Make sure you pay attention to times and ages from here on out (the boys are gonna grow up pretty fast)
+++
Santiago joined Danny at lunch again the next day, despite his friends' protests. He didn't really know why. Just that he wanted to.
He had to do a bit of conversation pushing. He tried to bring up things he liked -- playing sports, Mario Kart, watching sports, Mac and Cheese, talking about sports -- to find common ground, but Danny seemed clueless when it came to Santiago's interests (except for Mac and Cheese, of course, but there wasn't much conversation to be had about that). It took a good deal of pushing and an accidental reference for Santiago to find something they had in common: they had both read and loved the Percy Jackson series. Danny's face brightened at the mention, and the pair quickly dove into the world of demigods and monsters.
They talked about it all through lunch and on the way to their classrooms. Santiago did most of the talking, but Danny listened attentively, and every once and a while he made his own little comments. Santiago noticed that he had nervous mannerisms: he fidgeted a lot, and tended to stutter whenever he did a good deal of talking. And he had this muted animation to him -- he seemed to subdue his own excitement, whether consciously or not, so that Santiago had to look at his eyes to know how he was feeling.
The day after that, Santiago sat outside once again. He was intrigued by his new acquaintance, and this time they talked about movies -- favorites and least favorites, whether the book was better, and a whole separate spiel about Disney (Santiago was obsessed with Tarzan). Danny hadn't seen a lot of Santiago's favorites, and they made a pact to watch them together sometime.
The next day, it was classes. Santiago liked Reading and PE and Art. Danny liked them all, except for PE.
Maybe Santiago was imagining it, but Danny seemed a little more talkative every day. He laughed more, too, and his smiles were a little less timid, like he was finally realizing that it was okay to show them. Though Danny was always softspoken, and always one to do more listening than speaking, Santiago never felt as if he was lugging the conversation on his back. But then, he might've just liked Danny's company.
"Wanna come to my house after school?" Santiago offered out of the blue on a particularly overcast day.
Danny looked surprised. He watched his hands for a moment, playing with his fingers. Then, "You want me to?"
"Duh," Santiago snorted. "That's why I asked. I mean, we're friends, right?"
Danny seemed even more astonished by this. "W-we are?"
Santiago gave a toothy grin. "Of course we are," he said. "And friends hang out, right?"
"I don't know."
Santiago's smile faltered when it finally struck him that Danny didn't have any friends. Not knowing what to say, Santiago did the first thing that came to his mind, holding out his bag of fruit snacks. When the other boy hesitated, he rolled his eyes.
"Take a gummy," he demanded. "And come over."
Danny blinked. ". . . Okay," he said tentatively. "And okay."
So when the school day ended, the pair of them met at the entrance and walked together (they tried to get onto Santiago's bus, but the driver didn't recognize Danny and sent him away) in the ever-gloomier weather to Santiago's big white house in the suburbs. Santiago found fun in trying to explain soccer to Danny — the latter just couldn't grasp how it worked, what the rules were, and why anyone cared.
"Who spends money to go watch people ruin their knees and eat dirt for ninety minutes?" he puzzled, and Santiago laughed; Danny didn't see why his statement was funny, but he felt a happy pride nonetheless.
At Santiago's house, the boys made Mac and Cheese and taught Santiago's dog Toro tricks and watched some of the movies Danny hadn't seen. Santiago's parents were working at the hospital, so Santiago made an absolute mess of everything, getting pasta and dog toys and DVD cases everywhere. Danny, being the perfectionist he was, always picked everything up and put it back where it belonged -- to his amazement, this made Santiago laugh every time. It was nice, and it was easy, and Danny wished he had known before that it was this fun to have friends, because then he might have tried harder to make some.
Then he remembered all of the times he had tried. And nobody had wanted to be friends with the annoyingly jumpy, weirdly reserved boy that sat at the back of the class and avoided eye contact.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Santiago asked, poking teasingly at Danny's frowning cheek. Danny leaned away instinctively, suddenly insecure, and Santiago raised his eyebrows. "Hey, really. What is it?"
"Why are you friends with me?" Danny asked.
