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AARYN

I ’m surprised at the sense of relief that washes over me once I’ve made the decision to spill my guts. I guess I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been holding everything inside.

“Yeah, so I —” I start, but my words are cut off as the door jerks open.

A half-dozen firefighters — recognizable by their department-issued polo shirts, even though they’re clearly off the clock — tumble in the door.

They jostle and trash-talk each other as they roll up to the bar.

Finn’s obviously isn’t their first stop of the evening.

I check the time. I’m a little surprised to see how long Errol and I have been shooting the shit. I probably shouldn’t be, though. Even though I used to be the only one he ever talked to, I’d forgotten how easily conversation just flowed between us.

Now, though, I snap my mouth shut. I’m uneasy around guys like these, especially when they’re in a group —the grown-up version of the boys who made my life shit in high school.

I glance at Errol. He used to have it at least as bad as me.

I was the one skinny enough to throw around and beat up under the bullshit guise of boys-will-be-boys horseplay.

But Errol didn’t have a defensive bone in his body, and packs of teenagers have that animal instinct for sensing weakness.

I’m sure the firefighters don’t notice, but when Errol gives the group a familiar grin, I can tell it’s just a mask. “How’s it going, guys?” he says in a booming voice that sounds just as fake to my ears.

I guess this is the version of Errol they know, though, because the two loudest ones at the front of the cluster start firing off drink orders like nothing is out of the ordinary.

I realize my presence will be, at best, a distraction.

They shouldn’t see the real Errol. I don’t want them to see the real Errol.

I’m taken aback at that weird, almost possessive impulse.

It’s been a long day, and my brain’s apparently running too many programs at once. I should get going. “Hey, man —” I call out. Errol has three half-filled pints of Guinness lined up and he’s starting the fourth, letting the suds settle before filling each one to the brim. His eyes flick to mine.

“I gotta hit the road. I see you got your hands full —don’t worry about ringing me up.” I know he said the first beer was on him, but it’s not like I can’t afford it these days. I pull my wallet out and drop a fifty onto the bar. “It was good to see you.”

Disappointment flickers across his face an instant before the genial mask slips back on. I see the instant he notices the denomination on the bill. “Oh, you don’t have to — shit !” He took his eyes off the tap for too long. The pale brown foam overflows the sides of the tilted glass.

One of the firefighters hoots. “S’alright, buddy. I remember pouring my first beer, too.” I’m suddenly, maybe irrationally, pissed-off at this hectoring loudmouth, and guilty about the fact that Errol only fucked up his pour because of me.

“Ease up there, pal,” I address the one who was heckling Errol and breathe an inward sigh of relief when they all turn in my direction.

“Just because you started drinking at twelve…” I smirk, earning me a scowl out of the loud guy, a couple of guffaws and a couple of suspicious looks. I’ll take it as a win.

“Here you go, guys,” Errol breaks in. I hustle to make myself scarce as he sets the first four glasses down on the bar. I’m at the door by the time his hands are free; he raises one to wave in my direction. “Hey man, don’t be a stranger!” he calls out. “And congrats on the sale.”

I wave back and he grins. It’s the same pasted-on smile he’s been giving the firefighters, though. I feel weirdly let down.

I stand on the sidewalk, struck by how hollow I feel inside.

Maybe I’m just hungry. On the next block, the pizza parlor where I spent way too much time and money as a teenager is still here.

There’s a new name on the sign, but I head there anyway.

Probably a good idea to eat something and get a bottle of water into me before I head back to the serviceable, but entirely dispiriting, hotel I booked for tonight.

I bring my pizza over to the booth with the fewest crumbs on the table and ponder as I eat. I haven’t pulled that maneuver since high school, drawing attention to myself with a wise-ass remark to get somebody off Errol’s back.

Back then it was easy enough to rationalize, figuring I’d probably be their next target anyway. I was a know-it-all with a bad habit of letting my mouth write checks my body couldn’t cash. I frown, unsure why I felt that protective urge bubble up inside me tonight.

Another, stranger thought strikes me suddenly: I actually didn’t get around to telling Errol that I’d just sold my flagship app to one of the big cloud-service providers.

In fact, the acquiring company had only sent out its press release a few hours before I got the message from my lawyer about the money in escrow.

Weird. I’d been on the fence before, but now I’m definitely coming back tomorrow to see if Errol is working again. If nothing else, I’m curious to know how he knew about the app.

Back at the hotel, I spend some time working on some security-protocol stuff I need to get squared away now that the sale of my business is official.

