iv.

Casey gets hit in the nose and blood doesn't start to trickle between his fingers and slide down his forearms for another few seconds. The first thing he thinks about is Marsha Brady getting hit by a football, the footage repeating. They're kind of connected now--unfortunate accidents happen to generally good people. Except no one apologizes to him, and when Casey heals he won't be beautiful. He may not even get the chance to heal before something new happens.

It's the end of Gym class, end of the day. Coach Willis stops to kneel in front of Casey on his way to his office.

He prods at Casey�s face until Casey winces. "It's not broken, Conner," he says. "Suck it up."

Casey thinks about Coach Willis getting a basketball thrown at his face, breakable bones shattering. It almost makes him smile. He waits for the sounds of sneakers to disappear and hears the locker room door rattle shut before he closes his eyes.

iii.

"Hey. Connor."

Zeke's standing there when Casey finally surfaces. Someone always is, waiting to humiliate him that much more. Casey doesn't fall gracefully, and it's no better when he picks himself up and takes a moment to wallow in his muddles. Languid and sinewy are words he learned in English class, but they've never applied to him.

Casey has no idea how long he�s been lying on the gymnasium floor. He might have fallen asleep. He blinks at Zeke. He�s a little cold in his sweaty gym shirt and sneezes as a shiver ripples through his body.

"At least you don't wear bifocals and braces," Zeke says and doesn't offer Casey a hand.

Casey kind of hates when Zeke comes around. He's never been afraid of Zeke despite his foreboding presence, because Zeke never hits Casey or twists his arm--not yet. But he always chuckles when Casey wobbles on his legs and spouts his "it could be worse" bullshit, which pisses Casey off more than bleeding, because Casey has the right to feel sorry for himself. How dare Zeke cheapen his pain by reminding him that at least he can still walk?

"Yeah," says Casey. "Whatever."

"Just the nose?"

"It was an accident." Casey thinks it might have been this time. Everyone�s not out to get him despite how it may sometimes appear.

Zeke shrugs, smokes his cigarette. �That�s different.�

Zeke clears his throat and leaves the locker room. Casey stubs out the cigarette he flicks to the ground and follows him because he doesn't want to go home. His mother didn�t go to work today, and she�ll tsk and shake her head at him if she sees his face. He is not up for tolerating it.

Casey slides into the backseat of Zeke's car and lies on his back. There may be a possibility that he could choke on his own blood as he's staring at the sky through the rear window, but the idea doesn't scare nor deter him.

Zeke gets into the drivers' seat and doesn't say anything except, "Don't bleed on the seats."

Casey keeps track of the journey by the number of times he almost slides to the floor as the car turns and memorizing the roofs of houses. He's making sure he knows that way out.

The GTO smells like cigarettes and time. Casey plucks idly at loose seams in the seats and breathes slowly through his mouth.

Zeke doesn't instruct Casey to get out when he parks. He pauses to light another cigarette, pulls on it one or twice and then exits. His feet don't make any sounds on the pavement, and Casey is almost convinced that Zeke is just going to leave him there. Not that it matters, but Casey is used to doing what people stronger than he is tell him to do.

The heavy door on the passenger side opens smoothly and Zeke creeps up from Casey's feet, crawling over his hips. He stares into Casey�s face, solemnly.

"Looks broken," he declares. He whispers like too much volume could shatter Casey, tiny flecks of pale boy settling under the seats.

Casey hates feeling fragile.

"It�s not," he says and pushes half-heartedly for Zeke to get off him.

Zeke slides his hands over Casey�s arms as he moves back. His fingers graze Casey�s briefly, holding on. Casey half expects him to grasp his hand completely and lead him into the house. Zeke digs his nails into soft pads, freezing, and lets go.

He exhales as he pushes backwards and his breath sweeps across Casey�s chest.

ii.

There�s an intersection when he first walks through the front door. He can head to the kitchen, the downstairs bathroom, climb the steps or turn around and walk right back through the front door. Casey holds his position and thinks about cross streets. If he calls 911, he won�t be able to tell them what street Zeke�s house is on.

"Well," Zeke says in that whisper he has sometimes. Suddenly Casey feels the weight of choices leak from his fingers, down some invisible drain. He can go anywhere, but this is Zeke�s house. What Casey may want doesn�t matter. �Home, sweet home.� He kicks lightly at Casey�s shoe. "Come on."

Casey glances into rooms as he passes them. Most of the furniture is covered with plastic and doesn�t look like they�re regularly used. The stairs creak as he follows Zeke to the second floor. Up here, all of the doors are closed except one at the end of hall.

He shuffles forward with his shoulders hunched, head watching the toes of his shoes move over carpeting. There are spots of browning blood on the front of his shirt and drying on his skin. Self-consciously, he rubs his fingertips over his palms and some of the dried mess crumbles away, a powdery dust falling between fibers of cream carpeting.

