Justin

Zach has taken to coming along when Justin goes grocery shopping: usually the other guys just give him money to buy food for the house, since he does all the cooking anyway. (When he came home from his weekend in Tahoe with Eleanor, the empty pizza boxes & take-out containers gathering flies in his kitchen were evidence of how they would subsist without him.) Justin has never wanted any company, except for Eleanor, always preferring to be by himself if he's not with her. But lately Zach has been there, tagging along, asking questions. Bizarre questions, sometimes, but Justin isn't entirely unfamiliar with the type. When Justin was young, he was eager to fight, his muscles ached to be used as they developed. But he wasn't like the other boys who picked fights regularly: Justin was in it for the challenge, he liked to pick on boys his own size, bigger if he could find one. There was nothing he liked better than to take a bully down while he was picking on a smaller kid. Not out of sympathy for the kid getting beat on, but just for the rush of taking a guy down when he's already gathered an audience for himself, to humiliate him in front of the very people he wanted to watch as he humiliated another. Justin didn't want to be anyone's hero, but there was a small crowd of young Zach's, Justin remembers none of their names & barely their faces, who used to stay close to him, knowing his very presence would ward off their predators. When they felt secure that he wasn't into hitting them, they became bold enough to try to befriend him. He didn't let anyone close to him, but the questions were so strange sometimes, and even when he told them to let him alone, they would sit near him in the schoolyard, and talk about their strange worlds. Justin had nothing else to do but listen, until he released himself from the system as soon as he turned 16. Zach's tagging along now seems so familiar, Justin finds himself wondering who Zach wants him to protect him from.

"What if Eleanor suddenly moved to Denver..?" Zach says, stopping Justin in his tracks. The thought of Eleanor suddenly disappearing like that makes his heart tremble & his guts ache. Why would Zach say such a thing?

"Why would Eleanor move to Denver, Zach?" Justin asks, forcing his voice to stay level. "Well, to escape a difficult situation," Zach answers, no answer at all. "What situation? Listen, Zach, just tell me why you think Eleanor would move to Denver without telling me," Justins says, with a bit of a growl: if Zach knows something, he better spit it out. "No, this is hypothetical," Zach says, "I want to know what you would do, how you would handle that..." Justin shakes his head, "I'm not doing hypothetical, just tell me what's on your mind Zach," he insists, not willing to play games, talking about Eleanor leaving him. It would kill him, that's how he'd 'handle' it....

"Can we go get a cup of coffee?" Zach asks, "I need some advice." Justin nearly laughs: advice? From Justin? What could Zach possibly need to know that he could only learn from him? Still, Eleanor works late, all the time, there's plenty of time for coffee if that's what Zach needs to say what he needs to say.

Zach wants advice about love: Eleanor isn't moving to Denver, but a girl Zach isn't sure how he feels about did. "Don't you think you'd be better off asking Gavin?" Justin asks. Zach shakes his head, "No, Gavin doesn't care which girl he's with, as long as there is a girl. I'm not romantic like that, but there's this one girl, and she felt she had to leave, she told me I had to let her go, it was what she needed to do. Because of her situation," Zach says, starting to trail off. Then he looks Justin right in the eyes & asks with utter seriousness, "Justin, what happened in your head when Eleanor moved in? We all saw, even I saw it, and whatever it was the effect has lasted a long time..."

Justin remembers that moment vividly, he believes it will be the last thought in his head when he dies, the day he first met Eleanor. "It's like that story you told me one time, about the cave people," Justin says. Zach is full of bizarre stories, like the tales his sister Jeanette used to tell, weird creatures, strange gods, odd ideas. Zach's story about the cave people, ignorant of their situation, living in shadow, believing it was light, stuck with Justin. But Zach looks puzzled now and says, "Cave people?" vaguely, not sure which story Justin is referring to.

So Justin reminds him, "The people that lived in the dark cave & never saw the outside world, just shadows? Until someone stumbled in & told them they weren't living in the real world, it was just a cave. But they didn't believe it, right? Well, I had no idea I was living in a cave, until Eleanor walked into it, and lit it up. And now the cave is gone....that's what it was like, Zach, like having your cave blasted open with dynamite & seeing the sun for the first time, realizing you've spent all your life in shadow." Zach raises an eyebrow & laughs, "Plato's Cave? Oh, that's interesting...Her mother would like you, if she would actually talk to you...," Zach says, and his eyes wander off somewhere. Justin shudders at the mention of Eleanor's mother. "You asked my advice, Zach," Justin says, finishing his coffee, "Don't let her just go. Whatever her 'situation', it can be dealt with. Go get her, that's what I would do."

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