Matters of Circumstance Read online

  Well, either this guy and Ruby were scheming together or he was legit. Knowing Ruby, if they were she probably wouldn’t remember to act her part properly. Farrah wasn’t worth scheming over, though, so what reason could they possibly have?

  “Yeah, a little bit,” she admitted, sitting on the edge of her bed and ignoring how the jostling hurt her back. It had felt strangely sticky all day, too, but she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell too long on the notion. “So why are you trying so hard to talk to me?”

  “I told you, I can see that you’re in pain.”

  Okay, never mind. This guy was a creep. She was backtracking now. “Um, excuse me? I’m not sure I—”

  “I know it’s rude for me to interrupt and all that jazz, but I’d like to point out that lying isn’t very cool, either.”

  “Erm, beg pardon?” He couldn’t really—it was impossible that he would know, right?

  He laughed, sudden and inexplicable and bizarrely genuine. “Wow, I can’t believe you just said that. Seriously, who talks like that anymore? It’s 2009, not 1912.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I think you’ve got the wrong—”

  “I went through the same thing you’re going through. I know what it’s like, and it sucked being alone,” he said with a solemnity she didn’t think she had ever heard before. What a contrast to the chortling voice he had just used. “That’s why I’m calling, because nobody should have to feel like they’re the only freak around. They haven’t hatched yet, right?”

  What he said made Farrah’s blood run really, really cold. She had to get off the phone now.

  “Wait, what? I’m sorry, I really don’t think—”

  “My name really is Neal. It’s okay to use it.”

  “Okay, Neal.” Farrah was shocked and frustrated and in no mood to be playing games, but the fact that he wasn’t treating it like a joke scared her. In fact, this Neal guy seemed even more serious than she was.

  But it was so impossible! How could he really know what was going on with her?

  “Could you please stop speaking in code on me? I still don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Yeah, you do. You just don’t believe it,” he said flatly.

  “Believe what?”

  “The lumps of pain and suffering? All egg-like and superheated, on your back right between the shoulders for absolutely no apparent reason? I had them too, and they suck. I know what you’re going through right now.”

  She wanted to believe that. Sweet gods above, she wanted so much to know that she wasn’t alone. Without much reason, Farrah’s eyes heated.

  “How do you know you’re right?” she whispered.

  “You started wearing hoodies when you’re so popular that everybody knows you prefer not to, you’re always stretching and rolling your shoulders, you aren’t accepting hugs anymore, you look pale and drawn, wince when you sit down, you walk like there’s a stick up your ass—people talk about you, Farrah. Word gets around.” He said this all so calmly, so point-blank, she could have been some nameless subject in a research project.

  “And how do you know that any of that points to my back?” she wanted to know. “Maybe I’m just stressed out.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself? If I hadn’t guessed right you wouldn’t be so defensive right now.”

  He had a point, she was just… afraid of what it might symbolize if she admitted to it.

  She was pinned down, though. That was the problem. He was so, so right about her and she didn’t want to go through this alone if she didn’t have to. If there was even a chance…

  Farrah closed her eyes and braced herself, then said, “So what if I do have them? What can you do about it?”

  Neal’s voice immediately became gentler. “Kindred spirit? I can tell you that they’re not going to stay like that for long, and it’ll be less painful after that. I can show you what they’ll look like in the end, if you want. I can listen if you have worries about it all—you know, it can get pretty scary, having these things.” Then he seemed to catch himself again, and she thought she heard a sigh. “All I’m trying to say is that you’re not alone. That’s it.”

  She didn’t want to know, she told herself. She didn’t want to know at all.

  What he had just said was disarmingly sincere. She wanted to curl up and take comfort in him. Farrah didn’t confide in anybody—there had never been a need—but she wanted to talk to him, this boy she barely knew the name of. What was all that supposed to mean?

  It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to know.

  “W-what happens next?” she found herself asking anyway.

