.

Vin glances around the empty hallway and laughs lightly. "My man, you don’t even look like you know me all the way back there. C’mon. It’s fine if people think we’re friends, you know."

Isaac considers the idea and finds himself being foolish. With a grumbling sigh, he hurries up to Vin’s side and continues outside with him. Still, he can’t shake the feelings of intense vulnerability and anxiety threatening to destabilize his emotions. It doesn’t really dawn on him specifically why he feels that way until his eyes finally land on the area behind the bleachers. He freezes, unable to get his feet to move another step as his mind replays the events of feeling impact after impact, of Vin pound Jason’s head into the pavement over and over, and of Vin breaking down and screaming.

"Whoa, hey!" Vin calls out, snapping Isaac back into the present. Isaac realizes he has latched himself on to Vin’s side, hands wrapped around Vin’s waist.

Before Vin can say another word, Isaac practically launches off of him, staggering backward as he rapidly chants, "Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Vin, I--"

Vin looks around at the other people on the field before he walks closer to Isaac. In a low voice, he says, "What’s wrong? Are y--" He stops as he looks out at the bleachers. "…​Oh."

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hug you outside, I—​I’m sorry…​"

"Nah, it’s fine, it’s fine. Nobody’s around. And hell, even if they were, fuck 'em. …​Let’s just, eh, let’s go hang out over here." He walks around to the front of the bleachers and looks back to Isaac. Their eyes meet, and the resultant crashing waves of abject terror, blinding confusion, and simmering hatreds somehow don’t manage to make it past the wall of protectiveness and concern hemming them in. Isaac grits his teeth, furiously scrubs the tears from his eyes, and practically stomps over to the front of the bleachers to get away from the sight. He finds that knowing he’s near the site of the assault doesn’t bother him as much as actually seeing it, though he still needs to let his heart and brain calm down for a bit. "You, you gonna be cool here for a moment while I talk to Coach? I promise it won’t take long."

"Yes, Vin, I’m gonna…​be cool here." He wants to believe that he’s not lying, but he’ll have to wait for his heart to slow down first.

Vin takes a deep breath and turns around to head toward the coach, who is over at the jogging track, talking to a few other tall kids that Isaac suspects are on the basketball team as well. They are all out of earshot, so all Isaac sees is Vin and the coach walk off a bit from the other boys, who are stretching their legs.

Isaac busies himself untangling his stupid brain. Yes, it happened, Isaac, but it’s not going to happen again! Why are you so afraid of it still? He knows he’s heard the term "PTSD" before, but not specifically applied to him, as the coach had suggested. It doesn’t help the situation at all that he cannot find a way to be okay with the fact that, if it’s true that he has "PTSD," then he has yet one more label in the category of "Things Wrong with Isaac." He does his best to zone out, rocking back and forth on the bleachers, listening to the faint tick of the metal rivets on the back pockets of his blue jeans as they gently tap against the bleachers with each backward motion.

Isaac realizes a bit of time has gone by, longer than he would expect a conversation that should consist of "Hey, I won’t be at practice today — Oh, okay — All right, bye" should take. He glances over to see Vin walking back to him, and he gets up from the bleachers to meet Vin in the grass.

"All right," Vin says with a half-smile, "uh, how long does it usually take your mom to get here?"

"I don’t know, Vin. I’ve never counted the minutes."

"You’ve—​no, I mean, like, an estimate. Like, twenty minutes? Ten?"

"Probably close to t-twenty minutes, Vin."

"A’right," he says with a nod to the front area of the school, "let’s go back through the school, then. Faster that way."

When they reach the benches outside the front door, Vin sits down and stares off at the kids skating around on the concrete of the courtyard. Isaac recognizes a few of them as the kids that had the argument in Spanish with Juan. After a moment of Vin staring out at them (and Isaac mostly looking at him), Vin finally turns his head slightly toward Isaac and asks, "So, how was your day?"

"My day was…​bad," Isaac decides.

"Oof," Vin replies. "Why so?"

"I had a nightmare last night, and then I had to do a group project in gym class, and then I, um, I…​got scared also in gym class, and then the coach said maybe I have P.T.S.D." He punctuates each letter with a tiny, clipped pause to make sure they all come out right.

"…​What scared you?" Vin asks after a moment.

Isaac takes a moment to respond, himself. "A black bandana, Vin."

"A…​but why?"

"It made m-me think about when they put the black shirt over my face." Isaac squints his eyes in a surprisingly effective attempt to stop the memory from replaying.

Vin doesn’t respond for some time, instead staring out in the direction of the skaters for a while before saying, "Yeah. Makes sense."

"What does, Vin?"

