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Anatomy was a weird class. It was a mixture of a bunch of different students. Juniors and sophomores aplenty, with the occasional senior mixed in. Young and old faces everywhere. The lucky senior this year was Ron Anderson. It was the last science credit he needed to graduate, and God forbid he ever signed up for a chemistry class. Fuck that. He’s not subjecting himself to that torture on the last year of highschool.
He grumbled as he looked around at all the fresh faces around him. A young white girl with brown hair and a round face. A blonde girl beside her with skin covered in freckles. A black boy who looked slightly older near the front of the class, alert and excited for the lesson. A white kid with half his face missing tapping his desk in boredom. Another white kid-. Wait.
Ron's eyes swiveled back. A white kid with half his face missing.
Interesting.
Unfortunately for him, he thought anatomy would be easy. Body parts right? No, chemicals and reactions and outcomes and inputs. And coloring worksheets. Lots and lots of coloring worksheets.
He had a two week break from his assignments during the fall. Two funerals to attend.
It didn't really bother him as much as he thought it would. He whistled a tune as he colored another worksheet. Another test was handed back on the integumentary system. Another failing grade.
He picked at his skin, the red spots bleeding and blotchy. Like the trees changing color outside. A bad habit he had picked up.
“The person to your left will be your partner for this project.” The teacher added on at the end of her speech, walking around the front of the class and handing papers to be passed down. He could barely hear her over the thrum of the heater above his head. Snow piled outside, and the chill seeped in through the windows. It's the only time he's grateful his assigned seat is right underneath the loud heating unit. Ron looked down at the instruction papers he was just handed. He slid out two copies and gave the rest to the person sitting behind him.
“Carl.” Ron said, looking to his left, letting him know that he already knew his name. A white kid with half his face missing. It was hard not to pay attention to him. A senior as well, but only seventeen. Ron was held back in fourth grade, making him eighteen going on nineteen. Carl nodded in response and accepted the paper Ron offered him. This made them partners. He skimmed over it quickly.
“We need paper mache.” Carl stated.
“I'm Ron.”
“I know.”
“Oh.” He let that hang in the air. “I have everything at my house.”
“Sure. Tomorrow after school?” Carl dug around in his bag for his phone. “Here's my number.”
“Sure.”
And that was that.
Ron added the last bit of sopping wet newspaper to the human figure he was making. He was no artist, and neither was Carl, but he knew how to make a mache mixture. They had spent hours cutting strips out the funnies to make this, laughing at each one before lathering it in glue. He wanted it to look good at least.
“Jesus.“ Carl muttered. “It looks so fucking bad.”
Ron took a step back and tilted his head. What was supposed to be a human head with a beefy arm flexing made out of paper mache looked a little too phallic for his tastes.
“Oh my God.” He muttered in reply. “No going back now. We’ll just paint and label the hell outta it.” Carl nodded and sat. They began the tedious process of making toothpick labels to stick into different parts of the figure. Ron finished one up, cutting the edge of it with scissors to give the flag a professional flair. He stuck it into the joint of the arm and shoulder, where the armpit would be located.
“My rotator cuff tendon is fucked.” Ron said, feeling like sharing that fact. The silence while they worked was bothering him.
The scratch of a pen stopped. “How did that happen?”
“My dad.” Ron said, not wanting to expand any further.
“Isn't he dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Carl nodded. Ron frowned at the bluntness at which Carl said it. “The people who did this to me,” he pointed to his face, “are dead too.”
“Good.” Ron parroted. He understood. That was good.
The snow melted, leading to a strangely warm spring for Georgia. The pollen was as strong as ever, coating every window and collecting in every puddle. The humidity coming off the coast wafted over the state, leaving the temperature feeling higher than it really was. It sucked.
Cark turned eighteen. He had a party at the local neighborhood pool. Ron came in his too-small swim trunks and scratched up goggles. A ratty towel slung over his shoulder and a small present in his hands.
“It's not much.” Ron muttered as he and Carl sat on the swings removed from everyone else. Carl needed a break from the loud music and constant yelling from other pool attendees. The park down the block was perfect. The tall pines sheltered them from the burning sun while they kicked back and forth, the rusty old metal squeaking.
