It was a sunny morning. Not a cloud in the sky and just a gentle breeze to cool things down.

Really shitty weather.

Even with sunglasses and my black cap, everything was stained with white light. Shapes that I would only see as blurry and dancing indoors, under the sun's killer beam appeared as black blobs of vague human forms. Norgree's High School was a faraway concrete block. Between me and the entrance was a myriad of students camping outside before classes began, scattered among the parked cars. Even with that shitty sun drowning everything in painful whiteness, I could easily make my way to the entrance slaloming through my brain-dead classmates. I saw them. Yes, I saw them poorly, but I saw them. I just had to avoid all the car windows and mirrors reflecting the sunlight because if I looked directly at a beam, I'd be blinded for real for at least ten minutes.

Technically, I was legally blind. But I didn't go around with a stick or a guide dog. I managed on my own. It's not like I couldn't see so badly. Most of the time it was just low resolution. Then every now and then the nystagmus kicked in, my eyes started shaking from side to side, and the image started dancing. But it was the light that caused most of my problems. Photophobia is a real bitch, but to have the most beautiful gray eyes in this universe, sacrifices must be made.

Sure, every time I heard someone complain about how boring their brown eyes were, I was ready to kick them in the ass to the nearest place of worship, so that they could thank their god for giving them melanin. Anyway. I blame that shitty sun if I didn't see Casper in time that morning. Him, and the six assholes he brought along from his baby gang. They called themselves The Coyotes, after their leader's name: Casper Coyote.

Seriously.

Name: Casper

Last name: Coyote

They named him Casper like his grandfather, who had lived before the adorable, friendly ghost became famous. And poor Casper was so ashamed of his name that since hair had sprouted under his armpits, he introduced himself to everyone as Jack.

I heard the jingle of chains hanging from their leather jackets before realizing that the black blotch moving in the corner of my left eye was people approaching. I stopped when the jingle was joined by the sound of a helmet strap being unclasped. I turned towards the approaching blotch, but it didn't do much good, they were right under the sun, those assholes.

"Ben." Casper's voice, the friendly little ghost, rose imperiously. With sunglasses on, he couldn't see how much I had to squint my eyes to avoid being completely blinded by the light. The sound of footsteps stopped and the blotches stood still. I lazily turned my head surveying all the members of the Beagle Boys arranged in a semicircle around me. What is it? A siege? A break dance competition? "Please. Spare me the musical number."

Casper approached so close that the rubbery smell of his motorcycle hit me. I drowned in his shadow. The sun disappeared behind his back. I was face to face with The Coyote himself. Nineteen years of muscle and bullshit. Now that I didn't have the sun pointed at me, the deafening white retreated. But as soon as the image became a bit clearer, my eyes started shaking.

There's a curious thing about nystagmus: there's something called a null point, a specific point to direct your eyes to cancel out the tremor. Every person with nystagmus has a different point. Mine was top right. And that's where Casper's head was. So I looked at him. His silhouette stopped shaking and most of his face appeared almost clear. He had black hair that had never seen a hairdresser, but by Satan's will, it appeared intentionally disheveled, the kind of look that an actor would spend hours sitting in the hairdresser's chair to achieve. They were perfect even after being kept under the helmet for God knows how long. He had a crooked nose ever since Franklin Durgo broke it in my last year of middle school. Casper had returned the favor by breaking three ribs and a knee.

"Ben. I need to talk to you."

Ah. The king needs to talk to me. Wait till I pause my life to listen to your crap.

Damn. There were whispers all around us, people were definitely watching us. I hadn't spent four years flying low and holding my tongue in that shitty school to get noticed now. "I have nothing to say to you." I turned to leave.

"It's important." He grabbed my shoulder, which annoyed me quite a bit. I noticed the silhouettes of the Spice Girls tightening the semicircle around me. With Cas blocking the sun, I could count five lackeys. Where was the sixth? The whispers faded. There was only a thick silence left. It was already hard not to attract attention with my highlighter blue hair, but it was even harder with the head of a gang of half-criminal bikers surrounding me outside of school.