"Hm? Oh. The uh, the shirt thing. I could see how that could, y’know, make you remember that. I mean, it was less than a week ago — that’s still pretty fresh."

"But it’s stupid that a bandana makes m-me think about it, Vin."

"Brains are weird, yo. Heh. Oh, speaking of weird brains, I got my first therapy appointment tomorrow."

"You’re going to ther—​oh yeah, I remember when you told me that."

"Yeah. Dunno why, but I’m kinda weirded out by it. Like, don’t go pokin' around in my brain — you never know what you’ll find, heh."

"They just ask you questions, Vin. They don’t go…​'poking around' in your brain."

Vin gives Isaac a sidelong glance. "I know they don’t, but what about when we look at each other? Does that count as 'poking around'?"

After a moment of intense deliberation, Isaac replies, "I don’t know, Vin."

"Not that it’s bad or anything," Vin says with a shrug, "but anyway, yeah, going to the therapist on Thursdays now, so that should be fun. …​That was sarcasm, by the way."

"…​Oh." Isaac exhales the breath he had queued up for another rebuttal.

"Heh. So uh, you said a while back that you had a therapist before, yeah?"

"Yeah, Vin."

"Do you still?"

"I…​think so, Vin. I mean, I haven’t gone to the th-therapist in a while, but he said that I could always go back if I needed to."

"Nice. You, uh…​got any advice? Y’know, for how to deal with a therapist an' all."

Isaac processes the question for a moment. "I don’t know what you mean, Vin."

"You know, like, how do you answer their questions, or how do you, I dunno, make sure they don’t, like, trick you in an argument…​eh, nevermind. I’m not really sure what I’m asking, here."

"My therapist was always helpful, Vin. He didn’t try t-to t-try—​he didn’t trick me or anything, and then, but he just wanted to help. Therapists are supposed to be helpful, Vin." Movement behind Vin catches Isaac’s eyes, and he sees the familiar color of his mother’s car driving up. "Mom’s here," he mentions, hoisting his backpack up on his shoulder. Vin does the same, and they walk down the covered pathway to the parking lot.

As they open the doors to get in the car, Ms. Brooks comments, "Isaac, honey, you might want to let Vin sit in the front seat. There’s more leg room." Isaac glances at just how much more leg Vin has than he does, not having considered the fact that those legs have to go somewhere in a smaller car.

"Nah, it’s fine, Ms. Brooks — I fold up nicely, heh." He continues to invite himself into the back seat of the car, behind Isaac’s usual seat.

Isaac, conflicted, looks at his mom until she shrugs lightly. "Well, fine, but Isaac can pull his seat forward a bit for you, at least." She gives Isaac a direct stare, which Isaac only keeps long enough to catch a vague hint of some sort of emotion that feels a bit like stubbornness, but different.

Isaac adjusts the seat before getting in, as he finds it exceedingly annoying to try to move the seat back or forward while he’s in it. He gets in, tests the leg room, exits the vehicle to adjust the seat slightly back, and sits back down comfortably.

"Isaac," his mother says.

"Yes, Mom?"

"You should ask if Vin is comfortable."

"Oh! Are you comfortable, Vin?"

Vin just laughs. "Yeah, everything’s great back here."

"Okay, Vin. I’m sorry, Mom."

"It’s fine, dear," she says while putting the car in drive. "We just always want to make sure when we do something for someone else that it actually meets their needs."

"Yes, ma’am." Isaac feels a little stupid for not having asked of his own volition.

As they turn the corner onto the main road, Ms. Brooks asks, "So, how was school?" After a pause, she adds, "Isaac?"

"Oh. School was…​okay. …​Actually, school was kinda bad."

"Oh?"

He relates the story of gym class and the bleachers, and about what the coach said. His mom listens without interruption and responds, "I see. It definitely does sound like we should contact your therapist to talk about this. And I’ll see to it that your principal is aware of the additional healthcare burden to my child that his leniency is causing."

"Oh. Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Can Vin and me m-maybe go to the same therapist?"

She smiles. "Probably not; certainly not in the same session — his needs are different than yours, and it wouldn’t be a good use of anyone’s time. But wouldn’t you rather go to the therapist that you already know well, and that you work well with, instead of some new person?"

"…​Yeah, Mom. You’re right." He momentarily mourns the loss of a good idea.

"Well, how about you, Vin? How was your day?"

"Eh, not bad, not bad. Actually getting what we’re doin' in math class; athletics is, well, athletics; and yeah, the rest of my classes are easy. Pretty chill so far."

