Better Than People (Garnet Run 1)

Its downsides were the predictable ones. He walked into things. His neck ached constantly, as did the spot between his shoulder blades and the small of his back. Fists and elbows and shoulders could come out of nowhere and he didn’t have time to evade them.

And no matter how low he kept his head, it didn’t stop him hearing the things people said.

Freak. Weirdo. Retard. Then, as inevitable as the slide from fear into anger: Faggot.

It was said about him and to him before he ever considered where his desires lay. Especially because his main desire was simply to disappear.

But as high school progressed, Simon added one more layer of distance between himself and the students of Bear Creek High.

Being gay didn’t bother Simon. It was being attracted to boys that was the problem. Because boys were awful. They seemed intent on making his life miserable in order to make their own more amusing, and the indignity of finding them beautiful or intriguing was humiliating.

Even if he could imagine a world in which a boy wasn’t awful to him, there would still be himself to contend with. How could he do...anything if he couldn’t even say hello?

Simon filed this curiosity and this desire away with all the others he’d quashed over the years. They stayed there, as quiet as he was, for a long, long time.

* * *

“I’m going to ask him a question,” Simon told the pack. “I’ll just ask one question and then he’ll know that I want him to talk. Right?”

This sometimes worked for Simon. Some people were so eager to talk about themselves that one question was all that was required of him to unlock them permanently. Somehow he didn’t think Jack was going to be one of those people, but he could hope.

His heart pounded harder and harder with each step back to Jack’s cabin.

By the time he opened the door and began unclipping leashes he was wound so tight with intention that the second Jack came into the room he practically yelled, “How’d you break your leg!”

Jack’s eyes widened at the bellow and Simon wished the floor would open up and swallow him. He sucked in a tight breath through nostrils narrowed with panic and squeezed his eyes shut tight so he couldn’t see himself be seen.

Jack’s voice, when it came, sounded normal. Too normal? Pityingly normal? Maybe not.

“Puddles got spooked and I took off after him. Rolled down this embankment or hill or whateverthehell you call it. Broke it on the way down. So stupid.”

In, out; in, out. Simon made himself breathe evenly and quietly. Made himself as unremarkable as possible. He flexed his left hand, the one where the muscle twitches always began. Then, slowly, slowly, he opened his eyes.

“I hate it,” Jack said. “Fucking hate being trapped here. Having to ask my brother to do shit for me.”

Simon looked up at Jack for a moment. Jack was wearing that sweatshirt again. The one that looked like hugging him in it would be the most wonderful thing.

“Do you want some coffee?” Jack asked.

Simon shook his head. At least, he meant to shake his head. But the next thing Jack said was “Cool.” So apparently he hadn’t.

He followed Jack into the kitchen and sank into a chair, shoving his twitching hand under his thigh.

“Thanks for not offering to do it for me,” Jack said, bitterness twisting his voice. “Swear if my brother offers one more pity hang or favor I’ll lose it.”

Jack puttered around, making the coffee slowly and in clear pain. Frankly, Simon hadn’t offered to help because the last thing he could do was find more words, but seeing Jack’s struggle—leaning one crutch or the other against countertops, almost losing his balance once or twice, and righting himself in the nick of time—Simon felt like he should’ve despite Jack’s clear distaste for help. Must be nice, being accustomed to not needing it.

When Jack held two steaming mugs of coffee out to him, Simon took them and put them on the table, leaving Jack’s hands free for his crutches. Jack thunked into the chair next to him and Simon held very, very still.

“So, uh. You don’t talk much,” Jack said.

There it was.

Simon’s stomach knotted and he wanted to push his chair back and flee. Before he could, Jack went on.

“Do you not like to, or do you have stuff to say but you just don’t...talk much?”

Simon bit his lip and held up two fingers.

Jack nodded assessingly. “Wanna text me? Is that better?”

Against all odds, something tiny fluttered to life in the black hole of Simon’s stomach.

He slid his phone from his pocket cautiously in case it was a joke. But Jack took his own from his sweatshirt pocket and waited.

Simon’s fingers itched with all the unspoken words. All the questions he’d wanted to ask earlier. But those had been in the moment. Now, with the ability to write anything, what his fingers tapped out was: Sorry. It’s weird, I know.