Quiet Boys.

We sat on her bed, and she had a strange look on her face, as if she was deep in thought.
Then again, Parker kind of always had a certain look about her.
“Ivan, what do you think about being old?”
“Being old? I guess just that, it happens to everyone.”
“It doesn’t happen to everyone, some people die before they get old. I suppose it depends on what you consider old. But lots of people die when they’re very young. Then again, I suppose it depends on what you consider young.”
She always had a way with words, and no matter how hard I tried, I could never be as clever as her.
“That’s true. But why are you asking?”
“Oh, I was just thinking. I think it’d be really fun to be old.”
“What, how so?” I really needed to know this one.
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Of course, sometimes it’s terrible because bad things happen. Like mental illnesses or other sicknesses. But I think being old could be some serious fun. You could act crazy and people would just say ‘Oh, that person is old, of course they’re nuts. I can’t be rude to them.’ So really, you could run around screaming, cursing, stealing things. You could be mean and nasty, or you could just do something really bizarre like eat pickles with ice cream. And you can blame it on old age.”
I laughed so hard. The things she thought of, I didn’t think I, or anyone else would understand.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” I asked between roars of laughter. She was giggling along with me, which was a nice sound.
“My brain. But don’t you agree?”
“It’s not as if you wouldn’t do that stuff right now if you really wanted to though,” I added, finally controlling my laughter.
“That’s true. But still, since I’d be old, people would just assume I was old and crazy. It’d be really amusing. Being old will be fun,” she said with a grin.

________

He should have known by now that he was a beautiful boy, a sweet kid, and that I cared so much about him. I wanted him to know what he meant to the world.
Ivan still didn’t know that, after three months.
I could have just slapped him some days, the way he would just sit and stare at me, with all this adoration that I knew was there, and it made me sad.
I was just Parker, that is not here nor there.
I felt as though he knew I was this brilliant person.
And though I was excited that someone besides my Ally thought I was so important, as I thought Ivan was important, I wondered how it had gotten to this point anyways.
And the worst thing was, Ivan was always trying to show how much I meant to him, but he couldn’t get it out the way he wanted to.
But I loved how confused he was and even how he stumbled over words for lack of better ones.
I didn’t believe anything of such a form, of such a breed, of such a genre existed.
In fact, my type of boy, I wasn’t sure they existed until I saw Ivan.
He didn’t see that though, he only saw me.
And so my mission began to become this: To show Ivan how different he really was, though he probably wouldn’t believe me.
And my mission, it started today.
Which was the fourth of July.
Ivan was going to how he created fireworks in my mind, as well as see them light up the sky with me.