“This is the library,” Jackson mumbled when we passed the library, which was marked in big bold letters: LIBRARY. He didn’t really have much to say, and I didn’t really have much to ask.

What did it matter, anyway? One year at this new high school and I’d be out. That was half the reason why I didn’t hate the idea of moving; my dad’s new job came with a higher salary, which meant we could afford out-of-state tuition for college. In a year, I’d be somewhere far away. In a year, I could start being myself. That had always been my dream. It was the only reason I didn’t fight as hard as my sister about the move.

At the end of the tour, when I assumed Jackson would resume his God-given right as a jock to ignore me for the rest of the school year, he said, “Well, that’s it. Let me know if you ever need a hand with anything around here.”

I cocked my head back. “Seriously?” He didn’t strike me as the hand-offering type. “Is that a real offer?”

Jackson looked off to the side. He shrugged.

“They make you say that, don’t they?” I said.

He nodded. “It’s part of the script.”

“Gotta follow the script,” I said, and out of nowhere, Jackson let out one of those snort-laughs. Then we kind of widened our eyes and looked away, because this conversation wasn’t part of our script.

Jackson combed a hand through his wavy mop of hair. Some days his hair was dirty blond, some days it was brown. I remember that day it was blond.

I asked if he thought I would fit in at this new school. Jackson didn’t really answer; he was staring at the parking lot behind me. I had my eyes glued to the school entrance behind him. Later, we would joke that that first day we met, we were actually competing in a very serious un-staring contest.

“It’s fine,” I said after a long silence. “I don’t really fit in anywhere.”

Jackson smiled—and I cheated at our contest. I snuck a glance at him. Something in him knew. He had found himself another outsider. We fit like gloves, Jackson Preacher and me. We fit like pasta and wine, football and Bud Light.

I was the pasta and wine. He was the football and Bud Light.

That first semester, Jackson and I existed in completely different worlds. As much as we crossed paths, we never really talked. He flew in the stratosphere of athletes and popular kids; I flew under the radar. I just didn’t see the point in going through the social acrobatics of making friends when I was only going to be at that school for eight months.

Still, we kept playing our un-staring contest in the halls whenever we passed each other. There was something lingering from that tour, and it was going to take a seismic shift to get it out.

That seismic shift happened right before Thanksgiving, when our football team lost the last game of the season. I was driving home after the game and stopped by 7-Eleven to pick up some salt-and-vinegar chips when I found Jackson sulking in the parking lot. I thought about just walking inside like I didn’t see him. But he had dirt marks all over his face. A dried-up river of tears running down his cheeks. He was vulnerable. So I said, “Need a hand?”