I don't need you to remind me what I can and can't say.

Wrench isn't sure he'll ever get used to the way the brain texting blunts every emotion that another form of communication would carry with it so naturally. It's frustrating at the best of times, and at the worst he wonders if it's even worth the bother. But all of that annoyance forgets what his face makes plain: he's fucking with Iggy, just a little bit. And he clearly hasn't told the younger man to back off.

It's hard to read Iggy's words and not think about himself at a similar age. What kinds of things was he making apparent about himself? It hardly would have mattered. They would have been buried too far under too many impenetrable layers, and his parents were certainly not going to do the hard work of uncovering them. Wrench sets the thought aside, not so much disparaging it as holding it up as another missed opportunity for things to go a different way.

So what, you didn't interact with other kids your age? I thought homeschool was just for the religious fanatics.