Alone in his room a young boy mixed paints in front of an empty canvas. The pigments had come alive on his pallet and his brush was glistening with a grayish blue that would be the first strokes of his newest masterpiece.

His face was inches away from the easel; only blank canvas filled his vision. There were a few subjects he had considered for his painting, but none seemed to call out to him at the moment. His mind quiet, the boy lifted his hand. Let it be moved by fate. All around him his previous works watched. It was an impressive output for a fifteen-year-old, especially considering the range of subjects. Most were fantastical: mermaids in turquoise and jade, a fairy princess, witches casting ferocious spells. But in each was an emotion that was true to life, and the boy worked feverishly to portray the complexity of what he felt inside. His greatest fears and most wondrous dreams manifested in vibrant paints. A finished painting to him was like a friend, something he could understand and accept despite its flaws. If he liked what he saw he found himself talking to it as if it would reply. His father thought he did it because he was lonely. But even if he did make friends eventually, the paintings would probably still have made good company. There was just some‐ thing more fascinating about them than he had ever felt about anything else. From time to time, he’d have to glance at the bottom of the canvas at his signature to convince himself that they were really his. But without fail there was his name, Zane Gardner. Zane spread the first streaks of paint on the canvas. The gray and blue paint stood out against the blank space and as more color followed, he entered a trance watching the paints mingle. A man’s bare chest formed, and then wings behind it, and on his shoulders an angelically beautiful face stared out with inhumanely blue eyes. He had bulging arms that could lift a man with one fell swoop and a jaw line that would feel so comfortable resting against the side of your neck. The boy broke from his trance with a bashful laugh. He stood up and examined the angel from afar, then moved in to add some richness to his dark skin. And once again he was absorbed in the presence of the figure, his dreaminess, and fantasies of what they’d do together if only they could meet in the real world. A knock at the door startled him back to reality.

“Come in,” Zane said out of reflex. In walked his giant father. He was in his work overalls still, the uniform of a construction worker barely masking the man’s large physique. Stuck to his black skin was a pale coating of sawdust and plaster.

“Hey little one what are you up to?" asked his father. He squinted, never having his reading glasses handy, and leaned in close to see his son’s new painting. He tilted his head to the side trying to process what he was looking at and as it came into focus a smile formed on his lips. His son's art spoke to him like nothing else. There was emotion in those paintings that Zane never shared with anyone else, not even his father. But it shined so brightly on the canvas. Even in its unfinished state the painting radiated a love Zane's father wished he could give. After a few seconds of nodding to himself, he pulled up a chair next to his son.

“I’m very proud of you, Zane. You have such an amazing talent.” A hue of dark red began to glow under Zane’s soft brown cheeks.

“Thanks Dad. I’m really happy at how it's turning out.” “You should be man. It’s like nothing I've ever seen before.” Zane's dad was beaming. “I don’t even know where you get the ideas for something like that. You definitely don't get that talent from me or your mom.”

At the mention of her Zane broke eye contact and dropped his gaze to the floor. His dad's head twitched at the mistake.

“Yeah, I know,” he whispered and slid an arm around the boy’s tiny shoulders,

“If you still—” “You can bring her up if you want. It’s fine Zane said.

“Hey,” His dad continued. “You don't have anything to worry about. I got you.” “I know, Dad,” Zane said. He could really feel that his father cared for him, but sometimes he went on too much. His dad was so tense about most things, it honestly sounded odd when he went on like that about Zane, as if he needed to convince himself that they really did love each other. But his dad didn’t say any more and kissed Zane on the top of the head. Before he left the bedroom, he gave another glance at the muscular body in the painting.

“Seeing you love something like that, it means so much, Zane.”

“Thanks, Dad. Good night.”

The next morning Zane woke up and couldn’t escape the fact he had been avoiding for the last weeks of summer today was his first day of high school. In his head he had already mapped out every possible humiliation that could occur at Salem High. Kids could make fun of him for his frail, nonathletic body. A senior could bump into him in the hall and want to fight him for it. But worst of all was the fear that the wrong person would find out that he was gay. Or worse the whole school would. His dad knew all about these fears and spent breakfast trying to calm his son as the boy quietly ate.

“The school’s a very different place from when I was there,” His dad told him, “back when I was in school, we never could’ve had one of those gay alliance clubs. You really have to check that out Zane. It’ll be a great place to meet friends or even, maybe, something more.”

