Unexpected

| i | listen

i. did anyone know him? no.

"Gray, who lives in that house?" Ian asks. Grayson looks up and sees him pointing to the white house with the red door. The tree in the backyard has grown to frame the little house, and he remembers how a certain tree branch leads almost straight to a certain someone's window.

"Why do you want to know?" He knows that he sounds harsh, but he cannot bring himself to regret it. Ian steps back, holding up his hands with a half-nervous grin of surrender on his face.

"No reason, just… I thought a kid lived there," Ian says. Grayson looks over to Will, who is now looking at the house more intently. Grayson shifts nervously in the porch chair, feeling the red bricks of his own home behind him like an accusing crowd.

"Yeah, me too…" Will adds. Grayson sighs and stands up from the chair, looking down at his friends as he does so. They are so different, sitting there. Ian with his chubby weight and his dark, Italian complexion and scrawny Will with his almost translucent coloring.

"Well, you thought wrong." Grayson says. He tries a smile, but it feels like a lie and disappears almost as soon as it is there. "A kid doesn't live in that house."

"Oh, okay, groovy. We were just wondering, that's all." Will says. Grayson finally manages a smile and tilts his head in the direction of the rising sun.

"So, are we ready to go?"

"Readier than Will is." Ian sasses. Will flushes pink and stands, tugging his loose t-shirt over his head. The other two boys follow suit, dumping their clothes on Grayson's front porch. After a short minute of stretching, they begin to jog in single-file off of his property.

Grayson sneaks back a final look at the house and thinks, a kid doesn't live in that house. She was—she is—so much more than that. He turns his back to the house and runs into the approaching summer day.

i-i-i-i-i

The ever-intolerant population of Riplé High is murmuring behind books and into ears when Grayson walks into the first day of his junior year. He is not immune to the lovesick stares he gets from some of the freshman girls, nor is he bulletproof against the few whispers (they are dwindling in number every day) of "fag-lover". He just cannot bring himself to care.

But, today, they do not seem to pay him any attention at all. At least, not the gaggle of teenagers standing outside his first period class, Honors Biology. It only takes one look to see that no, the door is not locked and no the teacher is not absent. In fact, the mousy woman who stands at the podium seems to wish that she is outside with her students.

Ever curious, Grayson pushes his way through and enters the classroom.

The world isn't ending in the small space, nor is there any sort of particular smell. The only thing in the classroom besides the furniture, the walls, and the teacher is a lonesome girl. She looks up upon Grayson entering and they both freeze.

He is seven years old and playing alone at his birthday "party". The snow is thick and white that day, and as he starts patting the base for his snowman, he happens to look across the street. There is a sudden movement from the house across the street as a thick curtain falls back into place, but not before Grayson catches sight of a small face.

He gulps and sidles his way through the desks to take the spot next to her. She barely spares him a glance after that first one, but it has been a while and he cannot sit in silence around her. He clears his throat to break the silence. Both the teacher and the girl look at him.

"Erin. It's been a while," he says. She snorts and returns to doodling a messy flower in the margins of her notebook paper. After a few minutes of nothing but uncomfortable shuffling of paper from their teacher and the sound of led scraping paper, Grayson speaks up again. "Are you not talking to me?"

"Do you have to wonder why?" She snaps. Grayson smiles. She has changed, but maybe it is for the better. While physically he has drawn the better straw, she seems to have gained a tough mentality that Grayson can respect (although, he figures he is probably stronger in that regard as well).

"You've changed," he says aloud. Once again, she makes a noncommittal sound. Nearby, the classroom door opens and a few students dare to trickle into the classroom.

"Look, it's been six years since my best friend looked at me like I just jumped the border and was selling him Mary Jane. You can't expect me to be the same, can you?" Erin says to him. Grayson winces. So she did see his lowest moment, the mistake that has haunted him since the moment he made it. But it is too late for apologies, and he is sure that she agrees with him on that.

It is weird, seeing her grown up. In his mind, she has remained a small nine-year old girl with dark, owlish eyes, knobby elbows and braided, dark hair that seems blue in the right light.

Her eyes are not quite as big as he remembers them, but they are still as dark and seriously set. Her nose is graceful but slightly too broad. Her bottom lip is thicker than her top one and her chin juts out like she is constantly proud of something. The childish braids are gone and that black hair falls down her back in slightly frizzy waves.

She is plain at best.

The class starts, and Grayson feels himself wince every time a slur is directed at Erin. Among the many that he hears during the one hour of class, a few stick with him.

"I hear that Mexicans do it best."

"Look, chica, I'd make you show me your green card, but I think there's something different I'd like to see of you."

"Lemme have a look at that fine, Latina grass."

But Erin takes them all with stride, keeping her head up and her eyes on the teacher as the basics of their curriculum are listed. Her pencil, however, is clutched tightly in her white knuckles. She seems to know that, as far as her day is going to go, this is not going to be the worst. Grayson wants nothing more than to tell her that she will be fine, but he knows that is not the case. He has seen his peers' racist sides far too often and he knows how bad they can get.

The bell rings loudly, jarring him. Unsurprisingly, Erin is the first one to stand up and bolt for the door. As she passes some of the bolder guys, a few hands lift at her skirt, revealing the tops of her pantyhose-covered thighs. She does not even bat their hands away, she just blocks them out. When her hand is on the doorknob, Grayson finally shouts after her.

"Hey Erin!" He calls. She turns nervously. He grants her one of his rare, genuine smiles. "Good luck."

She seems to know exactly what he means, because she nods and looks at him in a way that is not as scathing as her other glares.

It is not much, but it is progress.

Grayson no longer has anyone, and if he can get back the person he has missed the most, maybe things will work out the way he has planned them to.