by L C Smith
A couple of minutes go by and I check my phone again. I will control myself and not ask if he got my last message. I will sit here and wait, I tell myself.
“Who's gonna' win?” I chant standing at the top of the bleachers to distract myself from my silent phone.
“Sara!” They all shout back. Her face burns red.
“Who's gonna beat them all?” I keep going.
“Sara!”
“Why?”
“'Coz. We're. Yellow!” We all shout out for the last race of the day, and Sara's first. Everyone has to enter at least one race or your house is disqualified.
She slowly walks to the end of the pool, looking back at me every few steps. We don’t stop cheering until the gun fires and everyone moves to their feet to get a better look. I think she’s going to come third.
She climbs out the other end looking surprised that she didn’t come last, and bows in front of our house once she gets back to the cheers like she won.
Mr. Nash steps up to the podium once everyone has changed and sat back down in the stand. “Thanks everyone for participating so well. And Braithwaite house, congrats for winning overall.
He holds our house trophy up, everyone in yellow screams out one last time. “It's. ‘Coz. We. Are Yellow!” Mr. Nash smiles at us. “And to Reid South for winning the most races individually.” He continues.
Megan snickers. “Well that's because she doesn't have an actual life.”
I smile at her. Losing isn't her strong point.
“That's about it. We are a couple of minutes early, make your way around the school and your buses or parents should be there to collect you. Don't forget, all classes resume as usual tomorrow, use this time if you have any outstanding homework.” He has to speak quickly and loudly to get the last part out over people talking and getting up to leave.
I follow the crowd exiting the complex, wandering around the side of the school.
Sara bounds over to me. “I like all your trophies. But did you have to be such a hog? I would have liked just one. And I think your best friend Megan wanted one too.”
I hold out the smallest trophy laughing. “You can have this one. I don't think I'll miss it.”
“Your generosity, it’s just amazing. I am almost speechless. Your crappiest, tiniest trophy. Wow. I couldn't have asked for more from my best friend.”
“I try.” I sniff.
“Sooo,” Sara drawls. “What did your gorgeous boyfriend want?”
“He is very unfortunately not my boyfriend.”
“Right oh, what did he want then?”
“He forgot to get my number yesterday.” I say casually, pretending to count my trophies.
“And when does his actual girlfriend leave?”
“Gone.” I shrug my shoulders trying to be all nonchalant. But my giant grin ruins it.
We come around the school from the back. People are everywhere being picked up by their parents and buses leaving.
“I just want to clarify that he isn't your boyfriend.”
“No,” I pout as I follow her gaze.
I launch myself down the stairs to Keller waiting by his car, totally redeemed for not answering my last message. “Have fun with your friend.” Sara calls after me.
I slow down and stroll up to his car. “Hey,” I say like it's nothing seeing him here.
“I thought you might like to go on another excursion. But you might be too busy with all your trophies instead.” He raises his eyebrows at them.
“Oh, yeah.” I look down at my arms. “Sara,” I start to call out, but she’s already behind me. And she’s distracted.
“Hi, I'm Sara. You must be Keller.” Her voice shakes slightly.
“I am.” He beams at her. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” she says in a dreamy voice.
“Nice to meet you too,” I say sarcastically.
“Sorry.” She drags herself away from Keller’s smile to look at me.
“Can you take these back for me. I'm not going to need them am I?” I ask Keller.
“Don't think I've got anything that exciting planned.”
“Okay, bye then.” I eagerly load Sara up while she pouts at me.
“Have fun,” she says, extending her pout to a full blown sad face.
“Will do.” We watch her walk slowly away.
“You sure you want to come with me?” Keller asks me once she’s gone. “You could stay and play with your trophies if you want. Line them up from biggest to smallest or something.”
“Oh, you know, whatever.” I say not really looking at him, “I could I guess, maybe from prettiest cup to ugliest.” I say stretching my arms and pretending to yawn. I jump in the car and have my seat belt on before he has opened his door.