"Good to hear." Isaac sees her eyes dart up at the rear view mirror for a moment and then back to the road. This is something Isaac is aware that people do all the time, but he has no idea how he could trust himself to take his eyes off the road for even a split second.

The rest of the ride is short and quiet. As they enter the Brooks house, Isaac’s mom reminds them, "I expect that, if you’re staying for dinner, you two will do something at least slightly healthy — no grabbing a bag of chips and munching, all right?"

"All right, Mom."

"Now before you two go have fun: Isaac, when would you like me to schedule the therapist appointment?"

Isaac freezes; this is not a question he is used to being asked. As the silence hangs heavy in the room, he realizes his mother is not going to keep going until he says something. "I…​don’t know, Mom."

With a slight smile, she replies, "You yourself said that you want to have more autonomy in your life — more precisely, that you can advocate for yourself — so which day of the week would be best for you? Keep in mind that your old therapist only has weekday appointments, so no weekend ones. Not that you want to take up your weekends with appointments, but still."

"Um, is it…​does it have to be in school, or out of school?"

"I’m not taking you out of school weekly unless there’s no other choice. It will be after school, most likely around 4 o' clock like it used to be."

Isaac runs through the options. Monday is a good day to play piano and to hang out; Tuesday is usually okay, too; maybe Wednesday, since Vin has to practice—​wait. Thursdays. Vin goes to therapy on Thursdays now. "Thursday, Mom."

Tilting her head slightly, she comments, "That’s a peculiar choice. Is there a reason behind it? I expected Monday or Wednesday, really."

"Vin goes to therapy on Thursdays now, Mom."

"Ah." She glances at Vin, then back at Isaac. He hazards a quick glance directly at her eyes and detects hints of amusement, some sort of warmth similar to how love feels, and a weird, wormy sort of feeling that hits Isaac like the sort of feeling he gets when he expects someone to trick him. He looks away to process that last one, as the idea that she would think he might be tricking her is both confusing and scary to him. She continues, "Well, I probably won’t be able to set you up for one tomorrow, but I will see what he has available. If that doesn’t work out, is there a secondary choice?"

"Mom, I don’t know!" His frustration at suddenly having to make new, difficult choices about his own future gets the better of him, but he quickly catches himself. "I’m sorry, Mom! I didn’t mean to yell."

She raises an eyebrow at him, but he steadfastly avoids looking at her eyes. Still, he notices that slight smile reappear on her face as she responds, "Being responsible isn’t very fun, is it?" Her smile grows into a grin. "Then would you like me to make a decision in case Thursdays don’t work?"

"…​Wednesday, Mom."

"Okay. Thursdays first, Wednesdays if not?"

"Yes, ma’am."

"Got it. Now you two go play." She smiles as she gets out her cellphone.

Isaac performs his ritual of removing his shoes and backpack, heading to his room, and putting his shoes in his hamper; Vin follows shortly afterward into Isaac’s room, barefoot. They both sit on the bed and endure a moment of silence as Isaac suddenly feels that rush of inadequacy, of "smallness" that he feels when going to Vin’s house.

Vin breaks the silence. "So your mom seemed, uh, pretty chill about the whole 'therapy' thing. I mean, like, for yours and mine both, really. Well, she already knew about mine, and I guess she, y’know, you used to go, so…​" Vin trails off and sighs. "Man, I dunno why this is bothering me so much."

"What is bothering you, Vin?"

"Well, therapy, obviously," he says with a raised eyebrow.

"I know, Vin, but what about therapy?"

"Y’know. Just…​agh, I dunno. I just feel weird about going, I guess. Like, it makes me feel…​messed up. Like I’m broken or something, and need fixing."

Isaac blithely points out, "You did try to kill yourself."

Vin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Yes, thank you for reminding me about that. I almost forgot."

"You…​that’s sarcasm, Vin."

"Yes. Yes it is. And thank you for reminding me that I am, in fact, broken."

Isaac suddenly realizes the area he stepped into. "N—​no, Vin, you—​I’m sorry, Vin. I didn’t—​I’m sorry!"

"Oh, come here," Vin says, wrapping a long arm around Isaac and pulling him close for a squished side hug. "I’m not mad. You’re right; you have a point. I’m going to therapy because I did try…​I attempted suicide. Yes. But like…​" He takes another deep breath as Isaac fishes his own arm out to reciprocate the hug. "It’s one thing to know that you did something stupid and should go to therapy to make sure to not do it again, but it’s another thing totally, to say, 'I’m not like everyone else, and I need therapy to fix that,' y’know?" At Isaac’s silence, Vin deflates, planting his hand on his face. "Wow. I just totally stuck my foot in my mouth, didn’t I? Wow, that was stupid. I’m sorry, man."

