“Might be easier to hold a story than to hold a controller, son,” she’d said, knowing Bryson wouldn’t listen. “At least feed yourself,” she’d added, giving up before closing his bedroom door and leaving for work.
And Bryson was doing just that, feeding himself—for the second time—when the doorbell rang.
Bryson shuffled his way over to the door, his body still feeling like garbled pixels. He looked through the peephole like his father taught him. Unlocked the dead bolt, turned the knob, pulled the door open.
“Ty?”
Ty stood there breathing heavy, holding three or four roses. It was hard to tell exactly how many because they were mangled. The human video game seemed to glitch in red streaks. The same red as the petals of the flowers was dripping from his shaking palm.
“You… okay, man?”
“Yeah,” Ty wheezed, his back aching as if a school bus had fallen from the sky and landed right on him. “Yeah… I’m… okay. You okay?”
“Yeah, man. I’m fine. I’ll… be fine.”
Ty nodded. “Playing the game?” he asked, trying to figure out how to make it less awkward.
“Been fighting the war all day, bro.” Bryson smirked, wiggling his thumbs. His eyes skipped from Ty’s face to his shredded hand.
Ty nodded again. “Well… um… I brought these for you.” He held the roses out.
“You ain’t have to do that,” Bryson said.
Ty nodded a third time. His eyes started to puff up and slick over. The rock in his throat began to roll. There were things they needed to talk about. Things they didn’t need to talk about. There was a lot to say but nothing that needed to be said. Bryson carefully took the flowers. Smelled them like he’d seen his mother do. They made his nose itch.
“Hey, man, we’d better wash that blood off your hand,” Bryson said, opening the door wide.
And Ty nodded once more.
FIVE THINGS EASIER TO DO THAN SIMEON’S AND KENZI’S SECRET HANDSHAKE
1. Getting through the crowded hallway after the bell rings.
Simeon Cross was big for his age. Big, like two kids tall and two kids wide. A walking anvil with a happy gappy smile that lit every doorway he darkened. Impossible to miss when he was around and impossible not to miss when he was absent. So, when the bell rang, Simeon got up from his desk in Mr. Davanzo’s class, grabbed his backpack off the floor, and waited by the door while all his classmates filed out, jumping up to give him high fives. Everybody but Ty Carson, who bolted out of class, probably because Mr. Davanzo couldn’t stand people asking to go to the bathroom. “There’s no time for breaks when it comes to understanding the world around you,” he’d say.
After everyone else had gone, Simeon walked over to Mr. Davanzo, and they slapped the backs of their hands together, knuckles knocking like tiny pool balls. Their secret handshake. Which was nothing—elementary—compared to the complex system he and Kenzi had.
Kenzi Thompson was small for his age. Tied for the smallest kid in his class with another boy everybody called Bit. Kenzi didn’t have a nickname like that, and if anyone ever tried to give him one, he would… do nothing. Well, that’s not true. He would do something, but that something would be telling Simeon. And then Simeon would… do nothing. Because when you’re Simeon’s size, a look is more than enough.
Kenzi’s name, though only five letters, was longer than he was. But other than his smallness—and the fact that he carried a blue bouncy ball everywhere he went—there was really nothing else about him that stood out. He wasn’t particularly tough or loud or funny or sad or weird or even smelly. Just Kenzi. Maybe he’d speak in class. Maybe he wouldn’t. Got good grades when he studied, bad grades when he didn’t. Wasn’t dripping in name brands, but always clean. And was friends with everyone. But really friends with no one but Simeon and Simeon was friends with everyone, because being his enemy just wasn’t smart. Kenzi walked the middle of every line. Until the bell rang. And then… something else.
Kenzi never rushed out of Mr. Fantana’s class like the rest of the students. Not because he had some kind of special love for life science—I mean, it was okay—but because he knew he’d never make it to his locker with the hundreds of other kids traffic-jamming and bumper-car’ing around, not paying attention to the fact that their elbows were right by his face. He’d been hit before. Several times. Had his eyes swollen accidentally by girls who swung their arms around to make sure their friends understood the importance of whatever they were saying. Had his lip busted because some boy was pretending it was five seconds left in the fourth quarter—Curry with the ball, he shoots, he scores!—and… he punches a kid in the face while hitting his crossover. That kid… Kenzi. For him, the hallway was a minefield, and there were hundreds of active mines dressed in T-shirts and jeans.
So he waited while Mr. Fantana gathered his lesson plans, put the tops back on his dry erase markers. Waited and waited. For…
“Yoooooooooooooooo!” Simeon came bursting into Mr. Fantana’s room. “Fantana Banana, what’s good? What’s hood? What’s new? What’s true?” Simeon gave Mr. Fantana an awkward handshake that looked like Mr. Fantana was trying to figure out how hands work.
“Took you forever, bro,” Kenzi said, getting up from his desk.
“My bad, man,” Simeon said, reaching out for Kenzi’s hand.
“Don’t!” Mr. Fantana sparked up. “Don’t… don’t do that handshake in here. Not because I think anything is wrong with it. It’s just… I really want to get going, guys, and that handshake y’all do takes way too long. I know you probably won’t believe this, but teachers have lives too.” Mr. Fantana smirked, then went on shoving papers into his leather bag.
“Wow… Mr. Fantana I thought you were all about life science. What we were getting ready to show you was life science in full effect,” Simeon explained.
“I am. And I love y’all, but… not today.” Then he pointed at the door. “Please.”
Simeon didn’t argue. He just turned back to Kenzi.
“Come on, Kenzi. I don’t wanna be nowhere we ain’t welcomed.”
“Simeon, cut it—” Mr. Fantana started, but Simeon shut him down.
“Nope. Nope. You said what you said, and the damage is done.” Simeon bent his knees, squatting just enough for Kenzi to get a running start… to jump onto his back.
And off they went, out into the busy hallway of stumbling awkward bodies pin-balling around, bouncing into one another and off lockers. Simeon, bigger than the rest, was unbouncable. He couldn’t be knocked down or pushed out of the way.
“Ready?” Simeon asked Kenzi over his shoulder. Kenzi had his arms wrapped around Simeon’s neck, tight enough to hold on, but not tight enough to choke him.
“Let’s do it!” Kenzi called back. And off they went.
2. Getting out of trouble with Ms. Wockley for pretending to be in a horse race.
“But, Ms. Wockley, we’re not pretending to be in a horse race,” Simeon pleaded. Ms. Wockley stood at the door to the school, her face a pink raisin, made raisinier whenever she was in discipline mode, which was all the time. It was pretty much her job to tell everyone what not to do.