  “It’s not pretty,” he said. “At least, it wasn’t for me. What happened was they cracked open—felt just like giant blisters, pus everywhere. It was gross, and it wouldn’t stop oozing for a while. When it finally did, and the shells went away… well, it’s hard to describe. You should probably see it for yourself.”

  “Wait, you can’t just leave it like that!” she cried, gripping her cell phone tightly, need for water all but forgotten. She was swept away despite herself. “What happens?”

  “It’ll be easier to talk when we’re face to face. Does meeting at your work sound okay? Or were you just there? I know it’s pretty late to be calling at all…”

  Farrah was too inquisitive to be numb, and too overwhelmed to be very emotional, but her better judgment was telling her to wait.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  The rest of her obviously wasn’t listening.

  “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen, tops. See you then.”

  “Yeah, see you.” She hung up and stared at her phone, stunned by her own behavior. Had she really just done that? Was she actually making plans to meet up with a guy she hadn’t even really met to discuss back lumps? This was stupid, reckless, ridiculous…

  And she was going, anyway. It would be rude for her not to, since she had already said she would meet up with him. She just needed to change out of her work polo and into something a little more comfortable, then—

  Her shirt was stuck to her back. It was soaked with…

  Oh shit. Pus.

  Some of it had dried the polo stiff, discolored around the edges and vaguely smelly. Farrah stared at her back in the mirror, feeling like she wanted to cry. This couldn’t be happening to her, couldn’t.

  It would, admittedly, explain why she was so thirsty. Her body had to be losing a lot of water to make this much pus.

  But sure enough, after going through the painstaking process of peeling the shirt off those granulomas of hers had very distinguished, weepy cracks. For the most part the liquid was clear, but some of it was milky and thick. It looked exactly like what Neal guy had described—what the hell was happening to her?

  She needed to see him, she decided. At any cost, she needed to talk to him and get some kind of explanation.

  The shirt she was fairly confident she could save via soak in the bathroom sink, and she knew her hoodie would survive, but her bra was probably ruined at this point. Since she didn’t want to ruin another, she kept it on even though it felt gross. Then she put on the crappiest shirt she owned and pulled her hoodie back on. The sweater sort of smelled like pus, too, but at this point she didn’t care. She left her jeans alone, disregarding the slight pus-stains on the waist. Hopefully that would come out in the wash, too.

  Then she drained the last of her water and two more glasses after that. Now that she knew why she was so thirsty, the feeling of it was suddenly incredibly acute, and it was all she could do to satiate it.

  While Farrah took the bus to and from school, she did actually have a car. It was a Toyota Camry from the early 90’s—not glamorous in any sense, just functional, which was all she cared about. Neal arrived at Joe’s by foot about two minutes after she did. When he saw her he flashed a winning smile, except he might as well have been wearing a mask for all the good it did. Farrah was too busy slamming the car door shut and dashing to
meet him to notice anything apart from a person with answers.

  Her urgency seemed to take him aback. “What’s wrong? You look like you just found out you were adopted,” he said with a clear note of concern.

  “It’s happening,” she said, grabbing his elbows and holding them tightly in alarm. “It’s happening to me right now. They cracked, and…” she trailed off, more panicked than ever. It choked her, synching her voice and air into nonexistence. She didn’t know what to do, and now her eyes were heating up again, and…

  Neal gently pulled her hands away, simultaneously addressing her with a low, reassuring voice, “Hey, it’s alright. It’s not going to kill you. You’ll get through this just fine, okay Farrah? You just need to calm down a little—here, I know there’s a bathroom around here somewhere, we’ll see if we can get it all out right now. That’s it, just keep walking…”

  Farrah felt like a foolish little girl, but she complied when he spun her around and steered her towards the public bathrooms with his hands on the part of her shoulders that didn’t hurt. Maybe he couldn’t feel the deformity through all of her layers or because of where his hands were positioned, but it was a strangely comforting gesture nonetheless. She was a pus-dripping freak, but someone knew about it and wasn’t afraid of her.

