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“You’re fucking bailing. I can’t fucking believe it.”
“Neil, I’m not bailing.”
“Yeah? You take a look in the mirror lately? Dressing like Tyron’s auntie, like some fucking prude, like you’re pure and holy and above all us gutter rats. I can’t believe it. He was right. You’re– you’re- you’ve become a fucking jesus freak, going to jesus camp.”
“It’s a retreat, and it’s only one week.”
“What the fuck ever, Renee. That senile old woman’s corrupted you.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“There’s no this. There’s no anything. You’re ditching me.”
“I’m not ditching you, Neil.”
“Really? ‘Cause you sure as hell aren’t gonna convert me, and I don’t think your high horse has room for two.”
Renee pursed her lips.
From the bottom step of her foster mother’s stoop, Neil glared up. For a moment, nothing passed between them. A glance used to be all it took for her to figure him out: he had been an open book when he’d arrived in her neck of the woods, scared and anxious and willing to do anything to fit in. Though he’d gained confidence since then, she wasn’t certain it was for the better.
Overall, she liked Neil. He was smart. He was quick. He wasn’t squeamish. He took no for an answer. He was fifteen, knew how to keep mum, and wielded knives almost as well as she did.
The Kenseys as a foster family were known to be absent, not supportive. She wondered briefly if they knew Neil hadn’t been home in days, and then decided that no, they probably didn’t.
She asked, “You’re going to school?”
His lip curled, his hands shoved into baggy pockets. “What do you care?”
“Neil, please.”
“Listen to you, asking so sweetly. Makes me sick.”
“Coach said you haven’t been showing up for practice.”
“Yeah, well. I got a new job.”
“From Tyron?”
“It’s good work. Pays well.”
“You shouldn’t mess with him, Neil.” He wasn’t buying it. He had knives in his pockets and a gun probably tucked in his waistband, but he would never dream of turning them on people he considered family. Tyron was a big brother, a mentor and a father in one neat, drug-laden, manipulative package.
She decided to switch tactics (she had, once upon a time, thought of Tyron as family). “You love Exy. Why are you letting him get in the way of that?”
“He’s not getting in the way of anything. Some of us still have to work to eat, Renee.”
“Our table’s open if you ever need. You know that. Mom’s said.”
“Fuck off, princess. I don’t need your pity. And she isn’t your mom.”
Silence.
She asked, “Doesn’t the middle school team have a game this Saturday?”
He threw his shoulders back as if he didn’t barely push past five feet. “Why, you gonna bail on your new pals to come watch a bunch of brats run around? You’ve got no fucking loyalty, Renee. You used to be somebody we could trust.”
“I hope you go to the game. The team’ll really hurt without you.”
“Whatever. There’s plenty of other runts ready to run defense.”
The look she’d seen ten months ago on his first official game begged to differ. When he’d spotted her in the stands watching with an oversized pretzel, hell. Even with the helmet, she’d seen how he lit up.
It felt like a memory too old to match up with the stormy, angry kid standing in front of her.
He’d always been angry, she supposed. They all were angry. It was just that now the anger didn’t seem as necessary as it once had been. Now it looked ugly.
“I’ll see you next week. You’re still at Kayla’s?”
He shrugged. “For now. She’s acting like a real bitch. Total pain in my ass.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She just is.” He shifted on his feet, shoulders hunched up and smoothed down, agitation furrowing his brow. “Didn’t realize I signed up for a fucking interrogation. I don’t have to deal with this. Give jesus a hug for me, Renee. Doubt I’ll see you around.”
She took a step beyond the threshold, her expression pinched and thinly desperate.
“Neil–”
One finger flicked high over his shoulder, Neil turned and stomped away. In that moment, he looked like any other snubbed fifteen year old.
But she knew the baggy clothes hid weapons meant to kill, and that he’d cut his nails short so blood wouldn’t cake underneath, and that as much as he loved Exy, something in his head wouldn’t let him indulge in what he enjoyed.
She didn’t know where he’d been before except that it was on the east coast. She never asked, and she never found out.
(Though she quite literally cut ties with Tyron and his crew, Neil continued to visit. Always late at night, always sporadically, and always while he was shit-faced, but as he continued to know how to take no for an answer, she couldn’t find it in her to turn him away.)
A year later, David Wymack invited her to Palmetto State for their Exy team. Renee accepted. Her foster mom cried when she told her she’d be attending to college.
For the first time in a long time, it felt like the right choice.
Renee made a point of buying Neil a phone, though she nearly missed out on giving it to him since he waited until two days before she left to show up on her lawn. He’d been black out drunk and on something far worse than weed; he’d cussed her out for playing Exy; he’d cussed her out for getting soft; he’d clumsily shaken a knife at her and said he wouldn’t take the phone unless she beat him in a fight.
Then he’d collapsed on the back porch and confessed he’d miss her. He’d taken the phone without a fight. He’d thrown up into the recycling bin, refused her help, and cussed her out again for leaving.
She’d been about to call the ambulance no matter the risk for convictions on drug abuse, but then her foster mom had enough (she’d been listening to Neil’s ranting from her bedroom, terrified; Renee later felt something like guilt about that) and chased him off. As Neil ran almost as quickly drunk as he did sober, Renee didn’t even try to follow.
On the road to Palmetto, she texted him, half resigned that he’d lost the phone on his precarious journey home.
To her surprise, he texted back.
To her surprise, he continued to text back.
—
Two years later, a drugged up freshman named Andrew Minyard thought she had a boyfriend. She laughed at him, showing him a few lighter conversations between her and Neil as proof that they were nothing more or less than siblings. The texts overwhelmingly had to do with Exy and, consequently, Neil’s favorite celebrities, Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama.
(Renee and him talked about other things. One night he’d called her for help, as his girlfriend of two weeks was pregnant and she wanted an abortion and he knew that was for the best but he couldn’t help wondering what the kid could have been like.)
(One night she’d called him because she’d picked up her knives and couldn’t let go, because she was certain a man was in her house and needed him to tell her otherwise.)
(One night after Tyron had him cut up a neighbor’s dog to prove a point, he’d shakily whispered to her over the crackling cell phone line that he didn’t want to keep living this way. He said he was afraid of becoming his father, and for the first time, cried.)
(One night, he stopped representing her last tie to a past she needed to overcome and instead simply became Neil.)
From those texts about a sport Andrew feigned disinterest in, he dismissed Neil as unimaginative and boring.
Renee said he was right about the first part.
—
A year after that, Neil came to Palmetto State.
So did Kevin Day.
Andrew took a liking to both.
(Renee couldn’t help smiling.)
—
“Wait.” Nicky leaned heavily on the unsteady club table, his breath reeking of alcohol and eyes hazy from dust. “You’re dating Allison?”
“Yeah, I am.” Neil leaned back, his face blank even with his pupils blown wide from his own intake. “Now back off.”
Nicky did not back off. Nicky sighed and slumped ever closer.
“Damn. Really thought you were one of my people.”
“The fuck you say?” Neil asked, voice flat and unconcerned. Across the table and next to Kevin, Andrew’s eyes focused on him.
“She’s just using you,” Aaron cut in. He also eyed Neil. Around them, the club pounded out a heavy beat. Shouting over the music didn’t leave much room for inflection or tonal nuance, but it was hard to miss the vaguely appreciative look to Aaron’s face. “You know and don’t give a shit, huh?”
Neil shrugged. “She can do what she likes.”
Nicky whistled. The music snatched it up and carried it away. “Are you like that with everyone you’re with? All giving, all the time? It’s hot. What if I gave you a little suggestion right now?”
Neil stared.
Aaron shot Nicky a disgusted look, lip curled. He swiftly turned to Neil. “I bet she’s out with Seth tonight.”
“Fuckin’ finally,” Neil replied, derisive. “He’s been a real bitch to live with. They’ve been pining over each other since her and me started dating.”
“Why don’t you care? She’s using you, man.”
“Believe it or not, she’s a great conversationalist.”
“Uh-huh. In the bedroom, maybe.”
Neil sneered. “Right. I’m bored. Is this what you antisocial jackasses consider a party?”
“Oh,” Andrew said, “it’s just beginning.”
“Let’s dance.” Again, Nicky leaned close. Neil’s expression blanked. “Come on. My boyfriend agreed, and your girlfriend won’t care.”
“Touch me,” Neil said, “and I’ll break your fucking fingers.”
“Hurt him,” Andrew cut in, “and I’ll break your neck.”