Santiago pursed his lips. He stared at Danny, like he couldn't get where the question was coming from. "Because I like you," he said with a shrug, like it was the simplest thing in the world. He turned back to the movie, apparently deciding that that was reason enough, and Danny was left to ponder his answer.
He decided that he liked how simple it was. And he liked Santiago, too.
"Hey," Santiago said after the second movie; he kicked a pillow away from him on the couch, causing it to tumble over the edge, and snickered as Danny moved to pick it up. "Wanna go see someplace spooky?"
Danny hesitated, eyeing the other boy suspiciously. He inevitably gave in with a wary nod, and Santiago flashed that giant grin of his again. Danny noticed he had shallow dimples and sharp canines.
"Follow me," Santiago said, dropping his voice eerily, earning an eye-roll from Danny for his antics.
They ventured outside, past the spot in the fence where they had first met, into the forest that had once been Danny's escape route.
"Where are we going?" Danny asked.
"Somewhere spooky," Santiago said again, and would continue to say every time Danny asked over the next six minutes and twenty eight seconds — Danny counted.
Santiago wasn't wrong. Shrouded in darkness from the thick cover of trees, looking as if it hadn't been used in decades -- what with its hollow windows and cobweb-laced door-frame -- the cabin before which Santiago stopped was definitely spooky.
Danny took an involuntary step back. He didn't like the way the glass-less windows stared at him like dark eyes, the open door like a crooked mouth. "Is this . . . wh-who's is it?"
Santiago shrugged. "Someone who left it alone a very long time ago." Then he dropped his voice low again, to a sinister whisper. "Or died."
Danny shivered. "Do you think — you think it's haunted?"
But Santiago didn't answer. Danny looked to his left, where the other boy had stood moments before. Only a dip in the leaves showed he'd been there at all.
"S-Santiago?" He called out nervously, glancing all around himself. "Where'd you go?"
Again, there was no response. Danny heard the crunching of leaves behind him and whipped around, but there was nothing there. Just the endless expanse of trees, dark and foreboding and promising something nasty.
"This isn't funny," he stammered. "Santiago, where —"
He broke off with a scream when something suddenly grasped his shoulders, and turned around with wide eyes, reading to run away, only to pause when he saw Santiago's laughing face.
"Not cool!" Danny said, voice shaking from the scare. "So not cool!"
Danny was upset for a moment — he didn't like being frightened, not one bit. But Santiago kept on laughing, clutching his knees, and it was hard to stay mad.
After all, it was kind of funny . . . Danny could imagine the look on his face . . . Soon, he was doubled over as well, laughing in his own expense and at Santiago's laugh, and with every second he felt lighter somehow, lighter than he had felt in forever . . .
"You're a jerk," he said, but he was grinning, for once just as wide as his friend. "I'll get you for that."
"Oh yeah?" Santiago challenged. "You'll have to catch me first."
Then he turned and took off running; a few seconds passed before Danny, stunned, let his head fall back in a laugh and chased after him.
They didn't go back to Santiago's house until an hour later, after playing an intense game of cat-and-mouse (sometimes Danny was the cat, sometimes he was the mouse) and thoroughly exploring every corner and drawer of the dusty, flaking, one-room cabin. It was only when Santiago got a call from his parents that he, paling slightly in the dim light, said they had to head back.
When the front door to the García house opened to reveal Santiago's father, the expression on his face was so different from the warm smile that Danny remembered, it was jarring. Mr. García looked as if he wanted to throttle Santiago, and began to say something in a much harsher tone than any Danny had heard him use before. As soon as Mr. García laid eyes on Santiago's companion, however, his mouth clamped shut and the familiar smile jumped onto his face, so that Danny could almost believe it had been there all along.
"Why, hello there," Mr. García said in his deep, gentle lilt. There was no recognition in his welcoming gaze. "You must be one of Santiago's friends. Come inside — we've just started preparing dinner, if you'd like to stay."
+++
For the first time in his life, Danny had made a friend.
The crazy part was, it didn't even end there. "Friendship" turned to "Good Friendship." "Good" became "Best." Danny and Santiago were inseparable.
