This person didn't want to talk about it. No surprise there; that was pretty personal stuff. And wow, he really did seem to think he was only eight. It always irritated Clyde when people made that mistake, but he wasn't going to yell at him. No, not in this context.

“Seventeen. My mutation's messed up,” he informed him after some hesitation. All his condition ever did was generate misunderstanding. In fact, it was the reason he'd overreacted to this guy's remarks in the first place. “I guess I nevah explained it. Hell, I don't even know yo name.”

"...Oh." So many things made so much more sense now. "Uh, sorry. Why didn't you just say that?" Persi was pretty sure the ki--well, maybe kid, who knew which of them was technically older now--had never said. He didn't remember it, anyway, and he was pretty sure he would've at least acted different enough to notice.

That was just as well, really. Having Andrea running around calling him Blake was enough of a risk. "That's really not a problem... I'm Persi."

“It doesn't tend to go well,” Clyde sighed. “Eithah they think I'm lying, oh they... well, you could probably guess what else they do.”

Clyde didn't feel like telling the whole sob story about how bad the teasing was back at the school in Boston. Everyone there knew he looked younger than he was supposed to be, so dealing with it was hard. After he'd moved, he'd decided that withholding that bit of information at least kept him off most people's radar.

However, things might have turned out better if he had informed Persi instead of getting angry.