I nodded.
He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know. You were telling me about Tiggy and Gary and it was personal and sweet, and I just couldn’t take the thought anymore of you not knowing who I was. You said you didn’t have friends before and there were times when we were kids that I wanted you to be my friend, but I didn’t know how to ask.”
“So you were a jerk instead,” I said. “Makes sense.”
“Teenagers usually do,” he said. And then he blurted, “I did it because of you.” He winced. “Ah shit.”
“Did what?”
He groaned. “Gods, forget I said that, okay?”
“Yeah, because when have I ever done that? Remember who you’re talking to here.”
“Sam.”
“Nox.”
“I am never going to hear the end of this, am I?”
“Not ever,” I agreed. “You have decades of this to look forward to. It probably would’ve been in your best interest to not have said anything at all. I will lord this over you until my dying breath, and at no point will I feel badly at doing so.”
For some reason, he didn’t look too upset at the prospect. In fact, his mouth curved gently upward. “Everyone talked about you. Even before the alleyway happened. ‘Little Sam,’ they said. ‘Little Sam who is going to do great things.’ They talked about you like you were this sight to behold, and when I saw you for the first time, I thought there’d been a mistake. I thought that this kid, this tiny little kid whose mouth never closed, couldn’t possibly be who they meant.”
He reached and stoked the fire with a stick I’d used before, the tip blackened and charred. The flame flared briefly, little sparks rising with the smoke. “But then, one day, you knocked me down and took a bag of cloth from my hand. Do you remember what you said to me?”
I shook my head. “I remember you glaring and me thinking I was going to die a painful death. That’s about it.”
He chuckled. “You looked down at me and said, ‘Don’t be a jerk, dude. You don’t have the right to take away something that makes other people happy.’ And then you grinned at me and started running.”
I winced. “Yeah, that sounds like something I would have said. It’s easier to be unabashedly sanctimonious when you’re eleven years old. The cynicism hadn’t quite set in.”
Ryan glanced over at me then back at the fire. “I don’t know. You’re still smug a lot of the time.”
“Ass. I am the definition of humble. But enough about me. Surely you started chasing after me because you wanted to tell me just how right I was and apologize for everything you’d ever done. Be absolved of your sins to lead a righteous life.”
“No,” Ryan said. “I wanted to kick the shit out of you.”
I couldn’t stop the bark of laughter that came out at that. “That’s… I don’t know what that is.”
He shrugged. “The truth. You made me mad.”
“I tend to do that.”
“You turned that corner down the alley and I knew you were caught.”
“I saw the wall and thought I was fucked.”
“That’s because you were,” he said. “And yet you still turned and faced us. You looked me in the eyes and then the next thing I knew, the alley was filled with people and your mom and dad and Morgan were threatening me, and I was positive that Morgan was going to make my nipples explode.”
“Still one of my better rumors.” I grinned up at him. “People still think he can do that. I would say I’m sorry for turning you to stone, but honestly, I’m really not.”
He smiled again. I thought I saw a flash of teeth. “Didn’t think you would be.”
“In fact, I should probably thank you.”
“For?”
“If you hadn’t chased me that day, I’d have never turned you to stone and Morgan wouldn’t have found me. If you