Aaron (26 page)

Aaron

 

SPENCER: I do it because I am sick of being alone. It feels good to be wanted, even by someone I will never see. I don’t do it often because it just feels empty.

Aaron didn’t know what to say to that, but he didn’t want Spencer to feel empty, and he didn’t want Spencer to feel guilty about screwing up the screens for his chat. Yes, it had shocked Aaron, and he hated the way it scared him, but Spencer hadn’t done it intentionally to hurt him or torture him. Somewhere deep inside, he knew Spencer wouldn’t. A quick but confusing image of Spencer lying back on a nondescript comforter with his hand wrapped tightly around his cock flashed through Aaron’s mind, and he jerked his hand away from the keyboard as if he’d been burned. It was the first sexual thought he’d had in such a long time. Fear boiled up, bubbling from his stomach to his chest, and filled him with such conflicting emotions he had a hard time processing them.
Fear, attraction, guilt, lust… panic.

AARON: I have to go. I’ll e-mail the code.

Before Spencer could send another reply, Aaron slammed his laptop shut. He could almost hear the drugs from his parents’ medicine cabinet calling to him, offering him a way to forget the image of Spencer on his bed, of the rapists on top of him, and of Juliette—always of Juliette begging him to make them stop.

The pills were in his hand before he could change his mind.

“
F
OR this exam, you have the entire lab period of three hours, but I doubt it will take any of you that long. When you’re finished, you can leave,” Dr. Mayer told the students, and Aaron decided he would text his mom after he got out of the exam. While he didn’t think Dr. Mayer would think it was cheating if he texted her now, he didn’t want to have any problems with anyone else. He looked at Spencer, who gave him a smile, and he returned it tentatively. It was nice to have someone look at him and smile instead of cringe.

As he expected, the exam wasn’t even really a challenge for him. He missed having Intellisense to finish the code when he started typing so he

didn’t have to remember all the methods and properties. For example, he knew the default event handler for the text box was ontextchanged, but it took a second to remember if the listbox was activeitem or selecteditem. He had no problems explaining the difference between mousedown, mouseup, and click.

Spencer turned to the next page on his exam, surprising Aaron, who had just started the last question of the first page. The competitive streak in him that reared its head shocked him. There had been nothing resembling ambition or the desire to win at something since his attack. With a grin, he finished up the question and sped on to the next page. When he flipped to the third page first, Spencer smirked and flipped his page seconds later. It seemed Spencer had caught on with his little game and decided to give him a challenge.

For the first time in a long time, Aaron felt good.

Spencer startled him by standing up suddenly and putting his backpack on. Aaron was on the last page of the exam, and he chuckled under his breath at his loss to his friend.
His friend
. He watched Spencer hand in his exam and wink at him as he walked out of the lab. Glancing back down at his exam, he found he only had the bonus question left.
Explain how to use a third-party application programming interface within the Visual Studio development environment.
He snorted quietly. That was exactly what he and Spencer were doing in their project. He wondered if Spencer skipped the question, and that’s how he’d beaten him. Making a mental note to text Spencer and ask him if he’d answered the bonus question, Aaron began to write, because he never knew when a few points would mean the difference between a pass and a fail. He had to do the best he could on his good days in order to make up for the bad.

Today was a good day.

 

Finishing up his answer, he grabbed his laptop bag and carried the exam down to Dr. Mayer, who was looking up at him smiling. “Not too difficult, I take it?” the instructor asked, and Aaron saw that Dr. Mayer was pleased he’d finished so quickly.

 

“No, not too hard at all,” Aaron said, handing him the exam paper.

 

Aaron

 

“Good. I think your partner in crime is waiting for you, so I’ll see you in class next week,” Dr. Mayer said, tilting his head toward the door. Aaron looked over, and, sure enough, Spencer was standing in the doorway waiting for him. Rather than being upset or feeling cornered as he normally would if someone were waiting to talk to him, he was pleased.

“See you next week, Professor,” Aaron told his instructor and moved toward the door. They walked down the hall a bit so they didn’t disturb the other students taking the test.

“Lunch.?” Spencer asked in his slow cadence. Aaron looked at his watch. If he didn’t text his mom, she wouldn’t be there for another two hours. Normally, he went straight to class and straight home afterward. With the exception of the bookstore, the dean’s office, and the library, Aaron hadn’t seen any other parts of the school. He wasn’t even sure he knew where the cafeteria was. He almost refused, not wanting to take the chance that something could happen to set him off. Someone could bump him in line for food, or recognize him from high school like that girl from the bookstore. In the end, his desire to be close to Spencer won out.

When they reached the line for the hot food, Spencer allowed Aaron to go in front of him, and put himself between his friend and the people who had come behind. Very careful not to touch Aaron, he put an effective barrier between Aaron and the rest of the line behind them. Aaron was careful to stay a little away from the person in front of him, and he relaxed. Spencer had known almost instinctively what Aaron needed, and he’d done it without a second thought.

“What looks good?” Aaron asked Spencer as the person in front of Aaron placed his order.

Spencer said quietly, glancing behind him, that he was just going to get a burger and fries. Aaron looked over the board and decided to get chicken strips.

“What’ll it be?” the bored woman on the other side of the counter asked loudly as the boy in front of Aaron moved away.

“We’d like chicken strips and a cheeseburger, both with fries,” Aaron told her, with a smile at Spencer, who relaxed next to him. Aaron understood exactly what it was like to feel self-conscious. He noticed the

woman’s stare linger on the scar on his face as he placed his order. If Spencer could keep people from touching him, he could certainly keep Spencer from having to talk out loud to people who would think he was retarded because of his slow speech. It pissed Aaron off, because Spencer was one of the smartest people Aaron knew.

As Aaron had learned in a most brutal way, life wasn’t fair.

Spencer pulled out his wallet and paid for their lunches before Aaron could protest. Spencer signed something at him, but since he didn’t know anything about sign language, he didn’t understand. Then Spencer held up one index finger, indicating that he should wait a minute as they walked to a deserted table near the far wall of the open seating area. As they sat across from each other, Spencer opened his bottle of water and took a long drink, then said, “Sorry., I. Forgot. You. Do. Not. Sign.. I. Said. Thanks..”

“Would it make things easier if I did? I…. Could you teach me? I mean, if it would make things better for you,” Aaron rambled, embarrassed by his inability to get his point across. He used to be a damn fine public speaker, but since he rarely spoke to anyone but his mother since that night, the ability seemed to be lost.

Spencer smiled across the table, a quiet, shy kind of smile, and though he looked down for just a moment, Aaron could see it lit up his face.

“I. Have. Never. Had. A. Friend. Offer. To. Learn. To. Sign. For. Me.,” he said quietly over the muted conversations all around them in the cafeteria, conversations that wouldn’t so much as register for Spencer, but distracted Aaron.

Hyperaware of everything around him, he glanced behind him every few seconds to make sure no one stood there… watching… waiting for someone to burn him, or… or worse. All of a sudden, Spencer stood up.

“What?” Aaron asked, jerking all the way around in his seat. “Trade. With. Me.,” Spencer said as he pushed his tray to the outside seat.

 

“What?” Aaron asked again.