  Even if he supposedly had the same condition, that still meant something.

  Most of the stores around Joe’s (including Joe’s) were closed at this hour, but since some still weren’t the bathrooms were still open. Neal steered her through the girl’s door without a trace of hesitation. For her part, Farrah had to thank her lucky stars that they were single-toilet.

  “You know, I never pegged you as the type to have mental breakdowns,” he said conversationally as he locked the door, yanked paper towels out of the dispenser and ran them under the automatic sink.

  “Neither did I.” Right now she really envied his cool, collected attitude.

  Neal acted like he hadn’t heard that and said briskly, “Alright, off with the shirt and sweater. We’ll work around the bra.”

  She narrowed her eyes at how easily he said this. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s because I have a penis, isn’t it?” Try as she might, Farrah couldn’t tell if he was serious or just trying to get a rise out of her. “Do you really think I’m going to do something when you’re hyperventilating and covered in pus?”

  Another very good point. She was disgusting and hysterical—even someone desperate would pass on her. Besides, Neal really didn’t seem like he was desperate. He was far too comfortable in his own skin, and way too sincere in the emotions that he expressed. He probably had a girlfriend.

  And if she rejected his help now he may never offer it again, so even though it was embarrassing…

  Farrah decided to let her dignity rest in pieces and just did what he asked. It hurt to get the sweater back over her head, and her fresh shirt was already so stuck to her that Neal had to help pull it off, but he handled the situation with professional integrity. When he saw her back all that came out of his mouth was a slightly smug, “See? The same exact thing happened to me—now try to hold still, these paper towels are probably going to feel like ice.”

  They did. Farrah tensed and gritted her teeth, refusing to move for anything.

  Well, that was until he started poking at those stupid granulomas, and then she cried out and whirled around. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snarled. “That hurt!”

  It was impressive that his eyes never left her face despite the fact that she was only wearing a bra. Not that her breasts were spectacular or anything, but weren’t boobs all the same to guys?

  She also had to respect the way he kept calm in the face of her fury. “Do you want me to help you or not? I’m trying to clean them out, and it’s going to hurt, but would you rather be leaking all over the place?”

  He said it the way a big brother might scold a bratty younger sibling, and it made her retract her metaphorical claws. Head bowed, Farrah turned around again. “Sorry. I guess it just surprised me.”

  “I guess so, too,” Neal said in a very different voice, one she couldn’t quite define. “Now I’m going to try again, so brace yourself. We’ll take a break when it gets to be too much, okay? Just tell me when.”

  She nodded and readied herself. “Okay.”

  The pain was… indescribable. It was white hot, brain-numbing, compounding, absolutely undeniable. ‘Stop it!’ all of her nerves were screaming. ‘Put an end to it right now!’

  And Farrah wanted to—oh, did she ever—but if she called for a break she knew she would never be able to voluntarily submit to this torture again. This way when it was over it would be final, and she had that to look forward to.

  “Okay, you’re done. It’s over,” Neal told her softly. “I don’t know how you managed to handle that in one fell swoop, but you did. You shouldn’t have to worry about getting pus over anything anymore—well, not much anyway.”

  Her brain registered this dialogue sluggishly, as if through a fog. Ever so slowly, she was becoming more aware of herself and her surroundings. Farrah didn’t know when she had started leaning against the sink, but her hands were braced on either side. Sweat was dripping down her face, she was breathing hard, her eyes were watery, and her whole body felt heavy and spent. She was flushed as if she had gotten sunburned, too, and she was beginning to feel the evening chill now, since she was only wearing her bra…

  God, this was so humiliating.

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, still staring at the sink. There was a hair coiled around the drain—was it hers? It was the right color, but she had her hair tied up…

  “No problem. Anything to help a kindred spirit, you know? It’s just a shame so many trees had to pay the price.”

  Was he talking about the paper towels? He was, wasn’t he? How weird.