Isaac, familiar with that particular expression, responds, "It’s okay, Vin. I’m not upset."

"Yeah, but…​still, that was shitty of me. I guess I’m really not taking this as well as I thought I would." He runs a hand through his hair.

"Therapy is good, though, Vin," Isaac offers. "It helps you live a happier, calmer life." He remembers hearing his therapist refer to the techniques he taught Isaac as ways to do just that.

"I’m trying to convince myself of that part," he admits. Turning to Isaac, he asks, "So like, what kind of things did you talk about in therapy? If you don’t mind me asking — if it, if that’s not cool, just tell me."

"It’s cool, Vin. We talked about ways for me to avoid having a meltdown, and then about different ways that people show emotions so that I could…​see their faces and then I could know what they are feeling. And then, um, and then we talked about how being 'different' isn’t bad, but…​I don’t know if I ever believed him when he said that." Isaac stops and considers the idea.

"Well, do you still feel that way now?" Vin asks. Isaac notes a small smile on his face.

Isaac replies, "I feel…​I guess I don’t feel th-that way all the time now, Vin. Or, um, I don’t think t-that it’s bad all the time."

Vin’s smile grows. "Well, I guess I’d be a total hypocrite if I sat here and said that being different is okay and then got all down on myself for being different, huh? Heh. So…​eh, I guess I’ll just have to 'man up' and go to therapy and see how it is from there."

Isaac is too busy contemplating the idea that Vin considers himself "different" to respond immediately. Even Vin, the most popular boy at school — okay, maybe just one of the most popular, I don’t know that — thinks that he’s different from everyone else. Maybe he is different. Does attempting suicide make you different? I haven’t, but I don’t know how many other people have. Is it common? Probably not. Then that would count as him being different from other people…​ Isaac snaps out of his train of thought with a flush of embarrassment. "Do you, um, want to do something, Vin? M-maybe…​we could play a board game?" The feeling of smallness presses heavily on him. "I don’t have a Nintendo or a PS4, or…​" he trails off.

"Honestly," Vin interrupts, "I’m more just in the mood to chill right now, if that’s cool. I, uh, had a kinda tense conversation with the coach and could use some unwind time."

"Oh." Isaac frowns. "Was the coach mad about you skipping practice, Vin?"

"See, about that…​I told the coach that I didn’t want to be in athletics anymore."

Isaac almost falls off the bed. "What?!"

"Heh. So you know how I told you about the whole conversation I had with my parents the other day? A lot happened from that. It, uh, it got pretty tense, but I think we’re a little more on the same page with things now. We hashed things out about why I felt so pushed by them, y’know, to be perfect, and how the main reason I’ve been playing sports is more for them than for me. They didn’t like that one so much, but I mean they wanted the truth, they got the truth. So we talked it out a bit more yesterday, which was still kinda…​rough, and they agreed with me finally." He takes a deep breath and sighs. "To be completely honest, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders to drop all that nonsense."

"But I thought you loved athletics," Isaac states. "Why did you go if you didn’t like it?"

"I already told you, it was more for them than me. It’s hard to explain, but just, just be glad you got the parent you do. I know she treats you like a kid sometimes, but my parents treat me more like a trophy, y’know? And I mean, that’s fine and all if you want what your parents want, but…​man, I dunno. I grew up doing sports because Dad put me in Little League, and then kept bringing me to other sports to see if I liked 'em, and I mean yeah, I was good at 'em. Most all of 'em. …​Not tennis, though — rackets don’t work like baseball bats at all, man, heh." He pauses with a smile. "Me 'n Dad both decided maybe I shouldn’t play tennis after the second time I hit him square in the nuts with a tennis ball." Isaac cringes at the thought, and Vin laughs. "Yeah, that’s basically how my face looked, too. Anyway, yeah, so I played a lot of sports, yeah, but really the main reason I ever did any of it wasn’t because I loved winning. I mean I’m kinda competitive, sure, but like…​I did it to see the look on Dad’s face when I won. Mom, too, when she was there. Time went on, though, and the last couple of years, they haven’t really been going to my games, and that’s when I realized that I don’t get a whole lot outta the whole thing, or at least, not as much as I thought I got, if that makes sense." He shrugs. "So yeah, I just kept going 'cuz they kept pressuring me on it. 'But you’re the star of your team!' they’d say. 'You can’t skip practice or you’ll lose your edge!' 'I’m gonna have to get a bigger trophy case for you!' Things like that. But when our team lost, I’d hear other parents saying things like 'You tried your best,' or 'You can’t win 'em all' or whatever. Then Dad was always 'Don’tcha think you coulda done more in the 7th?' or 'You choked there at the end.' Sometimes Mom would give me a hug and tell me I played well, but I could always see the disappointment in her face. And I’m not even gonna talk about the time my dad basically climbed down the bleachers to yell at the umpire — they told him if he did it again that they’d be banned from tournament games. God, it was embarrassing. …​Sorry, I’m just taking up all the oxygen in the room here talkin'."

