Asymptote (bxb)

Chapter 1: Emotions

 Meeting Miles was arguably the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. For weeks I would walk down by the ravine at the same time, and every time he would be there. Sometimes he wanted to speak, other times he would just cry and I would pretend I didn't see him. We would smoke together.

 I slowly drifted away from my group of friends, finding myself orbiting him. There was something about how broken he was that just called out to me. As if I could actually fix him, which was a joke among itself.

 It was a Thursday, and I was sitting in Advanced Functions, the only class I would share with him for my final year of high school. I glanced at him from my peripheral vision, hunched over the desk and sleeping on his graph paper. I knew he wasn't actually sleeping though- he was an insomniac.

 His eyelids flickered open, and he caught me staring at him. Instead of looking away and making me feel creepy, he cocked an eyebrow with a smirk, and then he was fake-sleeping again like nothing had happened while I was left momentarily breathless.

I found it impossible to concentrate on math while he was sitting so close to me. Not because of his perfection, quite the contrary. The only word I could think of to describe his appearance was jagged.

 I always tried to take in as much of him as I could, knowing that this might be one of the few days he would come to school this week, or even this month.

            The first time Miles missed a prolonged period of school- that I actually noticed- was in the last month of the ninth grade. I was sure it wasn't the first time, and after that day I knew it wouldn't be the last.

            I texted him sporadically throughout the week, and I would casually pass by the bench near the green grass at the ravine, but he was never there. I considered trying to figure out who his teachers were and collect his homework, but he probably wouldn't do it anyways. I was just desperately trying to grasp onto any excuse I could to see him.

            I told myself he was probably sick, or maybe someone in his distant family has passed away. Denying the worry I felt was the strangest and hardest thing I had made myself do in my 14 years of life. I worried about him more in that week than I had worried about any friend I'd ever had, and I had known some since preschool.

            Coming by his house was probably the worst thing I could have done, and yet I did it anyways. I had never been in his house before. Sure, plenty of times he had said that he needed something from inside, but he said that his mum didn't want people to come in because she thought the house was a mess and didn't want them to think she was careless, so I stood on the drive- not even the porch.

            Yet, I found myself staring at his front door that night. The metal knocker was engraved 'Fulford', and I wondered briefly if that was his father's name and he had changed to his mother's or vice versa. I never asked; I figured it was a touchy subject.

            After a few minutes of me knocking incessantly, the door opened an inch. Not enough that I could see anything, but enough to know there was someone there.

            "Hello?" I asked, pressing my hand on the door. I half expecting it to slam shut in my face.

            "Oh, it's you," I heard him drawl out. It was a neutral tone that I couldn't quite place. The door opened a few more inches and he took a couple steps back so he was mostly covered by shadows. None of the lights were on; his house was always dark like it was haunted. I figured it was a financial choice, or maybe an environmental one.

            "Where have you been?" I was holding the screen door with my left hand, allowing myself in even though I was sure he wanted the opposite. I realized how stupid the question was considering the fact I was standing practically in his foyer and so was he, so obviously he had been at home.

            "Around." The one thing I learned to deal with while being friends with Miles was that he had secrets. He wouldn't tell me things and it wasn't because he wasn't ready to tell me. I wouldn't find out in a day, a few weeks, or a year. I would never find out, and I just had to cope with the fact that there were many things I would never know about him.

            With that in mind, I chose not to press on the topic. Instead asking, "Is everything alright?"

            He did a half nod thing that was mixed with a shrug and I could feel how unwelcomed I was. I could feel it radiating between us, the air was that tense.

            "I was worried," I admitted, naively hoping it might get him to share anything, or at least open the door the full way or loosen his shoulders.

            "Don't be." That was when the car passed down the street. I'm sure if it had been any other day or any other place the simple passing of a car would have gone unnoticed, but on this day the light from the lamp post that hung over his street reflected off the car and illuminated the foyer for a split second. It was so fast that I wondered if I imagined it, but now that I had seen them it was more obvious. The bruises. The arm that was holding the door half-open had finger shaped bruises all along the wrist, like he was trying to pull away but someone was stopping him, or like he had been dragged. His exposed knees were bruised the size of apples, and a dark purple colour that was borderline black, like he had been pushed to the ground.

            I noticed the way his swallow turned into a gulp. He knew that I had seen. It wasn't that the shadows and darkness of the house did such a great job of covering it up; it was more that I wasn't looking for it. It was painfully obvious now. Like one of those spot the differences where you can't find one and it turns out to have been staring you in the face the whole time.

            "What happened?" I reached out my hand towards his wrist, but he pulled it away like I might scald him.

            "I'm fine."

            "Who did this to you?" His eyes began to water. That was one thing about Miles I found ever so intriguing. He looked like he would be a rock, unfazed by everything, but his emotions were always written on his face. He cried more than anyone I knew, but he had good reason too.

            Even as the tears ran down his face he fought to keep his composure.