Chapter Text
Adam was not, nor had he ever been, a social person. he'd been diagnosed with autism at seven years old, but even at that age he hadn't needed a doctor to tell him that he was different from his peers. He could feel it, every minute of every day, like a big glass window in front of his face. Adam and the other children could see each other through it, that was true. The glass muffled his voice, though, making it hard for others to understand him. And Adam struggled to understand them, either. They could only ever manage to watch each other, try to guess at what the other was thinking, like a game of charades that never ended.
Adam had never been very good at guessing games.
Other children seemed like they were better at it, at first. It seemed to Adam like they never struggled to understand one another, on the other side of the window, but they all gradually gave up on understanding Adam. He wasn't sure why.
Maybe it was Adam's fault. Maybe if he'd tried harder, spoken through the window more clearly, been better at the game, then they wouldn't have decided that he wasn't worth the effort. But either way, they gave up. And once they did, they never really tried again.
Adam had known most of his classmates for almost as long as he'd been able to formulate long-term memories. Ten years, some of them. Five days a week for nine and a half months out of the year, since he was six. And yet, he can't shake the feeling that he doesn't actually know any of them. He'd never liked to be social, and as he got older, he cared less and less to try and force himself. He gave up, too, maybe. Adam only really spoke to his teachers, anymore. And to his dad, when he got home. Adam tried to tell himself that this was fine, that it didn't make him sad. Some days he believed it.
It was a Tuesday in early April when Adam properly met him for the first time. He'd been sitting at his lunch table, wedged into the far corner of the cafeteria like he hoped to blend in with the pale grey paint on the walls. He had his nose buried in an old book he'd found at the second-hand store. 'Time for the Stars'. It had been two dollars, and Adam had picked it up because he was drawn to the artwork on the cover. He liked Science Fiction, liked knowing that other people out there seemed to find the idea of outer space as exciting as he did. Sometimes the facts were wrong, sometimes things didn't make sense, but he could often explain that away with the simple knowledge that it was the future in most sci-fi stories. Maybe science was different, in the future. Maybe things would change, someday. Maybe it wasn't too late for things to change.
"Hey."
Adam didn't look up. He assumed that the voice was talking to someone else. He took a bite of the corner of his sandwich. The corners are underrated. He never understood the appeal of taking the crusts off of sandwiches.
"Hey! You!"
He blinked, looking up. There was an older boy standing near his table, looking back at him. Adam glanced around them, checking for other people. That had happened to him before— Adam assuming that someone was speaking to him when they weren't. It was embarrassing.
"Me?" he asked, just to make sure.
The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you. Who else would I be fucking talking to?"
Adam hunched his shoulders. People swearing at him usually meant that they were angry with him, but he couldn't begin to guess at what he'd done by simply minding his own business.
"I didn't know," he answered honestly. "You've never spoken to me before."
The boy huffed, like Adam was already testing his patience. "Listen, are you Adam Rahki?"
Adam's mouth twisted. "Raki."
"Huh?"
"You said 'Rahki', with an A as in Alphabet," he explained. "It's 'Raki', with an A as in Able. And yes, I am."
"That's a weird fucking name," the stranger said, laughing even though Adam couldn't work out what was so funny.
Adam's scowl only deepened. Was this boy just here to pick on him? for his name? "It's Moroccan."
"You don't look Moroccan."
"I'm adopted—"
The boy held up a hand, signaling for him to stop talking. Adam didn't like being bossed around like that. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I need to ask you about something, alright?"
Adam really just wanted to be left alone, but he was worried that if he told the boy to go away, he would bully him. "Fine."
The boy looked around the cafeteria, glancing over his shoulder before pulling up a plastic chair and falling into it beside Adam. Adam wrinkled his nose. The boy smelled like cigarettes.
When he spoke, he nearly whispered the words, his eyes still flitting around the room. "I'm failing Physics," he said. "And Miss Albright says that if I can't get my grade up, I'm not gonna be able to graduate."
Adam waited for the boy to continue, but he didn't. He just sat there, staring at him expectantly. "I don't understand what that has to do with me," Adam said.
The boy huffed, pushing his sandy hair out of his face. Adam noticed that he had two holes in his earlobe, like he'd pierced them but stopped wearing earrings afterwards, and then pierced them again when they healed over.
"I can't spend another fucking year in high school,!" he insisted, and Adam could hear a strained note in his voice. The stranger swallowed, hunching over and bringing himself even closer. Adam felt his hands turn sweaty against the pages of his book. "Look, I have to pass this class, Raki. And I heard from a couple people that you're supposed to be, like, really smart. Is that true? Are you smart?"