"You can’t take all the oxygen," Isaac starts, but then says, "…​That’s an expression, Vin."

"Yeah, heh. I’m just talkin' my life away like you’re my therapist. Again. …​Maybe it’ll be better for me than I thought, going to a therapist. Anyway, long story short, I told 'em that it’s my choice, not theirs, and maybe I’d go back to it in high school if I felt like it. Mom tried to ground me for bein' disrespectful, like that was gonna help anything. Whatever. It got hairy for a while, but we got it all worked out. Mostly."

"Did you get grounded, though?"

"Nah, we’re good. A little prickly, but good."

"So you can still go to the keen-say on Saturday?"

"Oh hell yeah, I’m not missin' an opportunity to hang with good friends." He grins and looks at Isaac; his eyes tell of blossoming excitement and warmth, with irritation rapidly fading into the background. "But, uh, until then, I had an idea."

"What idea, Vin?"

"Well, we both love music, yeah? So I figured, for fun, I’d go and find a bunch of songs that I liked and see what you think about 'em. I’m actually kinda interested in knowing how they, y’know, look to you. If, if that’s cool with you. I just find the whole synesthesia thing really cool, heh."

"That’s cool with me, Vin. I like doing things with you."

Vin raises an eyebrow. "Was that innuendo?"

"Was it what?"

"…​Never mind. Hold on a sec." Vin pulls his backpack over and fishes out an orange canister-shaped object, slightly wider and shorter than a soda can, which he plugs into the bottom of his phone. "Phone’s got a decent speaker, but no bass. Kinda ruins the songs, sometimes. Anyway, lessee…​" He scrolls a few times on his phone. "Ah, here. So, you know how I love video game music, right? There’s this game called Fez that I got on Switch; it’s a mind-fuck — sorry, heh — but it’s a puzzle game where you, like, rotate the world like it’s 3-D, but you move in 2-D…​it’s hard to explain; you’d have to see it. But there’s an area where you’re jumping from platform to platform, but the whole place goes in time with the music, and it’s just one of the coolest damn things I’ve ever played. I was thinking about your synesthesia, and like, that’s probably the closest thing I could think of to that. So here, lemme play the song, see whatcha think. Uh, just tell me if it’s too loud or quiet or whatever." Without waiting for a response, he taps his phone, and the song begins.

It opens with a fuzzy, golden explosion of a single note on the first beat, an explosion which quickly blossoms into a sea green orb, flying out from a low, brown bass foundation. On the second beat, that foundation rushes up to envelop Isaac as it scales from chocolate through caramel, into a sizzling, pointed sawdust yellow and then back down to its origin by the third beat, as two more similar-colored explosions sound off in tandem, gold-to-teal fireworks sparkling somewhere in the distance of the soundscape, and on the final beat, the first one blinks out in two staccato flickers while the bass foundation shifts to a new configuration. This pattern establishes itself quickly, all in mechanical precision: fireworks shooting off all around him on every first and third, blinking out on second and fourth, and the enveloping tide of the bass motif encompassing everything on the second, receding on the third. The harmonies shift every few measures, but the tidal cascade of the bass line always crests at the same place, creating a clockwork continuity throughout. After a few repetitions, a minimalistic percussion line inserts little silver slivers throughout, adding to the feeling of space as it echoes along with the fireworks. The entire effect entrances Isaac.

"Heh, like it, huh?" Vin asks, temporarily pulling Isaac out of his landscape for a moment.

"How did you know, Vin?"

"Your right arm."

Isaac looks and notices the prominent goosebumps running along his arm. Rubbing them down, he frowns and refocuses on the song. The transfixing harmonies and motion; tide in and out, sparkling near and far; tide in, tide out; everything about the song holds him in place. Soon the tide adds a shifting harmony to itself, flowing and ebbing with the first; each time the new harmony shifts, Isaac feels his consciousness squeezed and kneaded, like someone rubbing their hands up his back, only on his mind instead — the entire sensation is intense and a bit confusing to think about, but not overwhelming. Then he notices another new motif every few measures, a shimmering triplet curtain composed of thin rectangles of reds, sky blues, silvers, and myriad other colors that sweeps in over the top of everything else, creating a new tidal pull on Isaac’s attention. The intricate perfection of the song, the shimmering scapes, the — 

Isaac takes in a shuddering gasp as Vin’s hand touches his left arm. He blinks for a moment, restoring himself to reality as Vin pauses the song and says, "Man, I’m sorry! I…​that was my bad, totally. You just, you had goosebumps on both sides that time, and I didn’t think that would, y’know…​sorry."

