Two of Us

We were soaked to the bone, dirty, unfashionable hair plastered to our pale faces. Our clothes, most of them hand-me-downs or rummage-sale finds or Goodwill purchases, hung shapelessly from our bony shoulders, dripped conspicuously on the tile floor.

We looked straight ahead like we didn't notice the stares and the whispers. Like we didn't care about anyone's disdain. We tried to wear hard faces, and clenched our jaws and looked out of what we hoped were hard, worldly eyes like we didn't feel the shame. Like loneliness wasn't our silent companion always one step behind us, like it was our choice to stand on the outside, shunned even by the geeks and the special-ed kids.

Our worn-out sneakers squashed a path through the hall, through the gauntlet of glares, through the shame. They sounded out our true selves and everyone heard and understood: "These boys aren't hard, they're wet and soft and weak; these boys aren't brave, they're scared of their own lives; these boys aren't pack-leaders, they just haven't found anyone who will stoop low enough yet to let them follow. These aren't young men. They're just boys."

We heard our own stories ooze and slop on the painfully familiar tiles, felt our faces redden with embarrassment and shame, smelled our sour teenage sweat emerge with hateful glee and trickle down our backs and underarms, despite the cold rain still clinging and dripping from our fisted hands.

We were just a couple of poor kids, with poor parents. We fooled ourselves into feeling proud that the water running down our faces weren't tears, that at least that much dignity we could maintain...but it didn't matter, and we couldn't quite convince ourselves that it did.

That afternoon, after we walked home through the same stinging rain we'd futilely braved that morning, I curled up on the mattress on the floor where I slept and cried and sobbed all the tears anyway. He probably did too, but he didn't talk about stuff like that. Didn't talk about how nobody really even noticed, asked him what was wrong, maybe cared and maybe didn't. And I didn't talk about how my brother was so cruel to me and called me a sissy and a weakling for crying, and every other name under the sun; and how he told me I was useless, and made me feel stupid for not even changing out of my wet clothes before bawling in bed like a baby.

I thought my heart broke then, and I swore to harden it so I wouldn't have to hurt anymore. I'd be cruel like my brother and distant like my friend's parents, and things would be alright; even if they weren't alright, I wouldn't have to care about it anymore. But my heart didn't grow mean, couldn't be cruel; and I continued to hurt. My heart didn't break in some brilliant, tragic way; it just continued to hurt.

And when it was still raining the next morning and his mom was too busy to drive us to school, we put on our questionably-clean poor-kid clothes and shrugged out shapelessly for another day. Just a couple of boys, heads down, heading to school to learn their lessons.

Again.