Chapter 207

“I look like a literal child,” Garvin says, holding the uniform blazer at arm’s length with the expression of a man being asked to wear a hazmat suit to a dinner party. “Who designed this? Who sat down and thought, yes, this is what a human being should put on their body voluntarily?”

Elias takes a sip of water and watches his friend examine the thing like it might be contagious. They are in the back of the gym between sessions, the afternoon light coming through the high windows in long strips, and Garvin has been having variations of this same conversation for the better part of thirty minutes.

“You’ve been complaining about that blazer since you bought it,” Elias says.

“Because the complaining is justified,” Garvin says. “It has a crest on the pocket. A crest. Like I’m going to a medieval tournament.”

“A lot of schools have crests.”

“A lot of schools are also wrong,” Garvin says, throwing the blazer into his open locker and closing it like the uni