I first met Lex when we were eight years old and I had lost one of my fingers. Helen, our foster mother, had gathered all four of us kids in the cramped kitchen and introduced him like he was the new family pet. 

“This is Alexander,” she told us, enunciating each syllable with unnecessary care. Her nails pressed into his shoulders as if he’d fly away were she to loosen her grip. Thinking about it now, he probably would have.

The other kids spared him only a distasteful glance, likely sick of meeting new children. But I, after four months surrounded by teenagers, was ecstatic to meet someone my own age. 

His long, dark hair fell into his face, which sported scars the way others did freckles. His nose leaned carelessly to the left. He was taller than me and a bit lanky, but I could tell he was stronger than I was. He’d probably help the other kids trap me in the closet or hold me back while they put my room in a disarray.

“Alexander,” Helen continued, voice sharp as her fingernails, “you will be sharing a room with Kitt.” She pointed a claw in my direction. “He’ll show you around.” 

I couldn’t say I was surprised she’d forfeited that responsibility. Four months ago, I’d had to get to know the creaks of the hardwood floors and the peeling toad-skin walls by myself.

I waved a bandaged hand at Lex. He waved back.

***

“The hell happened to your hand?” was the first thing he ever said to me.

I remember trying not to look surprised. Kids my age weren’t supposed to use that word—Helen had told me so herself.

“Tommy—the one with the mohawk—slammed a door on it this morning,” I told him, leading him to my—our—room. “The doctor couldn’t reattach it. Now I have nine fingers.”

Lex threw his backpack onto his bed; Helen must’ve put it there during breakfast. There had hardly been enough space for my own bed to begin with; only the smallest nightstand would separate us.

“Can I see it?” he asked. He hadn’t even looked around, not that there was much to look at besides my comic book collection displayed on a lone shelf next to my dismembered action figures.

I took a step back. “See what?”

Lex closed the distance. “Your finger, genius.”

I pulled my hand to my chest. I didn’t want to show him, but I couldn’t think of an explanation that wouldn’t paint me as a coward—he’d make fun of me. Tongue between my teeth, I unwound the bandages from my hand.

The stench of alcohol hit my nose before the bandage was even undone. My ring finger was now a stump, the mix of purple bruising, dried blood, and green I-didn’t-know-what making it look moldy, like it’d been out of the fridge too long. Dull throbs pulsed up my arm.

Lex’s eyes lit up. “Damn. That is so gross.”

I tried not to look offended. “I guess.”

He met my wandering glance and held out his hand. “Alexander Way.”

I stared at it for a few seconds—what kid greets another with a handshake?—before taking it. His hand was cold and firm; mine was clammy and flimsy. “I’m Kitt Will.”

***

We didn’t speak again until that night, hours after Helen had yelled “Lights out!” At the home, “lights out” meant lights out. Every source of illumination was turned off, put out, or covered up. I used to think I’d just entered the void, Hell without the fire, a colourless purgatory. Drowning in vile familiarity, I found myself under my old bed at my mother’s condo, the scratchy, dust-bunny-infested carpet poking at my chin. My mother’s footsteps were as light as those of the ballerina she used to be, but I knew she was coming, for I had no trouble making out the crack of the gold-lined belt on her palm. I could hear the tick tick ticking of her kitty-clock, its tail swishing from side to side as it taunted me: Scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat, scaredy-cat. 

Pain slicing up my arm slammed me back to Helen’s house, back to silent obscurity. I’d been pressing into my wounded finger. The bandage leaked red; I’d change it in the morning.

I pulled the flattened quilt over my face, leaving just enough room for my eyes. The darkness prevented me from seeing much, but I couldn’t help searching around for . . . What did I search for? Monsters, Tommy, a moving shadow, whatever the hell I feared that day.

“You scared, Will?”

I jumped. I’d forgotten Lex was there, that we were roommates now, that he existed.

“I’m not scared,” I muttered.

“Ha. That’s what my Pa said right before he stuck a nine-millimeter in his mouth.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t even tell if he was being serious. (I’d later find out that he was. According to Lex, the police couldn’t point out the blood and brains from the red of the barn walls.)

He rustled underneath the covers. “It’s okay. We can be scared together.”

