_{[ Shhh. He’s never told anyone this before. ]}

_{It’s supposed to be nothing. He’d even settle for an over-exaggeration – one of those memories that feel big when they happen, but become petty and overstated when he thinks back to them. Unfortunately, Henley’s luck is hysterically inaccurate. He remembers everything with all the flaws and gory details that he knew the moment they leapt into existence.}

It’d been September. He hated Septembers, still does, but not as much as August. School was hell for him. He’s not the kind of boy that changes rapidly; he’s barely muttered anything more than obscenities since he learned to speak. That was it, really, all that kept him from engaging with his peers. He was charismatic, sexy, knew what he wanted and intended with an iron might to get it. But that one silly thing set him apart from them. He never changed.

He didn’t understand the haircuts, the fads, the stupid things girls said to get his attention. He just wanted to grow up and get out.

Someone understood. The worst part is that Henley still doesn’t remember his name. Something-something-something-Johnson, he recalls, but that’s as much as his alcohol-heightened brain can register. He knows that the boy’s hair was light and wavy and his eyes were hazel and his nose was hooked and he just looked too damn old for a kid in high school, but never his name.

He must have called him Kid, because Henley had called everyone Kid. It was the only way, besides being a complete and utter ass to every soul he crossed, that he could keep himself from feeling inferior.

Kid was quiet. He had nothing to offer anyone but negative insight and pessimistic opportunity, so Henley truthfully had no other choice but to blatantly disregard him. What difference does it make? he had thought, and thought nothing else of it.

They talked once. It was only sort of an accident, more of a misconception than a misadventure. Paired together for a class-long science lab, neither were sure how else to appease the awkwardness between them. So they talked, and more to themselves to each other. They were still heard.

It had gone somewhere along the lines of this is bullshit and yeah, and a detour towards do you think we’re really gaining anything from this? with a smug reply of hell, no. It was frivolous, uncaring and unnecessary, but it was the first time Henley had ever felt like someone was truly listening to him. Not just seeing his defenses.

His lab partner hung himself. Two months later, too, in a quiet and rushed November. A boy so purposefully ignored became nonexistent. At least he got what he wanted, Henley wished he was apathetic enough to think. He wished he had never met Kid at all. He wished he had never been born.

Henley had witnessed a slow-paced suicide, and still cannot decide whether or not it was his own.