Jayne would have given his eye teeth to make Simon stop looking at him that way, that look filled with adoration and gratitude. Just like that Mudder boy. No! Jayne didn’t even want to think about him. He ran from it, to his weight bench, into a bottle, into a fight, wherever he could. He couldn’t even remember the boy’s name. Had he even bothered to ask?

He’d run the skanky woman off, the Mudder boy had, so he could have Jayne all to himself, so he could give himself all to Jayne. Jayne didn’t care. One warm body worshipping him was pretty much the same as another, and you couldn‘t impugn the kid‘s enthusiasm. It seemed like one minute he’s laying face down on the mattress …

Next minute, he’s laying face down in the dirt. Dead. And Jayne just stood there, completely unharmed. Those blue eyes that had looked at him with unmitigated admiration were now staring straight ahead without focus. Those blue eyes just like Simon’s, and his hair was dark like Simon’s, under all the Canton dust.

It was only the third time in his life that Jayne had wanted to be punished. The first had been in his teen years, when his mother had come to retrieve him from the lock-up. She neither spoke nor looked at him during the long walk home. It was obvious when his family sat around their dinner table the next night that she had kept it a secret. She must not even have told his father about using their hard-saved money for his bail. Jayne woke up each morning hoping that his mother would scream and rail at him, that his father would grab him and beat him soundly, that something would relieve him of the awful, dark feeling that tightened his chest every time his mother turned away from him with that sorrowful look in her eyes.

But he couldn’t confess. He couldn’t tell everyone that he’d done wrong, that he’d lied and betrayed them, that he abused their trust and struck out only for his own benefit. It was really Stitch that told the Mudders, forcing Jayne into honesty. He never would have told them himself. But he didn’t have to live with the Mudders, and he had to live with Simon. Simon, looking at him with doe-eyed hero worship from morning to night. Simon, trying to be nice and helpful and friendly towards him. Simon, thanking Jayne for saving his sister, the only thing of value in his life. Simon, who looked just like the Mudder boy.

Could his name have been Daniel?