This was all his parents’ fault, he decided, for hiding the truth from him. For his mother wanting him to be part of their world but always making him feel separate. For his father never encouraging him to look beyond working on cars or beating up kids in wrestling to something loftier and more challenging. For both of them turning the other cheek at his miserable report cards, for nodding mutely when he said he wanted to quit piano lessons, all the while forcing Charles to play, smacking his wrists if he didn’t practice. For never telling Scott to move out of their house, for so completely sheltering him from the world.
And why? Was it because of some long-seeded, pent-up guilt? Some fist-curling, hair-pulling agony they felt for all the dirty looks and thoughts they’d had about people of different races, people of different means? What flowed out of Charles’s mouth that day of the party all those years ago didn’t surprise Scott in the slightest—it was what he’d imagined they thought all along. Except they weren’t saying it, of course. They were suppressing it as best they could. They had been so politically correct with him, tripping over their feet trying to make him feel equal, merely pigeonholing him more.
Or maybe they hadn’t pushed him because they’d known he wouldn’t be able to take it. Maybe they’d lost faith in him long before he’d had the chance to prove anything. Maybe that was part of the pigeonhole, too. They knew Charles’s background and thus could pinpoint his potential, but with Scott? Who the hell knew? Just let him do whatever the hell he wants.
Didn’t we give you a good life? his mother had said to him. Didn’t we take care of you?
And then there was that kid, Christian. Scott knew his name all too well now, called up his name at lightning speed, whereas before it sometimes took him a moment, only identifying him by the nickname he’d given him in his head, Phantom, because of the way he lurked around the locker room, because of the way he slipped soundlessly into warm-up before practice, because of his pancake-white face and that burlap thing he wore as a jacket and the way he chattered to himself, freaking out the other boys. He wasn’t a nice kid. Oh they twisted that after he died. He was a son of a bitch, sniggering remarks about the other kids loud enough for them to hear, precisely diagnosing their worst insecurities: one boy’s bubble ass, another boy’s stutter. Scott even heard Christian’s snarky, slithery, Jack Nicholson–timbre voice cackle about the puny size of a certain kid’s cock, the biggest, burliest kid on the team, the one who made disparaging remarks about homos at every turn. It was surgical, the way Christian did it. A precise, deadly talent.
And no wonder the kid got shit for it. As time went on, though, Scott came to realize that Christian wanted to provoke them. He wanted to catch hell for it. After practice one day, Scott caught him alone and grabbed his arm. Christian’s face got stone hard and opaque. There were a lot of things Scott wanted to say to him. Scott knew why he was doing it. He might not know the specifics—a shitty home life, an absent father, an overworked mother, beatings, molestation, somehow landing in this school, always feeling unwanted and never knowing his place—but Christian had a good eye for insecurities because he had so many of his own. Scott wanted to tell the kid that he didn’t have to be like this, and the more he was, the worse it would be. The thicker the shell, the darker the days, the more miserable the life until he would wake up and have no idea who he fucking was anymore. He wanted to bestow dadlike wisdom to him, really get through to him that it didn’t have to be like this. But all he could say was, “Watch it, bro. Got it?” And Christian had stared at him, dead-eyed, and hissed, “Whatever, white boy. Go drive your Lexus.” And then he turned around and sauntered out.
A few days later, Scott saw some of the boys in the practice room, huddled in a circle, Christian in the middle. It was probably where someone got the idea they were hazing—there was a fraternal ritual to it, each boy taking an orderly turn to throw a punch. And yeah, Scott looked away. He felt no emotions about it, either. His apathy formed a hard and waxy crust around him, like the outer shell of a beetle. Fuck that kid. Let him learn the hard way. He deserved it.
In Arizona, after the guard shoved Scott out of the agency, fury snapped off his body like lightning. He hated that he’d walked away from that kid. He hated what he’d somehow become. He sank to the ground and slammed his fist into the concrete sidewalk, again and again, blood rising on his knuckles. He did it until it hurt, and then cradled his damaged fist in his lap, watching the blood pool.
Next door to the adoption agency was another office, some sort of nonprofit for immigrant services. A blade-thin woman pushed out that office’s door and noticed him, sitting there, bleeding, his arms around his jack-knifed knees. “Oh my goodness,” she said, rushing over. “What happened?”