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“You got a lot of friends, Brantley King?” Samuel’s unruly sandy blonde hair fell forward into his eyes, and he brushed it aith dirt caked fingernails
“Nope” None of the kids in school were like arten While everyone else was learning the words to Old McDonald, I orried about how long I was going to have to wait until after dark to go houy my mom let move in that month would be ready to brawl
Being onI liked Although I was the biggest kid in school, I’d always host
Until I started getting in trouble
Then WE started getting into trouble together Preppy and I Two pees in a juvenile delinquent pod
“Me neither Wayworth,” Sae plaid shirt into his kaki pants, righting his suspenders that fell off his shoulders every few seconds He straightened his yellow polka-dotted bow-tie
“What’s up with the bruises?” I asked, pointing to his ribs
“You saw those, huh?” Sadness crossed over his face, but he fought back whatever he was thinking about and pursed his lips “Stepdaddy froot only two issues Beer and h Me? Not so much”
I could relate Although I didn’t have one stepdad, more like a constant parade of men They all had different names, different faces, but essentially they were all the same
“Well, kid, I don’t think Tyler is going to bug you again” I started walking again, heading back towhere I could be alone In the corner ofup the steps into the school, clutching his jaw
Pussy
“That’s it?” Sa into my heels
“What else is there?” I ducked under the branch of a low hanging tree Samuel was easily a foot shorter than ot far enough away fro in my back pocket with the lastin my shoe
“Can I try?” Sa me I hadn’t realized he was still there
I passed hiarette, and he inhaled deeply He then spent the next five arette out on the sole of my sneaker while his face turned a weird shade of purple before going back to pale sood, but I’m a menthol man myself”
A burst of laughter escaped nored“Where do you live?”
“Here and there” Nowhere was the truth I wasn’t ever going back ho the day so I could sneak into the locker roora I oas in my backpack
And it was light
“I’row up, I’ places on the water on the other side of the causeith the long legs that look like they’re from Star Wars”
“Like one of them stilt homes?”
“Yeah ht on the bay” This boy lived in a trailer park where he was beaten up by his stepdad, and here he was drea about his future I couldn’t see my way past next week, never mind to the next ten years “What about you, man?”
“What about me?” I unhooked my pocket knife fro stucco on the side of the building
“What are you gonna do when you grow up?”
The only thing I really knehat I didn’t want “Not sure I just know that I don’t want to work for anyone Never liked being told what to do all that much I’d like to be my own boss, run my own shit”
“Yeah,Yes, that I’ll help you We can do it together You run the shit I’ll help you run the shit Then, we’ll buy a big ’ole Star Wars stilt home and live there, and no one will be able tell us what to fucking do ever again!”
Samuel removed a coe “Let’splan”
The idea see a plan for a future I’d never thought of, but for sosI was very unfaave in I sat down next to hihed He s there meant ere halfway there