#middle to early high school ✨ how to torture teens twas awful

[gracegrove]

As much as I want both Steve and Billy to be lil' fellas™. I think they grew (physically differently) right up through the time they met each other and even onward for continued things (yes the body hair Steven...).

I like to think that Billy actually hit some growth patterns early on as a kid. That he initially was a bit scrawny, but whether it was his father thinking he needed to eat more and beef up, or it was just genetics, I think he hit an early growth spurt before 10 and looked "big for his age". Which at times could be helpful but also not so much. He'd be just big enough to puff himself up and keep kids in higher grades off his back, but he was so big in some adult's eyes that when he would have difficulties with his emotions or a really rough day happened to result in a fight at school... he'd be treated like he was big enough to "know better". Like his size somehow added years and wisdom onto his soul. If he'd come to school with a bruise he couldn't hide people would figure it was one he deserved, because "someone his own size" finally got after him. Etc etc.

This pattern probably followed him until other kids started to catch up around early middle school years, and then Billy got stuck in a rut, wondering if this was as tall as he'd ever get. Even some of the girls were getting a bit taller than him. He eventually managed to eke out a few more inches. But height became less of a focus point when everything else starts flaring up at the age of 13.

For Steve, I like to think he was a shrimpy lil guy, who was a bit top-heavy as a kid. Had a big ol' thick melon head and was always just a few inches below the 'tall enough to ride this ride' cutoffs for such a long time until he was nearly 11 or so when he just turns into a complete bean sprout. Which causes him new problems, feet that he's tripping over all the time. Lanky long legs that classmates get tripped and tangled up on. He's blocking his mother's view of the TV when he always used to stand right in front of her to ask questions, and now suddenly, "Steve honey, mommy can't see Geraldo Rivera."

Steve just takes full advantage and goes for anything height-related, sports, helping his crush get things off the high shelf, looming and staring down at short people is a favorite at 13. He becomes quite popular. Because classmates suddenly have to look up to him, right? He's milking it.

As they both progress through school more shenanigans go on. Billy tries to grow as much facial hair as he can muster when little tidbits of stubble start populating his upper lip. Steve doesn't really think too much about it until some patches of thick hair start showing up in multiple places during swim season in freshman year, and suddenly shaving becomes a pastime. Them both checking their progress in their pants, especially after seeing or hearing other kids in gym class talk about that one classmate who already has the biggest! or the thickest! down there. And they just have to, for the sake of their own self-esteem. A ruler may have been involved.