Page 104 of The Revenge Game

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“Holy shit.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “This is… This explains so much.”

Drew clutches his phone tightly, his knuckles white against the dark case. The Christmas lights reflect off his glasses, making it hard to read his expression, but his jaw is tense.

“Yeah, it does,” he says. “It explains a lot.”

“In high school, I used to pretend I was too cool to say hi to people in the hallways,” I say slowly. “But I was actually just terrified of greeting the wrong person. There was this guy on my college football team—we’d practiced together for months, but I only knew who he was because of his lucky red bandanna. The one day he didn’t wear it, I completely blanked on his name during warm-ups. Coach made the whole team run extra laps because he thought I was being a cocky asshole.”

I let out a hollow laugh. “The worst was this customer dinner last spring. This woman came up and hugged me like we were old friends, but I was completely blanking. Turns out she was from our biggest account in Bristol—I’d had three Zoom calls with her that week. But in person, without her usual background of motivational posters?” I shake my head. “Dave had to kick me under the table and whisper her name. He thought I was having some kind of stroke.”

The memories surface like bubbles. “I think that’s why I got so good at making small talk. If you’re vague enough in your greetings, people fill in the blanks themselves.”

“And that’s probably why you’re so good at remembering other details about people,” Drew says. “Like how you remember everyone’s coffee and tea order at work.”

“Yeah, I guess I developed that as a way to compensate.” I think about all the mental notes I make about people—Pete’s lucky tie with the footballs on it, Dave’s habit of drumming his fingers when he’s nervous, Sarah from Accounting’s collection of cat-themed coffee mugs. “I notice everything except their faces.”

How had I not thought to look this up myself?

I’d known recognizing people was something I struggled with compared to everyone else.

But the thought of showing any side of myself that wasn’t “normal” felt like confessing to a crime in Bobby Ray’s house.

Besides, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about. It’s not great for someone in sales not to easily recognize people.

Drew’s shoulder presses against mine, warm and solid. “It’s actually pretty common. About two percent of people have some degree of face blindness.”

“Two percent?” I let out a shaky breath. “All this time, I thought I was just… I don’t know, not trying hard enough or something.”

The sympathy on Drew’s face prompts me to share another memory.

“There was this time at church when a woman came up to me after the service, all smiles and hugs, talking about how much I’d grown.” I swallow hard. “Turns out she was Bobby Ray’s sister. I’d met her five times before, but she looked so different in her church clothes than her usual server uniform. Bobby Ray…” I pause to steady my breathing. “When we got home, he started yelling at me for disrespecting his family. He grabbed me and threw me against a door…”

I remember the sound my head made when it hit the wood, how the world went fuzzy at the edges. But worse than the physical pain was his voice, low and dangerous: “You’re gonna learn respect, boy, if I have to beat it into you.”

Mom was in the kitchen, and I could hear her crying, but she didn’t come in.

“Oh my god, Justin.” Drew makes a sound like all the air has been punched from his lungs. His hand finds mine in the darkness between us, fingers intertwining with mine so tightly it almost hurts.

When he speaks, his voice is rough with emotion. “He had no right to treat you like that.”

His words soothe something deep inside me.

“He wasn’t…. I mean, he didn’t do that kind of thing much, but the threat was always there, you know?”

“It isn’t your fault you don’t recognize people,” Drew continues. “You can’t help that your brain is wired differently.”

I let out a deep breath.

We continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, my mind spinning. All those awkward moments, all those times I felt stupid or inadequate because I couldn’t recognize someone I should know…they weren’t my fault.

I have prosopagnosia. Face blindness.

The name itself feels like a gift, like finally having the right word to describe something about myself I couldn’t name.