Hollow

Daniel Pierce is going to hell. And at the sight of Jamison he’s reassured of it, every day.

It’s just that Danny doesn’t think you should be allowed to look like that in high school. He didn’t look like that in high school; he wasn’t hot at all in high school. Not that he’s saying that Jamison-The-High-Schooler is hot, but. Danny could be overreacting, he tends to do that. Such as when he first got the position as property manager of The Alice Gardens Apartment Community, he said he was going to die. And he said it every day for three months but not once did he die. So maybe his hunches are a little off. So what?

Jamison walks around the community after he gets home from high school in a sleeveless white shirt, baggy black, chained up Tripp capris held up with a neon pink belt. And sometimes, it just makes Daniel want to cry. Because Jamison keeps this cigarette in the corner of his mouth and everybody knows he’s not of age- everybody, his backpack is still on for Christ’s sake, but nobody dares say anything even though he looks everyone he passes in the eye, daring them. And god.

Sometimes he gets stressed in his office and his mind just wanders. That’s all- he thinks of some of the residents and Jamison just always comes up first. Like, now, as he loosens his tie and runs a hand through his hair. There’s just something about his way, how he looked at Danny when he sat across from him in the office next to his mother as she signed a two year lease. Danny just hasn’t been able to get his blue eyes out of his head since and it’s not exactly healthy.

He subconsciously noted that when Jamison isn’t scowling at the world, his mouth is a permanent pout. And when he’s truly listening to someone speak he tilts his head slightly like a puppy or a baby and reminds Danny with those big blue eyes that he is going to hell for being a creepy old pervert. His life is so hard.

Not even to mention the fact that Jamison is a tenant and say he actually was of age, it’d still be totally unprofessional. The other tenants would think that he’d start showing favoritism and the older tenants would probably be put off by the sudden…gayness. Either way it’d all have to be a secret and any relationship that has to be kept private isn’t usually one that anyone should be in.

He shoves papers at random in his briefcase, because he can’t really focus when he’s overwhelmed so quickly. This job has already caused a spike in his anxiety but ever since the ink dried on Jamison and his mother’s contract, it’s just soared. And this is why he finally goes to Silas.

Silas has been working at The Garden’s for longer than Danny yet has done less work in the past three years than Danny’s done in one. Not to say that he doesn’t do his work, because he does, it’s just how Silas is- he does the bare minimum of everything –work, speaking, and just in life- in exchange for bare minimum pay and the one bedroom apartment above the office. But due to Danny’s amount of work and Silas’ pure personality, they’re kind of the closest thing each other have in terms of friends. Still, though, Silas should be the last person that anyone goes to for advice. Danny’s becoming a desperate man though, obviously, with this- this infatuation he has with some minor.

“Silas, hey. Um. So. There’s this um…someone and I-they um.” Yeah- Danny definitely cannot do this. Silas just narrows his eyes at him and scowls around his cigarette and just waits. Or not really waits because Silas would probably prefer Danny to just end it there and forget he ever said anything but he doesn’t walk away, so that’s something.
“So there’s this person and I kind of like them but-“

“Seriously, Danny? Are you fucking kidding me?” Silas blows smoke into his face and Danny swats it away. Maybe it’s his utterly distressed facial expression that just won’t budge that causes Silas to just shake his head and now seriously wait for him to continue. But Danny doesn’t know what he was going to say after that anyways, there’s no way to really ease into pedophilia.

“I know, I know, I should be over this at my age- my age.” The last part is a little squeaky and even in his head he’s never really gotten father than this. It’s the part that always stops him, gets to him. The kid shouldn’t do this to him.

Silas’ eyebrow twitches. “Man. How young? ”

The other thing about Silas is that he can pick out the key words of Danny’s ramblings and just get it. Maybe that’s another reason that they’re friends. “No, actually, that doesn’t even matter- I’m going to assume that they’re out of grade school at least-“ he gives Danny a look, “My question is where.”

Danny has to take in a deep breath before muttering with a groan, “Here.”

Silas chokes on the exhale and Danny knows he’s fucked because that was a sign of emotion other than apathy, coming from Silas. “You are fucked,” Silas shakes his head, “Or maybe you just need to be fucked because. Jamie. He’s cool and all. But a cool kid. He’s sixteen. How old are you now, thirty?”

“No!” Danny gasps and wants to collapse into a heap on the curb because it makes him feel like the crypt keeper. He’s so close to thirty. “I’m twenty-three.” He doesn’t ask how Silas just knows that it’s Jamison because usually Silas just knows things. And though it makes it easier, it still bothers him a little that he’s not the only one who knows.

Silas snorts and shakes his head in thought before he shrugs and starts back for the door to the office. It takes Danny a minute to get out of his own thoughts and realize that his only possible source of advice is leaving him on the grass to age and die and go to hell. “Wait, no, Silas,” Danny whines, “What do I do?”

Silas almost scowls as he looks back and throws down his cigarette as he opens the door, then presses it out under his shoe, goes in, shuts the door and keeps eye contact with Danny as he locks it and turns to walk up the stairs to his apartment. Danny groans as he rushes over to sweep the cigarette butt into the bushes with his foot.

youre a fucking girl

His new text message from Silas says. Danny nods in consideration, as if this is a valid point, a profoundly deep piece of advice. He’s like this all of five seconds before he starts freaking out again and drags his feet all the way over to his car to drive home. But he can’t drive like this. So he ends up walking down the right side of the Garden’s Adventure Trail- that is really the street’s name. It’s pretty quiet, he can hear some soft music from an open window and the autumn wind is blowing warm yet whipping the leaves off of trees.

And then there’s a cutting sound through the silence and Danny stops in front of building four. The ground floor window is sliding open and he thinks it’s nothing for a second, until a body starts shimmying out of the small window. Checking his watch, it’s only eight o’clock but. But it’s Jamison. And when his body is fully out of the window, he stays on his hands and knees to close the screen back and Danny doesn’t think that’s safe, but of course the fact that Jamison is sneaking out takes precedent.

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and doesn’t think it’s loud but Jamison jumps and squints at Danny, leaning forward a little too see him in the dim lighting. And it’s either Jamison has slight vision problems or Danny has amazing creeper skills because he sees the slight quirk of his mouth. Jamison puts a finger over his mouth in the ‘shhh’ way before blowing him a kiss and turning to walk behind the buildings where Danny assumes he’ll then leave Alice Gardens.

But. But he blew him a kiss.

He shakes his head and does a fast stride back to his car. This is fucking nonsense. And Daniel is going to hell.