If I’d sold it on a more typical corporate timetable, the work I’m doing now would have been completed weeks ago.

But the sale took place like a shotgun wedding.

I got what I wanted out of the deal, but the whole situation — and what led up to it —still feels a bit unreal.

No less unreal than running into Errol today, though.

W e’d grown up in the same town but didn’t meet until the fickle gods of public education threw us into the same homeroom, history and gym class in eighth grade. By the time Christmas rolled around, we were inseparable.

Not that it was easy to get there. I was a textbook nerd in some ways, but like so much else back then, I felt like I was doing it wrong.

Even by geek standards, I was too awkward.

I was loud, with what the principal regularly referred to as a “potty mouth” and a complete lack of social filter.

Since I never got in serious trouble, though, my infractions never reached a level that would render me cool.

I was smart, but once I figured something out, it no longer held my interest. The directions “show your work” were the bane of my existence.

I was a klutz with poor spatial awareness and no hand-eye coordination to speak of, but I could never sit still.

I embarrassed the shit out of myself tipping my chair back until I fell backwards onto my ass —multiple times.

More days than not, I felt like a complete screw-up. I couldn’t even nerd correctly. How pathetic was that?

I’d never noticed Errol until I was suddenly seeing him two or three times a day.

At first, I took him for a goth, with his shaggy hair and a rotation of black hoodies and cargo pants.

But he didn’t hang out with either of the two mostly-congenial factions of kids who wore combat boots in our combined middle-high school: Not the clove-smoking theater kids who allwore black eyeliner and nail polish, or the metalheads who greeted each other with devil-horn hand signs and wore T-shirts with band names in weird, spiky fonts.

We were the losers nobody ever picked for group projects, so our history teacher paired us up to do a report about the Civil War.

Battle of Gettysburg, I think. Which would’ve been fine, except Errol didn’t talk —not to me or anybody else.

I tried , but he never talked back, not more than a nod or a shake of his head; at most, I’d get the occasional affirmative grunt.

One day in the cafeteria, though, Errol caught my eye. He was sitting alone with his hoodie pulled up, absorbed in a book like usual. I don’t know what got into me. He glanced up in surprise when I plunked down my tray and sat across from him.

When his eyes went back down to his book without any further acknowledgement, I frowned. I didn’t think I’d be entirely ignored. I dunked limp fries in ketchup and watched as he took slow bites of his sandwich.

“Why don’t you sit with the rest of the goths?” I finally asked.

“I’m not a goth,” he mumbled. He didn’t look up. But still — he had finally answered me. Talked to me. With real words, even. I took it as encouragement.

“Really? Could’ve fooled me. Why do you dress like one, then? Do you like goth music? Are you in a band —do you play an instrument? I mean, I’m guessing you don’t sing because that’s like talking, right?”

When Errol eventually looked up, there was a scowl on his face. “What do you want?”

“To talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Maybe I want to be friends!” I said in exasperation. “Why don’t you ever talk to anybody else?”

I got a one-shoulder shrug as a response. My heart sank. I’d been making headway, but it looked like he was about to clam up on me again. “Why?” I demanded. “You know, there’s lots of kids who don’t think you can talk.”

I got that same half-shrug and nothing else. It was starting to piss me off. “Come on —tell me you hate my guts and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t even ask you to talk unless it’s about the history project. Just tell me why you don’t talk to anybody.”

He looked up. I was expecting to see annoyance, irritation, maybe even outright anger. But Errol’s face was entirely expressionless. “Talking is overrated,” he said flatly.

It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. I immediately decided to make it my mission to prove him wrong. It was simple: I would just keep talking to him until he talked back. However long that took.

Y eah, so maybe I had to wear him down at the beginning. But once he finally caved and started talking to me, we just clicked . Errol was never fazed by my social cluelessness, tendency to stick my foot in my mouth and all-around awkwardness.

He was the only one who would laugh instead of roll his eyes when I tried to make jokes.

And he didn’t make fun of me or judge me for getting caught in my own head sometimes.

When my anxious thoughts doubled over on themselves and made a hamster wheel of worry in my brain, he was the one who knew how to reach inside and yank me back out. He got me.

And I got him. The rest of the kids saw silent, self-conscious Errol. I saw laid-back, smiling, sometimes-goofy Errol — the side of himself he didn’t share with anyone else. It made me feel special, like that part of him was mine and mine alone.

I saw the real him, and he saw the real me. We had each other. That was enough to make high school bearable.