He eyes up my seat belt. “But you don't really mind if you come or not?”
“You know. Either or.” I say nonchalantly while he laughs and swings the car into a space between two buses.
We just get out into the traffic and his phone rings in his pocket. He hands it to me. “It's my dad can you answer it for me?”
“Oh, um, sure. If you want me to.” I look at the screen with DAD pulsing at me. I stare at it for a second longer and tentatively put it up to my ear.
“Hi, this is Keller's phone,” I say gently.
“Hello, person that is not Keller. Is he there, or did you steal his phone.” His dad asks me.
I laugh and look at Keller. “Nah I didn't steal it, he's just being socially conscious by not driving and talking,” I announce.
“Yes my son is Mr. Socially Conscious,” he says sarcastically. “Could you tell him I need him back at the store? I need a couple of boxes of CDs taken over to Lilly's.”
“Your dad needs you to take some boxes to Lilly's,” I tell him.
“Dad,” Keller whines at the phone. “I'm out with Reid.”
I put it on speakerphone. “Sorry. She can go with you though.” He sounds bright and cheerful about it.
“Wow, thanks.” His voice drips with sarcasm.
“Anytime. See you in a few minutes.”
“I'm going to be at least ten. I'm in Clapham.” The bus in front of us stops suddenly. “Probably more like fifteen. School traffic.”
“Well drive faster, then. Bye.” His dad hangs up.
“Sorry,” he says. “I wouldn't have come to get you if I knew I would have to go back to work. I worked through my lunch break so I could get off early.”
I freeze, staring at him, oh my goodness, that is the nicest thing I think anyone has ever done for me.
“Sorry,” he says again looking really apologetic. “Next time we'll do something better then delivering things for my dad.”
“Don't worry. I really don't mind. I would have just been going back to my room to do homework that was set before the break.”
“As long as you don't care.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “We could get something to eat. There's an awesome burger place right next to Lilly's.”
“Sounds good to me.” I’m starving. Lunch was ages ago, and I swam six races after we ate.
We drive in silence to his dad's store while I look through the huge pile of CDs in his case. “There's like a million in here.” I don't think I have ever seen so many outside of a store.
Keller pulls into a loading bay out the front of the shop. “Come in,” he says when he sees me not moving.
We run in and grab the boxes from the counter sitting in the middle of the room. “I'm Reid.” I wave with one hand to a man that looks like Keller and is wearing the same clothes, as we begin to walk out.
“How nice to get your girlfriend to carry a box. I'm so glad I taught you to be such a gentlemen. Your chivalry is impressive.” His dad says.
“Bye dad.”
“What did he call me?” I ask when we get out of the store.
“Not you, he was saying that I'm not manly. He has an English Lit degree. He comes out with weird things like that all
the time.”
“Right,” I say nodding my head, while he loads the back of his car and we head to Lilly's.
“So did Hayden get off all right?” I know I shouldn’t ask, or talk about it, or even think about it, but I can't help it. I want to know if he broke up with her, or if I am just someone to hang out with. But almost as important does he know anything about her being at school this morning.
“Duno. I wasn't there.” He doesn't look up. There wasn't anything in the way he said it. But clearly something happened.
“So when does she get back?” I turn my face to look out the window so he can't see me cringe at my own prying.
“End of semester. But I doubt she'll come back. She wants to go travelling in Europe, so she will probably head off then and go straight back to school from wherever she goes.” He stops talking, then smiles at me, “this is it,” he announces. I hadn't even noticed that we had pulled into up anywhere. “I'll just be real quick, then we can get something to eat.” He turns to look at me. “Or anything else you want to do. Do you get out often from school?”
“A bit.” I don't want to say the truth. That I get out once a week when the teachers take people like me who don't have family to the mall. Sara isn't a senior so she can't leave campus without teacher supervision, and it's just a bit too lame to hang out with myself all the time.
