Page 68 of Dark Little Game
Weston noticed, even when he was a kid, that I hadn’t gotten new shoes in way too long. My feet were still growing at the time, and one day, Wes showed up to school with a pristine shoebox with new ones inside.
A gift for me, for no reason.
Other than the fact that even as a twelve-year-old, Weston had access to more money than most adults ever do.
My heart goes heavy in my chest, thinking about what I found out in the computer lab earlier.
Honesty before everything.
Weston should know.
I want to say something about what I discovered.
I want to tell him that Hunter had ties to a fucking mafia family in London, because I usually tell Weston everything.
But every time I think I’m about to say it, I stop myself.
I don’t know why.
“Air’s starting to get chilly,” I say to him.
I’m next to my best friend in the world and now all I can talk about is the weather.
“I like it cold.”
I hum. “I don’t mind it, either.”
“Yeah. I know. I’ve watched you pelt people with snowballs enough to know you’re a pretty big fan of the colder season.”
I snort.
For a while, we lapse back into an unusual silence.Usually Weston and I never shut up when we’re together. The sound of the quad fills the space, and I listen to the snippets of conversation from other students walking by. A bird’scaw-caw, in some tree up above.
But there’s a question rattling around in me.
One that’s been growing with every passing day this year.
“Wes,” I finally say, focusing my eyes across the quad, looking at the old stone Economics building rather than looking over at him.
“Yeah?”
“Why weren’t you ever close with your brother?”
It feels weird asking. Even as a kid, I stayed out of whatever went on between them.
I was willing to throw punches for Weston, but we didn’t usually broach emotional subjects.
“You’ve met Hunter. Isn’t it obvious?” Weston says.
“I know he’s… intense.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Weston’s silent again for a while, and I can’t help but think of what Hunter said to me the other day.
You accept my brother’s condescending bullshit for a lifetime.
I’d never thought of Weston as condescending at all, but it was true that I had always gone along with him, rather than the other way around.