They made a strange pair. An outgoing, brash, well-liked rich boy and a quiet, apologetic scholarship kid; a giant grin next to a hidden smile; a crisp new uniform next to oversized hand-me-downs. To any spectator, the first question to come to mind upon seeing the pair would be how and why such polar opposites had suddenly become so close. It was especially weird to Santiago's other friends, like Ross, who resented the fact that he seemed so much less interested in them now.
He and Danny could be found together whenever they could get get away with it. In the mornings before class, at lunch, at recess, after school. More often than not, they walked to Santiago's house, where they watched more movies and made Mac and Cheese and played video games — Danny didn't have any consoles at home, so Santiago had to teach him everything, but he was an apt learner, and it only took him a few weeks to master Mario Kart.
"I don't get it!" Santiago laughed incredulously, throwing down his controller, when Danny placed first on Rainbow Road. "How do you do that?"
"It's nothing special," Danny said shyly, turning away from Santiago's smiling eyes. "You just have to figure out patterns in the --"
"Don't even continue," Santiago snorted. "I can't deal with your brain power."
They never went to Danny's house. Santiago asked and asked and asked, but Danny wouldn't allow it -- he wouldn't be able to live with himself if his dad laid a hand on Santiago.
Even when they were apart, they gravitated toward each other. They would talk on the phone at night after Santiago came home from soccer practice -- Danny on the cheap phone he'd bought for himself with cat-sitting money, Santiago on his new iPhone. Santiago would tell stories about his practice while Danny listened, and -- usually after Santiago asked -- Danny would talk about whichever book he had borrowed from the library.
It was a Thursday night, and the boys were on just such a phone call. Danny was on his bed, laying on his back because his stomach ached with new bruises. He didn't know why, but he had gone straight to his bedroom to call Santiago after his dad hit him; shivering, alone in his room, all he had wanted was some comfort. And, for the first time in his life, he realized that he could find some.
He didn't tell Santiago about what his dad did. He didn't need to. He just lay down with his eyes closed, his phone on the sheet next to his ear, and listened to Santiago happily tell a funny story about a boy who had face planted on the soccer field. After some long minutes, Danny's shoulders stopped shaking and he felt like he could think again.
Danny was in the middle of a theory about A Series of Unfortunate Events, forgetting the pain in his abdomen with every sentence, when he heard a door open on Santiago's end of the call.
"Hi mama, hi pa--" Santiago started to say, but he faltered mid-sentence. "What's wrong?"
"You know exactly what's wrong," Mrs. García's voiced hissed in rapid Spanish. Danny held his breath as a loud fumbling noise drowned out the rest of the sound; Santiago was trying to hang up the phone. But the noise ended, and Danny still saw Santiago's contact photo (a picture of him balancing a plate on his head with a goofy smile) on his phone screen -- he hadn't actually ended the call.
Danny hastened to hang up, but stopped midway when Mr. García began to speak in a low, livid voice.
"Your mother and I just saw your report card," he growled. His voice, though quiet, held a heavy malice. "So tell us, son, why you have two 'C's this quarter."
"I -- I'm sorry, papa," Santiago said, uncharacteristically meek. "I promise I'm trying. It's just really hard."
"Do you think that's good enough?" Mr. García snapped, abandoning any pretense of calm. "You have been slacking for months! Every time I think you are going to impress me, you have to go and prove yourself a disappointment again! Tell me, is there anything in that head of yours?"
"Papa . . ." Santiago said, his voice quivering. "I'm sorry, I -- I didn't mean to, I --"
"Enough with the excuses!" Mrs. García exclaimed. "We have done everything for you. How would you like it if we just stopped taking care of you, huh? Maybe we should — maybe then you'd do something to make us proud. But we haven't done that, not yet -- all we ask is that you do well in return, or at least try!"
'Not yet.' The threat in her voice made Danny bristle with anger; he knew what it was like to have parents who didn't take care of their kid.
"I am trying!"
"Don't you dare talk back to me!" Mrs. García snarled venomously. "You are not trying hard enough, and you never have! Will I ever live to see you be anything other than useless? Or will you spend the rest of your life as an idiot with shit for brains no matter what we do? You stupid, stupid boy! Have we not raised you better than this?"
