I decide not to return to my seat yet. I don’t want to catch his attention. Or anyone else’s. Being invisible at the bar is safer.
“There’s something I need to say.” He looks around, face turning red. “There’s something I didn’t do a long time ago. And someone I need to say a few things to.”
The cramping in the pit of my stomach becomes worse, and for a terrifying moment I think I’m going to have asevere ass explosion: a term only my mom and her best friends use. You know the feeling when your stomach is about to flush through you? Yeah,thatfeeling.
“Junior year, on the last day of school, I approached one of our classmates in the parking lot. And I tried to become friends with…”
As he speaks, I am immediately taken back to eleven years ago. It feels like I’m actually there. A place and time I never want to see again, yet a memory that has chosen to appear in my dreams throughout the years.
WEDNESDAY 04 JUNE 2008
2
LAST DAY OF JUNIOR YEAR
“Hey. Étienne,” he said from the top of the school parking lot, behind me.
Guess I did hear steps.
I turned and looked up to see who it was. Well, I knew who it was. I’d known that voice for years. A masculine yet soft voice. I’d never heard it directed toward me, though. Well, at least not in that tone.
“Yeah?” I replied then looked around, thinking there had to be another Étienne standing not far from me. I did—and still do—that sometimes when people call my name and I’m not sure if it’s me they’re actually addressing. Like when someone waves in your direction, and the pitiful person inside you waves back without verifying who it is first. Then you’re the idiot waving at no one. Yeah, I’m the awkward clown you get secondhand embarrassment for when you see this happen.
“Hey. I’m Thad.” He smiled. He’d gotten his braces off the previous year, making his smile look like something you’d see on an Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bag.
“As if I didn’t already know your name,” I whispered to myself as he approached. We’d gone to the same schools and had been in the same classes since the fourth grade.I know who you are. But I have to say, I’m surprised you know my name.
“Yeah. Hey,” I replied, scratching my left ear.
“You’re here late.” He looked around the nearly empty school parking lot, biting his lip as the light breeze lifted his ultra-blond hair.
“Oh. I had a cross country meeting,” I replied. “We were going over our training schedule for mid-summer before classes start again in the fall.”
Like I would have time to train over the summer, though. Some of us had to work. Luckily, summer conditioning wasn’t actually mandatory, although it did help with my early season meets the last year. I wanted to train. Spending four days a week running up and down the lakeside, getting lost to the music on my iPod, would have been a better distraction than having to work.
“Need a ride home?” he asked, both hands now in his front pockets.
I looked frantically to see if anyone was around to observe this interaction. Was this a joke? Or a prank? Had he followed me? Was he waiting for me? I hesitated to reply. I needed time to think. Was this guy really trying to be nice or was this a setup by him and his group of friends?
“Umm sure,” I stuttered. I only lived a block away, after all. What harm could it do?
“Cool! I’m parked right there,” he replied, his voice strangely enthusiastic.
I looked toward his car, side-eyeing him in confusion as my heart fluttered.Hold on. What was that?
His car was in the last row of the parking lot, facing the tall fencing separating the school grounds and the back yards of the people living on the next street over. My street. When no one was around I would usually climb the fence to my backyard. That day, like so many others, I’d decided to exit through the parking lot to take the long way home to get lost in my music, and to avoid the chaos at my house.
“Long Way Home” by ATB was one of my favorite songs, so I decided I would listen to that album on my walk. I liked taking the long way, anyway. I felt alone, and this song made me feel good, like being alone wasn’t such a bad thing.
After a moment of me twiddling my thumbs in his parked Focus, an electric feeling overcame me. Like butterflies in my stomach, but not in that way. I thought. More like nervousness had enveloped my being. I had ventured into the unknown and now had to see what would come next.
“How was the last day of school for you?” he asked before adding, “Funny how our last day is always on a Wednesday.”
I sat there concentrating on my peripheral to catch any movement.People need to see this. Where are they? Why is this guy, of all people, talking to me?
“Fine. Yours?” I replied, trying to give away as little as I could.I mean, I’ve wanted to know you for years and here we are. In your car. On this hot day.
Speaking of hot, I wanted to open the window, but he still hadn’t started the car. What was I supposed to do? Open the door for some air and feel more ridiculously awkward?