There are pictures of Zeke as a little boy on the hallway walls�spread on the grass and smiling upward or posed in front of a fake bookcase background with his hands folded neatly atop a short podium. Each one is cased in a thick, gold-plated frame, the paint chipping away in the corners. In the most recent of all of them, Zeke must be no older than ten and he�s standing in between a man and woman who may be his parents. The man has a hand curled over Zeke�s thin shoulder, and the woman smile�s vaguely, her mouth pressed closed. Wee Zeke is missing a tooth.

Running a fingernail along the edge of the family portrait, Zeke says, �Still malleable,� and then they�re inside the bedroom. Casey isn�t sure if it�s the reason Zeke spoke but he understands why there aren�t any newer pictures.

He can�t imagine Zeke folding his hands on a classroom desk.

�Casey, Casey. What to do with Casey?�

He leaves Casey just inside the door and opens one of his dresser drawers. The clothes come flying up and fling in random directions as Zeke picks through them. His teeth lodge permanently in his lower lip, concentrating.

Waiting for the inevitable, Casey muses but isn�t sure about what that might be. He has a hunch. A slight inkling.

The bedroom is mostly sparse: a chest o� drawers, a nightstand and Zeke�s low bed directly under one of two windows. Considering the preserved stateliness of the rest of the house, Zeke�s bedroom is shameful--far from, but comparable to a Port-a-Potty as far as analogies go.

�--to take it or not?� Zeke is asking. He holds a shirt in his hand, and Casey shakes his head and quickly nods to correct himself because didn�t mean no.

�Thanks, um. You didn�t. Thank you,� Casey says and sort of snatches the shirt although he hadn�t intended such. He�s frustrated and tired and achy in the face. Zeke�s eyebrows knit together in a frown.

The windows have no shades and white light pours in from outside. Casey stands, twisting on his feet awkwardly and feels extremely naked. Zeke gives him a wry smile after a moment and makes a show of covering his eyes with one hand.

He hums some stupid tune and mutters what sounds like, �No ogling the models, Zekey boy.�

Casey has an abrupt vision of a young Zeke being carted around a mall with his father and stopping to peek into the display window of Victoria�s Secrets. His cheeks heat up. The thought isn�t helping his timidity, but he reaches for them hem of his soiled t-shirt anyway.

Eyeful of Zeke by a wall, then shirt, and the fabric actually hurts sliding over his face. The collar reaches the skin between his upper lip and nose, and it�s so tender Casey hisses at the sharp pang of bruised tissue. Fingertips scrape along his side unexpectedly, and he freezes, arms folded and tangled in clothes above his head.

�Hm, hmmm.� There� s no set rhythm to the humming, just jagged streams of sound that rise steadily higher as callused fingertips climb his ribs.

He isn�t aware that he�s shivering until Zeke comments on it, pinches his skin. It is also impossible for him to remember how, but soft covers rush to meet his back. The odor of long forgotten cigarettes and idle room permeate his senses.

He can hear birds chirping outside. His mind moves exceptionally slowly, anticipating warmth and motion on his mouth--Zeke�s hum a breathy murmur.

His lips open almost instantly. He crinkles the shirt in his palms, unable to see Zeke kissing with his eyes closed. He tastes it, sluggish; ghosting above his lips, and hint of a wet tongue licking chapped skin.

Casey swallows. A helpless whine scratches at the back of his throat, and he does his best not to imagine what is already happening in real time.

i.

�How was school?� His mother stands with one hand placed against the doorframe. The rest of her body is ramrod straight. Head to toe, one thin robot going through the motions of dealing with a son.

Casey doesn�t exactly ignore her. He pretends he doesn�t hear her--�Were there any problems?� �Why didn�t you come straight home?� �Do you have a project? You should tell us these things.�--or see her or feel her staring at the side of his face.

He thinks, accident waiting to happen. Maybe he�s their accident, already happened and snowballing through existence. When he was five, he overhead a conversation his father had with a friend, talking about how they hadn�t been ready when they�d found out Casey�s mother was pregnant. He�s the most reckless thing they�ve ever done.

His mother sighs. She taps her fingers and then wrings her hands. �I don�t know what to do. What do you want me to do, Casey?�

She has childcare books she�ll consult once this little interlude is over.

Mentally, Casey counts all of the times he�s been messed with and lists them under the heading Where You Went Wrong. Zeke forces his way into those thoughts and Casey adds him at the top.

He prods his upper lip delicately. His nose hasn�t swelled; his parents will never know that it could have been broken�may still be jarred.

Earlier, Zeke fucked him in the shower and helped washed off Casey�s face and hands.

No one helps Casey clean up his messes.

�Everything is fine. I�m fine,� he says and waits, like he often does, for people to just walk away from him.

His mother sighs again before she leaves. Casey stares at the stucco on the ceiling and, in his mind, crosses off Zeke�s name.

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