“Dad!” Zane yelped, then quieter added, “I’m not even there yet.”

“Well, just be the amazing kid I know you are, and they’ll accept you more than you think,” His dad replied. His heart was beating hard as he said this—he was almost as nervous about the school as Zane was. But things had to be better there than when he was a kid right? A part of him was sick at the thought that Zane could be walking into all the things he had seen twenty years ago in that same building. “Alright, kiddo, looks like it’s time to head out. No more time to worry about it now.” Neither of them spoke as Zane's dad drove, so he turned up the radio to drown out the silence. As he pulled up to Salem High, the two of them watched the students streaming into the building.

“I don’t recognize anyone,” Zane said softly. He sat with his back‐ pack clutched for dear life in his lap. His dad felt a pain in his chest just from seeing the boy so gripped with terror. He placed his massive, calloused hands over his son’s. They had been delicately scrubbed of paint.

“You’re braver than anyone realizes. If you need anything, anything at all, you just need to call me. But right now, is the time for you to show that you’ve got what it takes to stand up to something that scares you.” Zane inhaled deeply and opened the door.

“Thank you,” he said, and left the car. Through the crowd he walked towards the front door of the school with his chin up and his shoulders straight. He had the feeling that everyone could see that his heavy pulse shook him from the inside out. But, like a mantra, he kept muttering to himself that they don’t know you. They don’t know you. For now, all they saw was a kid who looked fairly, yet falsely, confident and was dressed stylishly. Zane had carefully picked out a black turtleneck and skinny jeans with combat boots. Casual, yet compelling with a little bit of a hard edge, at least Zane hoped so. By the front doors of the school was a group of jocks in jackets covered in the logo of the Salem High basketball team. They seemed engrossed in their own conversation but as Zane approached one of them seemed to glance at him out of the corner of his eye. Fearing the worst, Zane quickened his pace and threw himself through the door before any of them said anything. As he hurried down the hall, he tossed a peek over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him but the older boys stayed outside. Once he had been settled into home‐ room, Zane found that there was less to worry about. He could focus on getting to his classes on time and listening to his teachers—there was hardly any time to think about socializing with kids he didn’t know. But then the bell rang for lunch and the anxiety returned. Zane’s hands were sweaty and shaking as he clutched the piece of paper with his locker combination. He fumbled the numbers of the circular lock several times before finally the metal door popped open. But, as if he’d opened an outside door during the winter, a cold gust of wind blew right through him. He shivered, swearing for a moment that he saw his own breath. Sticking his head in the locker in search of some explanation all Zane found, in the corner of the cramped compartment, was a small black graffito: K.S. was here. Zane wondered what K.S. was up to nowadays, whoever he was, as he dropped his books into the locker. His concentration broke when he heard singing echo suddenly in the hall. He was not familiar with the tune, but the voice was angelic. It hovered over the entire hallway, yet everyone went on talking and laughing as if the beautiful song wasn’t looming in the air. Zane looked all around for the source, but instead came face to face with the gray eyes of an older boy standing uncomfortably close beside him.

“Hey there, new kid,” he said.

“Where’d you come from?” Zane asked. “You startled me.” The boy only chuckled in response.

“Your name’s Zane?”

“Yeah, uh, how’d you know?” The mysterious grey eyed boy gave another chuckle. “I know everyone here. You will see that soon. Hope you have a good day. Until next time.” He extended his hand and Zane clasped it, withdrawing almost immediately when a chill shot through his body. The handshake was like touching an iceberg. And before Zane could comment, the boy was already strutting down the hallway, into the sea of kids going to lunch. Suddenly Zane could feel hundreds of eyes on him. He looked around the hallway, everyone was staring at him. Whispers rippled from classmate to classmate.

“Who's the weirdo talking to?” And then, like a tidal wave breaking, there was a boisterous flurry of laughing.

“Yo why you talking to yourself,” a voice called out from the roaring crowd.

“I’m not talking to myself!” Zane attempted to yell over them.

