No one denied that Kris was a weird kid. At this point their classmates had gotten around to barely talking to them; their teachers just learnt to laugh nervously and move on when they refused to speak up in class. Even their mother gave up on them, at least as far as they could see. They weren’t oblivious. Their eyes were shadowed, but when it came to the way she just melted into the habit of enabling their antics, blind was the last thing they’d use to describe themself. Like saying nothing about their collection of knives and blatant disregard for the time they’d put toothpaste in Noelle’s slippers could strengthen her motherly bond with her strange child.

Kris wasn’t complaining, though. As long as they could run around without consequences that mattered they were happy– a lack of control had them growing up wilder than anticipated, their initial shyness evolving into a mischievous kind of quiet that kept their friends on their toes. During their first year in high school they’d scared the resident bully speechless for a while, one exploit amongst other things involving cafeteria forks and milk cartons. And currently in their sophomore year, it wasn’t long until the teacher just let them have the freedom to fall asleep in class whenever they wanted.

To them it seemed as if most people dismissed them as the resident Hometown gremlin who had idiosyncrasies, sure, but wasn’t harmful by any means. And so began the gradual distancing. Honestly, they didn’t mind this as much as they thought they would. It wasn’t like they talked to people.

Actually, on second thought, the only person that didn’t quite move that far away was you. During the summer vacation of ninth grade you’d approached them when they were tapping at the crappy hospital piano, telling them that they were playing something wrong. So they’d told you that they were an amnesiac recovering from a lobotomy, and you’d blinked twice before laughing. They thought you had a nice laugh. Warm, full, with a note of startled surprise they wanted to hear again and again.

They didn’t know why they were thinking about that now, with you pressed to their side underneath the school bleachers. Rain pattered off the tin, drops of mildewed water dripping in puddles around their feet– they would lock this memory away in their heart. The scent of your shampoo bleeding into rusty metal would make its home along with all the other stolen moments they’d held with you. Warmth seemed to constitute most of their memories of you– murmured promises in the supply closets, the touch of their scarred knuckles against yours just before the gym coaches shooed them out of the locker rooms, sharing butterscotch-cinnamon pie at lunchtime.

“You’re the only good thing left in my life, I think.”

Their voice small and scratchy, Kris stared at you, their eyes wide and glowing with something that had no name. Something that was just from the lingering afterthoughts of unspoken words they’d wanted you to confide once upon a time. Sometime before. Before this, before everything, before you were the only thing they looked forward to at school.

Their hair tangled in the wind and their ribcage hurt from the weight of your elbow; the concentrated heat of your body dug into them, trying to reach their heart from the inside out.

If the idea wasn’t so ludicrous, Kris would carve out a portion of their soul for you.