"Let's talk in private." Casper offered.

"How?" I replied in a low voice, hoping not to be heard by other ears besides his. "Leave your lackeys behind? I don't know if they can suck their thumbs without you." Apparently, I hadn't spoken quietly enough. One of the thumb-suckers took an angry step forward. There was some movement between Cas and the other guy, but I couldn't see well what was going on. Damn, if only there was a cloud to dull the light, I could distinguish the lackey. Luck came to my rescue when that guy muttered something indistinct. I couldn't hear the words, but I knew whose voice that gorilla's voice belonged to: Peter Woodfield, the hottest head of The Coyotes. And the easiest one to piss off. And how I itched to really piss him off. But not here in front of everyone. Maybe later.

"I said stay back." Casper's trembling image wobbled, he was turning his back on me, talking to his lackeys. "And you." Cas turned again, and before I could step back he grabbed my wrist. "Don't mess with my men. You're talking to me."

Keep a low profile, Benjamin. You can't bite him. You have to keep a low profile. "I have. Nothing. To say to you."

His hand on my wrist tightened.

I couldn't help myself, I grabbed his arm, but I didn't try to pull it away. No, no. When a little dog bites you, you shouldn't pull, otherwise it will tear your flesh. You have to grab its throat and strangle it. So I dug my nails into his bare arm. I felt the traces of the rough skin, the curves and grooves of his old burn.

This certainly wouldn't attract attention, nice job, Ben.

Casper moved, just enough to get back into my null point and show me his half smile again. Cas always smiled halfway, lifting only one corner of his mouth. "Are you having fun? Humiliating me like like this in front of everyone?" This time I whispered. I was sure he was the only one who heard me.

Cas opened his hand releasing my wrist. His smile disappeared. "I'm not trying to humiliate you." His voice became a hoarse whisper. "I need your help."

My help. Oh, please. I knew damn well what he wanted.

I let go of his arm, and he took it as permission granted. Which it wasn't, stupid asshole, but before I could politely communicate that to him, he was already heading for that secluded corner of the parking lot where the stoners hid to smoke weed.

Wouldn't it be funny if I just left him there by himself and went into class?

I would have found it amusing.

"Jack is waiting for you." That was Masao Satō's voice, Jack Coyote's faithful number one.

The Spice Girls were still around me, not following their leader. Probably Casper had ordered them to stay back because we needed to talk in private.

I turned towards Masao, but the little bastard was too short to block the sun for me, so I couldn't distinguish the features of his frog-like face.

"Hurry up, Nicholson," he spat out through clenched teeth.

Truth be told, Masao would have preferred to throw me into a lion's den rather than order me to follow Casper. If it weren't for his blind loyalty as a lackey, he probably would have finished digging the pit already.

So, what to choose? Irritate Casper and leave him alone under the tree, or irritate Masao and do exactly what he asked, following his daddy Jack?

Actually, I didn't have many chances to irritate Masao. And I could always find a way to annoy Casper during our little private chat. Two birds with one stone!

"I'll obey. I'll obey. No need to raise your voice."

Too bad for that fucking sun. I was definitely missing out on a killer glare.

The whispers resumed as I turned my back on the six gorillas (no, five; where was the sixth lackey?). I walked slowly, with my cap pulled low over my head and my dark, anonymous hoodie.

As I moved away from the entrance, the clusters of black-clad students became sparser until they disappeared altogether.

The tree in the parking lot was a figure I could distinguish well even in the worst visual conditions.

Casper, slumped against the trunk with his arms crossed, gradually came into focus.

My eyes immediately felt relief as I sought refuge in the shade, annoyingly close to that asshole, but I preferred the smell of his motorcycle to the painful glare of the sun.

"So, what's up?"

"They delivered a letter to my house," he replied. "I want you to find out who left it."

