He looks away, trying to shove his hands in his pockets through his graduation robe. It doesn’t work. “Yeah,” he says. “I know. But Mikey, I fight with everything I’ve got to have a normal life. No one will ever let me. Except you. You’ve been the guy who saved me. Lots of times.”
“You could tell me anything, Jared. Anything.”
He winces, briefly. “It has nothing to do with not trusting you. It’s to do with what something becomes once you tell it. It’s like it’s truer. And it’s got a life of its own and it rushes out into the world and becomes something you can’t control.”
I wait for him to keep going. He does.
“I don’t want to be an indie kid, Mike. I should be one. I’m gay. I’m part God. Jared isn’t even my first name–”
“Mercury,” I say, out loud for maybe the first time in ten years. He winces again. I really can’t tell you how much he hates it.
“What chance do I have with a name like that? I just want a normal life. I want things that are mine. I want my own choices, not ones made for me even by people who mean well or are my friends.”
“I wouldn’t have made any choices about Nathan for you, one way or the other.”
“I know. I do know that. I was wrong and I’m sorry.” He shrugs. “But I finally meet somebody and now what? We’ve got the summer, but I’m moving away. All of us are.”
“Mel’s doing the same thing with Steve.”
“I know.”
I wait. And wait some more. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
He takes a deep breath. “Mike, what would you say if I could–”
And we hear the moan from the bushes.
There’s a row of ferns and shrubs behind the gym, mainly so the huge back fence with barbed wire on top looks slightly less like a huge back fence with barbed wire on top. The moan that came from them wasn’t words; it was just a moan, low and guttural and wet-sounding.
“What was that?” I say, thinking of the mountain lion again, thinking also that we haven’t yet seen the big finale for whatever mess the indie kids are mixed up in, so maybe there are more blue lights to come.
We hear it again. “There,” Jared points, already moving over. I’m sweating like crazy in this stupid gown, and I can feel my clothes sticking to me as we cross into the sun again, over to the shrubs. We start pushing back leaves and branches, looking for where the noise came from, then right at my feet–
It’s a boy. It’s an indie kid.
“Oh, shit,” Jared says.
I yank back the branches to get them out of the way. The indie kid is on his stomach, his head is turned to the side, and we see the blood that’s come out of his mouth and down his chin. It’s congealed, like he’s been here for an hour or two. Jared motions for me to help turn him over. The indie kid calls out in pain when we do, though he’s barely conscious.
We see why. “Oh, my God,” I say.
The indie kid is all in black, like we are, but these are just his normal clothes. His shirt has been all torn up, and there are terrible, terrible wounds on his chest, all bleeding badly, like he’s been stabbed over and over again. I’m amazed he’s still alive, and I think he just barely is. His eyes are only half-open, and he doesn’t seem to know who we are or that we’re even here.