Page 61 of Snake

Mason

I’m used to not hearing an answer when I knock on Trevyn’s door, so I go inside after the third rap. He’s in front of his computer, looking for all the world like a regular kid playing video games.

“That the new Call of Duty?” I ask him, standing behind him and watching him execute an enemy soldier with deadly efficacy. Let’s hope they don’t ever weaponize robots and send them to do battle on our behalf. If a kid as young as my brother can wipe out so many soldiers without taking damage, I can’t imagine how lethal an army of teenagers could be.

“Yeah,” Trevyn barely replies, his attention solely on his game.

“So have you thought about what I said?”

Trevyn quickly presses the escape key on his keyboard, swinging around in his chair and giving me the long-suffering stare I expect every year around about this time. “I’m not going to the stupid dance.”

I don’t care what anyone else thinks. My brother could have any girl he wants. Yes, his face isn’t exactly symmetrical, and when he gets into awkward social situations, he has a habit of clamming up. But just because the doctors diagnosed him with Thalassemia when he was a baby, doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the same life as anyone else.

In his younger days, things were touch and go. But these days, all he has to do is get a blood transfusion every three weeks, and he’s golden. Some injections, some supplements...he’s probably on less stuff than some of the diabetic, high cholesterol car crashes out there.

“But isn’t that girl you like going to be there?”I hazard. Trevyn rarely talks to me about relationships he may or may not be having. In fact, he hardly ever talks to me. He’s effectively shut out the world his entire life. I guess, for him, it’s just easier that way.

Trevyn’s long-suffering stare hardens into disinterest. “I don’t like girls.”

“...the boy that you like?” I venture with a lopsided smile.

He snorts, spins his chair back to face his computer, and waves me away. “You know I don’t do tuxes and dances and all that crap. That stuff’s for losers.”

“You calling me a loser?”

“If it quacks like a duck...”

I ruffle his hair and leave. He’s already started annihilating enemies again. He’d just get annoyed if I kept bugging him. Sometimes I think that the way my mother coddled him when he was younger left a lasting impression. Like maybe now he’s too scared to go out there—out into that “big bad world” she kept preaching about—but he’s too proud to admit it.

My phone rings as I’m halfway back to my bedroom. “Yeah?”

“You ready?” Knox asks in an impatient huff.

“For what?” I stop walking. “Wait, did you find her? Is she going to the dance with us?”

“Of course she’s fucking going. Even if I have to strip her down and dress her in that gown myself.” There’s a pause. “If she’ll let me.”

I swear, I can hear Knox swiping his hand through his hair.

I think he’s hung up until he says, “My sisters are coming with us.”

“Fuck, come on. Really? I don’t want to babysit—”

That’s when I realize he has hung up. Fucking coward. I almost send him a text, but think better of it.

I can’t wait to see Nim tonight. Not just to feast my eyes on her in a fancy dress, but to dance with her, to laugh with her…to flirt with her.

She said to leave her alone, but some things are completely out of our control.

Who the town votes in as the King and Queen of the dance, however…that’s not one of them. And we’ve made sure that, tonight, Nim Winters will be our Queen.

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