"I did?"

"Yeah, look — you kinda still do."

Isaac takes stock of the feelings of his body and notes that the song did raise goosebumps across both sides of his body. "Normally it’s only on the right side," Isaac notes.

"Yeah, I remember you sayin' that the other time. Song musta really did somethin' for ya, heh. Like, what does it, y’know, look like?"

Isaac takes a moment to gather his thoughts. He wishes he could find all the words to describe the sensations, but he works with what he has. "The exploding notes, um, the ones that start and then are on the downbeats, look l-like…​like yellowish or gold, like…​fireworks, and then th-they turn to green-blue. They start like this --" he demonstrates by bringing his hands apart rapidly as if holding an expanding ball — "and then disappear on the two notes after, after the beep beep sound. …​Does that make sense?" Isaac feels his face warm up.

"Yeah. So like gold fireworks that turn kinda aqua, maybe?"

"…​Yes. Kinda, Vin. Um, and then th-the bass thing is like…​it starts brown, and then goes to yellow, and then it…​it feels like it’s coming up the sides of my face, or maybe my brain, like…​" He punctuates the thought by sliding his hands up over his ears and back down his neck. "Like that. But…​not." He sighs.

"It’s cool, I don’t wanna stress you out or anything. I was just curious. It’s cool to even hear any of it." Vin gives Isaac a wide grin that leaves Isaac’s own teeth showing. "But pretty cool song, right?"

"Yes, Vin."

"Your arms definitely thought so," Vin points out, and Isaac laughs. He contemplates pointing out that his arms don’t think, but he’s aware that they both know this fact.

Isaac does his best to describe the rest of the song, which Vin listens to without interruption, other than the occasional "Yeah" or "Okay." Afterward, Vin just nods for a moment. "That sounds…​amazing. I wish I saw and felt all that." Isaac remains silent; the idea that he gets to experience something that others don’t feels awkward to him. Vin looks at his phone and swipes a few times. "So there’s a couple of others I thought were really cool…​"

Vin and Isaac listen to a variety of songs: some from video games, some from typical pop music, some classical, and some electronica. The songs range through the typical synesthetic associations he finds from music, with more colors and patterns emerging from electronica and video game music than the others — pop music tends to have way too much white noise cymbals and snares to be that pleasing to Isaac.

"So uh," Vin stammers, "there’s this one song I wanted you to hear — I mean, I wanted you to hear the others, too, but, well, y’know. This one is more for the lyrics, though. Song itself is pretty good, no problems with it, but the lyrics are what make it, heh."

"I’m usually not very good with lyrics, Vin," Isaac points out. "They…​I don’t understand what they are trying t-to say most of the time."

Vin gives one of his characteristic half smiles. "These aren’t hard to understand. It’s pretty straightforward. I’ll be happy to explain after. Cool?"

"Cool, Vin."

"A’right. Here, lemme start it up."

The song begins with an open landscape of a smooth brown bass strum underpinning an arpeggiated orange sunrise, with hints of blue sky slowly sneaking in from a high, pure tone arching over it. A voice comes in, a soft-textured, vanilla-colored melodic ribbon swimming through the atmosphere of the accompaniment.

We’ll do it all

The arpeggiation drops open a bit, though the top notes stay in place; the effect stretches at Isaac’s emotions a bit in ways he cannot fully understand.

Everything

Again it drops, opening wider, pulling Isaac’s attention and emotions with it, leaving him feeling open, vulnerable. The color drops away from it, leaving instead an almost bitter tang and bumpy texture, unpleasant alone, but perfectly fitting in context with the still-soaring pure tone and supporting bass line.

On our own

The background snaps back into focus on the original sunrise harmonies. Isaac finds himself breathing an unintentional sigh of relief. The background continues in this fashion, changing and stretching every two measures, creating tension and relaxation in a sort of emotional breathing throughout the song. Though almost jarring to Isaac at first, it begins to soothe him as he concentrates on the lyrics.

We don’t need

Anything

Or anyone

As the chorus begins, the music intensifies into a marching beat, setting Isaac’s heart at odds with the calming nature of the harmonic progression; Isaac focuses in again on the lyrics to avoid getting lost in the tones of the background.

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and

Just forget the world?