“It doesn't have to be.” The present was in his lap. He pulled away the paper gently, his parents always saved it to reuse. Carl smiled as he pulled out a new waxing kit for his skateboard along with a few stickers for a band he liked. “The only present I need here is you.”
Ron kicked up the mulch at his feet. “That was cheesy.”
“It's my birthday. Let me be.”
They swung in silence. Taking it all in. You're only eighteen once, Rick had said as Carl blew out his candles. You're only eighteen once, Ron thought now.
“It's not that bad.” Carl said, rattling the seat he sat in.
“What is?”
“Getting older.” Carl shrugged and whipped his hair away from his chest, sending droplets of water flying.
“Hm.” Ron didn't have anything to add. Carl reached out his hand to wrap around the chain of Ron's swing. Tugging him closer as they listened to the birds chirping. A pinecone thudded to the ground nearby, and a squirrel chittered as it ran among the needles scattered around the ground.
“Thank you.”
The light from the setting sun shone directly into his one blue eye, and Ron knew his green ones looked the same.
Alive.
“For what?”
“Everything.” Carl said. Like it was the simplest thing in the world.
School ended soon. Submitting the last assignments. Taking the finals, passing, and then graduation and freedom. Until you eventually had to come back over the summer to pick up your diploma.
Ron would be lying if he said he wasn't worried. He was a solid average student. Nothing extraordinary ever came out of him. No talents, no smarts, nothing. College wasn't something he even considered. Straight into the workforce, or trade school. He still didn't know.
The finals would make or break him. Passing them meant graduating high school. The nails on his fingers became short bleeding stubs. Another bad habit he had picked up.
Carl came over one night. Binders in hand and study sheets aplenty.
“You need help.” Was all that Carl had said at the front door when Ron swung it open. Ron pulled him in by the collar.
“Yes. I do.”
Carl nodded and brushed past him, dumping his books on the kitchen counter and setting a pot of coffee to brew. They were gonna need the caffeine.
“This sucks.” Ron groaned from where he was sitting cross legged on his bed. Carl was laid out beside him, scrolling through a quizlet on his phone. “I'm so stressed out. There's acne cropping up all over my face and my knuckles are so dry from the pages they’re cracked and bleeding.”
“I think your face is nice the way it is.” Carl scrunched his mouth shut, embarrassed.
Ron laughed, leaving a finger on the page he was reading before closing his textbook.
“Not bad yourself.” He responded, taping the edge of his lip with his free hand. “Could use a little work on the eye.” Carl shoved Ron over, pushing him backwards on his bed.
“You fucking asshole.”
Ron laughed at Carl's anger. Carl laughed back. The insult was too playful to actually hurt him. Still a sore subject nonetheless. Ron noticed the weird mood that fell between the two of them. He quickly changed the subject.
“You know everything for the test tomorrow?”
Carl picked up the textbook and flipped through it, stopping at the page that Ron had bookmarked.
“Nothing I don't already know. Once you learn the bones, it's hard to forget.” Carl tapped the part of his face that jutted out above his remaining eyebrow. “They are always inside you.”
Ron groaned frustratedly. He covered his face with his hands, tugging the skin on his cheeks down. “Lucky. I can't get the names to stick in my head.”
“That's why the teacher paired me to sit with you at the beginning of the year.”
Ron frowned, remembering when Carl suddenly began sitting next to him in the first month of school. He was weirdly nice, always offering to help with homework or assignments. The teacher always put them together for projects. Ron had warmed up to him after a while, quickly finding companionship and stability in him.
“He paired us together on purpose?”
Carl sighed, closing the textbook shut and tossing it onto the carpet of Ron's room with a thud. He hung his head over his shoulder to give Ron the best stink eye he could muster.
“You literally only needed this credit to graduate. And you were failing.”
Ron scoffed. “It was the beginning of the year.” He rolled over to return Carl's stare. Carl shook his head, long dark hair flying around his shoulders.
“You hadn't turned in any of the assignments.”
