Page 15 of String Boys

“When you’re not practicing.” Matty’s expression got suddenly adult. “You… I got sort of mad at you when you went to that other school, but, Seth, you gotta stay there. That place’ll get you out. You and Kelly can get through school and never deal with guys like Castor Durant—I’d kill for that, you know?”

Seth nodded. “There’s bullies everywhere,” he said, thinking of Joey Jefferson, who said mean things about Seth’s pants, which were too small, and his shirts, which were getting too tight. “But sometimes they’re meaner than others.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t wish my bullies on you or Kelly for anything. I’m off suspension Friday night. Maybe… maybe you and Kelly can come over for dinner. Maybe we can have ice cream.” Matty’s smile was hesitant. Hopeful.

“Yeah,” Seth said. Then, because his father had been so happy to have Kelly over these last two weeks, he added, “Maybe my dad can come for ice cream.”

“Mateo!” Linda called, coming out on the landing at the top of the stairs. “Oh! There you are.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Matty said humbly. “Talking to Seth.”

Linda nodded. “Well, you can talk to him more Friday night. How’s that?”

Matty gave a quick smile, all eye sparkles and dimples like his brother. “I’d really like that,” he said and then winked. Seth grinned as Matty’s footfalls resounded on the metal-and-concrete staircase, and he went into his own apartment with a smile on his face.

“What?” Kelly asked. “Why was Mom yelling?”

Seth shook his head. “Matty and I were talking outside. I don’t think he’ll go on suspension again.”

Kelly’s habitual smile disappeared, and he looked so nakedly hopeful, Seth’s chest hurt. “Really? Like… I’ll have my brother back?”

“Yeah,” Seth said. He’d do anything for Kelly.

Kelly’s grin game back, blinding. “Yay! I’m starting to miss my sisters, you know?”

“Me too,” Seth said, meaning it.

He wanted nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were before, when the three of them were string boys and his dad had just quit drinking and it was all going to be okay.

Only time never marched backward like that. It always pushed forward, inexorably, a glacier feeding ice into a vast and treacherous sea.

Even if you were on the glacier, and it felt like you were still, things were still changing. Trees were splintering; rocks were getting ground to powder.

Time was sanding your hopes and dreams smooth so they’d fit into the shape of the world, even as you saw them, beautiful, with bright and shiny edges, still in your mind.

MATTY FINISHEDhis suspension and pulled his grades up. Way up. Up enough to transfer to Seth’s high school. Seth was taking orchestra and music classes—even extra ones, after school—and they both caught the city bus so their parents didn’t have to worry about them. When Kelly graduated from eighth grade, he made it too, through his art, which had graduated from big line drawings, like cartoons, to more delicate, dancing drawings that looked like real life through a beautiful lens. He never stopped the habit of coming to Seth’s house after school when he didn’t have soccer or chores, and he would sit on the battered denim couch and draw, pages and pages of anything that caught his fancy, while Seth would practice, the two of them lost in their dreams of the things they could do with the raw talent given to them.

After Kelly transferred to the school where Seth and Matty went, they got to ride the bus together, eat lunch together, and usually Kelly would stay after school with Seth—even on the days Matty went home for soccer—to listen to him practice, or just to finish his homework.

Seeing Kelly was so much a part of Seth’s life by then,notseeing him would have seemed odd.

One day in November, Kelly’s sophomore year, they were riding the bus together, late because Seth was practicing for the winter holiday performance, when Kelly gave a little yawn and slumped sideways against him.

Seth wrapped his arm around Kelly’s shoulders and let him rest his head on Seth’s chest, and he had a small revelation.

Kelly’s face wasn’t round anymore.

It wasn’t rectangular like Matty’s, though. He still had dimples in the corners of his cheeks, and a little cleft in the center of his pointed chin. His eyes were round, with long, dark, thick lashes, and he had a tiny black mole on his cheek, back by his ear.

And he smelled good.

It was the same soap Matty used—Seth could smell it on Matty when they had gym class together. Seth knew the fresh smell of Matty’s soap.

But it wasn’t the same on Kelly.

On Kelly, it seemed sweeter and sharper. Like cedar shavings. More real.

His lips were a pink shade of the pale bronze of his skin.