"You have," Santiago said pleadingly, as if he was begging them to stop; Danny could hear in the way that he spoke that he was trying not to cry, and felt his own heart splinter at the edges. "Mama, you're right -- I'll be better --"
"You always say that!" Mr. García cut in relentlessly, despite his son's sniffles. "You say it, but you continue to stay as you are -- you continue to be nothing! And you will always be nothing, unless you can get your priorities straight and do something to fix yourself! I don't want to ever see you with grades like this again, are we understood?"
Santiago didn't say anything at first. After only a moment or two of Santiago's silence, Mr. García repeated his question again, so loud and forceful that Danny flinched.
"Yes . . . sir," Santiago said miserably. "I understand."
Danny heard a heavy, sympathetic sigh. "Oh, mijo," Mrs. García's voice was unrecognizable -- suddenly, she sounded soft and caring. "You know we only say these things because we want what is best for you, right? Here, come give me a hug, querido . . ."
The sound of shuffling feet. "There there, now, it's all okay, see? You'll be better in the long run."
"We wouldn't be so harsh if we didn't care so much," Mr. García said tenderly. "Your mother and I must get to a night shift now, okay? We will see you in the morning. Remember that we love you very, very much."
Danny heard footsteps. A door closing. He quickly hung up the call.
He felt sick to his stomach, and not from the bruises.
Not really knowing what he was doing, he grabbed his blue flashlight from his closet, slipped on his ratty sneakers, and snuck quietly out through the window. It was ten at night, but he walked around to the front of his house, hopped onto his rusting bike, and began to follow the route the Garcías used to take him home, backwards. He moved briskly, and, in eighteen minutes and fourteen seconds, arrived at the García household.
He rang the doorbell. A few minutes passed with no response.
He knew the exact moment when Santiago arrived, though. It was like he could feel it.
He could picture his friend walking on his toes, back stiff, looking through the peephole. Then the door swung hastily open, and with a bewildered expression, Santiago said, "Danny? What are you doing here?"
His voice wasn't as light as normal. His eyes were still red, and a rushed wipe at his cheeks hadn't done much to dry them. The sadness in his eyes, usually so well-hidden to anybody who couldn't see it -- anybody but Danny -- was deep and potent and almost overwhelming now.
"I heard your talk with your parents," Danny admitted. "You didn't hang up."
Santiago blinked in surprise. "¿Hablas español?"
"Sí."
". . . Oh," Santiago chewed the inside of his cheek uncomfortably. "You should've hung up."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he shrugged.
For the first time in a while, the silence that passed between them was awkward.
Then, Danny said, "You look sad." He said it cautiously, afraid to push Santiago away if he prodded too deep.
"I'm not," Santiago said stoically.
"You are."
This time, Santiago didn't argue. He didn't respond at all.
Danny didn't know what to do. But he remembered how Santiago had comforted him earlier, when he felt frightened and alone -- even if he hadn't meant to. And Danny wanted to do the same for him.
"Let's get out of here and go somewhere happy," he proposed.
Santiago, unlike his usual enthusiastic self, said, "Like where?"
Danny's shoulders fell, and he pursed his lips. "I don't know . . . let's make somewhere happy."
"You want us to make a happy place," Santiago repeated hollowly, wiping quickly beneath his eye when a tear threatened to fall. "I think I should just go to bed --"
"No," Danny said stubbornly, taking Santiago's wrist and tugging him gently through the door. "No, I have an idea."
He led Santiago around the house, then back behind it, into the forest. Illuminating the earthy ground beneath him, he tried his best to remember the path Santiago had led him down weeks before. All the while, he kept a tight grip on Santiago's hand, both to lead him along and to comfort him; said boy stumbled and sniffled the whole way, hardly watching where he was going, his dejection coming off in waves.
"Here," Danny said when they had arrived at the abandoned cabin. "I, uh . . . this can be --"
Santiago interrupted by leaning suddenly into Danny, like he couldn't hold himself up anymore.
Danny hesitated. Then he slowly lifted his arms. When he held Santiago — and when Santiago held him back — it was his first hug in years.
Minutes passed before Santiago pulled back. Though the flashlight had fallen to the floor, Danny could make out his red cheeks in the dark. "Sorry," Santiago said awkwardly.