Adam licked his lips, shrugging his shoulders. "I took AP Physics last semester. I got an A. I don't know if that makes me smart, though."
His words were met with a chuckle. "You're fucking smarter than me, clearly. So what do you say, do you think you could help me out?"
He shifted in his seat. Adam had been approached like this before, many times. Fellow students who'd never spoken to him otherwise, asking him to let them copy his homework. Demanding that he do the work for them, even going so far as trying to bully him into giving them test answers on a few occasions. He hated how it made him feel, like a machine that other children only wanted to use to make their lives easier.
At first, he'd complied. Given them answers even though he knew it was dishonest, hoping that it would earn him friends. It hadn't. They always left as soon as Adam stopped being useful, off to spend their newly found free time with their friends. Learning to say no had bordered on impossible for him, but his dad told him again and again that he didn't owe them anything. Eventually, he put his foot down and refused. The other kids told him that he was an asshole, that he thought he was better than everyone else, that they didn't want to be friends with him anymore.
Adam knew, of course, that they weren't really his friends to begin with. It still hurt, to be told that.
He shook his head, pointedly staring back at his still-open book. His shoulders turned tense, his head lowering in an instinctive need to make himself small. "N-no, I can't help you."
Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he'd hoped that the boy would just take that answer and go away. He didn't. Adam sighed.
"...But I hope you still graduate," he added softly. He hated how guilty he felt, leaving this boy to fail without him. Even if he was a total stranger.
"Why can't you help?"
Adam frowned hard at the black text, not actually focusing on any of it. "I don't like to let people copy from me. It's cheating. And anyway, I'm very particular about how I spend my time."
From the corner of his eye, he saw the other boy frown. "Hang on, Raki— who said anything about cheating?"
He blinked, looking at the stranger's face again. He had stubble on his chin, his jaw. Adam still didn't need to shave his jaw yet, despite being sixteen. He shaved his upper lip, though, sometimes. "You want me to help you pass your Physics class," Adam reiterated.
"Yeah, by helping me study," the boy shot back with another huff. "You think I'd risk getting caught cheating? The last time I tried to cheat on a test I got in-school suspension for a fucking week!" he sniffed, looking over Adam's face. "Plus, I wouldn't ask you to do something like that."
Adam set the book down. "You wouldn't?"
The boy shook his head, scoffing. "Fuck, no. You have 'I spill my guts if a teacher asks me to' written all over your face."
Brows drawing together, Adam brought a hand to his face. His fingers felt cold and clammy, and Adam realized that his face had become oddly warm. "I don't have anything written on my face," he argued.
"Look, will you tutor me or not?"
Adam chewed his lip, his fingers moving to drum on the cover of his book. "I don't know," he said after a moment. "I've never tried to tutor someone before, I don't think I'll be very good at it. I'm not good at explaining things in a way people will understand."
"Can you just try?" The other boy urged. "Just meet with me once, and if I'm hopeless then you can tell me to fuck off. Please?"
He looked at the boy. Forced himself to meet his eyes, just for a second. Brown. Warm. Adam liked the look of them. He thought that they looked genuine, as far as he could tell. Honest.
Adam's father had always told him to help people, when he could.
"I guess I could try."
The flinch of Adam's body when the other boy slapped the tabletop was unintentional, and he felt a hot prick of shame creep up his neck for being so skittish. He braced himself for ridicule, but the boy only stood from his seat. Of course. He'd gotten what he wanted from Adam, now. No reason to stay.
Before he walked away, though, he pointed at Adam. A wide grin stretched across his face, displaying that he needed braces. "You're a fucking legend, Raki!" he said.
Adam opened his mouth to say that he hadn't even done anything yet, let alone anything legendary, but he stopped himself. It felt good, being a legend. Even if it wasn't true.
"I've got a date Friday night, but other than that I'm free whenever you wanna meet up, yeah? I'll owe you for this." He turned to leave, then doubled back for a moment. "Oh, and I'm Nigel, by the way. That's with an I, as in..."
"Ironic," Adam offered, a small smile tugging at his lips.
Nigel chuckled. It was rare that Adam made people laugh without embarrassing himself. "Catch you later," he said, and then he was making his way back to his usual table, one crowded with other seniors. Adam didn't know any of them. He barely even knew the students in his own grade anymore.
Adam wiped his hands on his jeans, grimacing at the sweat clinging to his palms. At least Nigel hadn't tried to shake his hand. He glanced back at the table of upperclassmen one more time, watching Nigel lean back casually in his chair, then reached once more for his book.