  Neal bumped her bare arm with her hoodie. “Here, you should probably put these back on. They’re a little gross, but it’s better than nothing. I’m sure you’re tired of being half-naked by now.”

  Truth be told she had been in so much agony that she hadn’t noticed her state of dress. She took her clothes from him anyway. “Thanks again.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Just before putting her shirt on curiosity got the better of her. She turned around and looked at her back in the mirror above the sink. The skin around the granulomas was a much brighter red than the rest of her, and the cracks looked bigger and cleaner than before. Inside she saw something clear and somewhat shiny.

  Farrah made a face and reached over her shoulder to touch one. “What are those…?”

  Neal caught her wrist before she could make contact. “They’ll come out in a few days, but I’ve just been aggravating the hell out of them. If you touch them now you’re going to regret it.”

  She almost laughed, but she obeyed and pulled her clothes back on anyway. All of her humor disappeared when her shirt settled over her shoulders. It felt like fucking sandpaper being scraped across her skin. Tears were springing into her eyes again, and the pain was filling her like she was a coffee pot catching water from the tap.

  Eager for any sort of distraction, she looked at Neal intently. “So what are they?” she asked again, her voice raising an octave midway.

  He was kind enough to pretend like she had spoken normally, but when he opened his mouth no sound came out. He closed it, thought for a moment and then shrugged a little. When he started fiddling his own layers she understood.

  “Here, it’ll be easier to believe if I show you.” Neal pulled his shirt and sweater off in one clean movement and turned to show her his exposed back.

  He had wings.

  They weren’t feathery like a bird’s. Rather they were ugly and primitive, like a pterodactyl. There was only one bone along the top, and she could see how white it was—could see every joint and vein and muscle—through the smooth, lightly-freckled skin that encased it. Folded up, they were as long as his whole
torso. Farrah heard him grunt, and the right one unfurled faster than the left. Collapsed against him they didn’t look like much, but in actuality they went about ten feet across, sprawled panes of parenthetical bones and flesh curled up against the tiny bathroom’s walls. The skin gleamed dully in the bathroom light.

  Holy fucking shit, he had wings.

  With a loud sigh both wings folded against his back once more. As he tried to put both layers of clothing back over his head at the same time Neal’s voice was muffled, but she heard him all the same, “Kind of hard to hold them out there like that—I think it’s ‘cause they’re still only baby muscles, you know? They’d probably get stronger if I practiced.”

  That was what she was going to have? Right now, as she stood here, she was developing wings? She didn’t have a choice or a scientific explanation, this wasn’t a dream, and there was no reversing it?

  Could Farrah deny what she had seen? Or better yet, could she deny the wrinkled skin in those granulomas on her back had shone exactly like Neal’s? And he had predicted exactly what would happen to her, could she also deny that?

  She couldn’t. Farrah absolutely couldn’t deny a thing, and that complete and utter defeat was horrifying.

  Chapter 3

  “I think my goal is to have a hoodie for each day of the month,” said Neal conversationally. They were supposed to be at the mall with friends, but somehow—i.e.: Farrah knew it wasn’t a coincidence—it had ended up only being the two of them.

  “A hoodie for every day,” she repeated.

  He had her undivided attention, but he reached over and patted her arm anyway. “Don’t you think that would be funny? You’d look over and automatically know what day it is because of what I’m wearing! Be like, ‘oh look, it’s Neal. And check out his jacket—it must be the 7th.’ And they’ll all last forever since I’ll only wear them twelve times a year, even less for the last two days since some months don’t have. Isn’t that brilliant? I think it would be great!”

  They had been hanging out together a lot in the past week, thanks to their mutual condition. If everything else failed, at least they could talk about that—how hard it was to clean wings in the shower, how hard it was to sleep on their backs, why Farrah should or shouldn’t tell her parents, any number of such things. It usually didn’t go that far, though. With Neal there were always a million and one things to discuss.