He never cried at school.Never.He’d learned that lesson back in first grade, when he’d cried because the other kids kept getting his name wrong, and they’d switched to calling him a crybaby.
But he couldn’t help it. Whowouldn’tbe crying if their mom had cancer?
Fuck cancer.
He hunched his shoulders as high as they would go, slouched as low into his desk as he could, hoped no one would notice.
“Hey,” Noah said.
“Hey,” Ramin muttered, not looking up as Noah flopped into the seat next to him. Ramin wasn’t sure how, exactly, Noah had decided they were… what? Friends? Noah had just started talking to him one day and never really stopped. And then he’d started sitting with Ramin at lunch, too.
It made no sense: Noah was a popular guy. He was a wrestler. All the girls talked about him.
(All the girls talkeda lotabout him. Ramin didn’t think aboutthat, though.)
Noah was the kind of guy who should’ve been bullying Ramin like all the other jocks, shoving him into lockers and calling him names. Instead, he told off folks for being mean to him. He shared jokes and borrowed pencil lead and treated Ramin like a friend. Ramin didn’thavefriends. Just Farzan and Arya, and they were more like brothers than anything.
Even they hadn’t heard the news about Ramin’s mom. He hadn’t found a way to tell them.
“You okay?”
He didn’t want to talk about it. If he did, the crying would only get worse. “I’m fine.”
“Are you crying?” came the soft reply.
“No.” But sure enough, he started crying harder.
Noah scooted closer. “What’s wrong?”
Ramin shook his head. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t—
“My mom has cancer.”
He didn’t know why he’d said it. It had slipped out of him. He wished he could snatch the words back from the air.
“Oh.” Noah’s voice was so gentle, it felt like he’d draped a blanket over Ramin’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”
Ramin just cried harder. Because he could tell Noah really meant it.
He shouldn’t have. Noah Bartlett wasn’t supposed to be that kind of guy. He wasn’t supposed to be nice and compassionate. He should’ve been making fun of Ramin, like all his teammates did, like every single asshole in their class did.
A hand slipped through the crook of Ramin’s elbows, clutching a handful of Kleenex.
“Thanks,” Ramin managed through sniffles.
“Anytime.”
Ramin blew his nose and wiped at his tears and cried, while Noah Bartlett, of all people, shielded him from the rest of the class.
He didn’t know what to make of it.
But he was grateful.
Now
Ramin woke covered in sweat. He twisted and flung off his blankets. The small air conditioner over the door kicked on, and he eyed it suspiciously; sure enough, it was on some sort of motion sensor. What was the point of an air conditioner that wouldn’t keep you cool while you slept?
His morning wood felt like a steel bar trapped in his trunks. He’d noticed over the last few years how he didn’t wake up as hard as he used to, but that wasn’t the case today.