Neil grinned, teeth and fevered eyes catching the glittering lights.
“Now that’s a party.”
—
Renee woke to her phone ringing and both of her roommates missing.
It wasn’t an entirely surprising way to wake up, as the point of a phone was to ring and her roommates were with their boyfriends (the proper ones, not the one Allison used to make Seth jealous). What gave her a double take was the number and name attached to the call. Neil Josten, of whom notoriously despised calling first. It’d taken an emergency for him to ever text first.
Something like fear jump-started her into wakefulness. She answered immediately.
“Hey, Renee.” Neil’s voice crackled through the line, calm and easy. That didn’t mean anything. Until his temper flared, he rarely strayed from a neutral norm. “We need a ride.”
She choked down the admonishment she’d been about to give him. Although the others had worried about Andrew taking him to Columbia, she’d worried about what Neil would do to Andrew’s family. While he was fine with Andrew, he acted strangely around Kevin, his already short fuse even shorter. He was flat out hostile to Nicky (he didn’t trust Nicky to take a no, she thought). Maybe he would have gotten along with the quieter Minyard, but Andrew kept Aaron on too tight of a leash for them to see how it panned out.
In short, he was a threat. And that had to be why Andrew had taken him to Columbia.
The car suffering within Neil’s presence had admittedly not been a concern.
“A ride?” She croaked, throat dry from sleep.
“Yeah. Can you get Matt’s?”
She almost asked why?
Then she thought about it a second longer and did, in fact, ask, “Why? What happened to Andrew’s?”
“It’s fine,” Neil said. “Probably. I can’t see it right now, but it’s probably fine. That babe was a beast, it’s got to be fine.”
Oh. Not good.
She heard her voice tense. “Are you not with Andrew?”
“Oh, no. I’m with the spare.” Light amusement wound through his voice. It startled her; it delighted her. “It’s just, we’re not with the car. The rest of Andrew’s fucked up family are with the car. Fuck, Renee, you’ve gotten dull. Keep up.”
“Right.” She reminded herself to breathe. She was not Dan. This situation was not all that strange.
Except Andrew letting anyone drive his car away from him was very, very strange, and Neil’s round-about talking wasn’t helping. “I can get Matt’s. It might take a bit. Where are you?”
Muffled crinkling and indiscernible muttering came through the line, his palm undoubtedly covering the receiver as he spoke with Andrew.
Neither sounded angry. But she knew Andrew by degrees, not brushstrokes; trying to discern his feelings through a muffled receiver was doomed to failure. That he wasn’t the one on the phone and actually trusted Neil to talk for him was a sign she’d have to believe in.
She still sat up to rummage in her laundry bin for a pair of socks.
“I’ve got a bitching hangover,” Neil cheerily informed her, reappearing on the line in a blink. “I only remember the boring bits of last night. Andrew’s fine, though. Memory intact.”
She sighed so he could hear her small annoyance. “So how’d you lose the others?”
“Andrew says we took a walk.” The amusement grew. “A real long walk. I apparently took his phone, climbed a fire escape, broke into someone’s apartment, and tried to flush it down the toilet. Then I passed out in the tub. He’s pissed I don’t remember.”
Andrew said something in the background, his voice closer to the phone. She caught police and for the fight and hurry it up.
Taking the friendly road, she said, “I’d be angry, too. You’re an obnoxious drunk.”
She didn’t ask if they were in holding. Andrew wouldn’t have been sober if they were.
If the police had shown up, Neil must have somehow convinced Andrew or Kevin that he knew the quickest route out. Kevin wouldn’t have risked Andrew being caught off his meds. Andrew wouldn’t have wanted to stick around, no matter how little he cared about himself.
It still didn’t explain how the group had separated or how Neil didn’t have his face smashed in for taking Andrew’s things, but the more she thought of how quickly Andrew took Neil to Columbia to see if Neil would be one of his, the less mysterious it grew.
“My knuckles are scraped,” Neil admitted, drawing her back to the present. Then, with a genuine happiness that warmed his voice and made her smile, he said, “No blood under the fingernails, though.”
He still had such low standards. That she could see them as low standards was a new and wondrous thing.
Whatever had happened in Columbia, Andrew hadn’t crossed Neil’s line, and Neil hadn’t crossed any of Andrew’s. If she was reading the situation right, Neil was making Andrew his new Tyron. Unlike with Tyron, she firmly believed Neil would flourish under Andrew’s protection.
(The deal probably wasn’t sealed yet. Neil was stubborn under the best of circumstances, and Palmetto was certainly, for him and her and all of them, the best of circumstances.)
Neil had arrived and tried his hardest not to obviously cling to her side, a charade he failed spectacularly at if you knew (like Renee did) to read his irritated silence as anxiety rather than dislike. Matt and Neil had gotten along fine, but Matt was too soft and indecisive for Neil to relax around. Dan and Allison got on with him better, being out-spoken and used to fighting for respect in their own rights. Seth and Neil would have gotten along great if not for Allison’s game. All in all, Neil hung with them over Andrew’s lot primarily because Renee hung with them more than Andrew’s lot.
As much as she didn’t enjoy the divide, she wasn’t going to upset the balance.
Neil not only could, but would.
She’d wondered, but this phone call - for all its pitfalls - proved Columbia had gone well.
Life was about to become just a bit more interesting.
She said, “I’ll get Matt. You text me where you are.”
He hummed assent. “You know, he wanted me to call Kevin. I told him to stuff it.”
She heard in the background: Do you always talk to her like she’s your mom? Go on, tell her what you had for breakfast.
She’d be a better mom than you ever had, Neil chirped back. To her, he said, “We’re at a gas station not in Columbia. Might be a bit of drive. See you then.”
He hung up.
She shook her head, fond despite herself, and went to wake Dan and Matt.
—
“Please, just ask him.”
Neil didn’t side-eye Nicky. He treated him with a full, direct, the fuck you on? eye-balling.
Hands wringing nervously, Nicky held the stare for all of ten seconds. He repeated to the floor, on the cusp of defeat, “He listens to you. If you ask, he’ll do it.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Neil told him, “about your family feud. Fun as it is to watch trainwrecks in motion, cleaning up that clusterfuck’s on you.”
“Aaron’s already agreed. They just want to see both my cousins and me–”
Neil held his hand up with the palm out in the universal gesture for say no more. Nicky stilled, hope blooming across his face.
It fell and shattered on the dorm kitchen’s tile as Neil flipped his hand around with only the middle finger up.
“Your parents,” he said, tone hostile in its cheer, “your problem, nancy boy.”
Nicky’s expression crumbled. He muttered something about informing his mom, and pushed off the wall to wander to his room.
Neil scoffed at his back. “Won’t even put up a fight? Damn, dandy, they’ve got you whipped.”
At the door and without turning around, Nicky flipped him off. Neil grinned at the sight, waited until the door shut behind him, and spun on a heel to find Andrew.
He had bigger problems than Nicky’s home life, of which seemed impossible to salvage and distasteful for all parties involved. Blood meant shit if you asked Neil Josten. Blood was paperwork. The people that’d spill blood, there were the real keepers.
Thinking that made him feel a bit like a hypocrite, as his current problems started at Riko I know your father Moriyama and ended at Andrew I’m hung up on my brother and cousin Minyard. The whole of Exy and Palmetto and his future spanned in between, and it threatened to consume him.
He couldn’t remember his mother’s voice, but he remembered the words she made him promise. Standing outside a social worker’s office at eleven years, she’d told him he was old enough to be a man and stand on his own. She’d told him they’d be safer like this, and left her tears in the car and week of nervous breakdowns in dingy motel rooms after a call to a family friend went sour.
She’d made him promise to leave his father behind, for her sake and his. Now, he was old enough to know she had no power over him and was in no way lurking around the corner waiting for him to trip up. He was old enough to understand the threat his father posed.
He’d been old enough for years. But Palmetto made him feel dangerously young, horrifically reckless, and disturbingly out of his element.
It made him feel weird and wrong. Like he was out of place, caught between Nathaniel Wesninski and the six Neil Does to follow, and no matter what step he took, he was going to piss somebody off and get the boot.
It made him want to raze the whole place to the ground. Just. As a preemptive measure.
Renee told him what he felt wasn’t vulnerability, it was being safe, but she had been doing this normal college life thing only a year more than him and could not be trusted for a knowledgeable report, no matter how much he wanted to believe her.
