We never talked much before the summer after I graduated high school.

He was always my tiny cousin, shorter than me, his face drowning in freckles. Skinner and smaller than me, his nose stuck in a book three times bigger than his tiny arms. I had to resist the urge to cut his hair, it was always too long.

We sat next to each other during the family reunions that took place every summer. We were the only two kids remotely close to each other's age.

I was five and he was seven when he looked up from his book. It was the first time I heard him speak.

"My mom said I have to make friends with you." He said this without a smile. He was so young, but to me he sounded like an adult.

"My mom said that too."

A pause.

"Do you want to be friends?" I asked.

He didn't reply. The book was more interesting I guess.

"My mom said you'd be a good influence. I don't know what that is."

"I do." He said, but didn't tell me.

By then, my mom was already disappointed in me. I was stranger than other kids, scared of my own shadow, but not things like monsters under my bed. I made friends with those monsters. We drank apple juice and mom's wine sometimes when she wasn't looking.

Two or so years past and George came to the reunion in a wheelchair. My mom stopped insisting we be friends. I think she was a bit scared of the thing that got him around. Other than that, he seemed normal. I didn't ask him what happened.

More years passed. His books got bigger, he changed his glasses twice. He never cut his hair to a proper length, and I learned to find it almost cool looking.

I was sixteen. He was eighteen.

"Hi." I said and sat down next to him. He didn't have a book that year. But he did have a big bruise on his cheek.

"Hey." He said, looking straight ahead.

"Can we try this year?"

"Hm?" He said. His calm demeanor wavered for a second.

"Can we try to talk this year? Seriously?"

"Sure." He said, then waited for me to speak. Like it was a game of chess.

"I like your shirt." I said. It was a band I hated.

The conversation ended there. I wouldn't understand the bruise until two years had passed.