He takes two boxes at a time and literally runs them into the store. In a minute he's back out for the last one. I wait for five minutes while he talks to the lady in the store. I can see him through the open door.
He sticks his head through the car window. “Let's eat.” I jump out, take one step and groan.
“What's wrong? You don't like this place? We can go somewhere else.” He offers quickly.
“No, it's Megan.”
“Okay,” he says confused.
He puts his arm around my back and walks me up to the pavement.
“Reid. Oh wow. I didn't know you had a boyfriend. You never have a boyfriend.” She stops directly in front of me.
“Hi, Megan,” I say trying to move past her, but she steps into my way.
“I have known you since we started here and I have never seen you with a boyfriend. That's just great that you are able to get out and finally get over things. I am so happy that you can move on.” She beams her I-am-the-hottest-person-I-know smile at Keller and holds out her hand. “Megan Cunningham, I think I saw you at school on Monday night? So very nice to meet you.” She keeps hold of his hand for a second longer than necessary, staring into his face.
“Yeah,” Keller answers with a slight grimace. He pushes me through the door without looking at her again. “Now I get the groaning. Who is she and what's her problem?”
“She’s Megan and she is awful. And she thinks she's hot, and she thinks that you are hot, even her Mum thinks you're hot. And she's just weird.”
“That's kind of gross.” His mouth turns up like that thought tastes bad. “Do I want to know how you know that? Because that's disturbing.”
“She is. We aren’t friends.” I say to make it clear. “She thinks you’re pretty.” I open my eyes wide like I'm telling a horror story, but I get cut off by Megan and three of her followers as they come rushing through the door.
“It's so nice to see you actually out of school, Reid. I don't think I’ve ever seen you out of school when it's not a Friday. And you always have a teacher walking around with you. It’s just amazing to see you out with another person.” She adds breathless from trying to gush everything out so quickly.
“Mmm. Yeah.” I look up at Keller as he coughs.
“So are you guys out on a date? You’re just too cute together.” She puts her hand on Keller's chest and laughs at her non-existent joke. She doesn't even look at me.
Keller steps back from her with his eyes growing bigger the longer she leaves her hand there.
The lady behind the counter calls out our order.
“That's us. So you guys have a great night,” I say quickly.
“Oh,” Megan says surprised. “You're not eating here.”
“Nope. We're heading to Keller's, so I'll see you at school.” We rush out the door and jump into the car.
“What is wrong with her? Does she have a real, you know, problem.” He points to his head.
“I don't think so. She is always like that. But she’s never that friendly to me.” I put my hand on his chest and smile up at him like Megan did. “It must just be your presence. Because, like, you know, we’re just so cute together.” I bat my eyelids at him. “You know, I mean you're really cute, and if I keep touching you Reid might just combust then I can take you home with me instead.” We both burst out laughing as Megan waves at Keller from inside the shop.
“Sorry, I know you’re driving so you can't eat. But I have to, otherwise I will have to eat my arm. And that would be inconvenient because I use my arm all the time.” I say in between huge mouthfuls of really, really good cheeseburger.
We stop outside a house and I say in surprise. “You didn't have to bring me to your house. I was just saying that to get away from Megan.”
“I know. But I thought you might like to eat sitting down.” We both look down at the crumpled bag that once held my burger. “Yeah, sorry about that. You can eat, and I'll sit down with you.” I say walking behind him to the front door.
I walk into his house looking around, it's pretty cool. “Your Mum doesn't live here does she?” I blurt out. I really need to get a filter that stops words before I speak them, to check if they are weirdly rude. Then I could prevent awkward moments like this.
“No,” he says, “Why do you say that?”
“It's very manly. Not bad,” I add quickly. “Just manly.”
“Well I'm going to eat because this is my dinner. Not all of us have a mum to feed us,” he says sniffing.