Even if it was as Renee said, Riko threatened that. One little chat over the phone and Neil’s life felt like putty in Riko’s hands, the promise he made to his mother had been broken. What came once Riko made his demands, whatever they’d be, and Neil had to decide what to do was just about as terrifying as signing on to Wymack’s team had been.
(Kevin fucking Day was here! What had he expected? To actually stay hidden?)
(He hadn’t gone out of his way to fuck up. Except he absolutely had.)
“Jumpy,” Andrew commented as Neil caught him in the sociology building between lectures. “Did the poor baby wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Neil replied on reflex, and shoulder checked him. Andrew’s hazy eyes refused to settle on Neil’s for longer than four seconds at a time, but damn if Neil didn’t revel in that scrap of attention.
It was pathetic. It was like he was eleven again, alone and afraid and desperate to find anything familiar, even if it meant going for the group that made themselves the biggest and meanest in the school.
(You can just be you, Renee had told him the night he received Wymack’s offer.)
(Sometimes, he really hated her.)
“What’s Mr. Grumpy want today?” Andrew asked him, his doped up grin placed too close to Neil’s face.
Neil shoved him again. Andrew fell back with a snigger and low, mocking whistle. “Feisty!”
Face burning and stomach churning, Neil flipped him off and shifted in spot. “I got community service. Gotta hold the local charity case’s hand for three hours a day. So, hey, here I am. You need help with your bag?”
“Cute.” Andrew’s eyes found and held his, pupils blown wide but gaze unusually steady. Neil quit shuffling. “You going to make me ask again?”
His stomach flip-flopped. He bit down on the yes that wanted to crawl out, sniffed, ran the back of his hand across his nose, and shrugged.
“Nah,” he finally said, voice on the right side of flippant. Andrew’s head cocked at him. “Just got done talking with Nicky. He wants you to attend for his parent-estranged cousins dinner.”
Andrew’s grin dropped. Apparently, even the drugs couldn’t make that prospect fun.
“No.”
Neil nodded, thumbs hooked into his pockets as he gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, good. Was worried you’d say yes.”
Rather than fling something back or tell him to fuck off for bothering him over something so trivial, Andrew’s eyes narrowed. It lasted long enough that even Neil felt uneasy, thoughts running over everything he’d done within the last week to deserve scrutiny.
Then Andrew’s face split back into its grin, he laughed, and Neil breathed out.
“You’ve been scared,” Andrew threatened.
“Of Nicky’s parents and their white picket fence? Hell no.” Neil bristled.
“No, no. About Kevin. You’ve been acting off for days now, even more than normal. Does it have to do with his pampered, feathered friend?”
Everything in Neil froze.
Andrew caught it, of course. He cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered, “And bingo, Riko was his name-o.”
Agitation put pins in his feet, made him shift to his toes and want to lash out.
He didn’t only because of Andrew’s eyes following his every movement, his mouth twitching as if he couldn’t decide whether or not he found Neil’s distress funny. He probably couldn’t. His drugs were whack, a pronged collar embedded deep in Andrew’s neck. Neil’s hatred of them grew every time he saw Andrew sober up, whether it lasted a weekend or the span of an evening game. “I told you that he’d made you pay for what you did on Kathy’s show.”
“Doesn’t mean I regret it,” Neil spat back. “He’s nothing like his interviews.”
(He was everything Neil feared becoming.)
“The media twists our words so,” Andrew bemoaned. Neil snorted. Andrew decided to find the exchange funny, his mouth quirking up. “You’re awfully loyal for somebody who just showed up three months ago.”
“What can I say? You’re so charming.”
Everything in him refroze.
Fuck, that was a stupid thing to say. He didn’t sound as flippant as he’d wanted to.
(He was scared, he was scared, he was scared, Andrew was solid, Andrew was here, Andrew would be here.)
Andrew laughed again.
Neil tentatively relaxed.
“You’re lying,” he was told. “I don’t work for less than the truth, Neil Josten.”
He tried to reclaim a cool neutrality. He was pretty sure he failed.
“Since when do you work?”
“You agreed to be one of mine. I protect what’s mine.”
“We made a deal,” Neil corrected him, something about Andrew’s wording irritating him. It sounded like a gang. Neil was done with gangs. They were on equal footing, he had to make sure of it. He’d promised Renee he would survive on his own. Years before her, he’d promised the same to his mother. He wanted to keep at least one of them. “I look out for Kevin, you look out for me.”
“Riko’s a bigger beast than your old street pals.”
That was true. And his father was even bigger.
Andrew took a step closer. “But now, why does Riko have your number?”
“Kathy’s show?” Neil said, as if it were obvious and not wishful thinking. “Belated fun. Everybody stayed on campus as directed and made Riko wait. At least, according to you and Kevin.”
Andrew eyed him. He wasn’t sober - he didn’t have the intensity of an Andrew in the Fox goal or in Columbia - and for that reason alone did Neil keep his face straight.
“Maybe.”
Neil breathed again.
Andrew said, “Columbia. This weekend.”
Neil breathed again, again, again.
He said, “Yeah, sure. After the regional semi-final?”
Andrew grinned and brushed imaginary dust off Neil’s shoulder. The shirt he wore was one Andrew had bought him specifically for Columbia, much to his embarrassment and pride. Neil refused to own a shirt he couldn’t wear to more than one place, so he made it work for the club and for class.
Andrew said, “It’ll be a party.”
Neil felt his blood race, an anticipatory rush as good as any drug.
—
The winter formal came.
With recognition from a forgotten glass, an invitation was given for a vacation to the Nest.
Neil cursed himself, cursed Kevin, cursed Riko. He thought of Andrew's offer of protection. He discarded it.
Asking Renee was out of the question. She deserved some peace.
He thought of Andrew's offer.
It hadn't been about his childhood - it had been about what followed. Riko didn't technically count.
He'd told Renee, I want to stand on my own two feet.
—
That Christmas, he did.
At least, he tried to.
—
Riko reminded him of why he'd always been a follower, not a leader.
—
Neil woke to laughter, pain, pain, and pain.
The manic cadence didn’t match Riko’s. When he opened his eyes, he saw white, not black. He saw cracks in the walls and dust gathered in a corner forgotten. He saw marks of living, of failure and mistakes and he was retching, rolling over to heave the meager contents of his stomach into a wastebasket.
The laughter caught a high note, cracked, and cascaded over him in a shwer of broken shards.
“That’s it,” Jean murmured. “Get it out. You’re fine now.”
Not Jean. Jean wasn’t a girl.
“Andrew, it may be better if you stepped outside.”
Renee. Abby’s clinic, but Renee was next to him.
“F-f-f-fuck,” gasped Andrew in reply, his laughter boxed hastily into messy giggles, “and miss the show?”
Renee went silent. The back of his brain told him that wasn’t good, but the rest of him was too busy screaming in protest at his rough awakening and the burning in his gut to pay attention. “I think he re-opened his wounds.”
“Poor baby.”
“Andrew. Either sit down, or leave. I won’t ask again.”
The bed dipped by his feet. Neil flinched back on instinct, eyes snapping up and over even as his body begged to keep still.
Andrew sat, his eyes fever bright and teeth on display in a manic grin.
“Are you lucid, Neil?” Renee’s calm voice asked him. “We need to change your bandages. You definitely tore your wound open.”
Neil couldn’t look away from Andrew. His grin decreased centimeter by inching centimeter, dialing down from a twelve to a three. By the end, the energy had transferred from his laugh to a jittering leg.
“Oops,” Neil finally croaked out.
Renee sighed in admonishment.
Andrew nodded in encouragement.
“Give us a minute. I can manage bandages.” Renee glanced to Andrew in question and consideration. Andrew waved his fingers at her in a shooing motion. “Well? Go on.”
Renee hummed. But all she said was, “Alright. I’ll find Abby to tell her he’s conscious,” and then she stood and, as far as Neil’s attention could keep up with, disappeared. THe door clicked shut on her leaving; his head snapped to follow the sound, but Andrew snapped his fingers an inch from his nose and regained his attention.
He sat back on the pillows with a slow, measure exhale, his nauseau from the pain and pounding headache abating only under the much more pressing pain in his side.
Though he hummed a senseless tune and moved like a hyperactive kid on a sugar rush, Andrew fetched bandages from the cupboard, antiseptic spray from the counter, and set himself closer to Neil’s side, his body twisted to face the returned Fox.
“Stupid,” Andrew sing-songed. “Stupid, flighty boy. You’d call me to ask what my number is, that’s how stupid you are.”
