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Across the street, someone saw The wo out, yelling and waving a broohed at her broolish But then two of the busboys ca police Tariq didn’t see any of this, didn’t even hear it He was trying to get his vision straight, trying to curl further into hi to spit the blood out of his mouth As far as he knew, they were there, and then, with one last kick, they were gone

His father pulled up a ency room before the police arrived

As he bled on the pave into his wounds, we felt ourselves bleeding, too As his ribs broke, we could feel our ribs breaking And as the thoughts returned to hisloss of safety It is so all of us feared and many of us knew firsthand We are not unfa, the surprising concern fro lack of concern from others (like some, but not all, of the police)

The assailants covered their tracks well, and were never caught We knoho they are, of course Two of them are haunted by what they did Three of theh mostly he is defiant "They beat the shit out of me," he told people, soon after "But you knohat? I didn’t need that shit inside of oing into the city, fro But still, the fear remains The bruises And there in the back of hisjust as they did in the back of our minds, are the most insidious questions of all:

How did they spot ?

People like to say being gy isn’t like skin color, isn’t anything physical They tell us ays have the option of hiding

But if that’s true, why do they always find us?

Cooper’s loathing of everyone else--his parents, the people in his town, theof hi that will add depth to despair like the feeling of deserving it Cooper drives around, not knohat to do, not knohere to go He barely notices that he’s running low on gas Then the warning light pops on, and he’s alrateful for it, because now at least there’s a next thing to be done

He wasn’t always like this Nobody is ever always like this There was a ti inchwor out candles on a cake his rade friends around hiame that made him feel like a cha baskets at lunchtis He didn’t want to do sports anymore Friends moved away--if not from town, then from his lunch table The dullness started to pervade the outside of his life, and the noise started to grow on the inside He spent more and more time on the computer This wasn’t really a choice; it was si that was always there

Now his laptop is dead in the backseat It doesn’t really bother hi The land around hi He tries not to rehearse what he’s going to say to Ryan, because he doesn’t want it to sound like a performance All of the dates he’s been on before have been half-hearted atte Neither one of them was sure what he wanted, so they tried to put one another into that void It never held, and Avery just happened to realize it five minutes before Jason did "No harm, no foul," Jason had said, and this phrase in itself pointed to why Avery wasn’t interested He wants to be with someone who knows that a harm is much worse than a foul

A boy with blue hair would have to know this, Avery thinks Or at least there’s a chance he knows this

Avery is about to find out

After a year, Peter and Neil feel they are beyond the discovery phase But we’re sure that they will continually discover this not to be the case There’s always so new to learn about the person you love

Neil is not surprised to get to Peter’s house and to find hi on the floor of his rec rooaotten the Guild of Wizards to sign ot his own hooes to Peter’s room and fetches Peter’s hoahtery But fro alliances In other words, politics, with beards and robes Not his thing Balkan Bloodbath 12, the garound

Peter knows Neil’s not into it, but can’t help but play anyway Because once this treaty is signed, he is going to be able to travel to the water nymphs’ world for the first ti until he’s through Treaty accolish assignment

"I can do that," Peter says He knows he should like it when Neil does his homework for him, but he doesn’t He knows Neil does it because it’s easier for him … and that’s precisely why Peter doesn’t like it

"You have s to do," Neil says "I mean, what’s John Steinbeck compared to the fate of the Guild of Wizards?"

"I like Steinbeck"

"You knoould be cool?"

"What?"

"If your ga soure out the punch line

He gives in and asks why

"Because then the wizards could be fish, and it would be the Guild of Gilled Wizards"

Peter sht into that one, didn’t I?"

"More like you swam into it"

Peter likes these jokes, these jibes Really, he does It’s just that he’s not always in thesomeone a little stupider, or at least someone who doesn’t think about each word in every sentence he utters

Neil doesn’t realize he’s gone one step too se the subject because he senses so of the rhythm of the conversation knows it’s time to move on