Danny shook his head almost too quickly. "It's alright," he said; as if to show he meant it, he wrapped Santiago in another hug. It was brief, and he felt embarrassed as he let go, but Santiago was smiling.
"Wanna play a game?" Santiago asked.
It was hard to believe that he felt better already. Maybe it was easier to believe that he was faking it. But he did feel better, and he wasn't faking it.
"Okay," Danny said, just as softspoken as always.
Santiago grinned. Danny chanced a little smile. Sad Eyes met Scared Eyes, and together they made a Happy Place.
+++
They didn't go there, to the cabin in the woods, whenever they could. They only went when they needed to.
They went on the days when they were feeling bad. It was strange, because neither of them ever admitted it aloud, and yet it had become a pattern still -- a tacit rule of theirs -- that the cabin was reserved for down days. Danny would get a text from Santiago and bike over to see his friend red-eyed and frowning. Santiago would get a text from Danny, then find when the latter arrived that he had to be careful how he touched him, because his body was hurting.
They never talked about what happened. They just made sure to cheer each other up as well as they could.
It didn't matter they day or the time. Sometimes, on weekends, Danny would come over in the middle of the day, and Santiago would make up some lie to his parents about where they were going. Other times, it would be the middle of the night, and Santiago would sneak out through his window if his parents weren't working . After those nights, they fell asleep on each other the next day at lunch.
They did a lot of things in the cabin. Mostly, they played -- stupid games from when they were younger. Sometimes, when it was light out or they brought flashlights, they would work together on homework, or Danny would read while Santiago drew in his sketchbook. Other times they would just talk, or watch YouTube videos on Santiago's phone, or eat snacks they brought from the house.
They went to the cabin when they needed comfort. They got it every time. It was a happy place in every sense.
If they had been inseparable before, their friendship took on a new level now. They didn't just like each other any more. Santiago didn't know what he'd do without Danny. And Danny didn't know how he'd lived so much of his life without Santiago.
Santiago's friends stopped trying to compete. There was no question anymore as to who his priority was. And there was no argument. Santiago's best friend was Danny. Nothing would change that.
Santiago was a year older than Danny, so he went off to middle school while Danny was still in fifth grade. At first, Danny hated that he was gone -- he missed seeing him all the time, and he didn't want to go back to sitting alone every day.
As it turned out, though, they still saw each other all the time. Santiago had taken to riding his bike to school now; every day when class was over, he rode over to the elementary school and met Danny. They went together on their bikes to Santiago's house.
And even when Santiago wasn't there, school wasn't so bad. Being around Santiago, it seemed, had taught Danny a thing or two about being around other people -- he wasn't outgoing, but he wasn't so guarded, either. Layla Hearst and Aika Watanabe didn't compare to Santiago, and Danny was nowhere near as open around them, but they talked to him and sat with him at lunch and made him laugh and didn't mind that he was quiet. Danny liked them well enough. They kept him from feeling lonely all the time, and they made him happier at school.
Nothing made him as happy, though, as going to Santiago's house at the end of the day and making Mac and Cheese and watching funny movies and playing Mario Kart and teaching Toro tricks. Even when Danny was feeling down -- when his body was aching and his will was meek -- all he had to do was call Santiago and hear his voice and, if possible, sneak off to their happy place.
It really was starting to look like theirs. Some of Santiago's drawings -- Danny's favorites -- were taped to the walls, alongside the many (many) goofy pictures the two of them had taken together on Santiago's Polaroid.
"I love this place," Santiago sighed, glancing around at their little castle with admiration.
"Me too," Danny muttered as he slumped to the floor, exhausted after wrestling for the last Oreo (which Santiago shoved triumphantly into his mouth).
Santiago sat down too, next to Danny. Then he turned to Danny, making a cheeky kissy face, and said, "I love you more, though."
Danny rolled his eyes and made a point of scooting away from Santiago, much to the latter's amusement. "Gross," he said, making a face.
He chose to ignore the fluttering feeling he got in his stomach.
