Chapter 15: CleansingDaniel and Jasper sat in the latter’s living room, their silhouettes like stones, unmoving. Daniel found it weird, sitting so close to his best friend and feeling so far away from him at the same time. It almost felt like there was a wall between them—shielding, hiding, protecting? Daniel didn’t want to analyze it anymore. He’d spent the last few weeks doing just that and it brought him no answers.
They met in middle school.
Daniel, full of pent-up anger, punched a kid who thought his hair was gay. Jasper, sweetheart of the whole school, was punished for telling off a teacher who argued it was wrong to be gay. Sitting next to each other and refusing to talk, Jasper turned around and stared at the other intensely. “You know, your hair is, actually, pretty gay.”
Danie