***

I’d never stolen anything in my life, not until I’d met Lex. Three months into knowing each other, we were still only friends by proximity. 

I recalled, during my first week at the home, I’d overheard Tommy say he kept a jar of candy stashed under his mattress, though I’d never had any interest in it. (My mother had loved candy, though. She’d always carried a stash of pink Starbursts in the largest pocket of her faded leather purse. Her breath had reeked of artificial strawberries and menthol.) I only wanted to get the candy for Lex—I thought he might like them, might like me for getting them for him. 

Tommy was out playing soccer with the other kids when I tiptoed into his room. I stuck my hand under the mattress of his bed and grazed around crumbs and lint until I hit something. I pulled out the jar, feeling victorious, though I didn’t understand why it was filled with white powder and not the colourfully wrapped treats I’d imagined.

The jar slipped from my grasp when I saw Tommy and the others outside his door. He snatched my arm and pinned me against the wall. He wouldn’t stop screaming. His hot breath scorched my face, his spit cooling me off again.

Lex appeared from the corner of my eye, and the blood roared in my ears. His fists were clenched, and I knew he was going to join in, get the first swing, I just knew it. He stepped forward and I braced myself, but I refused to shut my eyes. He wouldn’t get to see me scared again. 

I nearly choked on my gasp as Lex ran at Tommy and shoved him backwards. Lex’s eyes burned with rage, baring his teeth as would an animal marking its territory. I remained glued to the wall as Tommy struck Lex in retaliation. Helen arrived before either boy could make another move, tugging Tommy away from Lex by his ear. That was the most she’d ever do.

Tommy swatted her hand away and gave me and Lex one last sneer. “Looks like where there’s a Will, there’s a Way, huh?”

***

“Damn, it hurts,” Lex complained once we were safe in our room. His face was already bruising, and it was disgusting, even worse than my hand. It highlighted his cheekbone, not in the handsome way one would expect, but more like a fat purple insect had nestled between the bone.

I handed him the pack of ice I kept hidden in the freezer—I’d had to sneak into the kitchen to get it. (The last time I’d gone in there between meals, Helen had made me scrub the floors for a week. My joints had been left as stiff as the Tin Man’s.) 

“It helps to think of something else,” I said, “something good, like the sun or ice cream. You’ll get used to it eventually.”

He tapped his cheek with the ice and winced. “What if I don’t wanna get used to it?”

I shrugged. “You’ll get used to it, anyway.”

***

I officially decided Lex was my best friend when we were nine years old, specifically the day of the “Roof Debacle” (that’s what he liked to call it). Lex had figured out a way onto the roof thanks to some old crates and loose bricks and dragged me up there with him. (I say “dragged,” though, by then, I would have followed him anywhere.)

The raging wind sent his hair flying in all directions, though he never flinched. I ran my thumb over the stump of my finger as I scanned the horizon: our bus stop, the old train tracks where we played during the weekends, the fancy bakery Helen took us to on birthdays. Lex and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder as he pointed out strangers on Saints Boulevard and gave them backstories (“She’s a giraffe surgeon!”, “He eats human flesh!”). We were gods staring down at a doll-sized world, one that was insignificant to us, yet we took pride in calling ours. 

“I used t’do this all the time at the farmhouse,” Lex said, grin reaching his elfish ears as he took a step forward. His scuffed running shoes grazed the gutter, a dancer in pre-performance.

I’d hardly heard him over the wind hammering my eardrums—or was that my heartbeat? “Do wha—”

Before the scream could reach my throat, Lex threw himself off the roof, screeching in delight. My eyes followed him all the way down, anticipating the journey to end with him flattened and broken on the dead grass. 

But he landed. He made contact with solid ground, somersaulted, and ended up on his feet, a professional merely practicing his craft. He cackled madly, motioning me to come down and join him (“It’s just like flying!”) to which I responded with a clumsy selection of nos tumbling off my twisted tongue. 

Lex laughed; the sound was like a harmonica being played after having collected dust for ten years. He smiled at me, his crooked teeth glinting in the sun, and my hands and knees steadied.

“Go on, Will,” he said, scraped arms out to catch me. “I’ve got you.”