+++
When Danny joined Santiago in middle school — he was twelve, and Santiago was thirteen — it was like they had never been apart. They were tied at the hip once more, and they met as often as they could -- before and after school, between classes, at lunch, during classes whenever they skipped. Just like when they were in elementary school, it became common knowledge that they were a package deal -- Danny didn't really know Santiago's friends, and Santiago didn't really know Danny's friends, but the friends knew that there was no competing for the best-friend spot, so they didn't even try.
Every day after school, they rode their bikes together to Santiago's house. And on the bad days and nights, they walked back into the forest, to the one place where they felt invincible.
Santiago got the idea one day to renovate the cabin to make it a little more homely. The boys spent hours each day raiding his attic, taking old furniture and carpets and decorations all the way out to the cabin without his parents ever knowing.
They had a whole bunch of stuff crammed into the little cabin. The problem was that they didn't know what to do with it all, or where to put it; so they procrastinated for weeks, opting to let it all lie around rather than do any much-needed organizing, unmotivated to fix their mess.
That changed on a particularly Bad Day.
Wednsday night. Ten O'Clock.
Danny was washing the dishes, which his parents never did. He dropped a plate.
His dad, who had been sleeping on the couch, jolted awake.
Danny didn't run. He didn't even try. As soon as he saw that head of greasy black hair rising from the couch, he stood perfectly still and waited for what was coming.
When it was over, he went to his bed and hugged his knees and trembled.
Meanwhile, Santiago was on his bed in his dark room, sat the exact same way with his knees to his chest; but he didn't tremble. He fought back tears instead, crestfallen and alone after a bad performance at a soccer game and a vicious reprimanding from his parents.
Santiago reached for his phone. His body shook with a heavy, dry sob, and the phone fell out of his hand, tumbling off the edge of his bed to the floor. He scrambled to grab it, desperate to call his friend, but right as he took hold of it, the screen lit up. It was Danny.
"Hi," Santiago breathed, his voice thick with tears.
"Hi," Danny said, in the feeble, shaking way he always spoke when he felt scared. "Can -- can I c-come over."
"Please," Santiago whispered.
Twenty minutes later, Santiago heard a soft thud at his window, and turned his head just in time to see a pine-cone drop to the floor. He rushed over to the window, flung it open, and tackled Danny in a hug.
"Ow!" Danny winced. Santiago jumped away, gasping a guilty "sorry," but hardly a moment passed before Danny recovered and wrapped his friend in just as fierce a hug, angling his body carefully to minimize his pain.
They never explicitly agreed on what they would do when they got to the cabin. There was no conversation in which they decided they would organize all of the furniture and decorations they had brought from the attic. Yet they immediately set to work, hauling every item outside, taking up the toolbox Santiago had found, using nothing but the light of two flashlights.
They dragged the ugly yellow plaid couch, torn from Toro's scratching and stained on one arm by grape juice, inside first, pushing it against the far wall. Next came the purple beanbag chair with the hole in the bottom that spilled beads whenever it was lifted. Then the cracked tree-trunk side table, then the waist-high bookshelf strewn with cobwebs. Santiago used rope and a drill to hang two battery-powered lamps from the ceiling, standing on a stepping-stool to reach. Meanwhile, Danny used scissors, a hammer, and nails to turn an old blue table-cloth into makeshift curtains for the windows.
They worked furiously and with few words, renovating as a means to release their frustration. They dragged in rugs and 90's rock band posters and cushions and books. Danny stuck his favorite picture of them and Santiago's best drawing into two broken picture frames. He set the frames on top of the bookshelf, then put all ten Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus books in the top two shelves, right behind a treasure-trove of antique Marvel action figures.
Santiago boarded up holes in the walls and the ceiling and adjusted the furniture while Danny took a rag and spray and started cleaning, eliminating dust and cobwebs and mildew until every item had a new gleam to it. They finished simultaneously and stepped back to admire hours and hours of handiwork, pride in their eyes, all traces of misery gone.
"Wait!" Santiago said, rushing forward into the cabin. "I almost forgot!"
Danny watched as he turned on the Bluetooth speaker on the side table and grabbed his phone from the couch. Then he stepped onto the stool at the center of the room and reached up with one hand to the two hanging lamps. With a wink at Danny, he turned on the lamps right as he pressed a button on his phone; the cabin was illuminated in weak yellow light, and the song Radioactive blasted from the speaker.