I huffed a laugh. "Have you tried with the postman?"

"It wasn't the postman," Cas replied, shifting back into my blind spot. He wasn't smiling. He had his serious face on, his business face. "You don't need to know what's written in it, you just need to find out who left it in my mailbox. It must have happened between yesterday at 11:00 PM and this morning at 5:00 AM."

I let out an incredulous breath. "Are you serious?! I don't need to know what's written in it? And I should get involved in your shady business for what, exactly? The honor of helping the fearsome Jack the Coyote?"

Casper didn't reply. He stood there, in my null point, the only thing in the world that remained solid and clear in my world.

His silence drove me crazy. He used it like a weapon. He wielded it against me and pointed it at my throat.

"You just need to find out who left it..."

"And what do you plan to do to the sender?"

"That's none of your concern."

The nerves. No one could get on my nerves like this guy.

"It is my concern if I fish them out and you send them to the hospital. I'd be an accomplice."

He scoffed. "And your perfect future in the police would be ruined? Sure. It'll be a small stain on your record preventing you from becoming a detective, not the fact that you're blind and albino."

I jerked, immediately looking around. It seemed empty. It was empty, right? There was no one?

"Ben..." Casper let out another breath, this time filled with resigned irritation. "You can't really think you can hide the fact that you're blind."

"I'm not blind, I'm visually impaired, you dickhead. And so far, I've been doing just fine, thank you very much. I just need to keep a low profile. If I don't give people reasons to notice me, they won't be able to tell. So I'd appreciate it if you'd avoid this kind of ambush in the schoolyard in the future."

His hand gripped my right arm. I stiffened slightly, not giving him the satisfaction of letting him know I hadn't seen him move.

His fingers traced the marks of my old burn, the one symmetrical to his. But where he had wax-like grooves, all I had left was an ugly, shapeless blotch.

"I don't like what you're doing," he said, as if I should care. "It's going to end badly. You'll get hurt. Sooner or later, you have to accept that you have limits."

So. I would be the one to lose my temper first today. I pushed him back, which was more or less like trying to push a car.

"I want you to make a mental bookmark of this moment. The next time you come crying to my window asking why I don't want to take you and your dick back into my life, I want you to rewind this memory and shoot it into your brain like a projection at the movies."

"Ben..."

"I'm leaving."

He grabbed my shoulder again before I could turn away.

This time I'm going to bite his hand off.

"Forget about your fucking pride for once! You have to listen to me!"

"Do I?!"

Cas had a rare moment of common sense where he decided to keep his mouth shut. He let go of my shoulder, and I hesitated. In falling, his hand brushed mine. If I had touched it, I knew I would have found it rough. Cas always had scraped knuckles, he never had time to heal them before punching again.

"It's a threatening letter, isn't it? What does this person know about you? If it's about you being gay, I'll be extremely unimpressed."

"It's not about that."

"Are you sure? Maybe an old flame has had enough of your bullshit."

"There's no old flame. You know that." He said annoyed. "You're the only one."

You're the only one. He did it on purpose, the way his voice got hoarse when he said certain things. The way he made time slow down.

"So how do you know it wasn't me?"

He made an annoyed sound. "It wasn't you." Because I know you, that's what was beyond those words. And I hated that it was true. He knew me. More than anyone.

While I...

"You're not going to tell me what you did, are you? To deserve a threatening letter. You're not going to tell me what you want to do to that guy. You're not going to tell me anything. As usual."

Lies and the unsaid were just one of the things that made us break up. The first time. And then the second, and the third. I kept falling into it, like a damn junkie. But soon I would have finishe high school, I'd be admitted to a college far, far away from Norgree and I'd leave Casper behind forever.

"Class is about to start. I'm leaving."

"You will do it, won't you?" The uncertainty in that question made me feel a bit better. At least he didn't think I'd wag my tail every time he whistled.

"I'll find out who did it." Whether I decided to tell him or not, I still had to decide.