It was then that I realized Lex cared about me, maybe even loved me, as friends do. I wasn’t going to let that go, not if I could help it. Where there was a will, there was a way, and I wasn’t about to lose mine.

I jumped. I flew. I broke my arm.

But I’d jumped. I’d flown.

***

“What d’you wanna be when you grow up?”

We were eleven years old then, my arm long healed—not without a commemorative scar tracing my elbow—lying outside on the wet grass. The rain pelted us all over, but we refused to be pushed around. 

My mother had asked me that question once. Of course, that was before—when she would still prance around the condo in her wearied slippers, red hair cascading in flames around her shoulders as she’d lift me up and spin us around. I’d probably responded with the same deranged fantasy all kids tell their parents when they’re too innocent to understand the weight of their words—that I wanted to be just like her.

Gazing at the ashy ripples of cloud, I told Lex I wanted to be a pilot. I wanted to fly the biggest plane on earth with red stripes and take it wherever I wanted—China, India, outer space—whenever I wanted. 

Just like the plane from the air show we snuck out to see last year, I didn’t say. Remember how they coloured our blue world with white swirls? Remember how you couldn’t stop smiling, even after Helen nearly skinned us alive when she found out?

“You’ll be my co-pilot,” I said.

He laughed; his soggy hair hugged his face. “What if I wanna be somethin’ else?”

I shifted onto my side so I could look at him. “Like what?”

His eyes remained fixed on the sky. He shrugged.

***

Four days after Lex turned thirteen, we got news that he was going to be adopted. He was happier than I’d ever seen him, whistling “You are my Sunshine” all around the house.

I did everything I could to get him to stay: I offered him my allowance ($3.23); I drew on the walls and smashed a lamp and blamed it on him (after Helen scolded him, he didn’t talk to me for two days); I asked Tommy to give him a good beating so the couple wouldn’t want him anymore (the only reason he didn’t do it was because I only had $3.23 to give in return). I don’t think it mattered what I did; Lex never let anything get in his way.

“Looks like this is it,” he said on his last day. He had a suitcase beside him, though what was in it, I never knew. Nothing in his life had ever been worth keeping.

“I guess,” I muttered. I was out of tricks. The couple—his new family, his new people, his new adventure—was waiting in a shiny truck outside the door. If Lex’s overgrown hair and scar-painted face didn’t bother them, nothing would. 

Helen and all us kids hovered by the door. For them, it was a formality. For me, it was a final glance at the salvation I’d found before I was thrown back into damnation. 

Lex said goodbye to me last. His skin had always smelled like burnt bread, though then it was masked underneath lavender soap and berry lotion. His hair fell into his eyes, but I could see them smiling with his teeth. I wanted to punch him. I could’ve set his nose straight. 

Before I could act on anything, he wrapped his arms around me, and I was drowning. Tides of darkness swallowed me whole and dragged me under to where the only thing I could hear was the tick tick ticking harmonizing with the footsteps of my reckoning. 

“You’re okay, Will,” Lex whispered, squeezing me a final time. 

Grin etched onto his face, he slipped out the door as a silhouette melts into the shade—smoothly, effortlessly, as if it was never meant to be in the sun to begin with. I would have followed him, but Helen’s talons held me in place.

Turn around, I begged, believing we had developed a kind of telepathy. Don’t go.

I must’ve been trembling or whimpering or something because Tommy shoved my shoulder. “Looks like someone’s lost his Way,” he snickered. 

I remember scrunching my face trying not to cry. I remember it didn’t work.

I broke free of Helen’s grasp. I wiped the snot and tears from my face as I ran up the stairs, jumping two at a time. My foot snagged on the last one, sending me face-first into the floor. Laughs tailed me the entire way up.

My mattress wailed as I thrust myself onto my bed and buried myself under the covers. Lex’s bed was still next to mine, though it wasn’t Lex’s anymore, was it? It’d be gone in a few days. 

I’d have to take the school bus alone. Nobody would sit next to me during dinner and steal the peas right off my plate, though it would be okay because I hated peas. The train tracks would be muddled by me and me alone. No one would compare their bruises with mine, give them names or bet on what colour they’d turn. If I jumped off the roof, nobody would be waiting for me below.

I rubbed the stump of my finger. “I’m not scared,” I whispered.

Nobody cared to say otherwise.