You're On Fire Pt 19

You send Tim up to his room to find them; he has an invisible quality to the adults that you’ve exploited with great success.

In the meantime, you and Jason watch one another.

My dad was in a rollover, Jason tells you. Back in Peoria, they got real firemen there.

My dad was in a bankdown, you tell him, so you can just shut up.

Tim returns with the pencils; Jason snatches one up and drops to the floor, crossing his legs. You do like this, he says and holds out his hand, pressing the pencil eraser to the back of his hand and rubbing it hard until the skin burns. First guy to stop is a wuss, Jason says.

He has long silver scars on his hand – but you can’t not do it; you drop to the floor as well, giving Tim a warning look that he’d better not even think of telling.

Tell you what, Jason says. You win and I’ll be your wingman, if I win you gotta be mine.

What’s a wingman? Tim asks.

Christ, Jason says, rolling his eyes. It means like second in command or something. Don’t worry, you’ll still be his number one butt buddy no matter what, he says to Tim, and Tim tells him to shut the hell up, and you for the first time think the worst thought you’ve ever had, of jamming the pencil right into Jason’s leg. But the new kid just looks at both of you and laughs, and says on your mark get set go: you start to rub the erasers on your hands, the skin turning red and hurting; it tears and curls in tiny scrolls. You gonna quit? Jason says with a sneer and you don’t say anything, because you’re not, because you know how to turn off things that hurt very well by now, so that even when your eyes start to water and blood is smearing in stripes on your hand, you don’t stop – but Jason does, finally hissing and throwing his pencil across the room where it breaks.

Well, shit fire, he says, sucking on the wound. Guess you’re not a wuss, he says with a wink. So now we’re friends.