The words seem to hit Isaac in a way he doesn’t expect; he imagines lying in the grass, like in his dream, except with Vin next to him. The fuzziness and rush of feeling in his chest quickly becomes more than he bargained for, and he sighs heavily to get it to stop. Thankfully, the music calms from the driving chorus back into another verse.

I don’t quite know

How to say

How I feel

Those three words

Are said too much

Then not enough

Isaac doesn’t immediately think of any combination of three words that people would say "too much" and then "not enough," but Vin pauses the music and says, "He means the words 'I love you.' People say it all the time at the start of going out or whatever, and then stop saying it as much later on."

"But why?" Isaac asks.

"I dunno. It’s just a thing, I guess. I’ve never been with someone long enough to even say 'those three words' except to you, so…​I guess we’ll see, heh. Anyway, back to the song."

Isaac can hardly concentrate on the song after Vin’s confession, but he pays attention as best as possible. The chorus repeats, adding a stanza:

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and

Just forget the world?

Forget what we’re told

Before we get too old

Show me a garden that’s

Bursting into life

The next stanza stands alone:

Let’s waste time

Chasing cars

Around our heads

The beat drops out with a sharp blue bell chime, which itself begins to stutter out as it decays. The song comes back in full force, with the driving beat backing up the chorus. Isaac misses a stanza from thinking again about Vin, but one stanza catches his attention:

All that I am

All that I ever was

Is here in your perfect eyes

They’re all I can see

Isaac is unsure why his own eyes fill with tears, but those words stir up a variety of potential thoughts that don’t manage to complete themselves before the song wraps up with a stanza and one last chorus. He quickly removes his glasses to wipe his eyes.

"Hey," Vin says with a smile and slightly furrowed brows, "did that song make you cry?"

"No, Vin," Isaac says with more force than he intends to. "It was just a few tears."

With a raised eyebrow, he asks, "…​Isn’t that still crying?"

"No, Vin! It’s not crying!"

"Whoa, whoa, okay, sorry," he says with his hands out. "It’s not crying, that’s fine. I’m not, like, makin' fun of you or anything — some songs do that to me, too."

Isaac thinks back to any other song he can imagine, not remembering ever shedding a tear to any of them. "…​They do, Vin?"

"Yeah. Actually, this one was one of them the first time I heard it, heh. I know it’s an older song, came out a little after I was born, but 'old soul' and all that, I guess." He shrugs. "But yeah, sometimes a song just hits you the right way, y’know?"

"I know, Vin. I mean, now I know."

"Heh." He pauses. "So, uh…​I picked that song kinda for a reason."

Isaac waits for him to continue before remembering what he said about keeping a conversation going. "What reason, Vin?" Just saying the words actually makes him feel more like he’s part of an interaction, instead of just receiving information; it’s a small thing, but it’s a good thing.

"Well, I was listening to it the other day, actually last week before…​y’know, an' I realized that the song says it a lot better than I could. It’s like the song was made to talk about us, y’know?"

"…​I don’t know, Vin. I don’t know what you mean."

"Well, like the chorus. Everyone else in the world wants me to do things for them. It’s always 'win the game' or 'come play ball' or 'go out with me' or whatever, and…​it’s not like that with you. I just wanna…​lie here with you and 'just forget the world.' I don’t need all that nonsense."

Isaac is glad that Vin is staring at the ceiling, because Isaac’s head and chest are bursting with conflicting emotions. Love, jealousy, sadness that other people are making Vin unhappy, and a few more that Isaac cannot even begin to parse all duke it out in his chest, leaving him destabilized and confused about how to express any of it.

Vin continues, "And the other line that talks about us: 'All that I am / All that I ever was / Is here in your perfect eyes / They’re all I can see.' That’s how I feel when I look into your eyes." He smiles and sits up, staring into Isaac’s eyes, which are now overflowing with tears as his face scrunches up. "What—​what’d I say?" Vin asks, wide-eyed, as a full hurricane of emotions whips about between them — fear, jealousy, overwhelming connection, love, relief, panic, and vulnerability sting at Isaac’s eyes and swirl about violently through his chest.

Vin looks away, wiping at his eyes with a finger as he scoots closer. "I dunno what I said, but if I upset you, I’m real sorry, I--" As he says this, he reaches his arms out to hug Isaac, but his words are cut off by Isaac lunging forward and grappling Vin in a hug for dear life. Isaac cannot contain his emotions and begins to cry, moaning and sobbing, though he can tell it’s not a meltdown spiral; he is far too emotional to stay dry-eyed, but something about the moment, about his arms around Vin like this, makes it feel as though crying is not his attempt at fixing his runaway emotions, but that crying is somehow the right thing to do, as if there were no other choice than to do exactly as he is at this moment. He feels Vin’s arms wrap around him as well, and they both sit there as Isaac cries himself out. Isaac can feel the slightest hiccup once in a while from Vin, with an occasional sniffle.