I reach up and pat him on the head. “Oh poor you.”
He sits down and tries to eat really fast, so I turn away and look at the vinyl records hanging on the walls and the random pictures of Keller when he was little, hanging in really ugly black plastic frames. “Go have a look around,” he mumbles around the food in his mouth. Pointing randomly away from himself.
I move further into his house. That one looks like his dad's room. More random black plastic frames. Huh, that one's quite cute. He's doing a thumbs up at the camera, but super close so it's like his thumb is about to jump out of the picture.
I turn quickly around. He must still be eating. Is it too weird to look in his room? I look around again. He told me to look around. I gently push it open with the toe of my shoe. It’s surprisingly clean. Not that he looks dirty, but I wouldn’t clean my room if I wasn’t forced to. Even his bed is made. Mine only is because they inspect it while we are at breakfast. I step further into the room. It's pretty normal, double bed shoved into the corner. Old-school transformers cover.
I walk closer to his bed to have a look at the pictures, but Keller moves silently past me to grab it.
“Hey what was that?” I ask, feeling guilty for being caught in his room.
“Nothing important,” he says holding it behind his back. He leans forward and touches his lips ever so gently to mine.
Wow.
“Nice try,” I say, trying to recover my breath. I reach behind him to the photo, pulling myself closer to him. He just smiles down at me as I pry it out of his hands.
I twist around as his arms circle mine. “Don't look at it,” he says with his mouth to my ear. I lift my hands slightly, his arms block mine, but only just. “You know I was with her, you saw her, why would you want to see us together.”
“Can't be that bad, you still have it next to your bed.” He keeps his arms there but I pull the photo up anyway. It's weird, he is holding her just like this. They are looking at the camera laughing as he pulls her toward the water at the beach. She is wearing a tiny white bikini and a cowboy hat. He looks happy.
He yanks it out of my hands and tosses it in his rub
bish bin, shattering the glass like it is nothing.
He holds my face in his hands looking down at me, it’s odd having someone look at me so intently, like he can see right through me. Like… we’re connected.
Oh no.
“What the hell?” Keller says startled. I surge out of his chest, controlling the look on my face and shoving my hands into my pockets to hide the shaking.
“Where did you go?” His eyes are huge.
“Nowhere.” I laugh, but my voice shakes along with my hands. “You must have closed your eyes.”
“No, you were gone. You left my hands, then you fell away from me. What happened?” He asks softly.
“I just turned around like I was before. But you got a fright at something so I jumped too.”
He stares at me. He knows there is no other explanation than this, but he knows it’s not the truth.
“Okay,” he mumbles after another minute of staring at me.
“Keller? You here?” His dad calls out. “I'm coming up the hallway, so you know.”
I step into of the doorway, clothed and untoussled from not getting up to anything. “Hi again,” I say brightly pushing away our weird moment, everyone is going to have to speak really loud because I can’t hear anything over my heart thudding in my chest. I fell into him. Keller steps out of the room behind me and leans against the wall.
“Either you’re home early, or we have to go,” Keller says to both of us.
“It's quarter to six.”
“Argh,” I say pulling a face to cover the fact that I’m not really sure what he just said. “Time to go back.” I guess.
“See ya then,” his dad says as we walk past him to Keller's car.
“You really don't have to keep driving me around you know,” I say once we are in the car.
“I don't mind.” He says quietly.
We drive back to school in total silence. It wasn't like this afternoon. I have to figure out a way to make it better because I can’t tell him.
We pull up at school with twenty whole minutes to spare. “Thanks for taking me out again. I don't get out of here much, as you heard earlier.” I roll my eyes, trying to lighten the mood.
I push on the door to get out when he doesn't answer, but he pulls me back, holding onto my face like before, looking into my eyes. I smile and quickly kiss him, so I don’t have to look into his eyes again. “See you later,” I whisper dramatically, putting my hand on his chest like Megan did.