“Turned my phone off,” Neil muttered. Andrew peeled off his brown and red bandage slowly. Better for the stitches, worse for the pain. Neil was positive it was on purpose, and did his best to clench his teeth and hands and not respond.
Andrew clicked his tongue at him. “No reception in hell? Unsurprising.”
“I’m fi–”
Andrew ripped off the bandage. Neil clenched his teeth around a shout.
“And how was the devil’s princeling?”
“Not as smooth a talker as his father.”
“Looks like he leaves the heavy negotiation to his knives.”
“You could say that.”
“Why the obsession, I wonder?”
“Kevin–”
“You have a four on your cheek. That promises double the trouble of two.”
Neil pursed his lips shut.
Andrew stared at him. A giggle wormed its way out of his unsmiling lips. He took up the gauze in one hand, the antiseptic in the other, and ghosted a finger across the glistening strip of red under Neil’s ribs.
Breath caught, Neil watched him. Although Andrew found a bruise on the ribs, he didn’t, as Neil expected, jab a thumb in. He hovered his hand over it, eyes glued to the purpled mark.
“In an hour and a half,” Andrew said, “the drugs will be out of my system. Kevin will look, but he won’t find me. I’ll be on the roof.”
“You can’t keep breaking your sentence just ‘cause you feel like it,” Neil muttered, uncertain and uneasy about a scheduled meeting more than whether or not Andrew took his medicine. A scheduled meeting spelled nothing good. A line finally crossed, a truth to be finally told, the beginning of his end.
Andrew’s eyes rose to meet his, the hollow grin back on his face.
“Then make it count, bird-brain.”
—
It wasn’t that he was too scared of his father finding him. His mother had been to the point that she’d given him up.
But at nearly nineteen years old, he’d had plenty of time to wonder if his father really had been why she’d given him up. Thinking so was better for his self esteem, that the big mysterious baddie had scared her into surrendering him to the system and it wasn’t just because she hadn’t the time or love for him.
Neil remembered strict rules and an unpredictable temper and the Butcher at work, the slam of an iron against his shoulder and the fear dripping off pristine walls. He remembered that final night, with Kevin and Riko and a session with a terrified man and his father’s axe. The bloody bits was nothing he’d seen again, but the rest - strict rules, unpredictable tempers, the slam of a bottle against his back, fear dripping off a cracked ceiling - could be found all across the country.
Was his father so bad?
Neil had always thought so. But after Evermore, after seeing what Riko’s lineage allowed him to do to those around him, after two weeks bleeding next to Jean and returning to Palmetto with ink on his cheek and seeing the Foxes’ anger on his behalf, he had to wonder if Nathan was that bad. Or if Nathan would even care about his run-away son. His mother certainly hadn’t.
He hadn’t let himself think it before, but doubt crept in the cracks Evermore left. It spread roots into old pain and bloomed into anger, a fierce feeling of betrayal and abandonment that he had long buried until his mother’s promise me, for your safety, that you will ever tell. Please, Abram, please, promise me you’ll survive.
Playing alongside Kevin and against Riko were the closest Neil had ever come to his childhood secret. Now both knew who he was, and the focus was still on Exy.
Andrew asked him for the truth, sober and exhausted and hollowed out, his legs dangling over the roof’s edge while Neil stood next to him.
Neil gave him the truth.
His father. His mother. How Riko and Kevin knew him from before Palmetto.
Andrew took the truth, turned it over, and accepted it as it was.
He didn’t give details, but he told Neil a bit more of why he despised Luther. He explained wanting to be with Cass (the foster mother he’d heard Higgins asking about) and what it had done to him. There was something big missing from the story, something Neil was sure he could figure out if he pried further, but the day was raw with truth enough as it was. He’d stopped bleeding like a stuck pig just that morning; he didn’t mind taking the night off before pricking his heart open.
That wasn’t really the tone, anyway. They weren’t falling over each other. They weren’t gushing with sympathy or pity.
Andrew didn’t once laugh or smile, but by the end, he groused about wanting a cigarette or a drink.
Neil didn’t pace or shit-talk, but he did second the call for drinks and, despite intentionally breaking his mother’s secret, felt emptied in a good way.
The night became quiet.
Andrew confessed he was scared of heights.
Neil laughed at him for it, pretending to tip forward and over the edge.
When a hand snagged his shirt collar and yanked him back with a sound of utmost disgust, he fell back into Andrew and knocked him down to cement rooftop.
Rather, Andrew let himself be knocked down. He scoffed, “Further proof that you never grew up,” and Neil took note that he would’ve jarred his injuries something awful if Andrew hadn’t caught him.
That lit an odd warmth in his belly. It had to be unrelated to the stitched wounds and bruised bones, but it derailed his thoughts with all the violence of a blade against his skin.
It wouldn’t have been odd, per se, if Andrew wasn’t Andrew. They were friends. Maybe one day, they’d be like family. Like brothers.
It wouldn’t have been odd if Andrew wasn’t a guy.
Needless to say, he was quick to move away, pushing Andrew to stay down as he got up. Goosebumps ran up his arms, and he shivered, disquieted. Andrew, meanwhile, stayed on the ground, one delicate eyebrow raised.
“Something more to say?” Andrew asked, his voice pitched low.
Neil shivered again, wondered why, and shoved it down.
“Yeah. I’m hungry. You want to find Kevin before he gets a heart attack, and we could grab a bite to eat?”
Andrew contemplated him, upside down and eerily silent.
(He was so still when sober, all presence and resilience and security. Neil liked it.)
After what felt like an eternity, Andrew shrugged a shoulder and moved to stand. “Alright. Just watch your stomach; if you tear those stitches, Renee won’t leave me alone.”
Neil rolled his eyes.
“What, Josten? There’s no shame in being mommy’s little boy.”
“She’s not actually my mom.”
“Let’s see you tell her that.”
—
Someone reminded him of his birthday with blood in the showers and blood in his locker and he tried to salvage his gear but Seth pulled him back, cursing up a storm, Matt slammed the locker closed, Nicky ran for Wymack, Andrew and Kevin stared, and Aaron said, “Sick joke for a birthday.”
“No shit,” Seth snapped without heat. “Neil? The fuck? Thought you were done attracting weird-ass trouble.”
“Guess not,” Neil mumbled.
“But… it’s not your birthday,” Matt said, confused.
He was right. It wasn’t Neil Josten’s birthday. Neil Josten had his birthday in August.
Andrew and Kevin tried to catch his eye. Neil turned to Seth to avoid both them and cloying smell of stale animal’s blood.
Wymack showed up then, which made it easier to focus beyond his whirling thoughts. Confusion sank its claws deep in his chest, letting go only to send him stumbling into the dark of a world flipped on its head.
It’d been months since Riko had called him Nathaniel, and months from there wherein Kevin and Andrew learned where he’d come from. Renee had followed as a natural progression in the line of truth. Beyond them, the only others who had the potential to find out were in the Raven nest. And while they were full of bigots and asshats, they hated the whole Fox package, not the individual piece labeled Neil Josten.
Wymack wanted to involve the police.
Neil did not want to involve the police. Neil refused to involve the police.
Renee seconded him. Allison promised hellfire for whomever did this. Dan was quietly disgusted and quietly enraged. Nicky and Seth were loudly disgusted, which marked the first thing they agreed on since the noodle debacle in the communal kitchen.
They cleaned it up and pegged it tentatively on zealous Riko fans.
Andrew pulled him aside, told Kevin to wait in the car, and emphasized their deal. Not that it had ever been broken, but Evermore was an elephant in the room whenever Andrew sobered up (which was stupid, no matter how much Neil respected him for the gravitas he gave his deals, because Andrew had promised him help against his old gang, not his father’s old associates).
“Leave Riko to me,” with two fingers pressed to Neil’s sternum, Andrew’s face close to Neil’s. “A hoodlum like you doesn’t stand a chance.”
As he still felt like he was floating, he didn’t have a good facial expression to pull. He did have one point of dubious pride to stand on, so he gave that. “The guy who was actually in juvie, calling me a hoodlum.”
“Not all of us were born with the gift to run freakishly fast.”
“I was smarter.”
“Now, now. You may be fast, but let’s not be hasty.”
The first tendril of feeling wriggled its way in; Neil’s mouth turned up.
Andrew searched his face. The huff to follow could have been called amused, and not necessarily because almost every sound a drugged Andrew made was amused.
With the two fingers on his chest, Andrew pushed. Neil rocked back on his heels, but refused to give ground.
