“What, Hunter? You can tell me.” I lower my head so I can look at him. Only peeking a few times, he’s hesitant to look back at me. After a while, he lets out a huge breath and opens his mouth. “I think I have a learning disability. Trouble with remembering …”
My mouth drops open. I don’t know what to say, but I linger on the words ‘I think,’ which he said.
“Are you sure?” I say.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he says, sighing. “I just can’t prove it. That’s why I can’t use it as an excuse.”
“But how do you know then?”
He frowns. “I’m not really in the mood to tell my entire history, all right?”
I bite my lip. “Sorry … I didn’t mean to be so pushy. I just …”
“I know …” he says. “You want to help me. You think it’s pitiful, and that’s exactly why I do not tell anyone. Ever.”
I swallow. I can’t believe he’s telling me this.
However, I feel flattered. It sounds like something you’d keep to yourself. Especially in college.
I understand what he means, though. I hate it when people do the same to me. Feel sorry for me because I’ve been teased. And then they want to help me like they can magically make all the hurt disappear.
It’s more of an insult to the injury, really.
So I won’t do that to him. I refuse to be like that. I will not make him feel bad for having this condition by feeling sorry for him.
“I don’t think it’s pitiful. It doesn’t make you weak. You have to work twice as hard as anyone else to memorize the same material,” I say, smiling. “The only thing it does is make you more powerful, because you have to overcome this and become stronger in order to survive.”
It’s quiet for a few seconds. Then he opens his mouth. “Thanks.”
The smile he flashes back at me makes me blush so much I feel too embarrassed to look at him. Turning my head, I notice a framed photograph standing on his desk. It’s a guy with the same hair, only much longer. He looks older than Hunter, but they share so many features, I wonder if they’re related.
Before I realize it, I’ve already leaned forward and grabbed the photo.
My fingers drift over the face that looks so recognizable, even though I’ve never seen it before. Must be …
“My brother, Jessie,” Hunter says, his voice switching in tone.
“You two really look alike.”
Hunter chortles. “You’re not the first to say that.”
“He looks nice.”
He muffles a pathetic laugh. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew him.”
“Why not? Does he fight everyone he meets, too?” I say, putting the frame back on his desk.
He squints, carefully assessing my movements as if he’s not too sure what to say. Or not too sure if he can trust me.
“Something like that.”
“Worse?”
“Way, way worse.”
I purse my lips and nod in bewilderment.
“He’s in jail.”
And now my jaw drops, too.
“I told you I’d love to trade my life with someone else,” he says.
“But I thought you said you had to save your brother, Jessie?”
“Yes, I have to get him out of jail.” He frowns and cracks his knuckles. “But it’s fucking difficult to get it done, and it’s fucking hard to deal with right now.”
“Wow … What did he do?” I say, too curious not to ask. I shouldn’t actually be surprised about this, considering Hunter’s shady behavior, but I am.
“Does it matter? I just want to get him out of there as fast as possible. You don’t know how terrible it is in there.” He gets up from the bed and starts pacing around.
“But … if he’s in there, he’s safe, right?”
Now his nostrils start flaring again, and I’m feeling antsy already. Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.
“No. Life in prison is hard. Especially if you don’t deserve it.” He’s breathing quite loudly now.
Suddenly a roar comes from his mouth. “Fuck! He’s my fucking big brother, and he’s fucking locked up with murderers just because he tried to take care of me.”
His fists are so tensed up he’s holding them up in the air. And then he slams them into the wall.
“Don’t!” I say, and I almost come up from the bed until I see the vicious look on his face.
“Goddammit!” he screams, and he smashes his hands into the wall a couple more times. “It’s so hard without him. I just can’t …”
When he finally calms down, his body rests against the wall, and he sinks down to the floor after a while.