“About what?” she asked.
Oh yeah, she was definitely going to make me work for it. No problem, baby. I knew this game as well as I knew soccer.
“About the ending of the movie Castaway,” I said with a smirk.
“It was awful,” she responded. “I can’t believe he was screeching over that stupid ball.”
I laughed.
“I’m going to get a shower,” I told her. I barely restrained myself from asking her to join me. “Want to head over to the diner later?”
“Not unless you have another one of my pens,” she said as she stood up. She brushed past me and headed toward the school parking lot and that horrible piece of shit Hyundai. She didn’t even look back. I still smiled and continued to ignore the other girls as I walked to the locker room.
I was heading back to her house tonight. Definitely. I wasn’t completely sure why. Maybe it was the challenge, and maybe it was because she was the new girl and a little mysterious. I liked that I didn’t know her name though it frustrated me at the same time. I considered all of this as I finished up in the locker room and headed back through the school.
“Thomas?”
I stopped and turned, surprised to see Ms. Mesut in the hallway. She walked up to me, her expression concerned.
“Yeah?”
“You weren’t in class today,” she stated as if I didn’t already know that. “I thought maybe you were ill.”
Why do teachers always say “ill” instead of “sick”?
“I was practicing,” I said with a shrug.
“Isn’t soccer practice after school?”
“Yeah,” I answered. This conversation was obviously going nowhere. She wasn’t going to get it; I could tell from the tone of her voice. When people dropped the timbre down a half step, then raised it back up on the last syllable, it was always because they were trying to help you understand something.
I looked down at the floor near my feet and waited for her to get on with it.
“Can I at least assume you’ll be in class tomorrow?”
“No, not really,” I sighed and looked up at her. “I thought it was going to be something different. It’s stupid and a waste of my time. I’ll get around to dropping it later.”
I turned and started to walk away.
“Thomas!”
I took a deep breath, stopped, and turned around to meet her gaze again.
“Earlier this week, you mentioned the art show,” she said. “I thought you might have something for it.”
“You must have misunderstood,” I responded. “I don’t do that shit.”
I didn’t turn back when she called after me again.
I rode home past Rumplestiltskye’s house, saw that her car was there, and kept going. As I drove past this time, I looked up and saw a second floor window and a flash of long brown hair. I felt the corner of my mouth turn up as I wondered if she closed the curtains when she got undressed at night so no one could see in.
Maybe I should check…you know…just to warn her in case she didn’t think of such things.
I decided to come back later if I could get out of the house. I
checked my odometer and figured once I got home that the round trip would be a twelve-mile run, a bit much for my normal jog, which was only five miles. Dad always thought I should run in the mornings and wouldn’t buy into me jogging at night. Once I got home, I realized I had the perfect excuse when I looked in the freezer and noticed we were out of just about everything. I decided to make a box of mac and cheese and ate a can of pears while I waited for the water to boil. By the time Dad got home, I had my grocery list and my excuse to get out. He just grunted his acceptance of my plan and added that he would go out to eat while I was at the store.
“Don’t forget the banquet on Saturday,” he reminded me.