“I had the rest of the year to make up those missing grades.”
Carl growled. “You were unmotivated.”
“And I'm motivated now?” Ron shot back. He was mad. Mad in a way that he couldn't place. His grades were not any of Carl's business. What happened in the beginning of senior year wasn't anything that he wanted to divulge. Even if Carl had probably already put two and two together.
Someone can only explain the family photos in his house having four members contrasted to the remaining two for so long.
“I think so.” Carl moved closer. “At least, I think you are.”
“What makes you think that?” Ron demanded.
“This.”
Carl began at the tips of Ron's fingers.
“Phalanges. Metacarpals. Carpals.” He muttered, tracing each region with a circle before coming to a stop at Ron's palm. He hesitated before grabbing Ron's arm, holding him still as he continued. “Ulna. Radius.” He twisted the arm, pinching the middle where the bones crossed. He moved up farther, coming to rest at Ron's elbow. He squeezed the sides, tickling the nerves there. Ron gasped, wriggling his arm to pull it out of Carl's grasp. His bed frame cut into his back, making him realize how little space there actually was between the two of them.
Carl shushed him, grabbed his arm back, and continued.
“Lateral epicondyle. Medial epicondyle.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth on the outcroppings, ignoring Ron’s shivers at his touch. He slid both his hands up Ron's arm, stopping with his thumbs pressed into the other boy's armpits. He felt the muscles flexing underneath him. Trembling.
“Humerus.” Ron whispered, entranced by the intensity of Carl's concentration. Carl nodded in confirmation. His hands wrapped around Rons shoulder, fingers brushing away the ends of his dirty mullet and tracing the veins on his neck.
“Clavicle.” One finger moved down the arc of the bone, coming to a rest in the center of Ron's chest. “Scapula.” The other hand caressed the wide flat bone on his back, massaging the always sore muscle connected to it. The two pressure points pushed him backwards, farther and farther into the pillows on bed until Carl maneuvered himself on top of him. Carl's hands were on both sides of Ron's neck now, he leaned down, accepting Ron’s embrace around his waist. Ron tilted his head up, knowing already what was about to happen. He sighed, and then shuddered. Carl's fingers traced the nodes on the back of his neck.
“C seven through three.” The hands slid up to cup Ron's face. Carl twisted his head gently. To the left, and then to the right. Up and down. “Atlas. And axis.” Ron kept his eyes closed, letting Carl have complete control. “Hyoid.” A kiss was pressed to the bone, right above his adam's apple. Thumbs pressed into the soft muscle underneath his jaw, pushing Ron's head upward. “Mandible.” Another kiss, right on his chin. A kiss on his nose. “Maxilla.” A kiss to his forehead. “Frontal.”
“Carl.” Ron stopped him, breathing heavily. Both hands pressed on Carl's chest, pushing him backwards and away from continuing over his skin to the awaiting parietal and occipital. “I know the rest.” His skin was on fire. Not in a bad way, it reached down deep into his stomach, leaving him thoroughly embarrassed but satisfied in a way that he couldn't place.
“You know the rest?” Carl teased.
“Yes.” Ron breathed out, opening his eyes to meet Carl's singular piercing blue one. He removed his hands from Carl's chest, reaching upwards to intertwine his fingers in Carl's hair, his palms engulfing the sides of his head. “Parietal. Occipital.” He curled a long dark strand of hair back over Carl's ear. “And temporal.” Carl hummed, a happy noise that sounded more like a kitten's trill than anything.
“You passed.”
Ron raised an eyebrow.
“We didn't even get to the rest of the skeletal system?”
“Don't need to.” Carl leaned down again, this time angling his head so he could whisper into his ear. “Got better things to do.”
“I suppose.” Ron laughed, rushing forward to capture Carl's lips in his own.
The final the next day was easy. Ron labeled the different bones with ease, proud at the sheet being filled in with answers he was confident in. He looked up from his paper to watch Carl staring down at his own test with a frown before scribbling an answer down. Ron smiled, remembering the demonstration he was given.
It's not like he could forget anytime soon.