“I was talking to him!” Zane tried to find the gray eyed boy again, but the hall was full of kids he didn’t recognize. The boy had disappeared into the sea of ridiculing faces. Zane tried to shout at them to stop but no one heard, they just kept laughing. Zane marched to lunch humiliated and frustrated. Halfway through the day and he was already the laughingstock of the school and for no reason. He plopped down at an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria and chomped down his tuna fish sandwich as quickly as he could. He wanted to have as much time as possible to draw. Wiping his hands off, he pulled out his notebook and began spreading lines over the page. Before long a snarling witch began to form. Over his shoulder, he could feel the presence of another person’s eyes, but he didn’t look back out of fear he would receive more unwanted attention.

“You’re pretty good,” said a deep, quiet voice. Warily, Zane turned. It was the jock he thought had looked at him as he walked through the door that morning. Zane just stared blankly at him.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I just saw you were here by yourself and wanted to see if you were okay.” Zane gave a reluctant smile. The jock just pitied him.

“I’m fine, yeah. I don’t mind being alone.”

“Well, I’m Lucas Santiago. What’s your name?”

“Zane Gardner.” Lucas grinned and looked him up and down.

“I saw what happened in the hallway earlier and wanted to make sure you were good.”

“Really?” Zane said, way too eagerly, he realized too late.

“I mean, yeah, I don’t even know what everyone was laughing at. Didn’t you see the kid I was talking to?” Lucas’s brow furrowed.

“Sorry, dude. Maybe I missed him. What did he look like? Is he in the cafeteria?” Zane glanced around the room but didn’t see him.

“He was a little taller than me, African American, slender, handsome.” “Handsome?” laughed Lucas. Again, Zane wished he could’ve swallowed his words. “I mean, good looking in, like, an objective way. And he had gray eyes.” He stopped talking when he felt Lucas’s leg brush lightly against his back. The contact was so slight, yet at once his heart was racing. His eyes darted up to Lucas’s face, taking in his bronze Latino complexion, his dramatic jaw line, thick black hair, and his deep brown eyes that were currently locked on his. But their stare didn’t last long. All too quickly the bell rang, and everyone began their migration back to class.

“We’ll have lunch together tomorrow,” Lucas said over the shuffle of movement. “Is that alright with you?”

“Sure,” said Zane, and before he knew it, he was in the crowd leaving the cafeteria, again wondering whether he had been imaging the whole thing. At the end of the day, Zane was happy to exit the building. His introduction to high school had been such a whirlwind of emotion and now he just wanted to leave it behind and enjoy the warm fall day. It was nice enough weather to walk the fifteen minutes back home. And then he could paint and draw all these emotions out of his system. His art always made him feel safer. But as he crossed the street, that sensation of being watched returned. Just like in the cafeteria he could feel someone watching him. On the front steps of the school the gray-eyed boy was looking at him. Their eyes connected for a second and Zane noticed how his gray irises sparkled in the light. Zane could not put his finger on it but there was something off about this boy. It was the way he stared at him. But then quickly Zane looked down and sped up his walk home. The boy's stare was beginning to make him uncomfortable. As if he was staring into his soul. Zane knew he wouldn’t be able to fully relax until his front door was safely shut behind him. Soon enough he had that relief. Slinging his bag to the floor as he shut the house door behind him, Zane found his dad lounging on the couch with a beer watching television.

“Hey, little one. How was your first day at school?” Zane plopped down next to his dad. “Not as bad as I thought,” the teen confessed.

"Though some‐ thing weird happened.” Zane's dad turned away from the TV to look at his son. The beer can shook slightly in his hand.

“Do the initials K.S. mean anything to you?” Zane asked. His dad stared with wide eyes, his heart nearly skipping a beat before he regained his composure. “Nothing comes to mind. Why do you ask?” he replied.

“Just wondering if you knew anyone from back in your day. I got locker number 701 and it had those initials written in it.” Still his dad wasn’t saying anything. He was just staring blankly at the door.

“Dad?” Zane said, touching his father’s elbow gently.

“Oh, sorry, son. Just trying to see if I remember. I think it’s too long ago, though. But let’s talk over dinner. Get washed up because the pizza’s going to be here soon.” Zane went to his room and his dad shook himself. Get it together, he thought, it was twenty years ago. Time to move on. But the words he told himself seemed to have no effect. Suddenly there was a loud tap at the window and he almost jumped out of his skin. Slowly he inched forward to inspect it. On the windowpane was a patch of fog and scratched into it was one word: Kyle