Silas found Camila gone from school, wondering why his days weren't feeling as fun as usual.

"Morning!"

"Hey!" He pouted, fuming. "Where have you been?!"

"Oh, nowhere much," scratching her head. He caught on.

"What do you and a pair of scissors have in common?"

"We're both sharp."

"Haha. No, you're both good at cutting!"

She sucked her teeth while he laughed at her dismay, resulting in an elbow smash.

"Sorry scissors, I guess that joke rocked and rolled you mega hard," kicking his feet up even more.

She pinched him, accidentally scratching his hand much to his humor, even though he flinched.

"Trying to give me a paper cut," he asked, wiggling his head with a playful taunt.

"What are you trying to say," flustered and annoyed.

"Scissors, Rocked, Paper?"

She smacked herself for not realizing that, while he was enjoying every single moment.

"I guess that joke was like a bird?"

"Because it was poop and annoying? "

"I was gonna say because it flew over your head."

She groaned, tilting her head to the side, but couldn't help but smile, looking back to see his palm waiting.

"But clever."

She gave up and clapped it back with a quick yay out of his mouth. She was going to say something else when she noticed other marks across his hands and a few underneath his shorts.

"Silas? Have you been cutting yourself?"

"Huh? No," watching her point to slashes and marks on his body that looked like he got hurt. "I've been trying to, uh," lifting up his shirt, to show her dark marks across his chest.

"Sensitive skin?"

"Yeah, I didn't take care of my body much, so I was trying to fix that," pulling it down.

She understood but they found out the hard way the consequences as both of them overheard their classmates after gym, who started to talk about it.

"Is he trying to seduce the new girl?"

"Where was that attention to T when he asked her out?"

More comments started to get under their skin as they got to English.

"Sorry, rumors about me start to fly quick here."

"That fast? It's not your fault."

"Oh, I'll take care of it, don't worry."

She thought he was going to get up, but he had asked Ms. F to be the first one to present his assignment.

"Okonkwo represents the toxic side of being a man. He shows us why men need to be gentle and caring. His actions make it easier for his people to get tricked into following the colonizers. He kills his adoptive son even though he didn't have to be there. And he does the thing I would: beating one of his wives. He may love but he's so focused on strength; he rejects the strength we should should show to our partners regardless of gender."

None of them expected that.

After class, Camila overheard some of the girls talking about what Silas said in class, which continued into the gym class the next day.

"That's crazy coming from the most bitchless guy in our class. Right Cam?"

"Uh," still trying to process his rationale. "Yeah. But he's kinda right, isn't he?" She lowered her head. "It'd suck to get hurt by a guy like that."

"But like you need to be strong too," she argued.

"But like if you strong, why you beating up your girl? He did that to me, he getting the back hand."

"Sis, you are not strong enough to take a hit from a 5'9 guy."

"Then aim where it hurts," earning Camila's laughter.

"Well there's more to strength than how hard you hit."

"See, new girl gets it."

She headed out into the gym where he eagerly approached her.

"You came!" He faked a cough. "Not like I was expecting you to show up."

She pouted. "Hey!"

He sighed. "I was being facetious!"

"I don't know what that means!"

"Half-joking, half-sarcastic. Don't miss school next time cuz you'll learn something every day."

"I'm not as smart as you."

"Girl, first of all, I got that from a web cartoon about a Red Riding Hood cosplayer who uses a scythe to kill monsters. Second, I'm not smart, I just pay attention," lightly pounding his chest, "really well."

"I can't tell if you're humble or cocky."

"I pay attention to you, isn't that what counts?"

She let it go. "Fair." Right, shaking her hair, leading her to think she was troubled. Will he tell me? Here goes. "It's nothing. Did you fall in love with someone who hurt you?"

He said nothing, but laughed. "I just made that up so they'd stop talking about it. Did you hear anything about me?"

She checked his face to see his face, which was initially jovial. That was until he crouched, covering his face with his arms.

"If they hurt me, did I fall in love, or did I trick myself into loving a monster? Even still, being backstabbed by someone who made you think they'd cared for you in the first place: I'd never want anyone to go through that. I don't deserve happiness, but they have no right to toy with anyone like a puppet they can break."

She also brought her legs closer to herself, resonating with the pain from his words.

"If you ever felt broken, how would you get through it?"

He lifted his head up just so he could see her eye to eye.

"A toy can't repair itself. But," grinning at her, "there's always someone willing to help fix it."

Camila brought out her sketchpad, inspired to quickly draw someone doing so, showing him the image of two dolls stitching each other up.

"Well, two toys are better than one."

"At least we learned a valuable lesson. Never show off your body when there's other people around."

Neither one could disagree, especially given what got them into that situation, able to laugh about it for now.