And they just keep getting shorter. Thanks Amindaya for betaing!

He was a transfer student. He got here around the middle of January of our junior year. He had a limp.

They sat us together in first period; the teacher wanted me to make friends. He wouldn’t stop talking.

“And then I saw the school and I was like Oh my god, it’s huge! you know? This place is so big, I thought I would get lost, like I’d enter and be all like, where the hell am I?! You know…”

He just wouldn’t stop talking.

“The lady at the office told me my first class was in the same building, I was so relieved! Just turn here and go to the second classroom to the left, she told me. I did and here I am! Have you ever been lost here? Must be scary, this place is so big!”

And he kept following me around.

“My next class is math, what’s yours? Where’s this classroom? The food’s good here! Aren’t you going to eat that? Can I have it?”

I had attended the same school for years. I got here, like almost everyone else, in September. I had a scar.

I showed him around, — the teacher told me to. I just listened.

“No, I never got lost here. Biology. Third floor. I don’t like jell-o…. Take it.”

And I listened more. The questions just started to get more personal as time passed.

“Do you have any siblings? Are your parents divorced? Why do you eat alone? Do you have a girlfriend? How did you get the scar?”

“How did you get the limp?”

“Oh my god, it was so painful! I was playing soccer, right? Then I turned and, like, my leg twisted but my foot just, you know, froze there! So my knee went pop! And I was like HOLY MOTHER OF…! And then I like fell and the coach picked me up and he was like what kind of idiot hurts himself like that?! You didn’t even have the ball! And then I went to the hospital. I had surgery; I just stopped using crutches last week. They said it would go away. The limp. Scars like that don’t go away, do they? How’d you get it?”

“…I crashed against a pole with my bike when I was eight.”

“Did it bleed like, a lot? They say head injuries bleed a lot! Did you get stitches? How many? I got stitches once, it didn’t hurt that bad.”

The stories got more personal too.

“And then he was like grabbing her hair and…and he called her…names and she hit him with a dish…. I was like, yelling at them to stop and then he came and…he pushed me and locked me out and I banged on the door and they wouldn’t open and I came here because…because I didn’t want to listen anymore and I’m so sorry it’s late, I’m sorry.”

He would come to my house almost every day. We would watch TV and sit around in the kitchen. He liked to watch my mother cook.

“My parents should be divorced, like yours. Did your parents ever fight too? Your mom is nice. She makes great cookies.”

He liked to go to my room too.

“Wow! I love this band! Their music is like…. Ah! I read this last year! Wasn’t it awesome?! Your bed is so big! Do you like green? My eyes are green.”

Soon, I started to like taking him to my room.

“Have you ever done this before? Yes, right there…. I’m not laughing! It just tickles! Mmh…you’re pulling at my hair. No, it doesn’t hurt…. Go lower! Do you have condoms here? That’s cold! I’m not laughing! I love you.”

His father didn’t like that he spent so much time in my house. He came almost every day after school; he slept over almost every night.

“He said I can’t come anymore. I…I told him I wanted to come here, was that okay? He said he would kill me if I came over…. He was like I, I’ll fucking s-slit your throat open if you step a f-foot out of this house! I ran out. He was serious…. He called me a fag; I told him…I was like maybe I am…. Is that okay? He said it was sick. Is it really okay?”

“Of course it’s okay.”

He didn’t come over the next day. He wanted to check on his mother. He didn’t come to school after that either.

They said he tripped down the stairs. They were like Poor boy, with his bad leg; he shouldn’t have been running up stairs. He broke his neck; they said it was from the fall. They were like It was twisted in a really awkward way, the fall must have been terrible.

I went to the funeral, his father was there. His mother too. They were all sad for them. Poor family, they said, to have to bury their own kid.

I kept on tracing my fingers along the scar. They say head injuries bleed a lot. They say it’s really hard to break someone’s neck…that you have to have a lot of strength…or a lot of hate to actually manage to do it. Did it feel good to kill your son? Did his neck go pop? Was it really painful?

“I don’t remember; I passed out. When I woke up I had a bandage on my head.”

“It’s too bad it’s not going away…but it suits you. You look mean like this, that way no one will come near you and I’ll have you all for myself.”

“Yours is going away. We won’t be Limp and Scar anymore.”

“But we could be like…Scar and company! That’s cool too.”

Now we will always be Limp and Scar, it never went away after all.

“Is it really okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. I love you.”