Page 41 of String Boys

“Don’t even say her name, faggot!”

And Seth just ignored him. “I mean, if we fight right now, we’re gonna have to say why. And we’re pretty sure your folks’ll still love Kelly, you know, but what’s Isela’s dad gonna say when they tell him?”

“About what? You guys necking in the woods or what we were doing?”

And then Seth smiled, just a twist of the lips in the light from the still glowing campfire. “Either one, Matty. Either one.”

Matty let out a furious breath, but his fist lowered. “You two, don’t even bother to speak to me. I don’t fucking know you. Not at school. Not on the bus. Not with Castor Durant. You hear me? You’re both fucking abortions—you never should have been born.”

He turned around and took off, not even bothering to get in the tent. Seth and Kelly took their shoes off at the entrance and then slid into their sleeping bags, wearing the sweats they’d put on before dinner.

“That was awful,” Kelly said, breaking the silence first.

“I’m sorry he said that to you,” Seth murmured, and Kelly saw his outstretched hand near the sleeping bag. Kelly took it, and then, because his brother could either tell their parents or not, he scooted his sleeping bag a little closer to Seth’s on the foam pad they were sleeping on, and pulled his pillow closer too.

“He said that to you too,” he reminded Seth gently.

“Mm. I hope he’s not awful to you when you get home.”

Kelly sighed and squeezed Seth’s hand, glad when he squeezed back. He couldn’t see his boy’s eyes, but he bet they were a thousand miles away.

TRUE TOhis word, Matty stayed his awful, pestilential self when they got home.

He tried to put an end to Kelly staying with Seth during Soccer Wednesdays, but his mom reminded him that if Kelly came, he’d have to sit in the same seat with Matty and Isela, since she was coming too. Matty’s look of horror might have been a little funny, but the way he kept slamming Kelly into the wall as they walked down the hallway at home was getting damned old.

Kelly and Seth started taking more risks at school. There were other kids, girls and boys, who held hands withtheirsame-sex crushes. Not all the time, but in a certain part of the quad, where they felt safe. Kelly and Seth—and Amara, because they loved her and didn’t want to leave her behind—started eating there so they could sit together, at least, and not worry about Matty dumping Seth’s tray.

Which he did twice before they wised up and left their table in the cafeteria.

And Kelly had to admit, the whole thing would have been easier to bear if Seth had been there for him in his head. But Seth and his dad were starting to talk about Bridgfordevery day,and Castor Durant had realized that Matty wasn’t protecting them anymore. In fact, the fucking traitor had started sprinting to take the earlier bus, leaving them behind. Every day Kelly and Seth got off and had to fight their way through foul, smoky bodies, sharp elbows, hard shoulders, dirty teeth, and laughing demons, just to get home.

Dr. Boyle, whom Seth would do about anything for, had dumped so much extra practicing on Seth that Kelly was surprised he could even surface enough to know Kelly was there on Soccer Wednesdays.

But he was.

Kelly would fly through the door, and they’d close the drapes, and before Kelly could even walk across the room, Seth had set down the violin—Amara, he’d named it Amara, because he said it was a girl, and he’d never want to “play” Kelly—and walked across the room and was holding Kelly, holding him so tight that Kelly would wonder if he hadn’t just saved all of his “being on Earth Seth” for Kelly and this moment right here, when Kelly was in his arms.

Kelly always thought it was sort of an honor when he did that.

And their moments together were painfully sweet, slow, almost like they were drawing out every touch because they knew things were changing.

Kelly hated himself for how much he wished that wouldn’t happen.

ONE FRIDAYin late May, the family was huddling in the air-conditioning, hiding from the unseasonable heat that had hit Sacramento like a fucking hammer.

Kelly was listening to music on the iPhone his father had passed down to him for his birthday, since Matty had gotten a new one for Christmas.

That was it. Just music. Seth’s music—modern pop hits adapted to violin, which was Seth’s favorite. Seth had asked him to pick out some songs he liked best, because Seth had to learn something to audition with again, and he wanted to play a song for Kelly.

He was on his back, in bed, when Matty strode in, out of nowhere, and slugged him on the shoulder, then slapped his head.

“Get the fuck out of my room, faggot. I’m so fucking tired of looking at your face!”

And maybe because the attack came out of nowhere, Kelly’s temper flared. He was tired of this shit.

He propelled himself up off the bed and threw his brother across the room.

“Say it again!” he snarled, as Matty was picking himself up. “Call me a fag again! Tell me why it’s bad! Tell me why you can assfuck Isela in the fucking woods but I can’t kiss my boyfriend? Say it!”