Andrew’s eyes dropped to his mouth.
Neil’s stomach squirmed uncomfortably.
Andrew’s eyes flitted back up to his, head tilted and one eyebrow quirked. It looked inviting, insomuch as a shark with its mouth agape looked inviting. That was to say: it looked like a challenge.
Neil had always liked a challenge. Andrew knew that.
The need for space jabbed his legs back, eyes tearing from Andrew’s and flicking anywhere but the other. “Kevin’s probably getting restless.”
Andrew mercifully played along. “If we don’t check on him soon, he may chew on the seats.”
Stepping back, Neil cleared his throat and drew up one of his careless, means-nothing smiles. “Like owning a badly trained dog.”
“I should get a bumper sticker. Proud parent of two doggy delinquents.”
“Oi.”
Andrew shoulder-checked him as he took the lead. Neil, once again needing to clear his throat, hastened to follow.
—
The blood didn’t end there.
But the finals were a bigger target. They’d made it to the spring championships. They couldn’t blow it because some Raven had a creepy hate-boner for the Fox striker number ten.
(Was Neil convinced the person had been a Raven or a Raven fan?)
(He told himself he was. His instinct, ever vigilant and paranoid, told him he was wrong. He told it to stuff it.)
—
A countdown ticked off in his phone’s inbox.
He didn’t have time for that low-brow intimidation shit.
Maybe he over-reacted on the second message. He was man enough to admit bursting into Renee’s room and demanding she turn up all her old contacts wasn’t helpful, especially as he knew she hadn’t kept any of them. She’d purged herself from her past better than any of them, had found the future she wanted and moved toward it with all the strength of a woman walking alongside God.
Anyway, the number on his phone led nowhere. The area code made no sense. Any responses went ignored. Without police involvement, they had little hope in tracking down whoever it was.
By the twenty count, Neil ditched the phone. All the Foxes offered to pitch in and buy him a new one. He’d emancipated himself the moment he legally could, an eighteen year old never adopted and always bumped from one foster home to another. A decision great for his pride and freedom, but awful for finances.
They would’ve thrown in the money if Andrew hadn’t shown up with a blue dinosaur of cellphone that matched his. Although the model was breathtakingly old and not the least bit cool, Neil hadn’t complained a bit.
That should have been that. And yet, as luck was for them, it wasn't.
“Fuck!”
Matt jumped as Neil’s backpack, laden with textbooks, crashed into the wall. As he turned to find the source, he was treated to the sight of Neil with a death grip on his phone, his lip curled and expression furious.
(If it hadn’t been a gift from Andrew, Matt was sure the backpack wouldn’t have been the sole victim.)
From the other room, Seth called, “Stop throwing shit, fuckface, and use your words.”
Neil looked up. His eyes caught Matt’s. The expression across his face made Matt, who knew now Neil wouldn’t touch a hair on the Foxes’ heads, wish briefly they weren’t in the same room.
The violence broke when Neil muttered, “Eighteen,” and then, no matter the phone being a gift, hurled it at his crumpled backpack.
—
He was a ball of simmering anger. On the court was worse: he took out his irritation with sharp reprimands and sharper retributions on the slightest sign of someone slacking. They had to take on Class I teams, he’d bitch in the locker room, including the Ravens. They might as well drop their pants and bend over, because they were fucked if this was the best they could do.
The thing was, everyone was putting in maximum hours. Seth and Kevin stopped snapping at each other and buckled down for a war. All of them worked hard to beat the Ravens, even if most of them didn’t believe they could even make it past the Trojans.
He wasn’t being fair. He was acting so much like Kevin that even Kevin balked, the former Raven hesitating a moment before snapping at Neil to sit down and cool off until he could play as part of the team. Wymack nearly choked on his own spit on hearing the words from Kevin’s mouth.
“Shut up,” Andrew later cheerily informed Neil atop an otherwise deserted roof. “You’re making me mad. That’s not even supposed to be possible.”
Caught mid-rant, Neil’s teeth clicked as he shut his mouth and glared at the smiling Andrew. They’d met more frequently on the roof, though Andrew hadn’t skipped his dosage again. Kevin had given him hell; beyond that, he admitted the roller coaster ride between nausea and sobriety and back to medication was not, in fact, one he enjoyed riding. Neil didn’t understand why he didn’t skip it altogether. Surely he could be convincingly manic without the drugs that the others (of whom barely paid Andrew mind beyond fear) wouldn’t notice.
Fuck the pigs, he huffed. You’re letting a shit decision by some morons in a court tie you down?
As Andrew didn’t agree, he continued taking the medication. He also wouldn’t stop giggling about Neil being a bad influence.
A muscle in Neil’s cheek popped as he ground his teeth together. Finally, he gritted out: “Wish this son of a bitch would just come and fight me already. They had be the bastard that painted our locker room red. Who even knows my original birthday? Did my dad have fanatic followers? Is there some creep in the system wanting to make trouble? Maybe they gave Tyron my birthdate.”
“Why would your old buddy be this round-about?”
Only two people had called him Junior, but Neil preferred not to think of them. Anyway, there was no reason for them to care.
“I’m just saying,” he mumbled. “We can’t discount anybody.”
“You’re impossible,” Andrew sighed. Then, with a little more weight, “You’ve always been impossible.”
“You like it,” Neil muttered half-heartedly.
“It’s problematic.”
“It’s just, it’s stupid.”
“You? Yes.”
“Shut up.” Neil flopped back, arms and legs a haphazard sprawl. “You’re not being helpful.”
“Me? Not helpful? Perish the thought.”
For a moment, the only sounds came from students moving in and out of the Tower. Someone in one of the dorms decided to have an early start on the night and began blasting upbeat dance music.
Neil dug out his phone, still laying flat on the roof, and checked the inbox. The last to text was from Allison about a decently mindless action movie, but the one below that blinked 10 at him.
A hand knocked the phone from his grip. It skittered a few feet away, bouncing over uneven cement and stray gravel.
“Hey,” Andrew said, cutting Neil’s protest off by sticking his face a hand’s width away. “Quit thinking about it. You’re giving me a headache.”
Neil felt a bit like sinking through the roof and into the ground. Six feet under, preferrably. Throat tight, he managed, “Jealous I’m not paying as much attention to you?”
“Offended that you think it matters,” he corrected.
Neil’s nose scrunched up. “You can’t fight the world, Andrew.”
He turned to reach for his phone. Andrew caught his wrist and all but slammed it over Neil’s head. The move meant he bracketed Neil with his arms, his face dipped closer to Neil’s.
“That’s your goal, not mine.” A beat. His eyes, though hazed, did not stray from Neil’s. “I can think of a dozen better things to do than stare at your phone.”
Neil could think of a dozen ways to respond to that.
His throat refused to swallow. His thoughts refused to settle. The fingers around his wrist might as well have been hot irons, the touch burned so. “Yeah?”
“Maybe two in particular.”
Neil sounded as confident as he felt. That was, not at all. “Spit it out, then.”
Andrew hummed. He adjusted his grip on Neil’s wrist, nails biting in.
It was more than a little weird. If he thought about how they looked, he had to admit it was a bit gay.
Five impulses warred with each other, every one worst than the last. Unsettled with indecision, Neil took the only sensible option and held himself very, very still.
Andrew said, “When you said Allison could do what she liked, you really meant that. Has the scamp ever gone after what he liked, I wonder?”
Neil said, “What?” as he had forgotten what they were talking about.
A silence passed between them, neither moving.
Then Andrew rolled his eyes, his lip curling up on one side, and he knocked his forehead into Neil’s hard enough to bounce back.
Neil said, “Ow! What the shit?”
Andrew laughed, let go, and clambered to his feet.
Neil said, “Damn it, Andrew, seriously, what th– don’t!”
It was too late. Andrew did.
The blue phone skittered off the roof edge, plunging to the asphalt below with a distant, disheartening crack.
“I’ll get you another one,” Andrew piped. “Third time’s the charm. In the meantime? Get up. We’re getting Kevin and going to the court. You’re reeking of adrenaline.”
“Fuck adrenaline, I’m pissed!”
“Good. Kevin’ll like that.”
—
After the plunge from the roof broke the second, everyone except Neil agreed he should go phoneless.
“The countdown was stressing all of us out, and we don’t need that right now. Anyway, you can survive without a cell for ten days,” Wymack told him as he complained about missing out on stupid campus moments because Nicky could no longer reach him. “In my day–”
He cut himself off, but it was too late. Nicky was the first to burst into laughter, but Dan and Matt followed shortly. Renee reached over to give the coach a pat on the arm.
