Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
A moment passed as they stared at the ring—or where it was before it sank. Kyle looked up at Tristan, at a loss.
Tristan straightened himself. Sorry, he said. I have an allergy to a certain metal. Sort of.
“Another allergy?”
I didn’t mean for the ring to take a bath in your gravy. Tristan inspected his hand, winced slightly, then lowered it to his lap. So I take it you like your brother, too?
“I’m sorry about your hand. I didn’t know you had a—”
Of course you didn’t, no one does. Better fish that ring out before you eat it on accident. Then you’d have to poop it out, like a dog.
Kyle first tried to scoop it out with his fork, failed twice, then finally plucked it out with his fingers. He wiped it off on a napkin. “You sure you’re alright? Why aren’t you eating?” He put his ring back on, then nudged Tristan’s tray with his fork. “I never see you eat. Do you have an allergy to food, too?”
I still don’t understand why your family ignores you.
Kyle sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t really excel at anything as a kid, so I didn’t ‘earn’ any attention. My brother did. Kaleb excels at everything. He’s the kind of son my dad wanted. Not me.” Kyle took a dejected bite out of a dry chicken tender and mumbled: “Guess I’m just the family failure.”
Tristan folded his arms on the table. Ever heard the saying ‘children are like second chances’? Your parents are the failures, not you. They waste time suffering with their lifelong flaws, their sexual incompatibilities, their frustrations with each other and themselves, masturbating in private to increasingly bizarre fantasies in a quest to achieve a morsel of excitement in their otherwise dull lives …
“What the hell, Tristan? Gross.”
And they pass down all of their worst qualities—except your eyes, obviously—to you. That places all the burden on you to fix what they could not, and what their parents nor grandparents could not, all the way down the old ancestral family tree, every limb, a tree full of failures and unrealized dreams. What a terrible burden to bear. How is any of that your fault?
Kyle shrugged. “My dad’s never there. Mom’s too critical and cold. I always feel like I’m doing something wrong.”
Doing things wrong is the only way the world changes. Tristan gave him a little smile. I really like staring into your eyes.
Kyle looked up at him right then.
Their gazes locked across the table, across the aroma of bad cafeteria food, across the noise.
To Kyle, Tristan’s misty blue eyes read like a thousand-page manuscript of secrets—and of boundless pain. Kyle’s heart raced, thinking of being the first one to try cracking that book. To be Tristan’s friend. To be close to someone who let no one close. The specialness they would share.
Them against the world. Against the emptiness.
Against the boundless pain.
Kyle couldn’t say any of that, so instead, he put on a grin and leaned forward. “Alright, then. Staring contest. Go!”
Tristan smirked. Must you turn everything into a game?
“It’s in my blood. No blinking and no looking away.”
Tristan propped his chin up with a hand. I can do this for hours, me and your pretty eyes, what a pleasure.
At first, Kyle had fun, bringing a chicken tender slowly to his mouth to take a bite and making a funny face, still staring. Tristan was unfazed. Then Kyle imitated Tristan, propping his chin up with a hand and smirking. Also no effect. Soon, Kyle simply settled into gazing at Tristan’s eyes, all out of tricks, and he could no longer ignore the symphony of excitement in his chest, which played feverish notes on every instrument in reach. It was just like his nightly activity under bed sheets, only it was real life now, and all the excitement beneath his waist had to be contained, ignored, channeled elsewhere.
Gazing into Tristan’s eyes was such a gift.
Even if it was, in this moment, only a game.
It wasn’t until Kyle started hanging with Tristan that his teammates began to pay attention. “Why do you eat with that guy?” said one of them at practice. “Hear what he did to Brock? Coach found him in the hallway with Brock’s head in his lap, petting his hair. Fucking freak.” Rumors had twisted everything around so much, even the guys who were there had the story all wrong. “He did a karate thing, right at his neck, made him pass out.” “I saw the light go out in Brock’s eyes, he was dead for a sec, the freak tried to murder Brock.” “How’d he get away with it? Fucker should be expelled!” “Bet he would’ve molested him, had the coach not come.” Their mouths ran and ran. “He’s got problems, messed up in the head, he’ll grow up to be a serial killer.” “You can tell, just look in his eyes, you can totally tell.”