I think it was raining outside. If it was, it was coming straight down because the window was open, morning light was coming in. And it was cool too, and comfortable. We were sitting on the edge of the bed together facing the wall. Side by side we sat, the man who was five years older than I. In age and even in the way he held himself. His shoulders were straight and his jaw was set. He was the kind of person that would lace his boots to the top and double knot them. And he had a deep voice that would hit the walls and bounce back into your ears. I liked his voice a lot. And his lips. And where the sound would come out. 

We were sitting quietly and I was probably thinking about something. And then he started speaking but his voice was quiet. 

He started telling me about what his mom made him do, 

when he was six or eight. 

The cat was sick and needed to be put down but they didn’t have enough money to do it.

So his mom gave him a bag and made him go out back.

She watched him through the window.

He told me so quietly that he didn’t know what to do.

Then he started getting loud.

He had the cat in a bag and just started hitting it against things,

against the grill,

against the brick ground.

And then he was laughing. 

And he told me it was terrible,

the cat in the bag.

He didn’t know how to kill something.

He’d never been taught how.

Not like that

a little boy.

And as he was telling me this,

his shell fell away.

And he was a little boy again.

We were sitting together on the edge of the bed

Side by side, the boy and I

He looked so young and soft

His shoulders were sagged. 

His eyes were rough.

The man next to me was once a boy who had been forced to grow up.