“Old age happens to everyone,” she said.
“That was not as comforting as usual,” Wymack muttered. “Alright, alright! Quit the laughter and get geared up! I want all of you running suicide drills til you drop!”
Seth protested he hadn’t even been paying attention, let alone laughing. Wymack did not care: the Foxes were in the punishment together.
Nights were still hard. As much as he’d hated receiving the texts, not watching the countdown when he knew for sure it should have still gone on was almost worse. But as the final spring matches approached, Neil smothered thoughts of the mystery texts with rigorous practice. It mostly worked.
On the roof in stolen moments of absolute quiet, Andrew sat with his arm stretched behind Neil.
It was more than a bit gay.
Just in case that meant Andrew wouldn’t, Neil didn’t point it out.
—
Though it was a few weeks out, Allison and Dan came up with a fantastic plan for spring break. Renee was a given for attending. Matt, Seth and Neil were invited too, of course. Thinking about it - the timing before the championships, the tension in the group from practice and Riko, the split between groups despite Neil’s straddling the line - Neil put his foot down and said he wouldn’t go if Andrew’s lot wasn’t invited.
Aaron pulled Neil aside and said he wanted to bring along Katelyn.
Neil pulled Andrew aside and said he needed to get over himself and loosen the leash on his brother.
Andrew laughed in his face and told him in no uncertain terms: no.
“You wanna lose him?” Neil hissed, exhausted from practice, pissy from the 3 in an imaginary text message, and at last annoyed enough with Andrew’s interference in the Foxes’ teamwork to buck the system.
Andrew shrugged, his eyes dazed and smile wide. “Who cares? He wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“That’s the drugs talking, and you know it.”
“Really? I hadn’t known. Wow, you sure convinced me.” Andrew held a straight face for a second before giggles leaked out the corner of his mouth.
Neil scoffed in disgust and dropped his grip on Andrew’s shoulder. “Can’t fucking believe you, sometimes.”
“Aaron can consider this a lesson in faith.”
“Since when were you so petty?”
“Now, honey–”
“What the fuck? Honey? Don’t be disgusting.”
“Babe,” Andrew continued, unconcerned, “baby, hun, darling, dear–”
Face burning, Neil’s flip-flopping stomach resolved into mortified embarrassment. He curled a fist back and threw it for Andrew’s jaw.
Andrew deflected it, caught his fist, whirled them so he stood at Neil’s back, and bent Neil’s arm in a painful twist that put his hand far too close to the back of his head.
Effectively pinned, Neil cursed everything he knew of Andrew Minyard.
Andrew didn’t laugh. He breathed, silky and dangerous, “What’s wrong? Little too gay for our big bad boy? Did you really think you could keep cuddling up without having to face reality? Come now. You’re better than Gordon.”
Struggling to be free without success, Neil cursed louder.
Andrew tsked. “Impossible.”
He let go, an abrupt release in tension that sent Neil sprawling. Stepping back, he regarded Neil with darkly amused curiousity as he scrambled up and turned on Andrew while shaking out his numb arm, expression murderous.
“I’m not–”
“Sure,” Andrew cut in, flippant, “and neither am I.”
Anger transformed confusion into indignation. Andrew raised his eyebrows, message and challenge both clear on his face.
Neil took one good look at Andrew, and rushed him.
The second time around, Andrew let himself be pushed back. Fingers balled in Andrew’s shirt, Neil curling fists in cloth rather than swinging for Andrew’s face. The inches of height difference let Neil attempt - and fail - to loom.
Andrew gave him a swift peck on the lips, his mouth turned up in a grin.
As a balloon stuck with a needle, Neil lost all his steam in one explosive pop.
Andrew said, “Not too bad?”
Andrew tittered, “Deer in the headlights. Or tomcat found by the butcher.”
Neil blinked rapidly.
Andrew curled his fingers in Neil’s, and pried his shirt loose. “That should be enough food for thought for now. Take two steps back.”
Neil dropped his hands and took two steps back.
“If I’d known that’d make you speechless, I’d have done it earlier.” Dismissive. Distracted. He gave Neil an absent, short glance as he made his way past.
Neil turned to follow him like a toy on a string, but Andrew told him, “Let’s try again when I’m sober, kitty cat. We should at least try to play nice.”
Neil, silver tongued and clever, had no protest at hand. Whistling a jaunty tune and not once looking back, Andrew walked away.
—
The two didn’t meet again before the next day’s practice. If Renee suspected something was up from Neil’s abrupt appearance at her side, she didn’t ask him about it. The girls were fine with Neil in their room; Matt joined them once his final Monday class finished, Allison heading out to meet Seth at a diner. As a group of four, they watched a movie. A the end, Renee volunteered to sleep in Matt’s bed so he and Dan could have the dorm to themselves. No one protested.
“I know something’s eating at you, but I won’t ask until you want to tell. Even though you probably should tell.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
She gave him a look that said, but by the grace of God is your dumb ass still alive. At this point, it was the familiar.
After she made him brush his teeth and they crawled into their respective beds, he called down to her, “Pray for me?”
She kicked the bottom of his bunk with affection. “Always have been.”
—
The countdown would have said: 2.
Neil didn’t think about imaginary texts and annoying numbers, however. Instead, Andrew lingered in his mind. Thinking back, Neil faced the facts he’d denied: Andrew did not casually touch anyone, except him. Andrew did not meet privately with people just to hang out, except him. Andrew did not buy people gifts, except him. According to the others, even Wymack, Andrew listened to him and him alone.
He didn’t believe that last one, but he hadn’t believed any of the other points, either, and now here he was, blind-sided by a little peck on the lips. It was ridiculous, like he’d turned into a nervous lovesick teen all over again. He hated it.
In the early morning, Renee asked him to walk with her to the court for practice. Unspoken was the fact that she offered that for his sake only, but he didn’t have the energy to protest. All the stress from the countdown and Andrew slammed into him at once. Though he’d slept over seven hours and skipped Kevin’s night practice, he felt dead on his feet.
They didn’t speak on the way there, which was fine. He needed to get his thoughts in order, and she was happy enough to enjoy the crisp morning air.
(She’d always been a disgusting morning person.)
Eyes on the ground and one step behind Renee, he didn’t notice the woman loitering outside the gym’s back door until Renee said, “Oh, hello. Sorry, have we met?”
The woman said, “No. But he’s my son.”
Renee stopped.
Neil’s head snapped up.
Thick brown curls fell in a furious wave along the woman’s thin shoulders. A worn t-shirt, faded jeans and clunky boots didn’t take away from her sharp, lined face or even sharper, dark eyes. She looked as beautiful as a hungry panther in a flimsy cage, part natural grace and part imminent danger.
She matched Neil in determination. They didn’t share the same face, but their height, slender shape and sharp edges matched point for point.
When Renee glanced back to Neil, she saw no recognition in his face. There was, however, fear and distrust.
The last time Neil had seen his mother, icy resolve had held her together. It had been months after they’d left Nathan Wesninski behind, but they had changed towns every three to five days. At one stop in a place Neil couldn’t remember the name of, his mother had left him in their ‘89 Camry while she went to speak with the woman who held their Germany citizen papers. She had returned within ten minutes, clutching her side and snapping at him to buckle in.
The Camry had groaned at being gunned. He remembered it coughing and jerking and his mother silent and tense, her one hand white on the wheel while her other grew dark with blood.
She had told him to get in the back and get her the first aid kit. He had. They then drove straight through the night without stopping for anything but fuel. She had him hold the wheel while she changed shirts. She told him he could pick where they stopped for breakfast, but all he’d wanted was somewhere to sleep. He was sick of the car.
He told her so. She’d grown even quieter, tense at the mouth and eyes.
He quietly asked if they were still going to Germany. Everything in his gut said they weren’t, but he wasn’t sure. She hadn’t answered him, hadn’t looked at him, and drove until they hit a larger city.
Neil remembered that one. Chicago’s suburbs were sprawling in tranquility, though its inner roads were hectic and tight and full of drivers his mother cursed under her breath. They didn’t touch the downtown; they went on the loops around.
She asked him to promise he’d be safe.
Groggy and thirsty and not sure of what she meant, he promised.
Parked outside a weathered office building, she made him promise he’d survive.
He promised.
She’d taken his hand and duffel, told him to listen to what the adults had to say, told him to keep his head down, told him to never speak of his father or her, told him to do so much for her.
