Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“It isn’t your fault,” says Kyle.
“Shut up and eat one of these.”
“What I am. What happened to me. The Tristan thing. It’s not your fault, Brock, none of it was. Even if he hadn’t come to our school, into our lives, I’d probably still have grown distant. Our friendship was already crumbling. We … We grew apart.”
“I said take one, damn it.”
Deciding it’s not the time to debate the whole peculiar diet thing, Kyle exercises diplomacy, takes one, then bites it in half. Chewing on the powdery, cakey nothingness, he gazes at Brock and finds his old friend gazing back.
That’s when the emotions flood in. Brock’s emotions.
For the first time in his life, Kyle sees the real Brock. He feels his regret and his wishful thoughts. He feels tiny bubbles of joy popping at the top of his skull, making him feel as light as helium. Is that how Kyle makes Brock feel when he’s around? As light as helium? Is he remembering the good old days?
Does he miss Kyle?
As they peer into each other’s eyes, he feels something else, something urgent, something that overrides every other feeling he just sensed. It’s a desperate, painful, broken longing. Infinite sadness, regret, and longing. It comes at Kyle like an unseen tidal wave, crashing over him, a terrible feeling of longing for something he truly, deeply believes he can never have.
The impact is so powerful, Kyle drops the other half of his donut onto the floor.
That brings him out of the moment. “Oops,” says Kyle.
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” mutters Brock, powdered sugar still clinging to his lips. “Have another. I’ll buy out the machine, I don’t care. Aren’t you hungry?”
“I …” Kyle picks up the piece he dropped, walks over to a nearby trash bin, tosses it in. “I actually don’t, uh …”
“What?” Brock wrinkles his face. “Got a problem?”
Now Kyle experiences a wave of indignation from Brock. With the connection made, Kyle can’t seem to sever it, and for whatever reason, his connection with Brock is overwhelmingly strong, perhaps the strongest he’s ever achieved, even stronger than the one he had with Elias. Every tiny shift in emotion, Kyle feels like a powerful new current in the river, grabbing at his limbs with all the strength of the water, dragging him left and right, under and away.
Then the emotion settles at once, traded instantly for fear and discomfort. “Oh. You don’t like it, ‘cause you …” Brock’s face reflects disgust. “You don’t eat normal stuff anymore?”
“I eat ‘normal stuff’,” says Kyle calmly as he navigates the sensitive, ever-changing landscape of Brock’s touchy feelings. “I just don’t eat as much, and I can’t really taste anything except for …” He shakes his head. That was a misstep. “Never mind.”
“Go ahead. Finish that sentence.” Brock tosses the package of powdered donuts onto a nearby waiting room table without looking, struts up to Kyle, eyes narrowed and sharp. “I want to hear it. Say it.”
Kyle looks at him. “Why bother saying it if you already know what it is I almost said?”
Indignation again. Then pity. Then deep disgust. Emotion squirms around in Brock like snakes battling over territory. He shakes his head. “It’s so vile … so wrong … How can you—?” Brock scoffs, mockery swirling around inside him, every bit of that mockery flinging itself straight at Kyle like a dart through their unfortunate and potent connection. “Is that really what you are now? A blood-drinking freak? Tristan did that to you? You don’t eat anything but … but blood now?”
“Brock.”
“That’d make you happy? If I offered my neck instead?”
“I wouldn’t accept it even if you did. I don’t want it.”
“Fuckin’ liar.”
“You saw the video,” says Kyle, turning on him. “You know the answers already. Why are you acting like this is new?”
“Yeah, I saw the video. My son beat me to it, saw it and … and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Now? I believe my eyes.” Brock shakes his head, and at once, all his emotion turns to fire. “No. I can’t do this. You’re not the Kyle I know. You really did die that day, along with Kaleb and your parents and everything I knew and believed in.”
“Brock …”
Brock doesn’t say another word. He brushes past Kyle, the same as he did twenty-seven years ago when he tried reasoning with him in the locker room, and heads straight for the front glass doors. Kyle watches as Brock shoves them open and takes off. As he marches away across the parking lot, the presence of Brock’s emotions flees Kyle’s system. It is instant relief, the moment he’s gone.
Yet somehow, the fight still feels far from over.
21.
Still Got It.
—∙—
It’s just past seven when Kyle opens his eyes. He’d passed out on the couch of the waiting room with his legs kicked up on the arm, waiting for the sun to go away. There’s an old lady in a chair on the other side of the room, and upon Kyle waking, she offers a kind smile. Kyle reluctantly returns it, then checks the light through the front glass doors and decides it’s safe enough to walk home.