Shortly, Isaac hears a knock at his bedroom door, which he knows he did not close. He looks up to see his mother with a frowning expression on her face; his gaze meets her eyes for a short second, and a mixture of concern, protectiveness, fading feelings of the previous emotional outburst, and a new, sudden fear flushes through Isaac as he quickly struggles out of Vin’s embrace and puts some space between them. He sniffles and takes off his glasses, inspecting them to see the smudges all over them. His mother asks, "Is…​everything okay? What’s going on?"

"Everything is…​okay, Mom," Isaac manages weakly. He can feel himself shaking. Mom is going to think we’re going out and then I won’t be able to see Vin anymore — Please don’t ask if we’re going out — I don’t want to lie — She knows — She always knows everything--

Vin scratches his neck and laughs a bit. "Yeah, we’re good. I think we both got a bit to work out about the weekend, heh. We were just listening to music, and it kinda hit us both, I guess."

Isaac’s mom looks between the two of them a few times. She takes a deep breath — Isaac finds himself holding his own — and as she exhales, she says, "You’re both too young to have to deal with that kind of trauma. Nobody should, but especially not children. Even more especially not boys as good as you two. …​You make sure to take it easy on yourselves, okay? I don’t want to hear anything about blaming yourselves or the like. Either of you." She points alternatingly between them. "And…​this is just as much for Isaac as it is for you, Vin: if you feel like you can’t handle things on your own, find someone else. I’m always here. For either of you. Okay?"

Both of the boys answer, "Yes, ma’am," in chorus. They glance at each other, and they share the thin thread of leftover fear wrapped around amusement and a slight touch of intimidation.

After a pregnant pause, Ms. Brooks takes the doorknob in her hand and starts to close the door. "Also probably want to eat soon. A full stomach helps an empty heart." She closes the door behind her.

Vin takes a deep breath and sighs. "You think she knows?"

"About us going out, Vin?"

"Don’t say it so loud, but yeah."

"Sorry, Vin. I…​I don’t know, Vin. …​Vin?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you always have something to say?"

"Heh, whaddya mean?"

"When you talk, you just always have something to say. When she asked what w-was going on, you had something to say. I just would’ve told the truth."

Shrugging, Vin responds, "I mean, technically, it was the truth. We both got things to work out about the weekend, and it hit us when we were listening to music, yeah?"

Isaac scoffs. "See? I can’t ever think thinks—​thing of--sigh. Think…​of…​things…​like that."

"Yeah, and I can’t look someone in the eyes and tell they’re having an allergy attack and save their lives. Jussayin'. We all have our talents, y’know?"

"Yeah, Vin, but you have…​"

"Nah, uh-uh-uh, no talkin' me up," he says with a waggle of his finger. "I got my stupids just as much as anyone. Not what we’re doin' today. But anyway, I dunno, I guess I’ve always been good at talkin' my way outta things, heh." But uh, speaking of allergy attacks, you get a chance to talk to Juan again?"

It takes Isaac a moment to connect the dots, but he replies, "Only in gym class, Vin. I didn’t see him after school or anything."

"Ah, right, yeah. No biggie. But hey, I think they’re just gonna put my schedule back to the way it was before athletics, so I should end up back in gym with you guys."

"Really?!" Isaac almost screeches.

"Hah! Yeah, I mean I think so. Don’t get your hopes too far up or anything — I don’t make the schedules, y’know? I mean I hope they do, but…​yeah."

"Me too, Vin! I want you back in gym with us!"

"For real. I miss hangin' with you and Juan in class."

Isaac’s stomach interrupts his train of thought. "I’m hungry. Do you want a sandwich?"

"I could eat like 3. Or maybe just a really tall one."

"I don’t know if we have enough bread, Vin."

"I’m kidding anyway — a sandwich sounds great."

To be continued...

Hi, y’all! Life has been all over the place, but instead of excuses, I’m just sticking with thanks — so thank you for enjoying another chapter in this little journey! If you like it, don’t be shy; I love to hear from my readers, as it’s the primary source of "compensation" authors like me get for publicly posting our work. Feel free to email me at  xpud@tickiestories.us  if you have anything to say, and I will do my best to respond in a reasonable amount of time.

As an added bonus, though, here are some links to the music mentioned in the chapter, so that you can experience what they did (synesthesia not included):

Disasterpeace - Sync (from Fez): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpiAS953Lpw

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GemKqzILV4w

Until next time, my wonderful readers!