He promised for her. She’d ruffled his hair and pulled him in for a tight hug.
She took his hand, led him in to the building, and signed him on for the Witness Protection. She’d told him he was a good boy, that he’d made her very, very proud. He’d reminded her he was eleven, not six. The social worker said they could go together. She just needed to give them the full story.
She’d said no, she couldn’t, and then she’d left.
Just like that.
The police had tried to tail her, but she was good at getting away. Neil took after her in that way, he supposed.
The social worker asked if she’d beat him, or if his father had. Remembering his promises, he hadn’t said.
The first foster family they put him with only knew he’d been abandoned. They’d been a good family, an upstanding couple that couldn’t have children of their own and enjoyed community work. They had a nine year old golden retriever named Sammy, all soft fur and big dopey eyes.
The social worker and police had told him he needed to keep his past a secret. All he wanted was his mother.
The dog might have tracked him, so he’d taken her on a walk and left her tied to a tree five blocks away when he made his run. He searched for his mother for two days, but a gas station employee caught him red-handed when he stole jerky off the rack and called him in as a run-away and the nice couple came to get him, not his mother, and they were distressed and disappointed and terrified. Their neighbor had found Sammy dead on the side of the road, her back legs crushed. They’d feared worse had happened to him.
As he proved not only alive but coldly unsympathetic, they didn’t know what to do. He told them he didn’t want them. He couldn’t mention his mother, but he thought it as loud as he could: I want her, not you.
That night, he heard the husband call the agency and say they couldn’t take care of him, that he had to go back.
Within a week, he did. He grew worried that if he bounced around too much, his mom wouldn’t be able to find him. And so he’d strove, no matter the home, no matter the problems, no matter anything, to stay where he was placed.
It hadn’t mattered. His mother hadn’t come.
But here, in the only home that mattered, she had.
—
Fury slammed into Neil like a truck.
He wondered why.
Mary, thin and stressed and near tears, begged Renee for time with her son. It had been so long, she sobbed.
After a glance at Neil, Renee politely offered to take them both inside.
“No,” his mother gasped, “please, just give us a few minutes. Maybe then, if he’s okay with me joining him…”
Renee glanced at him again.
He wanted to throw a punch.
He thought, today is two, not one. This isn’t fair.
He said, “It’s fine, Renee.”
Renee didn’t believe him, but she was a bigger believer in respecting a person’s choice. “I’ll be right inside,” she said. He understood that meant she would be within yelling distance, and that she would appear at the first call. When he nodded acceptance, she disappeared into the door, and he turned his eyes back on his mother.
She stepped away from him, her hands hugging her elbows. Distressed, she turned and trudged a few feet away to the raised cement curb. There, she sat hard, her head in her hands.
Feeling unreal and madder than a hornet in a tin, he moved his numb legs to follow her.
He sat next to her.
She heaved a sob, threw her arms around him, and for a moment, held him. Curly hair tickled his nose and threatened to stick in his mouth, a dry cheek pressed hard against his. Although his anger simmered, the hug - about what he’d always wanted from his mother, about her coming back and wanting him and looking terrible for leaving him - quelled it.
“We need to go,” she murmured, and everything in him, remnants of fury included, froze. “Your father is being given bail in two days. He’s going to come for you.”
“What?” He said, shocked and bewildered and numb all over.
“Your father. Is getting bail.” She didn’t sound tearful. She sounded like he had forgotten she could, stern and strict and cold, so cold. “Damn it, how could you be so reckless? Exy? With Kevin Day? How have you kept your identity secret with him around?”
Neil was speechless.
She leaned back, her hands cupping his face. Gone was the worry, the concern, the terror. Searching his eyes, she looked at him as if she had never found something sadder.
“He knows who you are.” Neil remained still. “Does Riko?” Neil said nothing. “Oh, god. I arrived just in time. We have to go.”
Another lie.
“That’s what you said when we left the first time.” His throat was so tight.
(Was this even his mother? Yes. It had to be.)
She pursed her lips. For the first time, regret entered the picture.
“I made a terrible mistake that day. I’m so sorry, Abram. I’m so, so sorry. We’ll go together, don’t worry. From now on, we’re together.”
He stared at her.
“You’ll have to give up Exy,” she murmured, her eyes roving his frame. Her voice grew absent, like her thoughts were already miles ahead of where they sat. “But that’s okay. We’ll be together. Oh, you’ve grown so much… I’ve missed you, Abram. We have so much to talk about.”
“You left me.” He said it as if reminding her. As if this was not a meeting after eight years of abrupt silence, but that he needed to remind her to do the laundry.
“It was for the best.” She said this like he remembered her being: matter-of-fact. Determined. A straight-forward liar. “But now, you’re safer with me.”
A car pulled into the lot. Quick as a whip, her eyes jumped over his head to spot it, and then she pulled him closer under one arm. When he tried to draw away, her arm tightened. He stilled, stiff but trapped.
As his thoughts fell in a jumble and she ducked her head next to his in a parody of affection, the car passed the typical turn and continued closer to them. It wasn’t normal - there weren’t parking spots by the back entrance, just a pick up lane - though he knew it drew closer only because of her grip tightening on his shoulder.
The car stopped too close to them. Then did Neil glance up, and find the black driver’s window of Andrew’s Maserati roll down.
Andrew grinned out at him, Kevin leaning forward to frown from the passenger’s seat. Through the tint in the back windows, Neil saw Aaron and Nicky crowd for a look.
Kevin was, surprisingly, the first to speak. He smoothed his frown into his best public speaker face, all charm and docility. “Neil? Should we tell coach you’re busy?”
“His friend already knows,” his mother replied, her voice once again choked up. “I’m sure she’ll inform him. We won’t be long.”
Andrew’s eyes caught and held Neil’s.
Neil found his words. He said, “I’m doing fine without you.”
Possibly wondering if he meant him, Andrew blinked.
In silent correction, Neil turned his head to his mother, his hands no longer so numb that he couldn’t pull her arm off. She fought it for a moment, her head shaking, but she couldn’t clasp him in iron in front of his four bulky friends.
Chief of those friends, Andrew smiled sweetly at her and then ordered Neil, neat as anything, “Get in.”
His mother stood immediately, her eyes ablaze.
Neil couldn’t look at her. He moved to the car, and pulled his arm out of her weak grab.
“Wait,” she stuttered. “Wait, no, we need to talk. Please.”
“Sorry, lady.” The Maserati’s door swung open, Nicky scooting over to give Neil room immediately after. He didn’t look entirely sure of what was happening, but he was sure of what he said. “I don’t know who you are, but Neil’s ours.”
Either Mary made another grab for Neil and missed, or didn’t move at all, because he climbed in unmolested. When she’d first identified herself, he’d felt nothing but anger. Now he felt like nothing, walking away as he was from his mother.
(He still felt her crushing hug, the knowledge that this is my mother ringing warm and crazy in his mind.)
Neil didn’t look at her as he shut the door.
He did look at her when she lunged for Andrew’s window, her grip white-knuckle on the wheel.
(One hand white on the wheel, one hand reddened on her side.)
“He’s coming. You can’t keep him safe.” She hissed this at Andrew, though her eyes were glued to Kevin. She looked wary. She looked weary. “I know what to do. He’s gotten this far, hasn’t he? I watched over him.”
A lie.
In the front, Andrew sneered. “You have five seconds to get your dirty claws off my car, you old hag, and then I stop caring about blood on the upholstery.”
She let go. She said, “Tonight. We’ll go tonight. I’ll meet you here. Bring your bag.”
“I have more than a bag,” Neil said, or thought he said.
It didn’t matter. The moment she’d let go, Andrew had rolled up his window and slammed on the gas. The only reason he’d heard her last words was because she’d shouted them.
An arm slid over his shoulder. Usually he would have shrugged it off, but it didn’t feel like Mary’s - it felt solid, real and genuine, born from more than blood. Neil couldn’t let himself lean into Nicky, he wasn’t that far gone, but he did let out a shuddering sigh and not protest in any way.
“Who was that?” Aaron asked.
“My mom,” Neil said.
Nicky’s arm pulled him in, his other hand settling on his shoulder. Neil tried once, twice, to shrug him off, skin prickling, but he refused to let go, and Neil’s anger continued to pound uselessly behind a glass door instead of giving him any solid idea of what to do. Nicky really didn’t understand personal boundaries. He was such a fucking f—
“It’s okay,” Nicky told him, his touch gentle around Neil’s shoulders. His voice was soft and private. Nicky was an awful liar. He couldn’t fake sincerity if his life depended on it.
