Saint Joseph School

“Freaks…”

The word seemed to hit the boy like a punch in the stomach. With one word, the wind had been taken out of his sails. Bryan’s instantly filled with rage but as Nennya laid her hand softly against his arm, he calmed. He picked up their loaned putters and colored balls, and they walked back to the gate. As they left, Bryan looked each of their “audience” in the eyes. A few looked away from his gaze, most did not, and some even seem to smile, proud that they had driven the two out.

Placing the equipment back in the rack, and the pair left. Walking down the street, Bryan held Nennya’s hand tight in his own. Determined not to let this break the closeness, they had worked all night to create. For a block or two, neither said anything. Bryan was merely searching his heart for something to say. Sadly, the best thing he could come up with was…

“Well, next time the Freakshow need a place to hang out, I know just the place to recommend.” He said with a somewhat forced laugh. Trying to cover things in humor was a defense mechanism, Ms. Atwood had told him that. They entered a small park, where they walked in and out of the synthetic light of the lampposts that lined the pathway.

Under the glow of one of these lights, he stopped walking and she reluctantly did so too. Bryan let go of her hand; he pulled her close to him and looked into her face. He saw sadness there, where only moments before he had seen her smile a true smile. He could tell she had been happy while they were playing. Realizing that it was taken away from her so quickly made the boy feel the acidic taste of hate rise in his stomach. He pushed it down and ignored it.

He saw in her eyes, that see knew his feelings already but she couldn’t know what he was thinking. Bryan pulled the girl close to him; doing his best to let his arms encircle her and trying hard to let his feelings for come to the forefront of his mind. “I’m sorry Nya. Sometimes, I forget that people can be so cruel. If that place was on fire and we saved them, they would call us ‘Heroes’ but try to relax amongst them and they’d prefer to stone us to death.” They were both silent, they embraced under that white light for what seemed like an eternity.

“I sometimes forget that the whole world is not like Saint Joe’s, I’m sorry.” Bryan placed his hands on her cheeks, feeling the short hair there brush against the sensitive surfaces of his palms. He closed his eyes and kissed her deeply; he tried with all his might to put into that kiss all the love and admiration he had for her, all the sorrow he felt for the bigotry they had experienced in that brief moment, and all the joy he had felt the rest of the night.

“Was that too ‘forward’?” He asked her with a grin as they separated. He looked into her eyes again and he could not read her expression at all. “Maybe we should call it an evening and head back to campus? The train station isn’t far from here.”

She enjoyed kissing, although it always felt somehow incomplete. There was no real exchange of anything other than ... spit. She knew, in part, that what she really wanted was the kenning, starved for the bond she had with her siblings. There was a horizon of expectations to kissing Bryan, one she couldn't see beyond. But she could taste his excitement, a flush of endorphins, and share that. It was enough.

They broke the kiss and walked on. She thought about him, and, despite his attempts to distract her, about the people they'd upset at the golf range. Why had she wanted to leave? They had a right to be there, and nobody was physically strong enough to force their will on them, to make them leave.

She'd been afraid. Not for herself, but for them. The people who wanted them to go. She wanted to protect them. She clasped Bryan's hand firmly in her own.

//Sometimes,// she thought at him, as loudly as she could, //Sometimes, to be a hero, you have to protect people from yourself.// She looked at him, but there was no sign he could hear her. His deafness to her telepathy was disheartening. But she continued to parse out her thoughts, having an internal conversation with herself.

//Just as a slave would protect his master from his anger, just as a German Jew in my parents' day would refrain from striking back. Not because they loved their persecutors, but because they loved their people more. It's a difficult thing, to be stronger than your persecutor.//

//If a man strikes your cheek, offer him the other.// She smiled to herself. Was that what Jesus had meant? Not that one should show love to an aggressor, but that one should demonstrate the love of a community with forbearance?

//Heroes are exiles in their own communities. They turn the other cheek again and again. They protect their people from themselves.//

Bryan had done that. Bryan was a hero.

She pulled up short with a shock. He, walking on, tugged at her hand and then stopped too.

"What is it?" he asked. "Pebble in your shoe?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm fine." She leaned into him, coaxed his arm around her waist. She kissed him again, not looking to make it anything other than it was. For the first time, her heart began to beat. She could feel it. And it was glorious.

// O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised.//

"I know you, is all," she said. "I know you."

They rode the tram together in silence, sitting close to one another. Their hands were entwined, her head on his shoulder. For the first time, maybe in his life, Bryan didn’t feel the need to speak. He was content to just be next to her while the train made it’s way through the city.

They rose as the doors opened to the stop for Saint Joseph’s. Leaving the tram behind they kept walking in silence. They moved past the statue of St. Joe, past the boy’s dorm and up to the front door of the girl’s dorm.
Bryan held her hand tightly and looked into her eyes. “I had a great time tonight, despite the bumps.” He smiled as he finished the sentence. “Next time, you get to decide what we do.” They quietly exchanged goodbyes in the light of the dormitory entrance and they embraced each other one last time.

He watched her enter the building; she stopped just before entering the stairwell. She turned to look back outside and he was still there, smiling broadly at her. Bryan waved goodbye to her as she walked up those stairs, ending the evening. The boy turned and walked back into the night, heading toward his dorm.

When Bryan walked back through the door to his room that night, it was easily recognizable that something had changed. He was different from the nervous wreck that had left that afternoon. She had changed him, given him something that he had not possessed before.

Confidence.

The End