Acne

Though most people his age loathed and feared acne, Wadsworth loved it and cherished any zits he happened to be sporting at any particular moment.

He never treated them with medicines or creams when they grew. He had a fondness for them that few other people could understand when he tried to explain it to them.

He called them his babies. He named each one that grew on his face, without fail.

He would decide what kind of personality it had among other things. He talked to each zit.

One zit, he named Hoover after Herbert Hoover, a president who Winston didn't particularly like, but he did like the name. Hoover (the zit) popped one night when Wadsworth was at a rock concert with his friends. Wadsworth cried for the rest of the night.

Whenever a zit died, Wadsworth would draw a black dot on his face with a marker, to commemorate the zit. This perplexed his parents, but he ignored them.

One zit he named "hobo" after a hobo who had been in a hallucination he had a few weeks previously. The hobo lived in the corner of a classroom. Hobo the zit lived in the corner of Wadsworth's face. Hobo was a particularly greasy zit.

Wadsworth's zits were always there for him when he needed them most.

When he had to go through the painful and traumatizing experience of plucking toothpicks from his ear, one at a time, he could look in his mirror and see his zits there, shining at him like beacons of red light, guiding him towards happiness and steering him away from danger.

He knew that one day he'd grow so old that he wouldn't get zits anymore. His hormones would stop battling each other and the zits would stop growing.

He knew that on that day, he'd lose something he'd never, ever, ever be able to replace.

He wasn't sure specifically what it is he'd lose, but he knew it was something important, and he was pretty sure that it had something to do with orange juice.