Page 51 of The Story of You

He squeezes my hand. “I know you do, kid. I don’t need you to tell me. You always trust my intuition even when it’s not something you like hearing. What I want is for you to trust yours. By the time I learned to trust mine, it was too late.”

Darius glances at Silas. He caught what I caught before between him and Julius.

“I should have warned you, Oliver,” Silas says, turning away from Lakshan. “My portion was my journal … I was a little detailed at times.”

“In other words, yours and Lakshan’s penises are in here too. I’ll skim those parts.”

“Or you could just pretend they’re someone else, little brother,” Darry says. “Learn a thing or two.”

“We need way more boundaries in this family,” I declare.

Lakshan laughs and Silas does his half-smile thing.

The rest of breakfast is peaceful—maybe a Randall first.

ChapterEighteen

Darius – December 1985

With no headway—pun intended—on Simon moving forward with our plan, I had to take matters into my own hands. Hell, by that point, I was confident enough to move on Asher without him, but Simon was my best friend and life partner and all that other mushy garbage. We had to experience this rite of passage together.

Simon and Shane had to do more than cross paths during chores and play musical shirts. If Simon was comfortable around Shane, things would speed up. I was sure of it.

On Wednesdays someone had to brush down all the horses. On one particular Wednesday it was two someones—me and Simon. It was a job I liked. Horses are intelligent animals and better company than people. I used it as a meditation. I could brush and talk to the horse about whatever I wanted. Sometimes I even got responses by way of whinny or hoof scuff.

Wednesday was also the day the horse barn got its big sweep and hose down, a job usually given to the teens. As luck would have it, Shane was assigned to the horse barn. This would be my chance if I wanted to lose my virginity to Asher before Christmas.

I was in the middle of brushing down Sadie Girl and I hated to make her wait, but she was going to have to take one for the team. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

Shane was sweeping up hay. Simon was at the other end of the barn brushing the large black mare he liked so much.

“Hey, Shane.” He looked up from his sweeping, his brown eyes trying to figure out why I was talking to him. Shane didn’t care about the hierarchy system the kids had developed. “Little kids”, which is what I was considered until I turned the magical age of thirteen, weren’t supposed to talk to teens unless they had to for chores and stuff.

Instead of responding, he nodded for me to speak. Shane didn’t talk much back then. Now, he talks too much if you ask me

“Simon needs your help back there. Also, I think he found one of your shirts. Ask him about it.”

He studied the wide concrete floors judging how much time this was going to cost him, but also remembering rule whatever-the-fuck number about helping each other.

“He’s too short to reach Buckberry’s mane even with the stool,” I clarified.

It wasn’t a lie. You think Simon’s small now? He was even smaller at twelve. He put the broom aside and walked off to help. He hadn’t said a word though—non-talking oaf—so I had to assume he was headed to Simon. The next brilliant part of my plan was to “lock” them in Buck’s stall. I would brush the rest of the horses and do enough sweeping that Shane wouldn’t get in shit for not getting his chores done by dinner.

Locked together, they’dhaveto get to know one another.

Before I could follow after Shane to lock them in together, Asher—the object of my desire—walked into the barn with Billy, laughing and chasing each other. I knew that kind of laugh. Flirtatious. Asher smacked his ass and Billy liked it.

“See? No one’s in here yet,” Asher said. “We’ll be quick. I need some relief.”

I saw red. The Randall temper took over. That wasn’t happening before I got my chance.

I made my presence known. “If you two aren’t here to work then you need to leave,” I said and regretted it immediately. That wasn’t how things worked. Even though you were supposed to help keep others on track, the unwritten rule among the boys was that you turned your head the other way and went about your business. Especially if the trouble you saw involved the teens.

I was risking cool pointsandthere was every chance I’d be getting my ass kicked too. Yes, “no fighting” was also a rule, but if you’d gotten beat up for something, you’d better find some “accident” you had instead.

Billy lunged at me. Asher grabbed him by the back of his jeans. “Who do you think you are, kid?” Asher said.

I crossed my arms and tried to make myself as big as possible using a technique for wild animals I’d read in a book one day with Mama. I didn’t answer his question. “You’ll spook the horses.”