Nicky murmured, “I can let go if you like,” and Neil all but collapsed into himself, his hands over his head. Nicky didn’t let go.
“We’re missing practice,” Kevin said after Andrew turned onto the freeway and the silence grew too loud in the car.
“Stuff it, Day,” Aaron said.
Kevin twisted in his seat. “Are we going to talk about how your mother is alive?”
“I said shut it,” Aaron hissed.
“She abandoned him. He can’t have any lingering attachments.”
“You’re always such a black and white bitch.”
“Where are we going?” Neil asked, shutting the rest of them up.
“To get your third phone,” Andrew replied. “Try not to break it this time.”
“Then don’t kick it off the roof.”
“That’s what happened?” Nicky gasped, his enthusiasm to switch topics only slightly forced and highly appreciated. “Fuck. I owe Matt.”
Neil shrugged him off, but Nicky smiled as he finally let go. Something in Neil’s face said he was going to be okay. Or maybe, just maybe, they had something like faith in him.
—
He went to meet his mom.
(What a thing to think.)
(He also thought, more vehemently as a night’s rest gave him clarity: too little, too late.)
Despite his protests, Wymack told him either he held the meeting in the coach’s office with both adults present, or he didn’t play in the Bearcats game. Seth could take his spot the whole game, see if Wymack cared. And yes, he understood the game was two days away, but he didn’t care.
Andrew drove him over, Renee and Kevin in the back seat. Kevin claimed he just wanted a ride to the court, but all three of them lingered with Neil when they spotted his mother outside the gym door.
She protested worse than he had, but he laid it out that either they spoke in Wymack’s office, or they didn’t speak at all. She chose the first option.
He was an emancipated teen. She had no control over him.
She refused to go into detail with Wymack there. Nonetheless, she managed to be impressively doom and gloom.
Neil rediscovered his anger.
Somehow, he dodged bringing up accusations on her abandonment in lieu of the countdown on his phone. That tactic backfired on him when she paled considerably and re-iterated that they needed to go into hiding immediately.
Wymack asked what was going on. Neither of them answered.
“You’ve had your fun,” she whispered, as if the coach wasn’t right there. “But this is about survival.”
“You left me,” he retorted. A fierce, mean satisfaction crept up in his chest when her expression shuttered.
“We’ll protect him,” Wymack tried. “He’s tried to die numerous times this year, and we’ve managed to foil all of them.”
“Do you think this is a joke?” She asked.
“No,” Wymack started.
She cut him off. “I shouldn’t be here. They’re watching. My brother–”
And then, she stopped.
She looked at Wymack. She looked at Neil.
She said to Neil, and only Neil: “If you don’t come with me now, I may never see you again.”
Wymack didn’t interfere.
Neil looked at her. At her wild hair, her ragged clothes, the hunted look in her eyes. At a scar just under her chin that he hadn’t noticed before. At how similar their hands had turned out despite the prominent veins in hers and the strength in his.
He looked at everything that made up Mary Wesninski and said, “Fine. That doesn’t change much.”
For the first time, the guilt and longing on her face was absolutely genuine.
“I’m fine here,” he repeated, for her and for him. “I’ve been fine. And I’ll be fine.”
“He says that too much,” Wymack broke in, though neither of the people across his desk looked to him, “but I’d vouch for him on this one. Foxes support each other.”
—
She nodded.
—
She left.
—
Again.
—
He lived.
This was, after all, his home.
—
The countdown passed. By online news journals, he discovered his father had posted bail.
They won their game against the Bearcats. They would play against USC and Edgar Alan. By their victory no matter how slim, they felt they had a chance.
That night, they returned to Palmetto with high spirits but dragging feet. Most collapsed straight away in their dorm beds, the spring break an exciting prospect for a much needed rest.
Neil couldn’t sleep. On a whim, he wandered to the roof.
Andrew, for once, wasn’t there. But the stars above gave him the space to think about something other than his mother and father being out there.
—
He thought about what Nicky had to say. The surety in he’s ours even after all the shit he’d given him.
He thought about Kevin and Aaron sticking up for him in their own, messed up ways.
He thought about Renee listening to what he had to say and letting him choose. Her support was conditional on his improvement. It had been and continued to be one of the most set expectations he’d ever relied on, and he appreciated it beyond words.
He thought of Allison, easily his easiest friend. And Seth, of whom never cared about him dating her once they were back together, and of whom gave as good as he got. He thought of Dan and Matt, the duo matched to complement one another, of her fierce determination to prove herself and her team, and his kindness despite his discomfort.
He thought of Wymack. A conscious choice of trust, and a leap of faith.
He thought of Andrew, and how the others took his protection with minimal expectation for granted. Of how it had been months since Neil had seen Andrew pull a blade on his makeshift family. On a kiss, a promise, and how much he enjoyed the taste of Andrew without his medication and wanted to see more.
He thought of Exy.
He thought of a countdown, and that this would be the first day of no number.
It was a marvelous day.
—
The Trojans matched them player for player. Somehow, they won.
The Ravens offered them no such deal. Somehow, they won.
A week later, news broke of Riko Moriyama’s body being found in the river. The tragic injury he’d sustained after his emotionally charged and uncharacteristic attack on Neil Josten had been too much for him, the media sighed. He’d jumped from a bridge that morning. His surviving family, an uncle and brother, declined comment due to being in a period of mourning. Another man, a reported family friend by the last name of Hatford, expressed their shared shock and grief on their behalf.
When word hit Palmetto, Kevin locked himself in the bathroom with a bottle of vodka until Neil picked the lock and dragged him out.
Three sheets to wind with half a bottle gone, the room (filled with everyone but Seth and Allison) learned from his drunken declarations that Jean Moreau could confirm Riko’s death, and also that the Ravens were under investigation from Edgar Alan’s athletics board. When Dan asked him how he felt about that, he gave an emotionless chuckle and all but shut down on them.
The night was an odd one. At midnight, Andrew and Neil moved from the collective party to the roof.
Ten past twelve, Neil received a text from an unknown number. It read, You won’t see me again. But you won’t see him either.
The next morning Neil would find news of his father’s death. But that night, less than five seconds after that, another text arrived. You’re safe and I’m so very, very proud of my big boy.
He tried to text back, I’m not six, but the text failed to deliver as the other’s number was deactivated.
“I wonder how far I could throw it,” Andrew mused aloud through a cloud of smoke. That night was the first time the entire team had experienced him sober, though only Neil knew it. His acting needed quite a bit of work, but it helped that everyone had been distracted with each other and the alcohol.
He couldn’t always skip, Neil now understood. If going on and off affected him for just once every two weeks, who knew what quitting cold turkey would be like? The others couldn’t know.
But tonight was a special night, the season a success and Riko Moriyama dead.
Scoffing and shoving the phone in a pocket, Neil kicked his feet on the roof’s edge. “You’d have to buy me a new one.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“So,” Neil said, feet stilling, heart thundering, gut clenching, “you kiss boys often?”
Andrew sucked in smoke. It curled up into the night from the edges of his mouth, two fading spirals. “Only the ugly ones.”
Try as he might, Neil could not think of a good come-back. He did, however, appreciate the normalcy, even if there was nothing normal about this.
What he blurted was, “Is it different?”
“You never thought of it before?”
“Shit, no.”
Oddly, Andrew went silent.
That was uncharacteristic enough for Neil to muster up the courage to look over. The other gazed at him with heavily lidded eyes, his head tilted back and shoulders slumped. Broad shoulders, broad arms, prominent adam’s apple even in the low light - there was no mistaking Andrew Minyard for a chick.
There was no mistaking the heat in Neil’s face, either. He tried to rub it away nonetheless.
“You’re the only one, alright? The only guy. Shit.” Neil’s voice barely topped a mumble. “Stop looking at me like that. Fuckin’ embarrassing.”
“Neil.”
Again without thinking, Neil looked up.
Andrew was much too close.
He said, as if it meant nothing, “I’m going to kiss you.”
“Yeah,” Neil breathed, “okay.”
He did.
It wasn’t functionally too different from kissing a girl. In fact, compared to Neil’s prior experience, it was better. For one, neither of them were drunk or high. For two, when Andrew pulled back, Neil could grab him by the shirt front and not worry about brushing against anything too soon.
For three, and best of all: Andrew didn’t expect anything more than kissing.
They’d make it work. They had all summer.
It was a marvelous year.