from the short story, Icarus Went Missing

The night Icarus went missing, she told Akiva she would never fly again. Julia knew Icarus from her brother’s high school basketball games. He came alone and sat with the other kids from school who made it clear they were only tolerating him—the boy with overgrown arms and duck lips. When Icarus got angry at a shitty call, he’d stand and swing his enormous arms at the referee. He’d rub his avocado shaped head with thick hair growing in the wrong direction, up and not down, amazed by the grievances of the game. If Icarus grew irate, unable to refrain from shouting obscenities while lunging at the crowd or the court, the gym supervisor took him aside for a private consultation. Icarus would leave the gym rubbing his head, looking at the ground, his hair growing to the end of his neck like a weasel’s mane, disappearing under his jacket into the unknown regions of his spectacularly massive back.