Danny looked around in awe at their cabin. It was crowded and messy and uncoordinated. It was perfect.
"Wohoo!" Santiago cheered happily, clapping his hands together as he jumped down from the stool. "How epic is this?"
"So epic," Danny said; his voice was quiet with admiration, but he was beaming.
The two boys collapsed onto the couch, exhausted from all of their hard work. "I feel so damn good right now," Santiago sighed.
"Me too," said Danny.
Santiago turned to look at him. Then, smiling curiously, he said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Mhm?"
"How come I've never seen you cry?"
+++
Santiago's eyes shot wide when he turned on the lights.
He was fourteen, in eighth grade. Danny was thirteen, in seventh.
"What happened to you?" the former gasped, hopping down from the stool to get a closer look at an angry red mark on Danny's cheek that he hadn't seen in the darkness of the woods.
Danny turned his face self-consciously. "You know what happened," he muttered.
Santiago struggled to find something to say, he was so pissed. It was the first time he'd actually seen one of Danny's injuries since the day they met. The flickering light of the lamps showed not just a red bruise but a shallow, bleeding cut. Santiago had always known such wounds were there, and had always hated more than anything that they were -- but now, they were right in his face. Seeing a bruise and a cut was somehow different from seeing Danny wince when touched in the wrong spot; it was worse. Years of hating Danny's parents from a far jumped harshly in Santiago's chest, making him want (not for the first time, but more than ever) to drag Danny away from this awful place or strangle his parents or both.
"Ay Dios mío," Santiago bristled, taking hold of Danny's chin and tilting his head up into the light despite Danny's attempt to shake him off. "I can't believe that bastard keeps getting away with doing this stuff to you."
"That was my mom," was all Danny said in response.
"I cant believe that bitch keeps getting away with doing this to you, then," Santiago fumed. Then he grabbed the hem of Danny's shirt and yanked it up -- Danny yelped and tried to push it back down, but Santiago swatted his hand away. "And I cant believe that bastatrd keeps getting away with doing this to you."
Santiago's voice hadn't come out as firm as he'd planned. He had faltered upon the sight of the array of bruises covering Danny's chest and stomach, brown and yellow and green and purple, more than he'd ever imagined. Danny's shirt fell listlessly from his hand, and Santiago looked up at him, blinking in shock.
"I'm used to it," Danny grumbled, trying to ignore Santiago's disbelieving gaze.
Santiago shook his head. "When are you gonna tell someone and get the hell out of that house?" he sighed.
"When are you gonna stop nagging me about it?" Danny snapped; he'd heard this from Santiago a hundred times before.
"When you tell someone and get the hell out of that house," Santiago said just as stubbornly, mouth set and eyebrows furrowed in an an angry frown. "What if I tell someone?"
Danny turned his head quickly, mouth gaping at the idea. "You wouldn't," he said lowly.
"Why shouldn't I?" Santiago retaliated. "What kind of friend sits back and lets this happen?"
"The kind who knows me," Danny hissed. "You know why I --"
"Yes," Santiago cut in impatiently. "I know you don't want to be thrown into the foster care system and end up living with a bunch of families just as bad as yours. But don't you see what's wrong with that? You're assuming that all parents are like yours when they're not. You're making things up in your head."
"That's pretty rich coming from you," Danny rebuked. "How is it you can bother me about this stuff all the time, but the moment I bring up your parents --"
"Don't," Santiago warned.
"You act like I'm turning against you!" Danny said exasperatedly.
"You don't know my parents!"
"I know they're abusing you just as bad as my parents abuse me!" Danny said. "And I know they've manipulated you into thinking they're not, and I know --"
"Would you shut the hell up?" Santiago shouted. Danny's mouth fell shut and he shrank back, eyes widened in something akin to fear as he looked at Santiago's red face and clenched jaw.
Santiago was instantly guilty. "I'm sorry," he said, rubbing his eyes with his palms. "I shouldn't -- I shouldn't have yelled like that. I didn't mean it, I just . . . let's just drop it, okay?"
Danny nodded. But in his head, he thought, we always drop it.
He realized then that he would rather take a thousand punches and see every bruise than hear one word and be blind to its scar.