simon riley doesn’t make friends easily. he’s never liked people much, and they don’t tend to favor him either. his classmates claim that he’s impolite, his teachers call him antisocial, and his mother says he’s got a bad attitude, just like his father.
(that’s rich, coming from her. if she would have ponied up and kicked mean ol’ richard riley to the curb seventeen years ago, as she should have, he wouldn’t have been around to have an influence on her son.)
but simon doesn’t think he’s any of that, really. he isn’t mean, he isn’t unjust, he doesn’t judge unfairly or go out of his way to make anyone miserable. he gets good grades, looks after his baby brother, works a part time job at the butcher’s. he does the best he can with the cards he’s been dealt, as dismal as they are.
it’s a miracle he that isn’t an addict, a convict, or a corpse by now. all things considered, he’s doing pretty damn well for himself. his mama should be proud.
she’s not, and richard sure as hell isn’t. but tommy thinks he’s pretty much the coolest guy ever (his words, not simon’s), and then there’s you.
you think he’s pretty cool too, though simon knows you’ll never admit it. why else would you subject yourself to his company?
simon doesn’t like people much, but he does like you. luckily for him, you have a soft spot for strays. like the mangy cat you feed everyday, and the impolite, antisocial, surly boy who lives in the flat underneath yours, who comes pawing at your bedroom window whenever richard hits the bottle a little too hard, and buys your affection with less-than trustworthy weed and shitty jokes.
unlike the rest of the world, you don’t mind his apathy, or his temper, or his inability to chit-chat or flirt. you don’t consider him particularly ugly, either, despite what the girls at school whisper when they think he can’t hear them. despite his crooked, stained teeth and his broken nose, his acne-scarred cheeks and choppy haircut. you’d even called him handsome once (you were high as a kite that night, unburdened and uncharacteristically giddy).
you’re his best friend — his only friend, actually. sometimes, you feel like a little more than that, like when you tend to his wounds with the dwindling first aid kit you keep stowed under your bed, and when you hold his hand on the walk to school some mornings, or steal kisses in between hits off a shared blunt, but that’s something that neither of you quite care to address.
this is one of those times where the lines blur (not that they were ever very substantial in the first place). simon, sprawled out on the floor of your bedroom, a two-months expired bag of frozen peas held against his bruised sternum, his eyes half lidded as he watches you roll a joint from your desk chair, your maths textbook acting as a makeshift tray.
it’s just the two of you here tonight — your mom’s rarely home lately, though he doesn’t have the heart to ask where she goes, isn’t totally sure that you’d have an answer if he did, and your ol’ man moved out two summers ago (he was there, in this very same spot, when it went down). he can hear richard stumbling around upstairs, though simon knows no one will come looking for him, not after the beating he took an hour prior. his family all knows to let him lick his wounds in peace.
“my birthday’s comin’ up.” he says abruptly, raspy voice momentarily overcoming michael jackson’s sweet one. it’s unlike him to care about such things, let alone acknowledge them. but this one, it’s special. he turns eighteen in september. it’s the end of a long, grueling sentence.
“yeah?” you don’t look up from your task, the steady beat of your feet tap-tap-tapping on the floor never letting up. you only respond out of courtesy. you know his birthday. you’re oftentimes the one reminding him of its approach.
he’s silent for a moment, thoughtful, almost timid, staring at you with his tongue pressed to his molars. from this angle, you look something like a dream he had when he was still small and scared. like peter-pan come to take him away. the soft glow of the streetlight outside makes your shadow seem bigger than you are — but, then again, you always look that way to him. larger than life. much too great for the shoe-box apartment you’re trapped in.
he waits until the awkwardly-stuffed paper’s between your lips, pink lighter held to its tip, before he speaks again, his heart beating so, so hard that his abused ribs ache in protest. he’s never been nervous to tell you anything, until now.
“m’gonna enlist, i think.”
your eyes, red-tinged and glassy already, dart to his, your feet stilling. he’s stone-cold sober, but his mouth is as dry as the sahara. “yeah?”
it’s gentle, breathy, somewhat taken aback — he doesn’t know what he expected. anger, perhaps. he wouldn’t fault you for it, if you were. you don’t turn eighteen until january. he’ll be gone, and you’ll still be here. he’d be angry, if he was you.
but your temper’s never been nearly as short as his. your feelings are much harder to hurt. you don’t take things personally. he wishes that he was more like you in that way.
“yeah.” the military’s his only escape route. he has no money saved, as it all goes to putting food in tommy’s belly and keeping the lights on, and no family, nor friends, to take him in, and he can’t live under his father’s roof any longer; hell, even making it to september seems far-fetched. he doesn’t have to explain that to you, though. you know.
he’s thought about it. he’s been thinking about it for a long while. you probably know that, too.
you nod slowly, smoke curling from your lips as you lean back in your rickety chair, unblinking. “it’d suit you.” you tell him, plain and simple. “you’d do real good out there, i reckon.”
he isn’t sure if that’s a compliment, but he chooses not to think about it too hard, because thinking about you too hard in any means usually makes his head spin. instead, he sits up, letting his ice pack fall to the floor, and wraps one hand around your ankle, using the other to pluck the joint from your hand.
he doesn’t tell you he’ll come back, because he can’t promise that he will. he doesn’t tell you he’ll miss you, because that much is obvious. he doesn’t tell you that he’ll keep in touch, because you loathe phone calls, and he doesn’t think he’s ever received a text from you in all the years he’s known you.
you once told him that, if it’s meant to be, it’ll be. either he’ll find you again, somewhere along the line, or he won’t. he likes to think that he will, one day, when he’s grown, when he’s kinder, more patient, when he has the means to take care of you like you’ve taken care of him for all these years.
you lean precariously forwards in your chair, warm hands cupping the back of his neck, and kiss him as he blows smoke from his nose. your lips taste like weed and sour candy, familiar, and his split lip throbs as his mouth meets yours, and simon considers that this might be what fairytales are made of.
twenty years from now, simon will be surrounded by friends — price, johnny, kyle — thousands of miles from your bedroom floor, and he’ll look at the stars, wondering if, somewhere, somehow, you’re looking up at the same ones.
but, for now, he kisses you, blood trickling down his chin, and figures that he might as well make the most of this while he still can.
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