BEFORE
"Oi!" The brown-haired boy yelled after them. "Oi, you dick!"
Matt had only just begun to turn around furiously but Adam quickly put his hand over Matt's chest. "Not worth it, mate," he mumbled under his breath. Matt let out a snort of disgust.
"We could take him though!" he said loudly. "Easily. The twat's skinny."
"What was that?" the other boy chided after them. Adam exhaled slowly, closed his eyes, and re-opened them to give Matt a look of exasperation.
"That's what he wants Matt," he sighed. "He wants a reaction out of us. I ain't giving none to him."
"Double negative," Matt said, despite himself. Adam grinned and clapped the other boy's back as they walked along the small pavement.
"Now that's the Matthew I know and love."
Matt crinkled his nose. "No one calls me by my full name."
"Well I do," Adam said, looking straight ahead as Oliver continued to cat-call him from behind. "And I'm the only one who gets away with it."
Matt elbowed the other boy sharply on his ribs. "Yeah right," he said. "Call me Matthew one more time and I'll pummel you."
Adam began to laugh and Matt ducked when he reached out to ruffle his hair. "Since when did you become so violent?" Adam asked.
Matt cast a quick and dirty glance back at Oliver who, only five or six metres away from them had grown more and more subdued as they walked on ahead of him.
"Since I realized that thing existed."
"Always such a savage with your reasons," Adam laughed quietly. Matt shrugged.
"Can't help it," he said. "I hate him." He cast a dubious glance at Adam. "You do too, right?"
"Yeah, yeah," was Adam's quick reply. "Yeah obviously."
The subject was put to rest there. Matt started to talk about this new series he'd found online and although Adam wanted very much to listen, he found that his mind kept drifting off. When he knew Matt wasn't paying attention, he glanced back to look at Oliver but he wasn't there. He'd gone.
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Matt would always be waiting by the front of the rickety church gates when everyone spilled out of Sunday Church. As usual, Adam ran up to him while he loosened the purple tie that clung to his neck like a tight noose. And as usual, Adam looked droopy-eyed and sleepy.
"Let's go," he said with a quick nod and the two started to make their way down a crooked little path that led to Raymond forest as they had routinely begun to visit on weekends. The forest was as creepy as it was old—to the town's children, at least. Like with most places with gnarled trees and a wind that seemed to whisper unfathomable things to you, Raymond was subject to folklore and stories, originally intended for children who wouldn't sit down and shut up, that chilled you to the bone. You wouldn't find many walking into the forest without a companion. Adam had boasted to Matt that he'd ventured inside on his own many times but the other boy didn't miss the way he shuddered when they walked past the fabled Beldam's Cottage, a dilapidated old shed that couldn't possibly have been lived in because of the sheer smallness of it, that was rumoured to have been a resting place for an old witch in the 1800s.
"You should come to church with me," Adam said as they kicked pebbles to one another, like passing a football in a match. Matt shrugged.
"I'm not religious," he said.
