Trick

A lonely teenager falls in love with the cruelest kid in school.

The first time Theo saw Miles do the trick, it was like watching someone fold a corner of the universe inside out for no good reason. They were at Sam Hirsch’s post-homecoming thing and Miles was standing by the fireplace, a quarter resting on his knuckles. He rolled it across the back of his hand, index to middle to ring to pinky, smooth as oil, then back the other way. The coin walked. It shouldn’t have. Coins don’t walk. But this one did, flipping and turning, never falling. Then he closed his fist. The coin vanished. Not hidden. Gone. He opened his hand. Empty. He smiled.

How? Theo said.
Miles looked at him like he’d just noticed a small, damp dog had wandered into the room. Practice, he responded.
Theo didn’t breathe for three seconds. Then Miles walked away.
That was it. That was the hook.

Theo was not a natural climber of social ladders. He was the kind of sixteen-year-old whose posture suggested he was already apologizing for the space he occupied. But something about that trick, the casual contempt for physics, the way Miles had dismissed him, made Theo decide that he would, somehow, become absolutely necessary to Miles Gallagher.

He started small. Complimented Miles’s shoes (black Vans, completely unremarkable). Laughed at his jokes a half-second too late. Showed up at the picnic table where Miles and his lieutenants-a doughy, sly kid named Parker and a terrifyingly serene girl named Jules-ate lunch. Mind if I sit? Theo asked for six days straight. On day seven, Parker said, You’re already sitting, dude. You’ve been sitting. We don’t care. Theo fell asleep that night smiling ear to ear. He was in.

From there, things accelerated with the gentle logic of a car rolling downhill without brakes. Hey Theo, can you hold my backpack, became Hey Theo, hold my backpack became You. Come here, or sometimes, Fetch in a flat voice, and Theo would jog over. It was funny. People laughed. Theo laughed hardest. One afternoon, Parker made Theo stand against the wall of the 7-Eleven parking lot while Parker and Miles took turns trying to bounce a tennis ball off his head into a trash can. Theo missed two hours of pre-calc. He got a 73 on the quiz the next day. He told himself the bruise behind his ear was a badge of membership.

The drug thing was almost incidental. Miles’s older brother had a guy who had a guy, and suddenly Miles had a backpack full of vape carts, mid-grade flower, and pressed Xanax bars that said “XANAX” on them but definitely weren’t pharmaceutical. Theo’s job was simple: carry the backpack. Not sell. Just carry.
You’re just some guy, Miles explained, not unkindly. Cops see you, they see a depressed curtain. It’s a gift.
Theo felt a warm blossoming in his chest. A gift.

The conflicts arrived shortly. A kid named Devon accused Miles of shorting him on eight tabs of acid. Devon showed up at Parker’s apartment with a box cutter and a weirdly calm demeanor. Theo was there because he was always there. Miles said, Theo, handle this. Theo did not handle it. He stood there while Devon screamed, then Devon left, and Miles said, Jesus, Theo, you’re useless, but he said it smiling, and that night they all got high on Miles’s couch and watched RoboCop, and Theo fell asleep with his head against Jules’s shoulder. She didn’t push him off. He considered this the best night of his life.

The humiliations got stranger. Miles made Theo wear a pink trucker hat that said “I <3 COCK” in iron-on letters as an experiment. Theo wore it for three days. A teacher finally asked him to turn it inside out. He did, but only because Miles wasn’t there to see. Another time, Miles bet Theo twenty dollars he could drink a full glass of milk that had been sitting in Parker’s hot car for a week. Theo drank half. He threw up in Parker’s mom’s hydrangeas. Miles gave him the twenty anyway and patted his back hard enough to leave a handprint.

The end came from the least dramatic place possible: a girl named Rachel. She’d been Miles’s on-and-off thing for months. At a party, she found Theo by the chips and told him, quietly, that Miles had been telling people Theo was like a pet he didn’t even want but felt bad for. Theo nodded. His face trembled a little. Okay, he said. Rachel touched his arm, just once, quickly, and walked off. Theo stood there a moment, then went outside and sat on the curb for forty minutes staring off into the distance (which was probably worse than crying.)

Things came to a head one night in Miles’s bedroom at 1:47 AM. There’s been a fight, something about a missing hundred dollars or so from the backpack. Theo didn’t take it, but Miles is half-convinced he did, or maybe he knows Theo didn’t and just wants to see his face crumble.
I never took anything from you, Theo says.
Miles stops. Looks at him. Surprised, almost-like Theo just said something in a language Miles didn’t know he spoke. He takes a step closer. I forgot, he says quietly. It couldn’t be you. You’re incapable of doing anything. You just stand there with your dumb face and your sad little puppy dog eyes, waiting for me to laugh. But you can’t actually do shit.

Theo doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

That so? He says, his voice shaking.
Miles laughs. You are nothing to me but entertainment. he says. Like a dog. Like a sad. Little. Dog. That’s all you are.

Theo turns and walks out. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t slam the door. He just walks and doesn’t look back. Behind him, Miles calls out, voice cracking, Fetch, Theo! Fetch! Good boy!!
Theo walks down the stairs and out the front door. He drives home in his moms Corolla, brushes his teeth and lies in bed.
And then, Theo has a dream.

In the dream, he’s back at the high school party where they first met. Same carpet. Same smell. Miles is by the fireplace, but something’s different. He is wearing a long purple dress and his hair is longer, tucked behind one ear. His wrists are narrower, his hips wider. He smiles, tired and full of warmth.

Miles holds up his hand. A quarter rests on his knuckles. He rolls it-index to middle to ring to pinky and back. The coin walks. He closes his fist and opens it. Empty. But between his ring and middle finger, a blue butterfly unfolds its wings and flutters onto Theo’s shoulder, gently.

I wanted to show you something beautiful, he says.

Theo looks at the butterfly. He looks back at Miles. His smile has faltered. Just a little. The corners of his mouth are still turned up, but his eyes have gone somewhere else, distant and sorrowful.

Why? Theo asks.

Miles looks down at his hands. When he looks back up, his voice is quiet.

Because you’re leaving.

Theo wakes up.